View allAll Photos Tagged Propeller
White side up.
Red: mountain.
Dark red: partial mountain.
Blue: valley.
An update to the old plain black CP to fold this model as per the request of someone.
A Structure Synth creation rendered with Kerkythea
Script (if anybody is interested)
set background #5274A2
skyship
{fy}skyship
{x 31 y -2.5 z -39.2 ry 15}rotor
{x -33.5 y -2.5 z -39.2 ry 15 }rotor
1 * {fy } 1 * { x 31 y -2.5 z -39.2}rotor
1 * {fy} 1 * {x -33.5 y -2.5 z -39.2}rotor
{y -5 z -29.7 x -0.85 s 5 color #800000}sphere
// ship
rule skyship{
{y -0 z -1 s 0.7 1 2.5 }body
{y -0 z -30 s 2 1 1 }body
{y -0.3 z -20 s 1 1.5 1 }body
{x 31 z -35 s 0.5 1 0.5 }body
{x -33.5 z -35 s 0.5 1 0.5 }body
}
//////////// parts
rule body md 36 { // md 18 for half only
{ ry 5.625 rx 82 s 1 1 1}RingPart
{ ry 10 x 1.7 } body
}
rule RingPart{
{ y -1.5 rx -90 } roof
{ rx -30 z 2 s 2.2 4 1 color #80331a} box
}
rule roof{
{z 4 } panel
{z 6.9 rx 40 s 2.8 2 0.1 color #80331a} box
}
rule panel{
{ y -2 z 1.1 ry 90 s 4 0.5 0.5 color gray b 0.2} box
{ y -1.9 z -7 s 2.7 0.01 12 color gray b 0.8} box
}
#define blades 10
/////////////////
rule rotor md blades {
{ ry 10 rx 90 s 0.5 0.1 5 color #80331a}box
{z 8 y -2.5 rz 15 s 2 0.1 20 color gray b 1.2} box
{y -3 z 0 rx -20 rz 8 ry 5 s 0.6 0.01 1.2 color #80331a} box
{ ry 360/blades x 0.4} rotor
}
just contrast to its background. green evironment affeting greenish color of this photo. even the blue color of the engine body also looks not that blue.
A boat's propeller hung in the fisherman hut. A capture from the first roll shot with the rangefinder. A warm up filter from my old cokin set held in front of the Nokton 40/1.4 MC Classic - the 43mm ring adapter are difficult to find.
Voigtlander Bessa R3M, Voigtlander Nokton Classic 40mm F1.4 MC, Fujifilm Superia 200, F1.4, 1/60th
In celebration of the Royal Air Force - 100 years old on 1 Apr 18 - I give 'back in the day' the 'propeller-driven fighter aircraft'.
Propeller cloud.
Tried to find a name, and when backlit, each 6 teardrop group appears to have a 3 blade propeller in the midde.
And the back, with the triangle twist has a similar effect.
Molecule: glassine paper, hexagon from 20x20 cm square, 32 division grid.
Box: star paper lid, 32 division grid, Eh bottom.
Tessellation: tant paper, hexagon from 30x30 cm square, 64 division grid.
Planning to fold another one, refining the border folds.
CP: 2 version, 1 for thw 64 division grid, the other one for 32, 64 and 96 division grid.
Propellerheads were a British big beat musical ensemble, formed in 1995 and made up of electronic producers Will White and Alex Gifford.[1] The term propellerhead is slang for a nerd, and when Gifford and White heard a friend from California use this in a conversation, they thought it would be the perfect name for their band.
Propeller, Landschaftspark Duisburg, 2017
Diese nachts beleuchteten Windschaufeln sind ein beliebtes Fotomotiv im Landschaftspark Duisburg.
* * * * *
These wind shovels illuminated at night are a popular photo opportunity in the Landschaftspark Duisburg.
Specifications:
220bhp at 3,500 rpm, 7,982.81 cc, coupling rod driven single overhead camshaft inline six-cylinder engine with a 110 mm bore x 140 mm stroke, four-speed sliding pinion transmission with open propeller shaft, two SU carburetors, front and rear half elliptic leaf spring suspension, four-wheel drum brakes. Wheelbase: 156"
Walter Owen Bentley was educated at Clifton College in Bristol. He left in July 1905 at age sixteen to study engineering at King’s College in London. The course lacked a practical element and, finding theory boring, W.O. left and joined the Great Northern Railway as a premium apprentice.
