AIRFIX 1:72 BRISTOL 192 BELVEDERE HC.1

 

Reviewer: Pete Noyle  (peternoyle@kw.igs.net)
Kit Review submitted:  August 2003
NOTE: This review is intended to be read in conjunction with Gavin Dore's Review
Between the two, a more informed impression of the kit will be gained, Pete.
To view Gavin's review click here : - Airfix Belvedere, Gavin Dore 

The Aircraft:

The power of the Gazelle is described in the Airfix description as being 1,650 SHP. The Rolls Royce website describes the power as – “Bristol Type 192 Belvedere (1958) – 2 Napier Gazelle (1465shp)”. The Westland website describes the Belvedere powerplant as – “2 Napier Gazelle N Ga2 turboshafts (1300 hp)”. [Note SHP and HP are not the same measuring scale]. Obviously the Gazelle had been up-rated from 1465 SHP in 1958 to 1650 SHP in 1960 when aircraft XG454 – the subject of this review – was built.

Dictionary definition –

belvedere – noun

  1. building or architectural feature of a building designed and situated to look out on to a pleasant view.

  2. a cigar, shorter and with thinner ends than a corona.

  3. a palace in Vatican City used as an art gallery (1590 – 1600).

From Latin – BELLUS fine view + VIDERE to see.

I always wondered what a belvedere was, now I know.

The Bristol Aeroplane Company at Filton, Bristol, England entered the helicopter business in the early 1950’s with the Type 171 “Sycamore” (see separate review of this aircraft). This was soon followed by the twin rotored Type 173. The first prototype, which flew on 3 January 1952, was powered by two 520hp Alvis Leonides engines and could carry ten passengers. The tandem rotors were identical to those of the Sycamore with three wooden rotor blades. Trials were carried out with this aircraft in 1953, from the aircraft carrier HMS Eagle. The second prototype was similar to the first but was modified to test the characteristics and effects of two stub wings and later two four-bladed rotors. The Mk 3 Type 173, of which three were built, had the capacity increased to 16 seats with more powerful Alvis Leonides Major engines. This version was offered to British European Airways (BEA), but unfortunately, none of these aircraft succeeded in overcoming a series of developmental problems and subsequent projects undertaken by Bristol — models 191 and 193 — in response to Royal Navy and Canadian naval specifications, were no more successful.

However the Type 192, the prototype of which flew on 5 July 1958, was adopted by the RAF. In the initial configuration, this aircraft had a purely manual system of control and wooden rotor blades but power controls and metal blades were standardized on the fifth prototype built in 1960. That year, three pre-production aircraft were assigned to the RAF for a series of trials for which they were based at RAF Odiham. The Type 192 was the worlds first helicopter with true twin engine safety, that is, it could fly with one engine out. Twenty-six of these helicopters, called the "Belvedere", were ordered from Westland Helicopters (who had by now taken over the project), and used for some years as a military transport with 66 Squadron (September 1961), not only in the United Kingdom, but also in the Middle and Far East. The "Belvedere" was withdrawn from service in March 1969 to be replaced by the twin rotored Chinook.

The production Bristol 192’s had an all-metal, skinned fuselage and an anhedral tailplane, compared with the dihedral one of the Type 173. The two rotors had four metal blades and the front wheels of the fixed quadricycle landing gear were self-castoring. The helicopter's maximum capacity was 30 seats or 2,270 kg internal payload. The instrumentation also permitted night flying.

The fate of the two aircraft covered by the Airfix kit is as follows –

XG448 Royal Air Force. Eventually used as an instructional airframe, Changi, Singapore. Marked SAF-TECH-4

XG454 is the seventh pre-production Belvedere, and was built at Weston-super-Mare in July 1960. It entered service with the Belvedere Trials Unit (BTU) at Odiham on 17th October 1960, but suffered a category 3 flying accident on 22 November. Repairs were completed at 71 Maintenance Unit by March 1961, but on 30 August ‘XG454' crashed a second time. This was during a practice flight for the SBAC Farnborough Air Show. Damage was classed as category 5, which meant that the Belvedere was considered irreparable. As a result ‘XG454' was sent to the Army Air Training and Development Centre, at Old Sarum, to be used as an instructional airframe. On 15 October 1964, however, it was decided that ‘XG454' should be returned to Weston-super-Mare for rebuilding prior to joining the Ministry of Technology’s trials fleet.

