Rutan Voyager, A-model,

1
September 29, 2017
wings fully assembled and sanded, not completely smooth, they had a lot of heatshrinking and very wavy borders
2
September 29, 2017
tail booms glued and sanded
3
September 29, 2017
tail booms glued and sanded, here I had some delamination of the plastic... It just kinda peeled off
4
September 29, 2017
a lot of sanding ahead
5
October 5, 2017
Hull and booms united... more putty and sanding ahead, canards haven't been fixed to avoid unwanted setting of the parts due to tension
6
October 5, 2017
Hull and booms united... more putty and sanding ahead, canards haven't been fixed to avoid unwanted setting of the parts due to tension
7
October 5, 2017
Holding it in position till dry
8
October 5, 2017
looking good
9
October 12, 2017
Main wings assembled and sanded
10
October 12, 2017
Main wings assembled and sanded
11
October 12, 2017
exhaust openings in wrong location
12
October 12, 2017
holes filled with sprue and sanded
13
October 12, 2017
original back view
14
October 12, 2017
kit rear view... big difference
15
October 12, 2017
used a saw to remove these parts, nonetheless some broke... there are to equals props delivered, in reality the front one had a streamline cap, the rear one didn't. Shapewise they don't resemble the real ones at all
16
October 12, 2017
this took a lot of sanding..., not 100%
17
October 12, 2017
Sanded the props a bit more into shape... outer tips should be more square
18
October 12, 2017
19
November 11, 2017
Made the openings at the back larger and added the exhausts
20
November 11, 2017
Closed the wrong openings and added the front exhausts
21
November 11, 2017
Original nose
22
November 11, 2017
Original nose
23
November 11, 2017
Some sharing and sanding
24
November 11, 2017
Reworked the complete area
25
December 18, 2017
Front landing gear ready for paint
26
December 18, 2017
Main landing gear too
27
December 18, 2017
All assembled in dryfit
28
December 23, 2017
Made the vortex generators and the missing trim
29
December 23, 2017
Added an extra exhausts and various antenna's
30
December 23, 2017
And the wings top... Pretty big aircraft in the end
31
February 15, 2018
Basic white, the light blue for the composite must still be added to the lower wing surface...
32
February 15, 2018
Basic white, the light blue for the composite must still be added to the lower wing surface...
33
February 23, 2018
broken off tailpart glued
34
February 23, 2018
and sanded and touched up, still needs a cote
35
February 23, 2018
unpainted underside, only the base, needs some more fading...
36
February 23, 2018
unpainted underside, only the base, needs some more fading...
37
February 23, 2018
screws installed
38
February 23, 2018
wheels installed
39
February 24, 2018
Decal at the side of the hull is to long..
40
February 24, 2018
And not a bit
41
February 24, 2018
But it is getting somewhere... These needed 3h to apply ( only 12 decals)
42
February 28, 2018
43
February 28, 2018
44
February 28, 2018
45
February 28, 2018
46
February 28, 2018
47
February 28, 2018
48
February 28, 2018
Some piece of decal loosend and got lost in space, time to find some corresponding paint
49
February 28, 2018
Props painted light grey
50
February 28, 2018
51
February 28, 2018
Thinned the gear doors, painted 'em gunmetal and added black strips to replicate carbon
52
February 28, 2018
Added tail markings
53
February 28, 2018
Complete overview, very small box for such a large aircraft
54
February 28, 2018
1/72 next to a 1/48 spitfire
55
February 28, 2018

29 September 2017, 06:48

Lost_Erik
Courage required on that one?

30 September 2017, 03:00

Burkhard D
No, but a lot of patience, filling, sanding and dry-fitting required 😛

30 September 2017, 06:37

Bart Goesaert
That's the best way to tackle this one... A lot of dryfitting, scraping and sanding. Busy with placing the windows... Precision sanding ahead

30 September 2017, 07:34

Bart Goesaert
Started assembling the hull and booms... pretty big for 1/72

5 October 2017, 11:10

Alec K
Cool topic 👍. Following.

5 October 2017, 11:17

Clifford Keesler
Unique subject.

5 October 2017, 20:32

Łukasz Gliński
That's a unique topic, have to follow

6 October 2017, 11:27

Bart Goesaert
thx, been busy with propellors, more sanding, etc...

12 October 2017, 06:35

Bart Goesaert
Reworked the complete nose and back... Only landing fear and some details left before painting

11 November 2017, 10:58

Alec K
Wow, looks like this one is a LOT of work. It may qualify as "scratch-build" or "carve-build" by the time you are done 🙂

11 November 2017, 12:32

Spanjaard
i agree with Alec. looking forward final product that i am sure will be great

11 November 2017, 13:06

Łukasz Gliński
Very nice progress, Bart 👍

11 November 2017, 18:04

Gordon Sørensen
Looks great, Bart. The amount of work you have put into this is going to pay off in the end...

