Scratch built 1/72 Short S 80

Evening All,

The Parnall Peto has stalled for the moment so I have started another project: this time I am back in my comfort zone with a real aeroplane, the Short S 80. In 1913 Frank McClean, who was an important member of the Royal Aero Club of Great Brotain and a very wealthy individual, decided that he wanted to fly from Cairo to Khartoum to investigate the Nile cataracts from the air. Given the state of aero technology at the time this was a considerable undertaking which required a purpose built machine. McClean commissioned the Short Brothers to design and build a machine in which he could achieve his aim. The result was the Short S 80 whcih when it was completed in early 1914 was the largest aircraft built in the UK to date. Only one was built so there is no kit of what was a very remarkable aircraft which means that I will have to scratch build one.

The wings and tail plane on the S 80 were large because the warm air in northern Africa would reduce the lift properties of the horizontal flying surfaces. The top wing of a 1/72 scale model is 10 3/4 inches (27cm), - this was cut from 30 thou card, as were the lower wing, tail unit and rudders. There was a tiny elevator mounted in front of the nacelle - this too was cut from 30 thou card: all surfaces were sanded and shaped to aerofoil section and the ribs added from 10 x 20 thou Evergreen strip:

The strip was in turn sanded and the trailing edges of the wings and horizontal tail surface scalloped with a round file:

The fuselage nacelle was made from plastic card using 30 thou card for the base and sides: because the front of the nacelle was curved I had to glue one side of the fuselage to the floor and allow to dry before I could curve the plastic sheet around the nose:

The front upper part of the nacelle was curved so this had to be moulded by shaping a male mould from basswood and making a female mould in a sheet of plywood. The male mould looked like this:

The moulding was made form 30 thou card after it had been heated under a grill - I have still to attach it to the nacelle.

The engine was a two row 140 hp double Gnome Omega rotary engine. Unfortunately there are no kits of such an engine available, and I do not have two single 70 hp Gnome Omega kits which I could use to make up one, so I have made a crankcase from a piece of sprue and cylinders from 60 thou plastic rod:

The main floats were made from wood on the original machine. These were constructed by cutting the sides, top and bottom from 30 thou card. I glued some supports from scrap plastic along the edges of the float sides and glued two spacers in the middle to make the box structure stronger. I glued the top and bottom of the float to one side and allowed this to dry before I glued the bottom into place:

I will post more on this project when I have made more progress. Until then thanks for looking.

Stevef.