In 1968, ‘XG454' was moved to RAF Abingdon to form part of the RAF’s 50th anniversary aircraft display, after which it was moved to Henlow for storage. On 4 November 1982, ‘XG454' was moved to Manchester for display in what was to become the Air and Space Gallery of the Museum of Science and Industry.

The above information courtesy of The Museum of Science and Industry, Manchester, UK

Other preserved Belvedere’s can be seen at –

XG452, 7997M, G-BRMB. The Helicopter Museum, Weston-super-Mare, UK. Marked XG452

XG462 The Helicopter Museum, Weston-super-Mare

XG474. On display Royal Air Force Museum, Hendon

All the other Belvederes have been scrapped.

Anecdotes:

My home town is Bristol, England and the Bristol Aeroplane Company dominated the city’s work force. During the Second World War about 12,000 worked there, producing both aircraft and engines. My Dad was one of them, working as an inspector on the Beaufort and Beaufighter. Many strange and wonderful aircraft flew over my house, exotic things like the Bristol Brabazon and the Bristol Brittania and of course, Concorde. The Belvedere did not fly over the city, in those days helicopters were not allowed to, they were not considered safe enough to proceed above a crowded built up area! Nonetheless, a couple of miles of bike riding would get me to Filton to watch the aeroplanes and I still remember the helicopter test rig swishing away behind its torpedo netting safety cage.

Kit Parts:

Airfix kit # 03002. Contained in an end opening box, the 50 parts are formed on four sprues of gray plastic and one of clear. Most of the gray parts are festooned with rivet detail popular with Airfix kits of this vintage. No such riveting is moulded into the clear parts. The complete front end of the model is moulded in clear with the split line following the fuselage vertical split. Box art shows one of the prototypes, XG448, which, in real life ended up in Singapore and some parts were shipped to the Helicopter Museum at Weston for their Belvedere reconstruction project. Alternative parts for XG454 are included in the kit. One glaring point when you take the first look at the parts are the wheels, at least two had very little plastic in the hub making them look like donuts rather than wheels.

The box calls for a skill level of 3.

My kit did not have the slot in the fuselage for a stand as Gavin Dore has reported.

Instructions:

Printed on two fold-out sheets of paper, the first sheet describes construction in nine easy to understand steps with the alternative parts for XG448 or XG454 clearly marked. This sheet provides the colour scheme for XG448 including the decal locations. Sheet two gives the history of the aircraft in five languages with the generic ‘how to’ notes in 12 languages, with the last page showing the paint scheme and the decal locations for XG454. Paint descriptions are all Humbrol numbers. One anomaly is apparent in that at step 7, the joining of the clear nose section, there is no indication of roof lights whereas the painting instruction sheet clearly shows two large glazed areas just behind the two small triangular windows.

There is no description of the Westland produced production version of the Belvedere although there is a picture on the box of XG454 with anhedral two piece tailplane and a long nose re-fuelling probe, wearing green and brown camouflage.

Construction:

I followed the given steps in the instructions and began with the fuselage, step 1. The rivets are quite prominent and I began with sanding them down, not quite removing them completely, just making them less obvious. I hollowed out the jet exhaust pipes to form a thinner, more realistic profile, and I glued the door in the closed position (no internal detail to worry about!).

The instructions call for the rotor heads to be installed before the fuselage halves are joined but to do this I felt that subsequent painting would be quite difficult and almost certainly paint would seep down into the bearing area of the rotor hub. To overcome this I made up two bearing assembly’s to which the rotor head could be added after the model had been painted. Before joining the fuselage halves I added the two rotor shafts. The front shaft was turned from sprue and has a 1/8” ball super glued to the lower end that bears on a bracket attached to the fuselage. The shaft is supported at the top by the kit ‘bearing hole’ suitably polished smooth. The weight of the rotor assembly is born by the ball and an exceptionally free movement has been obtained. The narrowness of the rear tower meant that the bearing shaft here had to be made of steel. I used a length of 0.050” tubing with a glass headed pin for the lower ‘thrust’ bearing. A cut-off length of paperclip wire was attached to the rotor head that could be then lowered (after painting and finishing), into the steel tube that had been ‘pinched’ with pliers to grip the paper clip shaft. Once again excellent rotation was obtained.

