TU-95 MS Bear in 1/72 Scale

Looking good. Then it was time to do the front landing gear in the same fashion:


Finally, in this session, I gathered together and then painted the props...the counter rotating props for each Kuznetsov engine...and then dry fit those together in preparation for building each of the four engine nacelles.


This is all looking very good.

In the next session I will build the wings and all four engine nacelles, and then assemble them all with the main landing gear.

I am working on the wings and all four engine nacelles right now...but I hop to find or build parts to be able to depict the aircraft like this, in the MS-16 version:

With the pylons and ALCMs:


With the rotary launcher in the bomb bay:


With six ALCMs on the rotary launcher:

I have take a look on the net and almost all Tu-95 models don' t get weapons then very good idea

I am working on the wings and all four engine nacelles right now...but I hop to find or build parts to be able to depict the aircraft like this, in the MS-16 version

Click to expand...

Tu-95MSM
On the 1st pic one of the first to Engels/Saratov the main base with Tu-95/160 2 sqns of each 18/14 bombers other base in Siberia to Ukrainka 4 Sqns 36 bombers. Total 63 : 10 MSM, 25 MS16, 28 MS6.
Only Tu-95MS16 no MS6 are modernized in MSM.

On the 3rd pic Kh-555 or Kh-55SM, variants of Kh-55 with CFT and better accuracy but remains not very good ~ 20 m the first conventionnal, the second nuclear those fit in the weapons bay no the Kh-101.

FORBIN said:

I have take a look on the net and almost all Tu-95 models don' t get weapons then very good idea.

Click to expand...

Exactly.

This Trumpeter kit is probably the best out there...but no weapons.

There are some 1/144 scale models...but I like the 1/72 scale.

The Build: Wings, Engine nacelles, assembly - January 8, 2016

In this session I began by gathering all of the various pieces for the wings. There are quite a few pieces and all of the control surfaces can be put together to be movable., Eight pieces for each wing. Once I had gathered them, I glued together each of the control surfaces and then painted all of them appropriately. I used Model Master paints and painted the leading edges in Medium RAF Sea Blue, the underside main flaps and areas around the engines in RAF Dark Sea Blue, and then the rest of the wings in silver.

Once they were all painted and dried, I then assembled each of the wings. Some care needs to be taken, These are large pieces and though the fit is good, there is still some warpage and slight variances that need to be controlled with rubber bands and clamps, which I used as shown.

At this point it was time to assemble the nacelles for the four engines. I started out by gathering the parts, and then painting them. Then it was time to assemble them, and for the inboard nacelles, this meant adding the main landing gear assemblies that had been completed in the earlier step.

The fit is decent, but the holding places for the landing gear wells is not very exacting and they tend to move around.. One has to carefully position these while gluing the nacelles together, along with the attachment to the props at the front of the nacelle. I found that once together and drying, I had to align the main gear to be centered and then add additional glue and hold them in place until that started setting...and then let them dry.

Once the nacelles were all completed, I then added them to each wing.

Once these were all dried solidly, I then added the two counter rotating props to each engine nacelle that I had painted earlier.


Now, these wings are looking very nice.


I hope in the next session to assemble and paint the entire main fuselage, including the cockpit, and then add the wings to it.

The Build: Rear fuselage, stabilizers, cockpit, ballast, rotary dispenser, main fuselage, dry fit - January 11, 2016

I started this session by building the rear fuselage, which includes the vertical and horizontal stabilizers. The aft fuselage will fit into the main fuselage aft of the bomb bay. I gathered the parts and then assembled them, the fuselage first and then the stabilizers. I then painted the entire thing. Later I will come back and add the rear gun turret and the rear canopy for this area.

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At this point I did the cockpit area. There is a large deck and you could really detail this very nicely if desired. But it would involve needing to either make that part of the fuselage open, or installing lighting...and even then, with the lighting, you simply could not see most of it due to the relative small size of the canopy glass. The pilot area is relatively nice, and for what you will be able to see, it will suffice.

I gathered the parts, painted them and then assembled them. I added ballast at this point to both sides of the forward fuselage. I am using some small black stones and pennies. You need quite a lot because otherwise the center of gravity would be well behind the wing roots and the plane would not want to sit on its gear...the tail would tilt down.

I then added the main wheel well and front landing gear I had assembled earlier.

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I then decided to do the scratch built rotary dispenser in the main bomb bay for cruise missiles.. This is set up to hold six smaller, tactical cruise missiles, but I will be adding three of the larger, longer range KH-55 missiles (taking them from my TU-160 Black Jack model.

I used some thick plastic sprue, cut it to length, and then added the six attach points. I also notched the structure provided in the model at the front of the bomb bay, and then added some structure at the back of the bomb bay to hold it in place in the center. I painted the bomb bay and this rotary dispenser accordingly.

I then built and painted the cruise missiles. Their fins fold nicely at the rear of the missiles to allow them to fit into the bomb bay. These then unfold when in flight...as well as two small wings that spring out in the center of each missile.

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