W.O. spent six years at the Great Northern Railway Works at Doncaster, progressing through the various shops and finally ending up on the footplate of the company’s locomotives.
W.O’s next job was assistant to the works manager of the National Motor Cab Company where he was responsible for the maintenance of over five hundred London taxis.
Bentley’s first motorized transport was a Quadrant motorcycle. As time went on, he bought better motorbikes and began entering races and touring events. Bentley won a gold medal in the difficult London to Edinburgh trial and in 1909 competed in the Tourist Trophy but crashed his Speed King on the first lap.
W.O’s first car was a 9 hp Riley that he bought in 1910. About a year later he purchased a French Sizaire-Naudin. The path of his life could not have been predicted; this early in his life, his views on this form of transportation were not favorable. “The motor car seemed to me a disagreeable vehicle. Perhaps I should have realized the vast potentialities of internal combustion and recognized from my nursery days that it was to be the impelling force in my life. But the fact must be recorded that the motor car struck my young, literal mind as a slow, inefficient, draughty and antisocial means of transport. Motor cars splashed people with mud, frightened horses, irritated dogs and were a frightful nuisance to everybody.”
In March 1912, in partnership with his brother, Horace Milner Bentley, W.O. secured the British concession for three French motor manufacturers. Two, Buchet and La Licorne, were not considered very good and so the new company concentrated on the superior Doriet, Flandrin et Parent car. Bentley and Bentley had a showroom in Hanover Street and later in New Street Mews, off Upper Baker Street. Motor racing was a great way to promote and sell cars and W.O. began to develop the four cylinder 2,001 cc 12/15 hp D.F.P. for competition use. Humber, with a similar engine capacity, was dominating this class of racing – Bentley would soon change that.
W.O.’s first event was June 15, 1912 at Aston Clinton hill-climb where the D.F.P. easily won Class II. More modifications followed and considerable success was achieved at Brooklands, eventually averaging 81.98 mph over ten laps. After fitting alloy pistons, Bentley took the car to Paris and broke the flying half-mile record at 89.70 mph. In June 1914 Bentley finished an incredible sixth overall in the Isle of Man T.T. against out and out racing cars of much higher capacity. This competition experience led to the D.F.P. 12/40 hp, the first car in motoring history to be fitted with aluminium pistons as standard.
The First World War brought the brothers’ car sales operation to a halt. Having fitted alloy pistons to the D.F.P. car, W.O. Bentley felt that his knowledge of this technology could help the war effort. W.O. approached the Admiralty with the suggestion that this knowledge should be incorporated into aero engines used by the Royal Naval Air Service.
Lieutenant Bentley was sent to the experimental department at Rolls-Royce in Derby where his ideas were tried, even though the company had already used aluminium pistons in their Silver Ghosts in the Austrian Alpine Trial of 1913. Bentley also worked at Sunbeam and Gwynnes before he was given the opportunity to design his own aero engine.
Bentley went to Humber in Coventry where he met designer F.T. Burgess and later his old friend from his motorcycling days, now Admiralty Inspector S.C.H. Davis. Fredrick Tasker Burgess worked with W.O. to produce the Bentley Rotary aero engines the B.R. 1 and B.R. 2. Later he would work in design at Bentley Motors. W.O. said of him, “I soon recognised that we talked the same language, understood and appreciated the same things, and that he was a man in a thousand to have on design work.”
W.O. was to meet another person who would figure significantly in Bentley Motors, on an airfield in France during the war while under attack by the Red Barron. W.O.: “The adjoining canal seemed to be the only retreat left to me when a Fokker came over one day, and after a terrific hundred-yard sprint with the bullets dancing behind me, in I went with a splash and huddled under the overhanging bank. The plane’s next run across the airfield brought me company in the shape of Petty Officer (Nobby) Clarke, and side-by-side Bentley Motors’ future head racing mechanic and I huddled among the rushes, teeth chattering. The pilot who sent us there, and helped to seal a warm friendship, was Barron von Richtofen himself. I almost felt a pang of regret when Brown in a (Sopwith) Camel, powered by one of our B.R.1’s, caught him at last a year or two later.”
