LINDBERG 1:48 CONVAIR XFY-1 POGO

Reviewer: Michael Johnson (rec.models.scale)
Kit Review submitted: 16 October 2004

The Aircraft

The Convair XFY-1 Pogo was an experimental vertical takeoff aircraft of the 1950s. It was a result of a proposal issued by the Navy in 1948 for an aircraft capable of vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aboard platforms mounted on the afterdecks of conventional ships. In 1950, this requirement was revised to call for a research aircraft capable of evolving into a VTOL ship-based convoy escort fighter. In March of 1951, three prototypes were ordered from Convair under the designation XFY-1.

The XFY-1 sat on its tail for landings and takeoffs. It had a large delta wing with two pods at the extreme and two large vertical fins above and below the fuselage. The aircraft rested on a set of small castoring wheels at the tips of the wing and fin. At takeoff, the engines ran up to full power and the aircraft ascended vertically, then when it reached a safe altitude it gradually nosed over into conventional horizontal flight. At landing, the aircraft approached the landing pad while pitched up into a nose-high position and then descended to the ground under gradually reduced power. If an emergency were to occur, the ventral fin could be jettisoned so that the aircraft could make a crash-landing in conventional, wing-supported mode.

The XFY-1 was powered by an Allison YT40-A-6 turboprop (which consisted of two T38 turboprops coupled together) driving a pair of Curtiss-Wright 16-foot three-bladed contra-rotating propellers in the nose. The engine offered a power of 5500 shp. The air intakes for the engines were located in the extended roots of the delta wing, and the exhaust was in the extreme tail.

The single pilot sat underneath a cockpit canopy which slid toward the rear. The ejector seat was mounted on gimbals and tilted 45 degrees when the aircraft was in the vertical position. Entry to or exit from the cockpit required a special ladder, and was by all accounts rather awkward. During takeoffs and landings, the canopy was slid to the rear to give the pilot a better view.

The proposed but never actually fitted armament was four 20mm cannon fitted in the two wingtip pods. Alternatively, 48 2 ¾” folding-fin rockets could be fitted.

Unfortunately, the XFY-1 was difficult to land because of a poor view from the cockpit of the landing area and the unusual pilot posture. The landing operation would probably have been difficult if not impossible for a pilot of ordinary ability to perform on a small deck aboard ship, especially in rough seas where the deck was pitching back and forth. In addition, the T40 turboprop was mechanically complex, thoroughly unreliable and subject to frequent breakdowns. In addition, by this time the performance of the XFY-1 was quite a bit less than that of conventional jet aircraft, and would probably not have been able to hold its own in air-to-air combat. For this reason, the XFY-1 program was cancelled after only 40 hours of flight testing.

Convair XFY-1 data:

POWERPLANT:
One Allison YT40-A-6 turboprop
of 5,850 hp (4362 kW)

MAXIMUM SPEED:
610 mph
at 15,000 feet altitude

MAX. TAKEOFF WEIGHT:
16,250 lb (7371 kg)

WING SPAN:
27 ft 7¾ in (8.43 m)

LENGTH:
22 ft 11 in (10.66 m)

OPERATIONAL RANGE:
Not known

PROPOSED ARMAMENT:
4x20 mm cannon or
46x70mm (2.75 in) rockets.

Preamble

I picked this kit up in a big stash of kits I purchased at WASMEx 2004 buy/swap and sell for the princely sum of $5.

This kit became the basis for a quick build project in order for me to finish it in the one week left for the Convertiplanes group build, I was a co-moderator of. Could I do it? Thank heaven I was on holiday!

The Kit

A top opening box from the Lindberg “classics” range, which contained a kit which was only a classic due to the age of the toolings and not the quality of the kit! Only about 20 parts including the pilot’s ladder with a one sheet exploded view instruction sheet and a decal sheet that was thick, indistinct and would prove totally reluctant to settle down on any surface even with decal treatments!

