MOC: Sukhoi Su-24 Fencer D

[Ralph_S]

Several military buiders are is hosting a /military build competition on flickr, including myself. One of the categories in the contest is for Warsaw Pact aircraft. As one of the judges I don't participate in the contest, obviously, but it did inspire me to build something.

The Su-24 Fencer was developed in the 'seventies as a counterpart to Western strike aircraft such as the Tornado IDS and the F-111 Aardvark. At the time it was considered to be one of the most sophisticated Soviet aircraft and it caused NATO considerable worries.

Su-24M Fencer-D (1) by Mad physicist, on Flickr

Like its Western counterparts, the Fencer has variable geometry wings. On my model these are interconnected using a mechanism I developed many years ago for my F-14 Tomcats, ensuring that their movement is synchronised.

Su-24M Fencer-D (2) by Mad physicist, on Flickr

Over the years several new versions were developed. On early production models, called the Fencer-A by NATO, the aft fuselage was box-shaped. On later models it was more closely contoured around the engines. This was not easy to pull off in LEGO.

Su-24M Fencer-D (4) by Mad physicist, on Flickr

The most difficult element of this build was the vertical tail. I wanted the demarcation line between the white leading edge and the grey area to be straight. When using normal LEGO slopes to build a longer slope, there will always be steps. I solved this by using cheese slopes and making them step 1.5 plates relative to each other. It is not a new technique, but one that was tricky to apply to a construction that is just one stud wide.

Su-24M Fencer-D (5) by Mad physicist, on Flickr

Another tricky part: the landing gear. The Fencer was designed to operate from austere fields, which requires a pretty hefty undercarriage. Mine doesn't fold in exactly the same way as the real one,in which the main wheels lie flat when retracted, but looks reasonably accurate when extended and all the doors are the right shape.

Su-24M Fencer-D (11) by Mad physicist, on Flickr

The Fencer carries most of its weapons on four fuselage pylons and two pylons under the wing gloves. Two smaller pylons are mounted under the wings and obviously need to swivel to stay aligned with the fuselage as the wing sweep changes. On my model they carry AA-8 'Aphid' short range air-to-air missiles, carried for self-defense. The larger missiles on the wing glove pylon are AS-17 'Krypton' Anti-radar missiles. These are designed to home in on enemy radar emitters, such as the radar used by Patriot surface-to-air missiles. One of the hardpoints under the fuselage carries a fantasmagoria pod. This is an emitter-location system that feeds data to the AS-17s and seems to be a standard fit for Fencers used for suppression of enemy air defenses.

Some people know me as a car builder, others see me as building town, but I enjoyed returning to the thing I probably like doing best: building military aircraft.

Cheers,

Ralph

Edited May 29, 2011 by Rufus
Indexed

[Fuzzylegobricks]

Very cool! I am making a UH-60- Black Hawk Helicopter for a BIG project I am doing and

I was wondering if you have any tips for me?

[Ralph_S]

Very cool! I am making a UH-60- Black Hawk Helicopter for a BIG project I am doing and

I was wondering if you have any tips for me?

Thanks. Well, one tip that I can give you is to look around on the internet and see what other builders have done. The Blackhawk is a popular subject and there are some really good ones out there. I've got a close relative of the Blackhawk in my own collection, but it's a bit too big for minifigs, and I reckon you're looking for minifig scale.

There are also quite a few not so good ones, with obvious mistakes. Building a detailed scale mode of a real vehicle isn't particularly easy, but there are some things that aren't hard to get right -the number of rotor blades or the location of the wheels, for instance. This leads to my second piece of advice: use reference pictures and drawings. They shouldn't be hard to find on-line. I usually use a three-view drawing and work out the measurements from that for building my models. It's what I did for the Fencer too.

Cheers,

Ralph

[XimenaPaulina]

Another excellent creation Ralph! Aside from the aesthetic beauty of this build I really like the fact that the wings are actually movable and the cockpit windshield can be opened. Just curious though, is that how the cockpit glass opens (splits) in the real Su-24 Fencer D?

[Fuzzylegobricks]

*SNIP*

Thanks very much!

Edited May 2, 2011 by Fuzzylegobricks

[Ralph_S]

Another excellent creation Ralph! Aside from the aesthetic beauty of this build I really like the fact that the wings are actually movable and the cockpit windshield can be opened. Just curious though, is that how the cockpit glass opens (splits) in the real Su-24 Fencer D?

Thanks. The canopies indeed open pretty much like I built them, except that I use two rotations to get them in the right position, while on the real plane it's done with a single hinge. It's a limitation of LEGO.

Here's a picture of a Fencer-C.

SU-24 FENCER C Qarshi, Uzbekistan January 2004 by Cold War Warrior, on Flickr

It's not the same version as my plane, but the cockpit canopies didn't change.

Cheers,

Ralph

Edited May 2, 2011 by Ralph_S

[MacK]

As usual wonderful work Ralph S you're ability to recreate military vehicles is unsurpassed. The nose and tail are the main high lights of this build for me.

I never knew that some cockpit canopies opened like the Su-24's, were there other planes that had canopies like that?

I'll definitely be looking over your builds next time I attempt a fighter.

[Ralph_S]

As usual wonderful work Ralph S you're ability to recreate military vehicles is unsurpassed. The nose and tail are the main high lights of this build for me.

I never knew that some cockpit canopies opened like the Su-24's, were there other planes that had canopies like that?

I'll definitely be looking over your builds next time I attempt a fighter.

Thanks. The nose and the tail were some of the more difficult bits to build on this, so it's nice to see they are appreciated. I don't know whether there were/are any other jets that have a canopy that opens this way. I think it's more common to have hatches that are hinged on the centerline on planes that have side-by-side seating, like on the F-111.

F111_20071027_01 by eosdude, on Flickr

Cheers,

Ralph

Edited May 4, 2011 by Ralph_S

[WhiteFang]

Ralph, thank you for sharing with us on your latest military aircraft attempt. It has been quite a long while since we last saw a fighter aircraft from you. As always, you have committed time and effort to ensure your creation is almost similar to the real fighter plane. I like the fact that you made it proportional in terms of reality where the human fighter pilot is used to stimulate as the minifigure pilot in the cockpit.

I certainly enjoyed admiring your model creations.

[Ralph_S]

Ralph, thank you for sharing with us on your latest military aircraft attempt. It has been quite a long while since we last saw a fighter aircraft from you. As always, you have committed time and effort to ensure your creation is almost similar to the real fighter plane. I like the fact that you made it proportional in terms of reality where the human fighter pilot is used to stimulate as the minifigure pilot in the cockpit.

I certainly enjoyed admiring your model creations.

Thank you. It is much appreciated. It has a been while indeed. I built some helicopters last year, but only a single jet and that was way back in January. I had a few WW-II planes to build, among other things, started a new job and moved house! I'd also built so many on the previous years that I was running out of planes I wanted to build

I had great fun building this one, however, and am already thinking about building another jet in the non-too-distant future.

Cheers,

Ralph