W.O. Bentley was awarded the M.B.E. (Member of the Order of the British Empire) for his service in World War I and the Royal Commission on Awards paid him £8,000 for his work designing the B.R.1 and 2 engines. This money would provide W.O. with the means to set up Bentley Motors. W.O. wanted to build a car. “The creative instinct is strong in most engineers, and, just as I hadn’t been satisfied for long to work on someone else’s rotary engine, so I had to produce my own car.”
After the war, in a small office in Conduit Street, Bentley began to design a new engine. He recruited F.T. Burgess from Humber and Harry Varley from Vauxhall. By September 1919 the design was complete and all the parts manufactured. Nobby Clarke, chief mechanic of one of the R.N.A.S. squadrons that had used Bentley rotary engines, was hired to assemble the first car engine.
The 2,996 cc four-cylinder engine followed the current customary long stroke, high efficiency principals with maximum power developed at just 3,500 rpm. The engine was successfully run for the first time at New Street Mews at the beginning of October and a mock-up chassis was made ready for the Olympia Motor Show in London.
The car made an immediate impression, with a tall, imposing radiator and winged Bentley badge that had been designed by famous motoring artist, F. Gordon Crosby. The Autocar reported that, “The Bentley chassis stands alone in its class as a car designed to give that peculiar and almost perfect combination of tractability and great speed usually to be found on machines built for racing, and racing only.”
Of course Bentley would go on to achieve incredible success in motor racing for many years, winning the Twenty-Four Hours at Le Mans four times in a row during the twenties. Bentley’s drivers included Woolf Barnato, Sir Henry ‘Tim’ Birkin, Jack Barclay, Glen Kidston and George Duller. The Bentley Boys, as they were known, would become part of the Bentley legend. W.O.’s policy was to “race on Sunday, sell on Monday.”
S.C.H. Davis gave a 3.0-liter Bentley with an open four-seater tourer body its first road test for The Autocar in January 1920. Bentley moved to a factory in Oxgate Lane in Cricklewood where the Bentley cars were assembled. The first customer 3.0-liter was delivered in August 1921. Bentley would go on to produce models of 4.5-liters and 6.5-liters and finally between 1930 and 1931 the mighty 8-Litre.
The 8-Litre was basically an enlarged version of the Speed Six. It had a new lower chassis frame, with out-set rear springs and an ‘F’ series gearbox differing from all previous Bentley designs with its casing split down the centre, as opposed to the square box with a lid on top which was used in all earlier cars. This layout allowed for larger bearings which provided extra strength and reduced engine noise.
The first 8-Litres appeared at the Olympia Motor Show in October 1930 and created a sensation. This magnificent machine would top 100 mph with limousine coachwork and eight people inside.
Bentley’s Sales Manager Arthur Hillstead in his book, Those Bentley Days, wrote. “Eight litres! Nearly three times the cubic capacity of the never-to-be-forgotten 3! And what a motor it was! Having a six-cylinder engine with a bore and stroke of 110 mm by 140 mm respectively, and a top-gear speed range (with a ratio of 3.5 to 1) of a minimum of 6 mph and a maximum of 104 mph – what more could man ask for? Yes, indeed; and add to that an acceleration capacity of 10 mph to 100 mph in 50 seconds with a fully equipped saloon body, and surely we had the answer to the sporting motorist’s prayer? The sporting motorist! Speed cum refinement in its highest form! A creation evolved from years of racing experience!”
The 8-Litre was clearly aimed to go head to head with the Rolls-Royce Phantom II, challenging to be the best car in the world, although Hillstead was impressed by the fact that the Bentley outperformed the supercharged Mercedes of that time, on both acceleration and maximum speed, “but it performed with a silence that was uncanny.” He said, “There was nothing like it in the world.”
