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Piles of old standardized tests fill a corridor in an abandoned school in Daejeon, South Korea. I hope the students did well.
The Patella Bridge in New Westminster area of BC, as seen through window of the Sky Train. The smaller bridge in front is the Railway Bridge and just visible behind both on right side (the triangular lines) is the Sky Train Bridge. The latter bridge can be seen more clearly in one of my earlier photos.
Multiple exposure during a maternity shoot in Bowral.
Nikon F4. AF Nikkor 50mm F1.4D lens. ADOX Silvermax 100 35mm B&W film.
Under its multiple-use and sustained yield mandates, the BLM manages public rangelands for various uses and values, including livestock grazing, recreational opportunities, healthy watersheds, and wildlife habitat. These lands preserve the open spaces that continue to shape the character of the West.
The overall goal of the BLM’s rangeland management program is to ensure the health and productivity of public rangelands for the use and enjoyment of current and future generations.
To achieve desired conditions on the public lands, the BLM uses rangeland health standards and guidelines. The BLM developed these standards and guidelines in the 1990s with input from citizen-based Resource Advisory Councils across the West. Standards describe specific conditions needed for public land health, such as the presence of streambank vegetation and adequate canopy and ground cover. Guidelines are the management techniques designed to achieve or maintain healthy public lands, as defined by the standards. For example, this may include seed dissemination and periodic rest, or deferment, from grazing in specific allotments during critical growth periods.
The BLM manages livestock grazing on 155 million acres of those lands. The terms and conditions for grazing on BLM-managed lands (such as stipulations on forage use and season of use) are set forth in the permits and leases issued by the BLM to public land ranchers.
Photo by Miles City Field Office, BLM.
I received a call at work about 11:30am on Monday telling me that my younger son was involved in a car accident and to go to the hospital. He was driving and was t-boned on the driver's side. Except for bruises, the passenger was fine as well as the man who was driving the truck. My son had a hematoma in his brain, a lacerated spleen, five broken ribs, a broken jaw, multiple facial fractures, a small pneumothorax, and two broken collarbones, one of them severely displaced.
Fortunately, we saw improvement in the two most threatening things, the hematoma in his brain and the lacerated spleen. By Wednesday night he was moved out of the ICU to a regular room. Thursday he had two surgeries, one for his broken jaw, which was realigned and wired. And the other for the one broken collarbone that was severely displaced.
The surgeries went well and he feels, and so do we, that he's on the road to recovery. As of Thursday night, we were waiting to hear from the doctors when he might be released
81/366.
Mike Bell, Jodi Bell==
Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation Laugh for Life==
Pier 60, NYC==
May 2, 2017==
©Patrick McMullan==
Photo - Sylvain Gaboury/PMC==
==
Created this through one photo. Reversed and changed it upside down along with changing RGB Curves .
One of the pieces in my ap studio art 2d concentration. I wanted to go for a less dark/creepy look, which is what most of my pieces have been like so far. So here it is! :) I'm also aware there is a large flaw to this photo, but if you can't see it than I'm not going to point it out to you.. So embarrassing -___-. Comment/rate/whatever! Post feedback if you can!
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The AH-64 Apache originally started as the Model 77 developed by Hughes Helicopters for the United States Army's Advanced Attack Helicopter program to replace the AH-1 Cobra. The prototype YAH-64 was first flown on 30 September 1975. The U.S. Army selected the YAH-64 over the Bell YAH-63 in 1976, and later approved full production in 1982. After purchasing Hughes Helicopters in 1984, McDonnell Douglas continued AH-64 production and development. The helicopter was introduced to U.S. Army service in April 1986. The first production AH-64D Apache Longbow, an upgraded Apache variant, was delivered to the Army in March 1997. Production has been continued by Boeing Defense, Space & Security, and more than 2,000 AH-64s have been produced to date.
The Boeing AH-64 Apache is a four-blade, twin-turboshaft attack helicopter with a tailwheel-type landing gear arrangement and a tandem cockpit for a two-man crew. It features a nose-mounted sensor suite for target acquisition and night vision systems. It is armed with a 30 mm (1.18 in) M230 chain gun carried between the main landing gear, under the aircraft's forward fuselage. It has four hardpoints mounted on stub-wing pylons, typically carrying a mixture of AGM-114 Hellfire missiles and Hydra 70 rocket pods. The AH-64 has a large amount of systems redundancy to improve combat survivability.