I added small alignment tabs to the edges of the fuselage sides to aid in line up when the parts came together, alternating the tabs on either fuselage half. This keeps the split line even i.e. any ‘sag’ is evened out, and this cuts down on the amount of sanding needed to produce a smooth join.

Be careful with the windows, part # 13 that fits into the starboard fuselage half is slightly different to 15 and 16.

The inner surfaces were painted as per instructions plus the interior of the roof air scoop was painted matt black.

Step 6 cockpit floor, seats and crew. The crew look like civilians with their peaked caps. I did not use them, in fact I left the cockpit empty of crew altogether. There is no instrument panel supplied with the kit and that meant that I had to make one from scratch. I could find no pictures of the inside of the cockpit so I made my best guess as to the instrument layout. From 0.010” sheet I cut out the required shape and drilled holes where the instruments would be. I painted the panel Matt Gray. I then painted another piece of 0.010” sheet semi gloss black and attached the gray fret to it with superglue. Once thoroughly dry I scratched the instrument needles into the semi gloss black with a sharp needle held in my pin vice and then glued it to the inside of the nose glazing (after step 7). I did nothing to the seats except paint the backs matt gray and the seat cushion semi gloss black. Seat belts were cut from industrial masking tape with the connecting hardware represented by shaped Bare Metal Foil. For the center consol I added three 0.043 disks to represent instruments plus some ‘black panels’ and a row of red lights. Finally I added the selective pitch levers and the ‘rudder’ pedals.

Step 7, the joining together of the cockpit glazing. One of the features of this aircraft is the clear wrap around bulbous nose – with no split line! (I wish that Airfix had used the same technique that Glencoe did with their model of the Bristol Sycamore [see review of that kit] where the bulbous nose is a separate clear part). Anyway, you get what you get with this kit so the dividing line between the cockpit halves has to be struggled with. I carefully removed what little flash there was and then lightly sanded the mating surfaces on a flat sheet of 1500 grit wet and dry. I washed the parts in soapy water and allowed them to dry and then glued the two parts together applying glue only to the roof and windshield area, not the bulbous nose. The thickness of the glue spread the two halves slightly, making the split line look even worse. Next day I soaked the assembly in Future and allowed it to dry thoroughly. There was some misalignment of the two halves and I had to file that down, finishing with 400 grit and then 1500 grit wet and dry. Back into the Future it went. Next day the nose looked better but the split line was just as obvious. Ah well.

Another detail missing entirely from the moulding is the frame that holds the bulged side windows.

Step 8. Once the clear nose assembly had dried (with the instrument panel installed), I attached it to the fuselage. At the rear mounting face there was a problem, the clear assembly matched quite well on the left side where the bulge around the engine is, but the right hand side was a different matter. The fuselage is not bulged on this side and the nose section did not align at all giving a pronounced step of about one mm. The joint at the bottom of the clear part and the front of the gray fuselage moulding missed altogether with a 0.025” gap that needed to be filled.

On reflection it may have been better to glue a tapered sliver of plastic between the two halves to spread them apart at the rear and have them butt at the nose. The split line at the nose bulge would still be apparent, however the joint at the fuselage would have lined up!

Steps 2 stub wings, 3 rear undercarriage, 4 engine intake cover and 5 front undercarriage. These steps were completed after the fuselage was painted, each sub assembly being painted separately and then added to the model. 

Step 9 rotors. The rotor hubs were cleaned up of flash and the blades attached. I curved the blades over a 10” inch cake tin to produce just a hint of rotor droop.

Historical observation – I had recently completed the Glencoe model of the Bristol Sycamore and I compared the rotor head of that model to that of the Belvedere. The total assembly is about three-quarters of the size of the Sycamore, even though it carries four blades, not three. I am making an assumption that the wooden blades of the Sycamore were much heavier than the fabricated blades of the Belvedere and so needed a more robust rotor head mechanism. The basic design had not changed.

