Hemet Valley S2 Tracker firebomber

[Beekster]

This  one has been percolating in the background for a while, but it's time to bring it into the open.  This is the subject:




This is the bulk of what is needed to make one:


Hemet Valley Air Service operated these from the 1970s through the 1990s at least.  The decal sheet has markings for one aircraft, and your choice of aircraft number.  Now, you need to be specific here about which subject you choose, for a couple of reasons.  Most importantly, there were two styles of retardant tank fitted.  Aircraft #70 and 71 (at least) had the angular pattern seen in the above photos.  A more rounded type was seen on other aircraft:




A second reason, which caught me out, is that the modifications at the tail differ between the two types.  You'll see the effect of that later on.  Oh, and these images swiped from the internet are for illustration & discussion purposes only.

The old Hasegawa S2 kit shows it's age in some ways:  Raised panel line detail, truly awful pilot seats, no control yokes, wide-open landing gear bays with no bulkheads, and pretty lame engine fronts.  first things first:  the cooling scoops on the lower fuselage sides have to go, and the circular hole for the radar dome must be plugged.  A combination of Dremel grinding, epoxy putty, and modifying the radome parts takes care of that:






The cockpit needed some reinforcement to stiffen it up, and I stuffed lead weights in the nose and behind the cockpit to keep the model on it's landing gear.  The seats were awful; I found a suitable one in spares and made a mold to cast copies.

[JCON]

Looks like a great project!

[JED]

Interesting project

[Beekster]

Yeah, it's actually a pretty simple one to do. Modifications are minimal and easy. The wings just need the armament pylons ground off and the hole in the leading edge filled where the searchlight was mounted.




The engine fronts are lame, but Quickboost makes some lovely resin replacements:



The ends of the engine nacelles contained the tubes to drop sonobouys. This area was faired in with sheetmetal on all the firebombers.







I got myself caught out at the tail end of the aricraft. I ground off the end, including the teardrop-shaped antenna fairing. Many converted Trackers lost that and had a shorter, blunt end to the fuselage with a round fill port for the retardant tank. Too late I realized that Tankers 70 and 71 retained the fairing. I found an ADF football in spares, cut it in half, and faired it in with some strip stock and superglue. A bit more bulbous than the kit, but the size of that feature varied depending on what the Navy put back there. Good enough for me, and a punched disc makes for a fill port.





The resin seats now have some paint on them. Gloss on the cockpit is still drying, so another day or so before the instrument panel and compartment door decals can be added. And here's the control yoke castings in raw form:





And finally the retardant tank is taking shape:



This is a really easy conversion for someone to do. Doing the more rounded tank would be a bigger challenge, since it's mostly curves and compound curves at the front.

And because this project has been so enjoyable so far, there will be another one eventually. Cal Fire (and other organizations) took some more low-time Trackers out of storage and fitted them with new turboprop engines. Greater fuel efficiency and better load capacity. DRAW decals has markings for those (which I will get), and Wolf Modell in Germany makes a spiffy resin conversion set which will soon leave Frankfurt on its way across the pond.

[JCON]

Looks amazing so far!

[JED]

Great work

[gator]

Beautiful work.

[JEFF]

That's gittin' after it,Beeks.😎

[Dukemaddog]

Fantastic work! If I can find a way to make one of these I will!

[Beekster]

Jan 25, 2024 23:34:35 GMT -6 Dukemaddog said:

Fantastic work! If I can find a way to make one of these I will!

It's pretty straightforward, Duke.  Hasegawa's S2 kit is widely available, and DRAW Decals are a print-on-demand operation that gets you their product in two or three weeks.  They have several sheets for S2 firebombers, including one for the re-engined Turbo Trackers operated by Cal Fire.  I've got a conversion kit and second Tracker inbound for one of those and will soon order the necessary decal sheet (and one for Aero Union B-17s as well; I've got an old picture book that has several good images of those aircraft).  As noted earlier, the squared-off retardant tank used by a few of Hemet Valley's aircraft is most straightforward to build, but the rounded one could be done with more work.  It's the front of the thing that is most challenging because of the compound curve shapes.