The U.S. Army is the primary operator of the AH-64; it has also become the primary attack helicopter of multiple nations, including Greece, Japan, Israel, the Netherlands, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates; as well as being produced under license in the United Kingdom as the AgustaWestland Apache. American AH-64s have served in conflicts in Panama, the Persian Gulf, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Israel used the Apache in its military conflicts in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip; British and Dutch Apaches have seen deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Studies for a naval version of the Apache were begun during 1984 and since that time the McDonnell Douglas Helicopter Company has proposed several modified Apaches to both the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Navy. The navalized Apache was viewed as a replacement for the aging Bell AH-1 Sea Cobras that are in service with the Navy and Marines. With the introduction of a four-blade rotor system to the then current Marine Sea Cobra, the AH-1W, the Bell Cobra was believed to have reached the limit of its development. While older Sea Cobra airframes could be brought up to AH-1W standards, the Marines saw the need for a replacement for the Sea Cobra with some urgency.
The proposed Sea Apache (also known as the ‘Gray Thunder’) was intended for operations from smaller Navy ships such as frigates and cruisers and by the Marines from Amphibious Assault Ships (LHA) and smaller helicopter capable amphibious ships of a Marine Amphibious Ready Group (ARG). These ships would frequently operate outside the air cover of a carrier task group, so that the Sea Apache was also tasked with limited air defense duties and regarded as an offensive surface strike platform, with more capable weapons than the Army's version.
Since 1984, several design studies and formal proposals had evolved, with the Navy requesting changes in the Sea Apache configuration as it refined the aircraft's missions and roles. All in all the project went through no less than three stages, and each of these proposed navalized versions of the Apache differed in several ways from the standard Army AH-64A, although all three proposals had the same powerplants in common, two 1,723shp naval standard General Electric T700-GE-401 engines.
Also in common were increased corrosion preventive measures, improved electro-magnetic interference protection, a Doppler navigation system, upgraded brakes, additional tie down points, and a powered automatic rotor blade fold system.
Some of the missions envisioned by the Navy for the Sea Apache were:
- Escort for amphibious assault craft
- Anti-shipping strike
- Combat Air Patrol (CAP) with up to six Sidewinders
- Over the Horizon (OTH) targeting for surface ships
- Air support for SEAL special warfare teams
- Standoff surveillance
- Long range coastal patrol
Originally (designated “Stage 1”), the Sea Apache was to be a basic AH-64A airframe modified with a folding tail boom, a relocated tail wheel, a mast-mounted radar for surface/air search and attack, and provisions for Harpoon and Sidewinder missiles. Over time, however, the engineering studies and changing roles/missions requirements revealed that the Sea Apache's final configuration would have to be altered drastically.
One of the early problems encountered with navalizing the Apache was the narrow wheel base of the main landing gear. Engineering studies found that the standard Apache main wheel track was too narrow, causing the aircraft to be very unstable on the deck of a small ship. The roll of the deck in heavy seas, coupled with the aircraft's narrow wheel base and a relatively high center of gravity, could easily cause the Sea Apache to tip over. To solve this problem, McDonnell Douglas engineers redesigned the main landing gear, relocating it from the fuselage to the tips of the stub wings. The revised main landing gear was also retractable, with the gear retracting into streamlined housings (although the wheel itself remains uncovered) on the end of each reinforced stub wing. These housings also had provisions for mounting Sidewinder missile launcher rails.
The revised landing gear configuration was put forward in the second proposal (Stage 2) which also deleted the 30mm Chain Gun and its associated ammunition storage system. Furthermore, the Stage 2 Sea Apache featured a revised nose contour and replaced the TADS/PNVS with a nose mounted radar.
Extended fuselage side sponsons carried additional electronics and fuel cells. The sponsons themselves were smoothly faired into the fuselage to lower drag and extended almost to the tip of the nose. This aircraft was to also have provision for carrying two AIM-9L Sidewinder air-to-air missiles on short racks on the fuselage underside, a folding tail assembly and a retractable tail wheel.