The 8-Litre was clearly aimed to go head to head with the Rolls-Royce Phantom II, challenging to be the best car in the world, although Hillstead was impressed by the fact that the Bentley outperformed the supercharged Mercedes of that time, on both acceleration and maximum speed, “but it performed with a silence that was uncanny.” He said, “There was nothing like it in the world.”
It would have been interesting to see what developed in this rivalry but Bentley was in deep financial trouble. Bentley Motors effectively ended in 1931 when they notified London Life that they would be unable to make their June 30th mortgage payment. W.O. was confident that the company would continue under the proposed new ownership of Napiers of Acton, London. The receiver’s sale of Bentley’s assets was regarded to be a formality, but in the Royal Courts of Justice in London’s Strand a barrister representing the British Central Equitable Trust made a counter offer, much to everyone’s astonishment. Napier immediately offered more, but the judge informed the court that he was not an auctioneer and gave the two parties until 4.30 in the afternoon to come back with sealed bids. W.O. said, “I don’t know by how much precisely Napier were out-bidded, but the margin was very small, a matter of a few hundred pounds. All I knew that evening was that the deal would not be going through after all.”
Later W.O. commented on the bankruptcy. He said, “When people ask me (and they are too tactful to do so often) why Bentleys went bust, I usually give three reasons: the slump, the 4-Litre car, and the ‘blower’ 41/2s; in proportions of about 70, 20 and 10% respectively.”
Following the court case, it became apparent that the B.C.E.T. was representing Rolls-Royce. Having acquired all of Bentley’s assets, including the design of the 8-Litre, it is perhaps telling that the model was never again produced. Napier’s original bid had been for £103,675, their sealed bid £104,775. Rolls-Royce paid £125,256.
After the acquisition of Bentley by Rolls-Royce, Walter Owen Bentley was asked to call at Rolls-Royce’s London offices to see Sir Henry Royce. Royce, like Bentley, had started working life on the Great Northern Railway. Bentley said, “It might be called an exploratory interview, I suppose, and I have often wondered what was its purpose.”
Royce asked, “I believe you’re a commercial man, Mr. Bentley?”
Bentley replied, “Well, not really, primarily, I suppose I’m more a technical specialist.”
Royce, in some surprise, said, “You’re not an engineer, then, are you?”
“Yes, I suppose you could call me that.” Bentley replied. “I think you were a boy in the G.N. running sheds at Peterborough a bit before I was a premium apprentice at Doncaster.” This was accepted with a nod, W.O. recalled, and he was then offered a job, “on not ungenerous terms…”
The first Rolls-Royce built Bentley was the 31/2 Litre. W.O. was heavily involved in the testing of this car, which became known as ‘The Silent Sports Car’. W.O. loved it.
Bentley were Rolls-Royce’s greatest rivals, but there was great mutual respect between the two men and admiration for the cars that they produced. The Bentley 8-Litre was superior to the Phantom II in a number of respects. Royce considered buying one, but rejected the idea. He said, “We can see in which way it can be better than we are.”
Chassis no. YR5076
Only one hundred 8-Litre Bentleys were built. The car presented here, chassis number YR5076, has its original open tourer coachwork by R. Harrison and Son, who were established in 1883. This incredibly handsome car has velvet green paintwork with a green leather interior and is in beautiful condition.
The 8-Litre was the last car designed by W.O. Bentley and of the hundred examples built, seventy-eight are still in existence today. Only sixteen 8-Litres were built with open bodywork,
six drophead coupés and ten open tourers; only twelve of these open cars survive today with their original coachwork. YR5076 is one of these extremely rare cars.
This car was delivered to Mr. W.B. Henderson, of Somerset, England on January 3, 1931 and was subsequently owned by G.R. Wilson and Lt. Col. A.J.A. Beck before being shipped to the United States in 1953 by Leo Pavelle from New York. The car then became the property of Bill Klein, who then had the largest collection of Bentleys in the world. The car remained in America in the ownership of Jimmy Black from Tennessee, Johnnie Bassett, Ed Jurist, Wayne Brooks and then David Van Schaick, who showed the car at Pebble Beach in 1989. YR5076 returned to the U.K. in 1995 having been sold to Richard Procter, the odometer showing just 43,000 miles, which was believed to be correct. The Bentley was restored during this time and was repainted and retrimmed. It was then sold to William Connor II in Hong Kong.
