Lockheed U-2R/TR-1A Dragon Lady Project

The kit is presented in a rigid and resistant box with an opening at the top. 

It is made up of 5 parts of very hard plastic trees... 

... a decal sheet for 3 options (2 from the USA and 1 from Taiwan) with good looks, metal parts for the landing gear and control stick, and two vacuform canopies. 

We begin to see closely the plastic of shame... with a lot of flash... 

We begin to see closely the plastic of shame... with a lot of flash... 

Where are the pieces?? I don't see the shapes. 

We begin to see closely the plastic of shame... with a lot of flash... 

Starting to hard clean all the big pieces. Plastic is very hard... 

...with terrible injection marks. 

Cleaned main parts. 

First fit tests... 

This will have to be covered. 

The kit does not include the exhaust. 

It also does not include the inside of the air intakes. 

This plastic is so hard that it is difficult to remove the flash, and most of the pieces have to be shaped hardest with the blade and sandpaper. 

Those pieces should cover this gap. 

It becomes even more difficult because the pieces do not fit well at all and are staggered and difficult to line up, so it have to go even lower. 

Once that area has been worked hard, it must be filled. 

The cabin does not have any details, except for the control panel, the control lever (metal part) and the seat (consisting of two pieces). Still the seat back is too thick and no part fits even remotely into the "office" set. 

After a lot of work I got the cockpit to fit inside the fuselage with a minimum of decency.

For example, the seat was always higher than it should be and this prevented the canopy from closing. It was the hardest thing for me to adjust, because the plastic is very hard and it took me quite a while to lower it.

Some pilot did the small tests for the future accommodation of an astronaut figure. 

I had to do some detail to try to avoid the poor details of the cockpit. 

These are my homemade photo etches 😄😛 

Revell's Mig 1.44 parts. 

Too big. 

Cut to fit inside High Planes kit. 

Rolled brass sheet to simulate the inner tube (it is actually part of the metallic container of a caramel custard). 

Better than before, although it may not be like the real thing. 

Painted and washed. 

Turbine installed. It may not be very real, but it serves to cover the horrible emptiness of the kit's air intakes. 

Painted and washed. 

I continue with the joints of the air intakes, returning to all the previous hard work, whose fit are terrible. 

Puttying and sanded (on both sides). 

The pilot will be an astronaut from the Airfix's kit "One Step for Man...", from Apollo's moon module. 

It is made of a very soft and flexible plastic. Very difficult to sand. 

It will be a bit complicated. 

Some adjustments will have to be made to adapt the pilot to the cockpit. 

Painted pilot. Due to the difficulty of handling this material, I did not dare to remove aerospace engineering to create the impression of the S-1010B pressure suit. I don't think can see much through the canopy anyway. 

Painted cockpit. 

Painted cockpit and metal control stick placed. I suppose that little of all this will be seen with the cockpit closed. 

Pilot in place with handmade belts. 

Canopy fit is very tight touching with the pilot's helmet, but it seems that it will be able to close well. 

Applying Squadron Green Putty to correct visor deformations. 

And paint it after. 

Due to calamity of this kit, I preferred to avoid doing all the work that goes into the landing gear. So I decided to make this model in flight position. But I had to cover the gaps in the bay wheels with styrene and putty, because the kit includes the covers in the open position and these were removed at the beginning of the build. 

Fill the large gaps with strips of styrene. 

Dilute Tamiya's putty in acetone... 

...and mask to try to prevent the sanding from taking away part of the panel lines that cross the area to be putty. 

In the lower part I do the same, but with Milliput diluted in water (to test this technique with respect to the Tamiya putty). 

Are these the ends of the wings? Ouch! 

Now it has better shape. 

Joining the ends of the wings with Vallejo vinyl putty. Easy to apply, don't need to be sanded. 

Let dry a few seconds and remove with a damp cotton swab or with the finger of the hand moistened with water. 

The "super pods" need a lot of work due to the imperfections of the pieces with the flash, the number of pieces and the bad joints. 

Lots of gaps to fill. 

This is a big challenge for someone with little experience. 

There are still amorphous pieces of plastic to tame... 

... and to try put in its place once tamed. 

Much more of gaps to fill.  

... and more of gaps to fill (down a repaired super pod). 

Styrene strip to fill large gaps. The rest will be filled with putty. 

More of gaps to fill. 

Filling and sanding... is a constant in this kit. 

Job in progress and job done. 

Upper part finished... 

... and lower part too.

For the wing's joints I've used Vallejo vinyl putty. It's easily applied and removed with a damp cotton swab or with the finger of the hand moistened with water. It is useful for these cases, because it avoids sanding in delicate areas. 

High Planes did not make the gap to house the tail stabilizers... So you have to drill to make that gap. 

Gap made. 

Tail stabilizers in place. 

High Planes made very weak pins to attach the wings to the fuselage, but didn't make the holes in the fuselage to attach them. Anyway it wouldn't have done any good due to the fragility of those little pins.

I had to drill the fuselage to use a metal rod to join the wings and fuselage without them falling off in the future. 

Done... but will needs more putty (and sanding). 

This would be the result, but the wings are not attached yet. I still have to adjust the angle of attack of the wings before glue on.