PSS English Electric Lightning

So back in March I purchased from Paul Hampshire at Slope Soaring Sussex, a Flair models English Electric Lightning PSS model, which had been stripped down to the bare balsa.

My intention was to have this ready to fly in time for the PSSA event at the Great Orme in Llandudno on the 27th/28th June and also so I'd have something to fly at the PSSA event at the Bwlch in September.

So with this in mind I got down to doing some refurbishing. There wasn't that much to do really apart from a lot of sanding down, which it really needed before the iron on film went on.

It's been 35 years since I last applied shrink film to a model and I was really impressed with the stuff I bought from Hobby King, which was a fraction of the price of the more popular brands but I found was applied very easily and shrinks very well. In particular the backing peeled off very easily. I will definitely be using this stuff again.

I had originally got some paint to apply to the plastic canopy, but then as I looked at it, I had an idea and tried a different approach. This was to use coloured parcel tape which I just happened to have in the right colours. It took a bit of shaping and may look a little rough around the edges on close inspection, but from a few feet away it isn't noticeable.

So what's left to do? I have to spray paint and attach the belly bulge, find and fit a pilot figure, fit elevator & rudder servo's, battery and RX, buy some decals and chuck it off a hill on Sunday.

Heres a few pictures.