This car, chassis number, YR5076 has always been maintained to a very high standard and represents an exceptional opportunity to own one of these elegant, rare, high-speed touring cars. It is ready to be enjoyed at important events around the world.
[Text from RM Auctions]
www.rmauctions.com/lots/lot.cfm?lot_id=218906
This Lego miniland-scale Bentley 8-Litre Open Tourer YR5076 (1931 - Harrsion), has been created for Flickr LUGNuts' 89th Build Challenge, - "Over a Million, Under a Thousand", - a challenge to build vehicles valued over one million (US) dollars, or under one thousand (US) dollars.
This particular vehicle was auctioned by the RM Auction house on Saturday March 8, 2008, 2010, where it sold for $2,200,000.
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
I.M.A.M. (Industrie Meccaniche e Aeronautiche Meridionali) was an Italian aircraft manufacturer based in Naples. Originally, the company was part of the Officine Ferroviarie Meridionali ("Southern Railway Works"), which began to manufacture aircraft in 1923. From 1925 Fokker aircraft were built under license and I.M.A.M. also manufactured aircraft for Fiat.
The aircrafts’ abbreviation “Ro” before the number means Romeo. This abbreviation had been used by all types since 1925 and was derived from the surname of the company’s owner, Nicola Romeo, who was also the owner of a Milanese automobile and aircraft engine manufacturer (effectively, the designation lived on in the car manufacturer Alfa Romeo).
In 1934, Società Anonima Industrie Aeronautiche Romeo, which was founded for this purpose, took over this part of the now insolvent railway supplier and it immediately started with the construction of own aircraft. In 1936, Breda took over the Romeo works and finally formed the Società Anonima Industry Meccaniche e Aeronautiche Meridionali.
I.M.A.M. aircraft were not particularly successful, though, the few notable constructions were the reconnaissance aircraft Ro.37, the Ro.43 seaplane and the Ro.70 fighter, which were all only produced in limited numbers, though. The Ro.70 was designed in response to a late 1939 tender for a fighter built around the Daimler-Benz DB 601, built in license as the Alfa Romeo RA.1000 R.C.41-I Monsone liquid-cooled V-12 engine, rated at 1,175 PS (864 kW). The all-metal, semi-monocoque fuselage was basically oval in cross-section, changing to a tapered, semi-triangular oval behind the cockpit canopy, with a maximum depth of 1.35 m (4 ft 5 in). Overall, the aircraft's outlines reminded a lot of the german Bf 109E, but the Ro.70 had overall bigger dimensions.
An unusual feature of the Ro.70 was that the engine bearers were constructed as an integral part of the forward fuselage, with the cowling side panels being fixed. For servicing or replacement, only the top and bottom cowling panels could be removed. A tapered, rectangular supercharger air intake was located on the port-side cowling. Behind the engine bulkhead were the ammunition boxes feeding a pair of synchronized 12.7 mm Breda-SAFAT machine guns which were set in a "staggered" configuration (the port weapon slightly further forward than that to starboard) in a bay just above and behind the engine. The breeches partly projected into the cockpit, above the instrument panel. The ammunition capacity was limited, having only around 250 rounds for each weapon. A single 20mm MG 151/20 cannon of German production was mounted between the cylinder banks, firing though the propeller hub.
A self-sealing fuel tank with a capacity of 165 L (44 US gal) was located behind the pilot's seat. The windshield was armored and there was a 13 mm (.51 in) armor plate behind the pilot. The radiator and oil cooler for the liquid-cooled engine were in a ventral location below the fuselage and wing trailing edge, covered by a rectangular section fairing with a large, adjustable exit flap.
The evenly-tapered wings had an aspect ratio of 7.2 with a gross area of 20 m² (215.28 ft²) and featured three spars; a Warren truss main spar and two auxiliary spars. The rear spar carried the split flaps and long, narrow-chord ailerons, while the front spar incorporated the undercarriage pivot points. The undercarriage track, which retracted inwards, was relatively wide at 4 m (13 ft 1.5 in). Each wing had a partially self-sealing 190 L (50 US gal) fuel tank behind the main spar, just outboard of the fuselage. A single weapon (initially 7.7 mm Breda-SAFAT machine guns with 500 RPG) was able to be carried in a weapons bay located behind the main spar.