The huge Alvis Leonides engine of the Sycamore dictated the size of its fuselage whereas the much smaller Napier Gazelle gas turbine needed much less room and so the fuselage of the Belvedere could be so much narrower. The reduction in weight offered by the Gazelle and smaller rotor head plus the lighter rotor blades all contributed to the greater load carrying capacity (6,000 lbs [2,270 kg] internal or 5,200 lbs [2,357 kg] underslung) over the Leonides powered Type 173.

Masking:

I applied the window masking as soon as the fuselage was finished. To get the right shape of the windows at the nose (there are no distinct markings on the parts), I enlarged the line drawings supplied in the instructions using a copy machine. This gave the basic shapes of the windows but allowance has to be made for the curvature of the glazing, in other words the roof lights are slightly longer than shown in the simple vertical plan view. I made quite a few errors, see ‘Painting’ below.

I also added two disks of masking to the tops of the rotor shafts to stop any paint seeping into the bearings.

The photograph shows the top view of the Belvedere during restoration at The Helicopter Museum, Weston super Mare, UK and the shape and orientation of the roof-lights can be clearly seen. The bulge on the left side houses the front Gazelle engine, offset to the left so that a narrow passageway could be used to move from the fuselage to the flight deck. (A very narrow passageway designed for extremely small people!). The production crew access door was a sliding affair and the slide bars can be clearly seen. Access to the cockpit was from a removable ladder that was clipped to the side of the fuselage.

Engine changes were dreaded by the maintenance crew, there was so little room to work in and in the tropics the job must have been unbearable.

Painting:

I started by spraying the cabin area with matt gray to match the cockpit interior, the gray showing through the transparent moulding. I sprayed the whole fuselage before the undercarriage, tailplane and rotors were added, with ModelMaster ‘White Primer.’ Minor flaws were then addressed and primer re-applied as needed. Once thoroughly dry I applied ModelMaster Satin White to the roof as per the paint diagram, allowing the paint to feather out below the demarcation line where the natural aluminium starts. Two coats were applied.

I then applied Bare Metal Foil – ‘matte aluminium’ to the lower parts of the fuselage, alternating the direction of lay of some pieces to represent differing shades of polished aluminium. The foil was also applied to the bottom of the fuselage at the engine air intakes (the covers are parts 27 and 28), where the kit has a flat surface. This was an error on my part, the flat surface is actually the debris screen for the engine air intake and it would have been more appropriate to have painted the flat surface matt black. As the area is almost impossible to examine, I’ll leave the error as my ‘little secret.’

Before the undercarriage, stub wings etc., were added I removed the masking. Despite my care taken to get the masking of the nose section right, the result was awful. The front-end moulding seems to be too narrow and comparing with the box art the front windshield panes are much too narrow for the height. I feel that the bulbous nose should be higher by about 2 mm. I added a line of matt black paint to the top and bottom of the windshields to give the illusion of wider windows. I also made an error with masking the lower part of the ‘transparent bulge’ in that I painted the anti glare panel too low and my triangular roof window masks were much too small. To overcome all this I used my craft knife to cut a new outline of the anti-glare panel in the bulbous nose and scraped the paint away to this line. I was left with a severely lacerated piece of plastic but an application of Future, using a minute sponge, resulted in quite a clear ‘window’. I did the same to the triangular roof clear panels and they also looked almost acceptable, not exhibition standard, but acceptable (from a distance!).

Testors ‘Silver’ enamel was used for the undercarriage and ModelMaster ‘Satin White’ brushed on to the stub wings. The transmission cooling air intakes were painted with a craft water-soluble black that was then rubbed gently until the satin white showed and the black remained in the grooves. The instructions call for the exhaust stubs to be painted with a mix of #53 Gun Metal and a ¼ #171 Antique Bronze. As I had neither colour I used ModelMaster ‘Aluminum’ acryl for the stub back plate and MM ‘Steel’ for the stubs themselves. ModelMaster ‘Steel’ has a brownish tinge that, to my eyes, looks nothing like steel!

It may be asked why the helicopter has four exhaust ducts for each engine. It is primarily to have the exhausts on each side of the fuselage so that the thrust from each side cancel each other out (if they did not the aircraft would fly around in ever decreasing circles!) The twin discharge pipes are a feature produced by the lack of headroom within the engine compartments. So, these two requirements result in eight exhaust nozzles.