Hasegawa's seats are awful, so try to find something else like I did.  Or have me cast a pair of mine for you.  There are no control columns & yokes.  I've gotten that done, but the tiny yokes are fragile things so I've had to make several castings to get a decent pair.  And I keep casting them, since I need a pair for the Neptune and will need a pair for the Turbo Tracker.

The kit instrument panel decal is decent enough, but word to the wise:  The half-century-old decals are a pain to work with; they don't like to lay flat and the small perpendicular section for the center console has to be cut from the main panel (the decal is printed as one T-shaped piece).  However, you could get away with swiping suitable decals from spares; the greenhouse won't allow a really clear sight line into the cockpit.  I also added styrene rudder pedals to mine; definitely overkill as they will be invisible unless illuminated with about a million candlepower's worth of flashlight beam.

[Beekster]

This is what I mean about visibility for the cockpit:



Even with the unpainted greenhouse there's not much to see in there. The curvature of the side windows really distorts things. Oddly enough, the most visible element will probably be this one:


The home-made passageway decal, which will be clearly seen from the two small overhead windows in the greenhouse.

[JCON]

Put some Pledge (Future Floor polish) on that clear screen and it will show a lot more than it does now! Makes a big difference usually!

[Beekster]

I might just do that, Joe, then paint over that with the pale green.

[Beekster]

So, I'm sure you are saying to yourself something like "Wow, that looks bad! What happened here, it looked so nice?"

Well, what happened was that late yesterday I was reviewing my reference images after getting the front and rear "ramps" pretty well done. Now, it certainly isn't obvious but that fuselage isn't as slab-sided as it appears. And it was clear that my ramps were going to taper inwards at the sides to match the fuselage contours. Paying closer attention to the images made it clear that there was no taper to the tank structure; the sides were perfectly straight and had no taper. So my lovely tank was too wide. I slept on it overnight and decided that I didn't want to live with the inaccurate shape, so out came the Dremel this morning with cutting wheel; you see the aftermath here. Some work with a sanding drum has since removed more material and some knife work and sanding sticks will follow to clean up all of the remains. Yeah, I did some damage to the bottom of the fuselage but that's nothing that some more styrene and epoxy putty won't fix. At least I have a solid procedure on how to make the tank now; I just have to build a new one that's quite a bit narrower.

[JCON]

Whoa, Dude!!!

[Beekster]

Yeah. I have a habit of starting a scratchbuilt structure too large, and then settling on one that's still too large. Oh well. Evergreen stuff is plentiful and relatively cheap. The fuselage is now mostly cleaned up and the bottom joint that got popped by the removal process is now back together and a small section that got sliced by the Dremel is now plugged. Tomorrow when all has set up I'll continue cleaning things up and get some epoxy putty on a couple of divots. Not a big deal. And the foundation piece for a new retardant tank has been cut out and laminated; that will get trued up tomorrow and the reconstruction will continue.

[JCON]

Sounds like a good plan!

[Beekster]

This looks much better:




So where did I go wrong? I didn't study that side-view photo closely enough. Without dimensions, I have to guess about proportions. What I failed to do was compare the size of the nose gear door to that of the tank. The tank extends below the fuselage just a bit less than the furthest-down point of the gear door. The solution is simple: Measure the gear door and make the tank a little less tall. And incidentally, comparing this tank to the one in the Turbo Tracker conversion set, my chosen dimensions aren't bad at all. The Turbo Tracker tank has a lower profile that's more aerodynamic, but width is pretty close. This is still a little long, which is apparent now that the wing is on.  So I've got to cut down the rear section again, but at least the whole thing doesn't have to come off.

Wings just went on, and there will be more work with sheet stock & putty to fair that in properly, and work will progress on that in the coming days.  Along with shortening the back of the tank, and not breaking the landing gear.

[JCON]

Little adjustments and you have it! Proud of you for tackling it!!!

[Beekster]

Thanks, Joe. The tank is now shortened and the rear angled panel is on and supported by some strip stock beneath. Tomorrow after that has set up I will mix up more epoxy putty and fair it in. another couple of days (plus curing time) and I'll have the retardant tank fully sorted. The blending work to clean up the wing/fuselage seams up top will be delicate at the front; I will be sanding and filling very close to those tiny square windows on the side. But it's coming along.