This design had been refined still further, and the Stage 3 Sea Apache proposal had the side fuselage sponsons deleted and featured a larger nose radome intended to house an APG-65 Sea Search radar. This radar, developed from the multi-mode radar used on the F/A-18 Hornet fighter/attack aircraft, was compatible for both air-to-surface attack and air-to-air engagements. The forward fuselage was deepened to house additional fuel cells and the relocated avionics bays.
Projected armament included both the Harpoon or Penguin air-to-surface missiles (although the number of stations had been reduced to two) as primary weapons against surface targets, plus two Sidewinder air-to-air missiles for self-defense.
Additional weapons included Stinger, Sidearm, AMRAAM, and Hellfire missiles, as well as 127mm Zuni and 70mm FFAR rockets. Performance goals specified for the Sea Apache by the Navy at this stage included a 370km mission radius, and a four hour endurance on station. To extend the Sea Apache's time on station even further, an extendable in-flight refueling probe would be mounted on the starboard fuselage side below the cockpit. Consideration was also being given to installing the Canadian developed Bear Trap automatic haul-down landing system, which allowed operations during heavy sea states.
In 1989 the Navy gave serious consideration to the purchase of the Sea Apache once adequate funding was made available to finance prototype construction. The Navy desires the Sea Apache not only for its capabilities, but also because the aircraft would cost far less to acquire than to undertake the design of a totally new aircraft to replace the AH-1W in service.
It took until 1992 that the AH-64N, how the Sea Apache was now officially called, was given green lights and a total of seven prototypes were ordered (five for flight tests and in different configurations from Stage 2 and 3, plus two static airframes), and trials took another four years. During this time, one prototype was lost in a fatal crash and the overall budget for the new helicopter was slimmed down, so that the service aircraft became less drastically changed from the Army helicopter, and was eventually designated “Stage 2+”. It carried the Stage 3 avionics suite, but the performance goals became less ambitious, so that the deepened fuselage was not necessary anymore, improving aerodynamics and compensating a little for the reduced internal fuel capacity.
The first production AH-64Ns were delivered in 1998 and entered service on board of US Navy Wasp-class amphibious assault ships, e. g. the newly built USS Bataan (LHD-5), in 1999. Bataan was also one of many vessels in the Middle East region at the beginning of the Iraq war on or about 20 March 2003. After delivering her attack and transport helicopters, troops and vehicles she was employed as a "Harrier Carrier" with primary duties supporting two Marine AV-8B Harrier II squadrons along with USS Bonhomme Richard. USN AH-64Ns of the newly formed HLA-80 light attack helicopter squadron served successfully in the Combat Air Patrol (CAP) role, armed with AIM-120 AMRAAM and AIM-9L Sidewinders, as well as in the escort role for emergency medical care transports in the conflict region.
Until 2003, a total of 80 AH-64Ns were built, exclusively for the US Navy. The US Marines showed interest in the new helicopter, but budget restrictions forced the USMC to stay with its AH-1W helicopters and the AV-8B fleet. A proposed Marine Corps variant would retain the TADS/PNVS and Hellfire missile system, for use in the close air support role and for anti-shipping duties while escorting amphibious vessels. This variant would also relocate the radar dome back to the top of the rotor mast. Another option favored by the Marines was the capability to use the four tube TOW missile system as a back-up to the Hellfire missile system. But due to further budget restrictions, this variant that resembled the initial Stage 1 design of the AH-64N, never left the drawing board.
Further export ambitions received a blow when the British Army successfully deployed license-built AgustaWestland Apaches in 2003 upon the Royal Navy's HMS Ocean, a Landing Platform Helicopter, demonstrating that the land-based Army helicopter was quite capable of naval operations.
