Airfix BAC/Aérospatiale Concorde, British Airways 1:72

Great big delta wings

Once again I will deviate from the instructions, which direct you to fit the lower inner wing at this point. Trouble with that is the gap that seems to appear when you add the upper wing, so preferring to deal with gaps in more unseen places, I intend to fit the upper wings first.

The wheel bay assembly is usually fitted to the lower wing and doubles as the mounting point for the display stand, it therefore needs to be pretty well attached.

I feel the need to strengthen the wings somewhat, given their size and the normal droop, suspecting over time without a really strong seam some cracking will occur. Solution, two lengths of square box section styrene, one through the wheel bay and another through the fuselage itself to support the upper wing surfaces.

Drill out a locating hole and then enlarge with a square file to fit the profile of the box section.

The small locating tab you see is only there to set the depth of the wing surface and we shall use that as a guide shortly.

Using these tabs as a guide some L-shaped styrene is fitted in between each and creates a much larger glue surface for the wing upper surface as well as strengthening the join.

The wheel bay and mount is not yet glued in place but positioned with tape, as you will need to centralise it at a later stage.

Now each upper wing can be positioned in turn, hopefully eliminating any gap.

You can see where the box section strengtheners now route across the underside of the upper wings and the rear section can be aligned with the wheel wells by moving the whole mount assembly, prior to glueing. To further aid strength, I applied more two-part epoxy across the box section and along the join to the fuselage of the mounting as this will take all the weight off the model when mounted on the stand.

Read on…