Maurice Farman MF7 Longhorn 1/72

[lone modeller]

Evening All,

Having completed two kits recently I decided that I wanted to do something a little different and perhaps more straightforward. I was thumbing through Munson's Fighters and Training Aircraft 1914-1918 when I came across this machine which happened to take my fancy. For those who are unfamiliar with pre- and early WW1 types I suggest you type the name into Google images and you will see what one looked like as I have problems with copyright if I try to put one up here. They represent my ideal for a model - lots of struts and wires and a huge amount of air around the pilot. The Bristol Boxkite was basically a copy of the Longhorn, but lacked the nacelle for the pilot so was even more draughty to fly. RFC ground crews used to say that in order to test if the aircraft was fully rigged they would release a pigeon inside the structure: if it could escape a wire was missing!

So I put my kit together thus:



I found some plans on the internet which I reduced to 1/72 scale, and got started. I cut the blanks from some 30thou card which I had bent in a section of drainpipe which had been sealed at one end and boiling water poured in, following an excellent idea of Stevehed on another site.

The wing blanks were sanded at the corners, ribs added from 10 x 20 thou Evergreen strip which was gently sanded and then varnished, and the scallop trailing edges filed and sanded to shape. I also cut the elevators and horizontal tail surfaces, and scribed the ailerons on the top wing.



The next step will be to make the moulds for the fuselage nacelle. It was only when I started looking at this in detail that I realised that this is another pusher! Well it has resolved my withdrawal symptoms.

Thanks for looking.

[rhallinger]

Very cool LM!  I love the old kites, and will watch with interest.  

Cheers,

Bob

[IanB]

Great choice! I'm looking forward to seeing how this turns out.

Ian

[Des]

What a great choice of subject LM, I love these pre war aeroplane and will be following your build closely.

Des.

[Thumbs up]

OOHh another 1/72 gem on the way

[Old Man]

Excellent choice, Sir!

You are under way to a great start, too. Those wings look very nice.

[RAGIII]

You amaze me. Look at some plans decide to build and BAM, there it is started! Great choice as the others have said!
RAGIII

[Alexis]

Will be following along on this one LM , nice job on the wings so far 




Terri

[lcarroll]

Looking forward to another of your "Wonders" LM. Great subject, an aircraft flown by hundreds of Commonwealth and other nations pilots during their training.
Cheers,
Lance

[Nigel Jackson]

Hooray for the Longhorn, LM! I'm really looking forward to seeing how this shapes up in your talented hands.

Best wishes
Nigel

[Dirigible-Al]

Definatly one of my favorite planes of the era, also one of my favorite archive photos is of a M.F. Longhorn, a Bleriot and a sail balloon all caught together and shot in Japan circa 1912. When I started writing this post I intended to put on the link but I am damed if I can find it.
Definatly looking forward to seeing this one built.

Cheers, Alan.

[lone modeller]

Thanks to all of you for the encouraging remarks. I am truly humbled by the positive comments that i I receive from all of the modellers on this forum, all of whom display talents and skill which I both admire and respect.

You amaze me. Look at some plans decide to build and BAM, there it is started! Great choice as the others have said!
RAGIII

Yes Rick that is how it happened. I do not normally start models on pure impulse but on this occasion I just wanted to do something different that would hopefully offer a challenge, and I was just thumbing through a book like you do and ……. well here I am up to my eyeballs in a scratch build rather than a conversion.

[lone modeller]

Evening All,

This one has been going slowly for a variety of reasons, not least because I have been building the fuselage nacelle and engine at the same time. I am really stuck with the engine at the moment so will post more on that later. I am also having camera problems so some of the pictures may not be too good - my apologies.

The basic nacelle was plunge moulded from 30 thou card. I made it longer than needed so that I can cut it to the exact length when I am ready. I put in a seat for the pilot and observer, control column with arms, (from which I think the name Longhorn was derived - the column is similar to the cow horn handlebars on a motorbike), a compass, control bar in front of the pilot, rudder bar, throttle (right side of cockpit), etc - all of which will be very visible on the completed model. The fuel tank was made from laminated card filed to shape. The internal frames in the nacelle were from 10 x 20 thou Evergreen strip. I found a drawing of a cockpit from a Flight Magazine of 1913 on the net which was very helpful with these details. After the nacelle halves were glued together I painted the interior and added the interior details. I also drilled a small hole under the rear of the nacelle and into the fuel tank so that I put a short piece of rod in to insert into the lower wing to make a stronger joint later. When all of this was finished I was able to trim the rear of the nacelle.





Thanks for looking.

[coyotemagic]

Brilliant start, LM!  Looking forward to the next update.
Cheers,
Bud

[Des]

She's coming along beautifully LM, the wings and the fuselage nacelle are excellent.

Des.