General characteristics:
Crew: 2 (pilot, and co-pilot/WSO)
Length: 58.17 ft (17.73 m) (with both rotors turning)
Fuselage length: 49 ft 5 in (15.06 m)
Rotor diameter: 48 ft 0 in (14.63 m)
Height: 12.7 ft (3.87 m)
Disc area: 1,809.5 ft² (168.11 m²)
Empty weight: 11,387 lb (5,165 kg)
Loaded weight: 17,650 lb (8,000 kg)
Max. takeoff weight: 23,000 lb (10,433 kg)
Powerplant:
2× General Electric T700-GE-701C turboshaft engines, delivering 1,890 shp (1,409 kW) each,
driving a foldable 4 blade main rotor and a 4 blade tail rotor in non-orthogonal alignment
Performance:
Never exceed speed: 197 knots (227 mph, 365 km/h)
Maximum speed in level flight: 165 knots (190 mph, 306 km/h)
Cruise speed: 143 knots (165 mph, 265 km/h)
Range: 290 nmi (332 mi, 535 km) with two AGMs and four AAMs
Combat radius with two hours loitering time: 162 nmi (186 mi, 300 km)
Ferry range: 1,080 nmi (1,242 mi, 2,000 km)
Service ceiling: 21,000 ft (6,400 m) minimum loaded
Rate of climb: 2,500 ft/min (12.7 m/s)
Disc loading: 9.80 lb/ft² (47.9 kg/m²)
Power/mass: 0.18 hp/lb (0.31 kW/kg)
Armament:
No internal gun;
Four pylon stations on the stub wings; the inner pair under the wings can carry a wide range of
AGMs and AAMs, including AGM-84 Harpoon and AGM-119 Penguin against surface targets.
Alternatively, up to eight AGM-114 Hellfire missiles or pods with Hydra 70 70 mm, CRV7 70 mm,
and APKWS 70 mm air-to-ground rockets can be carried
Stations on each wingtip and under the fuselage can carry launch rails for up to four
AIM-120 AMRAAM and/or AIM-9 Sidewinder AAMs.
The kit and its assembly:
Another entry for the 2016 “In the Navy” group build at whatifmodellers.com, and to my surprise I was so far the only builder of this interesting “real” what-if project – even though the navalized Apache had been tackled by other modelers several times before.
The three design stages, plus USMC options, offer a wide range of potential builds – but I did not want to build a 1:1 copy of any of these. I wanted a sleek helicopter, purely armed with guided missiles, so I settled for “something between Stage 2 and 3”, or rather something that combines design elements from these:
- Nose radome (Stage 2)
- Recontoured upper fuselage (Stage 2 onwards)
- Retractable landing gear in wing tip pods & relocated tail wheel (Stage 2 onwards)
- Deleted sponsons (Stage 3), but also no deepened Stage 3 fuselage
A nice basis for my plan was Academy’s new AH-64 kit – it’s selling point in my case was the fact that it is the only kit that comes with separate sponson parts. Any other kit I know has them as integral part of the fuselage halves, so that Stage 1 would be fairly easy to build, Stage 2 challenging and Stage 3 a total re-sculpting of the forward fuselage. But in this case, the sponsons can simply be left away and a floor panel needs some modifications.
The thimble radome is an aftermarket resin piece, actually for a WWII FuG 240 Morgenstern radar on board of a Ju 88G night fighter. It simply replaces the original nose and it was blended into the fuselage through a 2C putty “plug”.
Stage 2 and 3 of the navalized Apache feature a higher upper deck around the rotor gear cover. On a 1:72 kit it’s not much, maybe 2mm, but recognizable to keen eyes. I scratched it through donation parts (including an air brake from an Airfix A-1 Skyraider…), styrene strips and some putty. The rotor mast was also extended by the same amount, compensating for the higher dorsal line. Subtle, but worked out fine.
I was a little uncertain concerning the stub wings. Stage 3 had a reduced span, and I found the OOB wings a little too small for the wingtip pods (scratched from styrene profiles and some 2C putty) with the landing gear. I eventually added 3mm depth to the wings through inserted styrene profiles – probably hard to recognize at all when hidden under paint, but proportions look IMHO more balanced, also with the missile ordnance on board and the longer nose. Any means to move the landing gear forward is helpful!
Work on struts and wheels started once the wings and the pods were in place, for a proper ground clearance. The struts are modified parts from the Academy kit, I just replaced the fat low-pressure main wheels for the land-based version with donations from a Hobby Boss MiG-15: similar diameter, but less wide and an interesting wheel hub cover.
