SR-71C, serial # 17981 was
created to replace the SR-71B that was lost in a crash January 11, 1968, just
north of Beale AFB, CA. It was made from the aft fuselage, wings and
engine nacelles of YF-12A # 60934 which suffered nose damage in a hard landing
Aug 4, 1966. The SR-71 static test article was used for the forward
fuselage. This hybrid combination made it first flight on March 4, 1969,
and accumulated 556.4 flight hours before it's last flight on April 11, 1976.
She was retired at that time and became a hangar queen and source of spare parts
until September 1990 when she was disassembled and shipped to Hill AFB, Utah,
for display in their museum. I made my 1/72 scale model of 17981 in much the
same manner by combining the front section of the Italeri SR-71 with the rear
section of the Italeri YF-12A.
The camera
windows on the bottom of the fuselage were filled in with putty because
the SR-71 trainers do not carry cameras, even though they have all of the
markings for them. |
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These 2 photos above
show the top and bottom of the fuselage joint.
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Model Master flat black
was used as a primer and then details such as panel lines, weathering and radar
absorbing triangles around the wing edges were picked out and highlighted
with a silver prisma color pencil. The pencil was dipped in saliva to get
it to adhere to the model because regular water doesn't work for some reason.
This is not too sanitary, but it is effective.
Brake lines were added to all
three landing gear assemblies plus the second landing/taxi light to the nose
gear strut along with some other minute details.
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All Blackbirds have an assortment
of red protective covers that were put in place when they were not
being flown. I made the engine vent and intake covers as well as the
cockpit window covers out of .020 sheet styrene and painted them red. The
forward fuselage chine covers were made from 3 X 5 card stock and the inlet
spikes were just painted red. A coat of model master clear gloss was
applied and then the decals followed by a coat of MM clear flat. The
decals were a real nightmare because they were from a Micro Scale sheet that was
over 20 years old and they broke up into a bunch of little pieces when they were
placed in the water. It was a real jigsaw puzzle getting them put back
together. I spent a total of about 40 hours on my SR-71C trainer.
Anytime that you are in the Salt Lake City area, stop by the Hill AFB museum and
see the real thing.
Darwin
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