The first prototype first flew in December 1941 at I.M.A.M. factory airfield near Naples. Although test pilots were enthusiastic about its self-sealing fuel tanks, upgraded armament, and good dive performance, the wing loading of 146.3 kg/m² (30 lb/ft²) at an all-up weight of 2,950 kg (6,500 lb) was viewed with skepticism by many of the senior officers and pilots of the Regia Aeronautica, who still believed in the light, highly maneuverable, lightly armed fighter.
Besides, by the time it first flew, one year after the Macchi C.202's first flight and three years after the first Bf 109E, the engine was already underpowered compared to the new 1,120 kW (1,500 hp) inline or 1,491 kW (2,000 hp) radial engines being developed (and already nearing the mass-production stage) to power the next generation of combat aircraft such as the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt.
But due to the waging war the Ro.70 was put into production using imported DB 601Aa engines, while Alfa Romeo set up license production of the respective powerplant. Due to initial delays in engine production and quality issues, production rates and numbers of effectively operational aircraft were low. Consequently, by late 1942, Macchi Folgores outnumbered the Ro.70 and all other fighter aircraft in the Regia Aeronautica and became the Italian standard fighter.
The Ro.70’s first deployment was during the Battle of Bir Hakeim (26 May 1942 – 11 June 1942), in which a dozen of the new fighters performed successfully against Desert Air Force fighters, using "dive and zoom" tactics, similar to those of the German Luftwaffe, scoring two air victories. At the end of the year, the growing strength of the Allied forces was overwhelming and after the defeat in the skies over Malta as well as El-Alamein the last operational Axis units lost their air superiority in the Mediterranean.
The Ro.70s continued fighting while retreating to Tunisia and then in the defense of Sicily, Sardinia and Italy against an increasingly stronger Allied opponent. Eventually, after roundabout 180 aircraft had been delivered to the Regia Aeronautica, the I.M.A.M. factory was captured by Allied troops in September 1943, with the facilities and many airframes intact. From this stock, a further 30 aircraft in various states of assembly were made airworthy and immediately allocated to the Italian Co-Belligerent Air Force (Aeronautica Co-Belligerante, ACI), also known as Air Force of the South (Aeronautica del Sud). 15 more machines were built from spares and surplus parts until February 1944, two of these machines were sent to the United States for flight evaluation.
The ACI's Ro.70s never operated over Italian territory, its objectives being always in the Balkans (Yugoslavia or Albania). This was a general order to avoid any possible encounter between Italian-manned aircraft fighting on opposite sides, since the National Republican Air Force (Aeronautica Nazionale Repubblicana, or ANR) was ostensibly part of the forces of the Benito Mussolini's Fascist state in northern Italy and fighting on the Axis’ side. During the entire history of ACI, though, no encounter, let alone combat, was ever reported between ACI and ANR aircraft.
Clashes with Italian aircraft still occurred, though, e. g. over Croatia in 1944, where about 20–22 C.202s were used by Croatia as interceptors of Allied bombers by the Air Force of the Independent State of Croatia (Zrakoplovstvo Nezavisne Države Hrvatske/ZNDH). Ro.70s of the 51° Stormo Caccia, based in Lecce, claimed a total of three victories against the Croatian forces over the Adriatic Sea and near Mostar.