The kits parts were covered with raised detail, mainly rivets. Well I was not after a contest winner here at all, so I could safely ignore all the shortcomings built into the kit or otherwise. However, the limited references I had suggested that the basic shape was good.

Construction

Assembly started with the cockpit, what cockpit??? I scratch built a cockpit with some plasticard and painted it Vallejo basalt grey. The side consoles and instrument panel were detailed with some spare decals from a Premiere Hawk T.1A. It took longer to find a good replacement seat for the kit offering but in the end I used a damaged KMC Skyraider seat. This was not exactly accurate but looked great once done.

The newly built cockpit tub was offered up to the fuselage halves, carefully aligned and cemented into place. I then fabricated some blanking plates out of plasticard to hide the see-through fuselage effect. After all the interior components were added and secured, the fuselage halves were then closed up.

The remainder of assembly proceeded smoothly and rather quickly, with only small amounts of filler required to smooth out ill fitting joints. At this point I cleaned up, polished and masked the canopy. The masked canopy was offered up to the fuselage and cemented into place with clear parts cement, reinforced with a careful application of liquid cement; this filled any gaps between the fuselage and the canopy. A quick application of white glue, with excess wiped away with a wet mk1 finger, smoothed out any remaining gaps.

The rest of construction proceeded smoothly and quickly with gaps and joins rectified using a combination of Tamiya putty and CA. Within about 4 hours, the Pogo was ready for its first coat of Tamiya AS-12 BMF.

The enormous contra rotating propeller assembly needed a fair degree of work to remove seam lines and to clean up each blade, but once this was done they looked most impressive.

Painting and Decaling

I then used a spray can of Tamiya AS-12 BMF, no airbrush work here!! The completed airframe was put aside to cure prior to masking of the black wing tips. These areas were then masked up and brush painted with Vallejo black. After the airframe had dried, I then used Humbrol polished aluminium on the wingtip landing oleo legs with the little tires painted using Aeromaster tyre black.

The propeller components were first painted with Vallejo golden yellow. Once dry, the blade tips were masked off and everything was painted black.

The decals turned out to be a really big problem.

As mentioned earlier, these decals were horrid and thick with very poor registration.

I started off with a fuselage stars and bar and this refused to sit correctly, I knew (after repeated application attempts) that not even Solvaset (if I had any!) would make them conform to the cowling surface. Not even Future would do the trick.

I frantically went through my decal dungeon to find replacements and eventually had to cannibalise a perfectly good Microscale F-14A decal sheet for the tail code, navy and stars and bar insignia. In the end I only used the intake warning decals from the kit sheet, which were forced to adhere and bed down using a mixture of Super Stride (Future) and white glue.

Everything was then sealed in with a thin coat of Super Stride blending the decals into the BMF finish. I decided not to apply any weathering as it looked fine the way it was.

Finishing Touches

I added the pitot tube from the kit, and touched them over in appropriate colours. Once these had set, the canopy masking was removed, the pre painted contra rotating propeller was added and the Pogo was finished.

I gave up trying to assemble the ladder!

Overall

As far as I am aware, this elderly Lindberg kit is the only game in town for those wanting to build a 1:48 scale Pogo.

For the 1:72 scale modellers, KP (KoPro) makes a nicely detailed kit which unfortunately has almost Matchbox like trenched panel lines. Apart from that, it appears to build up into a nice little replica of a very important aircraft.

This kit however, minor inaccuracies and simplistic details aside, builds up exceptionally well and would make an ideal basis for an uber detailed kit or a quick fun build between more serious subjects. Total build time was less than 25 hours. My other more serious kits in this scale have taken a great deal longer.

Well I achieved my goal of building this kit in under a week and made the group build deadline and had a blast doing so. It is refreshing to put aside the need to detail, achieve near perfect finishes and near perfect construction to build something that looks great almost from the box!

References

None!!!

Michael “madmike” Johnson

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