12 November 2017, 00:20

Bart Goesaert
Thx mates, I hope it wil pay off, landing gear from the kit is totally fictious, a bit in doubt about making a new one or mounting it in flight

12 November 2017, 13:10

David Thor
Amazing plane and nice progress on a difficult kit it seems. Building it in flight would be an option for a plane, that could fly around the entire world. 🙂

13 November 2017, 20:34

Bart Goesaert
Rebuilt the totally fictious landing gear, added some copperwire for additional strength

18 December 2017, 19:28

Bart Goesaert
Almost done with details, one vortexplate fell off it seems and the tail antenna still missing

23 December 2017, 07:48

Łukasz Gliński
Respect for that vortex generators, must have been a patience test 🙂

23 December 2017, 20:47

Bart Goesaert
Thx, it went a bit faster then anticipated, but a slightly wet stick to pick these up and place them was a big help...

24 December 2017, 10:42

Bart Goesaert
basic paint ready

15 February 2018, 11:48

Burkhard D
The kit seems to be based on an early artist impressionrather than the real aircraft. I see you already made most of the corrections. I am not far behind on mine. 🙂

16 February 2018, 12:37

Bart Goesaert
I think the only things missing are the antenna at the back of the non-steering rudder, and the wires for the steering rudder, correct me if I'm wrong. The gear-well doors are already single pieces instead of two pieces, haven't found any reference of how these looked or what color these gearwells had. I think the front gear door was some kind of aluminium color, and the main gear doors were white. I hope to finish the gears this weekend, and be able to start with the decals... Do you post pictures of yours here?

16 February 2018, 13:07

Burkhard D
There are fairly complete walkarounds available aircraftwalkaround.h../voyager/voyager.htm
primeportal.net/hang..l_76_voyager_n269va/

I see some of the images in your album. I've made notes on the colors as far as I have established them, I'll get back to you on the weekend. The gearwell color is a mystery to me, but I assume the "roof" is bare metal and the fuselage interior is bare CFRP (brownish anthracite). Adding primer or paint to these compnents would have been unneccessary weight. You can see that the undersides of the wings and the canards were only partially painted, and with a very thin coat only.
There's also a dorsal radome on one of the booms that needs to be added.

16 February 2018, 13:23

Bart Goesaert
Seems what I thought was aluminium is carbonfibre, together with some creme as in a PUR-casting. the blue on the underside I thought of doing is more a faded dark grey. Control rudders seem white on top and seems like doped linen color below

16 February 2018, 16:31

Burkhard D
I wager the control surfaces are honeycomb sandwich with glass fiber face sheets, usually brownish or yellowish. White coat on top is essential for UV-protection and to keep the epoxy from heating up in sunlight.
I found that Amodel put the nose landing gear wheel well too far forward. Not sure I go the extra mile to correct that.
Generally the kit seems to capture the Voyager as it was rolled out, but not the record flight configuration. Ailerons should have a slightly deeper chord than the wing trailing edge.

17 February 2018, 14:41

Julian Herrero aka Yuri
Good work ... Like it ....

20 February 2018, 10:16

Bart Goesaert
Thx, small disaster yesterday, the cat jumped the model off the table, 1 tail fin broke off, together with some paint and the attachments of the front wings... hopefully it won't be that hard to repair...

20 February 2018, 11:59

Spanjaard
Thanks is a different type of carpet monster 😉
Good luck, hopefully easy to repair.

20 February 2018, 16:44

Bart Goesaert
repairs done, hopefully no more damages, still a lot to do...

23 February 2018, 12:18

Bart Goesaert
Started decalling, they breakfasts, so the initial 20 went up fast to 100 pieces... These 12 decals took 3h of puzzling

24 February 2018, 08:36

Lost_Erik
Looks like the 3 hours of decal puzzling was worth the struggle. Your repair look good too. Did you overcoat the decals with micro-decal-film or similar?

24 February 2018, 16:45

Burkhard D
The puzzle job was worth it, looks great! 👍👍👍

24 February 2018, 21:00

Alec K
Yes, great job 👍

25 February 2018, 13:30

Bart Goesaert
thx

26 February 2018, 08:54

Bart Goesaert
Added the gear doors, some more details, will be finished soon...

28 February 2018, 06:20

Łukasz Gliński
Great progress, looking forward to seeing the finished build.

28 February 2018, 07:15