General characteristics:
Crew: One
Length: 8.94 m (29 ft 4 in)
Wingspan: 12.00 m (39 ft 4 in)
Height: 3.70 m (12 ft 2 in)
Wing area: 20.00 m² (215.28 ft²)
Airfoil: NACA 2R 16 wing root, NACA 24009 tip
Internal fuel capacity: 550 l (121 Imp gal)
Empty weight: 2,630 kg (5,800 lb)
Loaded weight: 3,470 kg (7,650 lb)
Powerplant:
1× Alfa Romeo RA.1000 R.C.41-I Monsone liquid-cooled supercharged inverted V-12 engine,
rated at 1,175 PS (864 kW) at 2,500 rpm for takeoff
Performance:
Maximum speed: 580 km/h (360 mph) at 5,000 m (16,405 ft)
Range: 580 km (360 mi)
Service ceiling: 11,600 m (38,100 ft)
Rate of climb: 15.2 m/s (2,983 ft/min)
Wing loading: 173.5 kg/m² (35.5 lb/ft²)
Power/mass: 0.25 kW/kg (0.15 hp/lb)
Time to altitude: 7.0 min to 5,000 m (16,405 ft)
Armament:
1× 20 mm MG 151/20 cannon, 200 rounds, firing though the propeller hub
2× 12.7 mm (0.50”) Breda-SAFAT machine guns with 250 RPG above the engine
2× 7.7 mm (0.303”) Breda-SAFAT machine guns with 500 RPG in the outer wings*;
*these were later often replaced by another pair of 12.7 mm (0.50”) Breda-SAFAT machine guns
with 300 RPG or two 20mm (0.787”) machine cannon with 150 RPG.
2× underwing hardpoints for 2x 200 l (44 Imp gal) drop tanks or bombs of up to 250 kg (550 lb) caliber
The kit and its assembly:
This Italian whif is both a simple and a complicated affair, because it is a travestied Kawasaki Ki-61 that fits into a small historic slot.
The Hasegawa kit was mostly built OOB, it is simple and easy to build - except for the sprue attachment points which extend on many parts onto the surfaces that are glued together. What did the Hasegawa engineers think, if they thought at all about it? O.K., it's just a matter of cleaning the parts, but that's an avoidable flaw!?
Only three small modifications were made:
- The wing tips were clipped into a square shape
- The stabilizers were replaced in order to match the wings' new outline
- I gave the kit a different spinner (from a Matchbox He 111, plus a central gun port)
The OOB drop tanks were left away, and I lowered the flaps since this was easy to realize. I also added short gun barrels to the wings, and the tail wheel became retractable through a pair of small covers.
Painting and markings:
This was supposed to become one of the machines that were found by Allied forces at the I.M.A.M. plant. Originally, it was built and painted according to German standards, but, as operational war bounty, its former markings were painted over, it received US markings and was quickly handed over to the co-belligerent air force. Hence, inspired by Allied aircraft like former USAAF P-39s that were operated by the ACI, the Italian roundels were simply and quickly painted over the US "Stars and Bars" markings.
Consequently, I gave the Ro.70 a conservative German splinter scheme in RLM 74/75/76 with some RLM 02 mottles added to the flanks and a black propeller spinner with a white spiral.
The cockpit interior was painted in "Verde anticorrosione", which is a unique Italian tone and a relatively bright and intense green, I used Modelmaster's RLM83, which comes IMHO close. The landing gear interior was painted in aluminium (Humbrol 56)
As Allied ID markings for the Mediterranean TO I added yellow bands on the wings and around the fuselage (created with yellow decal sheet, except for the nose ring, which was painted with Humbrol 69). Inspired by Allied aircraft like former USAAF P-39s that were operated by the ACI, the Italian roundels received additional bars. These had the star simple painted over by the Italian roundel, sometimes the bar was overpainted, too, and I adapted this weird detail. The place where a former Regia Aeronautica tactical code or national marking had been placed was overpainted with US olive drab (Neutral Grey under the wings), and the new code letter placed on top of that. Since the aircraft would have been pressed quickly into service, I did not give it any other extra markings beyond the code letter.
Finally, some soot stains around the gun nozzles and the exhausts were created with graphite and the wings' leading edges treated with dry-brushed light grey, before the kit was sealed with matt acrylic varnish (Italeri).
A relatively simple what-if model, but an exotic an effective one: a Japanese aircraft in a German livery, outfitted with US "Stars & Bars" eventually in Italian hands! The paint finish turned out nicely, as well as the mottled fuselage flanks (always a challenge, esp. w/o an airbrush).
No time for images today so it’s a simple poster to Instagram image of my Magnolia with flowers that look like pink propellers.
A simple tess, combining rhombus and triangle twists May have been created previously.
Alios kraft paper, hexagon from 30x30 square, 48 division grid.