Piper PA 47 by Amodel

1/72 scale
Kit No. 72343
Cost: $36.99
Decals: One pre-production version
Comments: Engraved panel lines and recessed rivet detail; above average cockpit detail but no internal cabin parts; part for cockpit windscreen may require skill at seam-hiding

History

The Piper PA-47 “Piper Jet” was an effort by Piper Aircraft to produce a single-engined very light jet (VLJ) and help fill a niche market for such aircraft. However, the project was hampered by ballooning development costs and an economic downturn. As sound a product as it was, the PA-47 never made it into serial production despite having secured some 180 pre-orders from various international customers. After a project review by the company, the PA-47 was abandoned in October 2008 in favor of the externally very similar Piper Jet Altaire.

The Altaire had a larger, rounded fuselage mounted on top of an expanded-chord wing. A shorter vertical empennage was located slightly aft, on top of an elongated engine nacelle. The new configuration provided a somewhat roomier cabin, nine inches taller and four inches wider than the earlier PiperJet design. In addition, the Altaire had a three-foot-wide cabin door. The sole PA-47 prototype made the rounds of several air shows during its brief time in the limelight. It first flew on July 30, 2008 and Piper planned to place it into production in early 2010. Unfortunately, Piper would ultimately cancel the Piper Jet program in October 2011.

Simon Caldecott, CEO of Piper Aircraft at the time, was quoted as saying that “The market for light jets is not recovering sufficiently and quickly enough to allow us to continue developing the [PiperJet] program under the economic circumstances we face.” It was simple economics: development costs had risen above what was deemed recoverable in the market for very light business jets at that time. Upon its cancellation, the Piper Jet had a price tag of $2.7 million per unit.

The PA-47’s primary competition was the Cessna Citation line and Eclipse Aerospace EA500. The PA-47 featured a sleek, compact single-engine airframe with a tricycle undercarrage and the cockpit situated behind a long, pointed nose cone. Garmin provided the avionics suite with an all-digital, all-glass console. Its swept-back wing mainplanes were just aft of amidships and tipped with upward canted winglets, with a single vertical tail and a pair of low-set horizontal stabilizers rounding out the control surfaces.

The engine was unusual due to its position, integrated into the base of the vertical tail with a straight-through duct design, similar to that seen on the McDonnell Douglas DC-10. Fitting the engine aft in this way altered the PA-47’s center of gravity but made for a quieter ride for passengers. It could seat six or seven passengers with two flight crew — although very light jets could be certified for single pilots in civilian airspace. The PA-47 had a top speed of 416 mph and a ceiling of 36,089 feet, and featured a range of 1,494 miles. It was powered by a single Williams FJ44-3AP turbofan capable of 2,820 pounds of thrust.

The cancellation of the Piper Jet may have been caused in part by rising development costs associated with directional stability problems, which can be triggered by airframe configurations involving a single, dorsally mounted turbojet powerplant. Whatever the ultimate cause, with the cancellation of the PA-47 light aviation lost an innovative addition to its community from a distinguished manufacturer of small private aircraft.

Construction

Assembling this kit was fairly straightforward, with no major challenges except for the windshield, a clear part that was large enough to form the roof of the cockpit. More on that later. You begin with the cockpit which is fairly well detailed for the scale, including seats, instrument panel hood, dual bomber-style control wheels, rudder pedals, blank sidewalls and a rear bulkhead. There is also a small center console with what appears to be a separate throttle control lever. The cockpit goes together smoothly — the seats are nicely done with engraved detail and the only complaint a modeler might have at this stage is that there is a decal for the instrument panel instead of raised detail.

There is a four-part engine assembly consisting of intake and exhaust faces bearing fan blade detail, with two halves forming a small cylinder between them. The cockpit assembly and nose gear well, like the engine, are cemented into the right fuselage half before the fuselage is closed up. This stage also calls for gluing in the cabin windows, but since they are to be cemented in place from the outside, this can and should wait until after the painting is complete to save you the effort of masking them all.

I have always found clear parts for windshields that include the roof of the cockpit to be problematic, and much prefer clear parts that form the windshield/window only. The larger clear parts that include a portion of the airframe complicate both the painting and the seam hiding. The required masking can often be overcome with sheer patience, but the challenge with the seam hiding is the problem you run into with the inevitable sandng.

The chemical composition of clear plastic (acrylic) and regular injection molded plastic is different — clear acrylic plastic is usually denser and therefore stronger, and sands down at a slower rate than regular plastic, so if you are not careful your sanding can produce unwanted depressions in the airframe around the clear plastic part that will still be visible after painting. This is a pain, because if your goal is to remove all traces of the seam, you must sand in the very area that is vulnerable to becoming the site of the aforementioned unwanted depression. All that said, I did the best I could with the Piper Jet’s windshield, and the results were imperfect.  Personally, I wish Amodel would abandon this practice with their windshields and give us parts that are windows and nothing more.

When building fighters that generally have much more straightforward canopies, I address any imperfections I have not been able to buff out, wipe off, or obliterate with careful application of a toothpick, by dipping them in Future floor polish. I did not have that option here, since the windshield was already a part of the airframe, and airbushing on clear gloss in my experience makes the windows look a bit frosty, as though condensation has built up on them. With the Piper Jet I resorted to application of Testors Clear Gloss with a paintbrush — with mostly good results.

These complaints aside, the rest of the kit was a breeze and fell together as though made by Hasegawa. There are no locator pins anywhere so you will need to choose your glues or adhesives carefully. For the most part I used Revell Contacta cement with great results. Nearly all the small bits (blade antenna, aileron actuators, and a tiny external cabin door handle) I cemented on in advance of painting, leaving only the pitot tube mounted at the nose for last.

Painting

The trepidation with this kit — and what I thought would be the hardest part — was masking the fuselage to mimic the unusual curved line of demarcation separating the two-tone white-over-blue paint scheme. I used 1.5mm masking tape (Micron masking tape) made by Aizu of Japan, with excellent results. Some touch-up painting was necessary, but overall this tape worked beautifully. The Piper Jet is airbrushed in acrylics, Tamiya X-2 Gloss White over Humbrol’s RC404, a color called Garter Blue. This was my first use of Humbrol acrylics and they work quite well, but they cannot be thinned with anything other than acrylic thinner (I settled on Tamiya acrylic thinner after trying distilled water and then alcohol with poor results). The other thing I noticed about Humbrol’s Garter Blue was that it came out darker than I anticipated, and like Tamiya matt colors, had a definite texture to it, only more pronounced than Tamiya’s.

Markings

Overall I have never been very impressed with Amodel’s decals — they are not terribly strong, are often too flat in their finish, and this manufacturer seems to have difficulty producing truly realistic, vibrant colors. Often that lack of vibrant color is not a big deal with military kits, but the Piper jet is a civilian aircraft. Add to that the fact that the Garter Blue was darker than expected and to my eye clashed with the hue of the blue flashes that made up a good portion of the kit decals. For these reasons, I did not use the flashes but found the other markings (serial number and wing fuel tank caps) very satisfactory.

Conclusion

This is a great weekend kit that assembles easily (other than its windshield) and with its attractive lines is a nice change of pace from the standard Lear Jet/Cessna Citation types of light civilian aircraft. It’s just too bad that it never entered production. Highly recommended.

References

• Aircraft International Online ~ ainonline.com
• militaryfactory.com
• forcastinternational.com