Page 5 - Jan2020
P. 5
Churchill, Manitoba
During its heyday, the Churchill Research Range, which
involved up to 200 researchers and technicians, was
Canada’s leading upper atmosphere research centre and
a world-renowned facility for sounding rocket studies. At
its peak, the military base and surrounding area had a Filling Seams and Sanding Scale Model
population of approximately 4,000 people. Aircraft
The military base closed in 1964; the barracks and Removing the seams and joint lines is necessary
support buildings were razed. All that remains are the when building model airplanes. Many assemblies
roads, which are now traversed by tourist-filled tundra often result in unnatural gaps or cracks in the
buggies in search of polar bears. Today, Churchill’s fitting. Among the most common problem areas are
population is just under 1,000. The rocket site is now the wing roots and the mating lines between both
home to the Churchill Northern Studies Centre, since it is sides of the fuselage. To produce an authentic
ideally situated along the Hudson Bay seacoast where looking aircraft model, I recommend the following
marine, northern boreal forest and tundra meet. technique.
Specifications To begin, you will need various grades of
sandpaper, including 600ALO, 400ALO, 320SIL and
The Black Brant is a solid fuel research rocket in single
150SIL. Other necessary tools include; a sharp
and multi-stage configurations. It can carry payloads of
hobby knife, a paintbrush and a container with a
70-850 kg to altitudes from 150 km to more than 1,500
km. It provides up to 20 minutes of useful time for micro- small amount of water. We will also cover the use
of model putty and Tenax-7R, a fast-dry formula
gravity experiments, auroral studies, deep space
used for welding plastic scale model parts.
observations and other extra-terrestrial research. All
Black Brants can be launched from conventional boom I should remind the reader that when building
rails or 3- or 4-fin towers. model airplanes using hazardous materials, it is very
important to have plenty of ventilation around the
Bristol Aerospace produces the Black Brant in large
enough quantities to keep the cost reasonable. The Black working space. You should also pay close attention
to all the warnings that come with each chemical,
Brant is more cost-effective than any other sounding
rocket of comparable performance. usually found on the product container.
This technique will be illustrated using the fuselage
Length: 11.28 m (37′)
parts of the aircraft model. You can begin by
Weight: 1,398 kg (3,082 lbs) welding the left and right sides using Tenax-7R.
Payload: 38 kg (84 lbs) With medium pressure, hold both sides of the
fuselage together and simply touch the entire seam
Max. Altitude: 1,062 km (660 miles)
using a paintbrush. Once you have completed the
Max. Speed: 14,045 km/h (12,800 ft/sec) application, gradually increase your hold pressure
over the next 10 seconds until you have a firm
Flight Time: 20 minutes
bond. Tenax-7R will actually fuse the plastic scale
model by slightly melting the parts together. Allow
about 5 minutes for the weld to dry and lightly
scrape off any excess chemical using a hobby knife.
Should there be any imperfections on the aircraft
model, such as gaps, pits or scratches, you can
apply model putty (filling material) using a
toothpick.
