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Project Notes

#661 Concorde

Last flight of the Concorde - the Airfix 1:114 with LED effects in 1970s travel-agent chic

Build

Notes

To my mind, Concorde was the pinnacle of our quest to conquer the sky. Sure, I much prefer to travel on a modern Airbus, but it doesn’t have the same romance.

This is a simple build of the Airfix 1:144 Concorde Gift Set commemorating its retirement from service.

The kits is actually very simple build, and does show its age a bit (flashy, minimal details, some poor fit). But it achieves the most important thing - captures the wing geometry beautifully.

Paint Scheme

It’s white!

Although I had the “gift set” boxing with Humbrol paint cups, I didn’t use them.

The pain is mostly Mr Hobby Aqueous H1 gloss white, with some black detail with Vallejo 70.950 black.

Circuit Design

A simple LED circuit powered from a 12V adapter (because I had some spare 12V LED strip):

  • each engine has two 5mm Red LEDs in series with 560Ω.
  • the 12V LED strip mounted inside the passenger cabin

bb

schematic

bb_build

Build Log

Where did the pics go? Seems like I neglected to photo the early stages of the build.

Installing the LEDs in the engine pods..

build01a

Half a styrene ball forms the stylised globe - I’m going for a 1970’s travel agent chic feel.

build02a

All mounted…

build04a build04b build04c build04d

With power applied…

build05a build05b build05c build05d

The kit captures the wing geometry beautifully (for all its other faults).

build05e

I have it flying over my desk now;-)

build06a build06b

Credits and References

About LEAP#661 LEDscale models
Project Source on GitHub Project Gallery Return to the LEAP Catalog

This page is a web-friendly rendering of my project notes shared in the LEAP GitHub repository.

LEAP is just my personal collection of projects. Two main themes have emerged in recent years, sometimes combined:

  • electronics - usually involving an Arduino or other microprocessor in one way or another. Some are full-blown projects, while many are trivial breadboard experiments, intended to learn and explore something interesting
  • scale modelling - I caught the bug after deciding to build a Harrier during covid to demonstrate an electronic jet engine simulation. Let the fun begin..
To be honest, I haven't quite figured out if these two interests belong in the same GitHub repo or not. But for now - they are all here!

Projects are often inspired by things found wild on the net, or ideas from the many great electronics and scale modelling podcasts and YouTube channels. Feel free to borrow liberally, and if you spot any issues do let me know (or send a PR!). See the individual projects for credits where due.