Fonderie-Miniature 1/48 SE.2415 Grognard II
Hi everyone!
This is my Fonderie Miniature 1/48 SE 2415 Grogard II, built in 2003.
The Grognard was designed by SNCASE as a single-seat, low-level ground-attack aircraft. Although in development in the 1950s for the French Armée de l’Air, the program was cancelled in favor of the Sud-Ouest Vautour II. It started as SE2410, a spectacular design, with two stacked Nene jet engines fed by a single dorsal inlet in a compact, bulbous fuselage with the single cockpit at extreme front.
I bought this kit when I was on a mission in France in 2003. I didn’t know this plane existed. The kit is multimedia with rough textured and with a lot of flash, but nicely detailed, soft (…workable…) styrene main fuselage and wing parts, beautiful resin cockpit, instrument panel, seat, wheels, wheel wells…nice white metal gear legs and smaller details (even a camera positioned in the cockpit for filming purposes, as it was a prototype), two nice vacform canopies and good looking decals.
Of course, being a Fonderie-Miniature kit, it took some (!…) effort to put together (filing, filling, sanding, filling, sanding…you know the story). From what I can recall, the styrene parts fitted OK. Work needed to be done as to succeed fitting the resin wells and cockpit to the fuselage, but once you install them they look beautiful. It’s a pity the wheel wells can only be seen a little, due to molded closed main gear doors.
Since the plane was bare metal, I gave the model a coat of Humbrol silver after a lot good progressive sanding of the external surfaces up to 2000 grit.
The decals behaved beautifully, as long I was extremely gentle with them (better safe than sorry), since they looked thin and fragile. Clear varnish sealed everything. It would be interesting to try various metal shades and not having a monotone silver fuselage, but I would leave it to the pros, and anyway photos of the real thing do not show any serious metal shade variation.
The canopy – alas, as always hand painted cause I’m lazy to do masking – was very clear, yellowed a bit after all these years (as well as the varnish at some spots).
So here is my rendition of this gorgeous girl (my less than average skills doing the best they could). Look at this air intake on top of fuselage….behind the canopy. How on earth they thought to put the intake right there? The canopy – and the whole front! – would aerodynamically shadow it, especially at positive angles of attack! The poor engines would stall! Or not quite so? Reports state that test results were good! Go figure…..
Challenging kit, but had so much fun building it.
What a strangely beautiful plane!
Keep safe and be strong! We will prevail!
Happy modeling!
John Healy said on March 27, 2020
That’s unique and very well done. Thanks for sharing.
Spiros Pendedekas said on March 27, 2020
Thank you very much John!
Haslam Yeoman said on March 27, 2020
Most F.M. kits make you work hard, even more so to get a quality metal finish. Well done.
Spiros Pendedekas said on March 27, 2020
Thanks a lot Haslam!
Rodney J. Williams said on March 27, 2020
AWSOME “BM” MODEL…….. Spiros!!!!. I never saw this model in any hobby shop and/or on line……. Rodney
Spiros Pendedekas said on March 27, 2020
Thank you very much Rodney!
Greg Kittinger said on March 27, 2020
Seems apropos that the French put wings on the Hunchback of Notre Dame! Nice looking odd little model! Well done.
Spiros Pendedekas said on March 27, 2020
Ah, those lovely French designers….Thanks for the comment, Greg!
George Henderson said on March 27, 2020
A very sleek looking finish. Well done
Spiros Pendedekas said on March 27, 2020
Thanks a lot, my friend!
Robert Knaack said on March 27, 2020
Like John said, “Unique and well done!”
Spiros Pendedekas said on March 27, 2020
Thanks Robert!
Robert Royes said on March 27, 2020
Now this is some thing different, looks great! Be well.
Spiros Pendedekas said on March 28, 2020
Thank you very much Robert!
Tom Cleaver said on March 27, 2020
“If it’s weird, it’s French!” Beautiful rendition of one weird airplane. And an obvious triumph of bullheaded obstinacy over plastic, to get a Fonderies Miniatures kit to look this good.
Spiros Pendedekas said on March 28, 2020
Thank goodness Marcel Dassault was a believer of the opinion “if it looks right it will fly right”. I don’t think he was in the Grognard team….
Glad you like my model, Tom.
Shun said on March 28, 2020
Hi, Spiros.
What a weird and beautiful bird!
Spiros Pendedekas said on March 28, 2020
It’s a weirdly beautiful bird, Shun! Can it get more weird? Yes, if you are a French designer. Check the Leduc picture below….
Thanks for the nice comments!
1 attached image. Click to enlarge.
Shun said on March 28, 2020
Oui, c’est le Leduc! Je l’adore.
George R Blair Jr said on March 28, 2020
Great looking model. I’m not sure I would want to eject out of the plane with the intake right behind the cockpit.
Spiros Pendedekas said on March 28, 2020
Thanks George!
What were those designers thinking?…