The breather pipes that come through the engine air intake covers (parts 27 & 28) were painted matt black. One of these pipes is painted red (the other two are yellow), and in case of fire this is where the fire extinguisher is applied!

The sub assemblies were painted separately and added to the model last of all. The stub wings had a distinct gap at the fuselage join and I filled this with several applications of white glue before the final coat of satin white. Care has to be taken to get the undercarriage to be perpendicular to the fuselage vertical centreline. If this is not achieved then the model will have a noticeable lean to one side. Two wheels had to have hubs scratch built to enable them to fit on to their axles.

The rotor blades were brushed with mat gray on the top surface and mat black on the under surface using one pass of a loaded ¼ inch flat brush, with the yellow tip applied by brush as well. Aluminium acryl was brushed onto the hubs and the rubber shock absorbers of the torsion tubes picked out in semi gloss black.

Decals:

The decals settled down very well including on to the Bare Metal Foil and apart from a precautionary application of Micro Sol in one or two areas where the rivets were not fully rubbed down, the results were most pleasing. Colour register was slightly off, the printers ‘targets’ showed a misalignment with the red but once on the model this inaccuracy seemed to disappear. One decal, # 28, did not appear to have been printed at all, it was just a small rectangle of clear film and in a similar manner, # 26 had an extended carrier film with nothing on it! Application went well, even the long horizontal blue stripe went on without too much waviness. Definition of the small script was good, the words ‘PULL TO RELEASE’ was readable and yet the letters were about 0.020” high. Many of the markings were printed on one piece of decal film and that made cutting the excess film away a tedious experience but worth the effort.

Windscreen wipers were cut from the black border-line of the decal sheet.

Options:

The only option available is to have the main cargo door open or closed.

Versions:

Two versions can be modelled, XG448 as in 1959 during the Development Trials at the Aeroplane & Armament Experimental Establishment, Boscombe Down and XG454 as in 1960 at the Belvedere Trials Unit, RAF Odiham. The differences are (apart from markings) XG454 does not have stub wing fins but has the plain cargo door i.e. no horizontal bulge. I searched the web for information about the trials at RAF Odiham and Boscombe Down but could find no reference to the Belvedere. (Boscombe Down is the UK ’s version of the US Area 51).

Accuracy:

Rotor diameter and fuselage length are near exactly to scale. I have no other data to compare such things as fuselage width or wheel centres so I will assume that Airfix did their math right, they mostly do! It is the nose section that I have a beef about – it does not look correct to me and does not have the ‘door/window frame’ outline.

Conclusions:

Airfix have withdrawn this model from their catalogue and bearing in mind the ‘unusualness’ of the subject it is unlikely to be reintroduced.

With only 50 parts this would seem to be a simple model to build and it is. Oh, my goodness, does it need some work to make it into a good model, especially the nose glazing! If I were to make another one then I would use the sliver of plastic referred to in the text above to give the clear nose parts the correct width to align with the main fuselage. I suppose it would be too much to ask for an aftermarket supplier to make a new nose – would it? The Belvedere holds a unique position in aviation history – the world’s first twin rotored helicopter with the safety of ‘one engine out’ flight ability. Would anybody like to buy the moulds and re-issue it?

If you are into helicopters grab one if you see one, there probably will not be any more. If you are not into helicopters, grab one anyway, in 50 years it will be worth a fortune on the Antiques Roadshow.

As Gavin Dore reported – suitable for all but the beginner and in my mind worthy of a skill level of 4 rather than 3.

References:

XG 451 lifting a Bloodhound missile and trolley. Note stub wing and fin as per
XG 448 and the location of roundal towards the front of the fuselage similer to
XG 454. Not apparent in the Airfix kit is the ‘rudder’ at the trailing edge of the rear tower.

XG457. Note the ‘airfoil’ spats at the undercarriage and the collection of antenae on the top of the fuselage. The tailplane is as the production version with double airfoil and two struts. The in-flight refueling probe can be clearly seen.

MODEL IMAGES:


© Pete Noyle 2003

A slightly out of focus shot of the model’s nose that actually looks better than the real thing!


© Pete Noyle 2003


© Pete Noyle 2003

 

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