Premier 1/72 What If...Aegean Toucan

Gallery Article by Tigre del Aire on Oct 21 2010

 

Greetings from Colombia, after going back into the Tigre del Aire returns, this time with a "what if ..." between a South American plane made by an Englishman and used by a Greek, I present the Greek Tucano or "Aegean Toucan"!

but first, some history 
"The Short Tucano was developed by the British Short Brothers company in order to meet a requirement to replace the Jet Provost as the basic trainer for the RAF, as laid down in Air Staff Target 412. It is an adaptation of the Embraer EMB-312 Tucano fitted with the more powerful 1,100 shp (820 kW) Garrett turboprop engine in place of the EMB-312's 750 shp (560 kW) Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6 engine, to give higher climb performance.

Aside from a different powerplant, the other differences between the Short Tucano and the EMBRAER Tucano are:

  • A strengthened airframe. 

  • A new cockpit layout similar to the Hawk advanced trainer. 

  • A four, as opposed to three, bladed propeller. 

  • Ventral airbrake and restyled wingtips. 

  • The fitting of Martin-Baker MB 8LC ejection seats for both crew. 

  • A new oxygen system 

  • A new flight data recorder 

  • A modified canopy 

The Tucano was selected in 1985 in preference to the Swiss Pilatus PC-9 and the British Hunting Firecracker. The first Garrett-engined Tucano flew in Brazil on 14 February 1986, with the first Shorts built production aircraft flying on 30 December 1986. The decision to replace the 750 PT-6 engine used in the standard EMBRAER model with the 1,100 shp (820 kW) Garrett TPE331-12B engine and "bird-strike" proofing of the cockpit canopy to UK standards (combined with the fitting of Martin Baker ejection seats) caused a number of problems which delayed the introduction of the aircraft into service until 1989.

Since first deliveries to the RAF in 1989, the Tucano has been operated primarily from No 1 Flying Training School at RAF Linton-on-Ouse to provide basic fast-jet lead-in flying training to RAF and RN student pilots. The deployment is officially to 72 (Reserve) Squadron, 207 (Reserve) Squadron and 76 Squadron (Tucano Air Navigation Squadron).Student pilots fly around 130 hours during their training course on the Tucano before progressing to the Hawk T1 aircraft at RAF Valley.

In service the Tucano has proven to be 70% cheaper to operate than its predecessor. With a greater range and endurance than the Jet Provost, it can fly two consecutive sorties before being refuelled. One of the key performance requirements was that it can climb to 15,000 ft (4,600 m) in six minutes, in comparison to the Jet Provost's 15 minutes; this gave considerably more training value for each one-hour sortie".

(taken from Wikipedia)

Kit Premier brand is interesting to put together and very good details, brings the two pilots, who as you can see they have their helmets custom, internal details that were made were to scratch the side panels.

Moreover, the weapons they are using the plane did not come in the box, so I spent a bomb of an old parts of Lindberg kit and rocket launchers of Hasegawa kit ... 

American and French arms ... a very international airplane!.

Click on images below to see larger images

  

The only problem I found is that needs to take a lot of weight in the bow, otherwise it will sit at the stern, so very careful in that regard!  Moreover, fits perfect, little sanding needed and end up with an excellent collector's item!
A good plan on weekend, with a good soda and a war movie ... you can not ask for more!

Greetings from Colombia, the land of Juan Valdez!.
Saludos desde Colombia, la tierra de Juan Valdez!

Tigre del Aire

Photos and text © by Tigre del Aire