For the retractable tail wheel, a well opening was cut of the tail boom and an interior plus covers added.
The whole tail wheel comes OOB from the kit, the struts were just re-arranged for a more vertical position in the well.
The ordnance comes from a Hasegawa US weapon set and encompasses a pair of AGM-119 Penguins, a pair of AIM-120 AMRAAM and a pair of AIM-9 Sidewinder, plus the missiles’ respective launch rails.
Anyway, nothing goes without trouble. In this case, disaster struck in the form of a cracked canopy while trying to dry-fit the clear part over the finished cockpit and fuselage. Sh!t.
I was lucky to have a spare AH-64A canopy at hand, from an early Italeri kit. While not as sharp in detail as the Academy part, the shape and outline of both pieces was almost identical, the Italeri part only turned out to be 2-3mm too short at its rear end, a gap that could be bridged with styrene strips, though.
Overall, the implantation called for some modifications around the cockpit opening, but for a donor part solution the result is thankfully pretty good, phew! When painting started, I was even more happier, because the putty work associated with the implantation turned out to be better than expected. On the downside, the donor part seems to bear a lot of micro-cracks – they are only visible from certain angles and in direct light, though, and once I discovered them the piece had already been blended into the fuselage, so I stuck with the solution.
Another final modification was a little rhinoplasty – I did not assess the amount of putty correctly that was needed to blend the radome with the rest of the fuselage, it added 4-5mm in length. The result, once the fuselage was completed and overall proportions clearer, looked a littel Pinocchio-esque, though. So, with a bleeding heart and shaky hands, I cut a 5mm disc out of the massive resin nose and fitted the two remaining parts together again, blending the cut and the differences in diameter with putty. This worked out fine, too, and I also used the opportunity to re-shape the radome’s underside a little, so that the whole outline would come closer to the Stage 2 sketches. Looks better, in the end.
Painting and markings:
I stuck to the livery many illustrations of this fictional helicopter show: a typical, all-gray low-viz scheme, similar to the USMC’s late AH-1 helicopters. Everything very straightforward and based on contemporary USN benchmarks.
Basic colors are FS 35237 for all upper surfaces and FS 36375 for the undersides – as a personal twist I added a third tone, FS 36320, to the flanks – after all, it’s a whif kit.
A light black ink wash and some dry-brushing on panels were used for weathering, as well as some grinded graphite around the engines and the stabilizers for exhaust soot stains.
The cockpit and visible parts of the rotor system became very dark gray (a mix of black and FS 36081), while the blades became neutral gray (FS 36173). The landing gear and its wells standard all-white in order to reveal leaks in the hydraulic system, as well as all six launch rails. The ordnance was painted according to the real world, I just chose a medium grey finish for the Penguins.
The decals were puzzled together from various sources, HLA-80 as a unit and its markings are purely fictional. The grey walkways are grey decal strips (TL Modellbau stuff).
Despite the canopy and nose trouble on the way, the result looks pretty good. O.K., my build does not match any of the three proposed design stages, but many characteristic details are there – and who knows how a real navalized AH-64 might finally have looked like?
This garage was so well known and so large that it gave its name to the part of the North Circular where it resided - Henly's Corner. You can read about the Henly's group on Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henlys_Group Further reading here too about Henly's Corner www.sabre-roads.org.uk/wiki/index.php?title=Henlys_Corner There is an Esso garage almost where Henlys was in the present day but it's the wrong side of the road
www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.5889132,-0.199815,3a,75y,114.76...
It's also just too far away from the junction. Not a trace remains of this garage in the present day. It was here.......
www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.5894353,-0.2001016,3a,75y,231.1...
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background
A review by the Australian Government's Defense Committee held after World War II recommended that the post-war forces of the RAN be structured around a Task Force incorporating multiple aircraft carriers. Initial plans were for three carriers, with two active and a third in reserve. A Fleet Air Arm was established on 3 July 1947 by the Commonwealth Defense Council to operate aircraft from these. The first, HMAS Sydney, entered service in 1948.
Sydney was the only non-US, non-UK aircraft carrier to be involved in the Korean War. Sydney's maiden voyage saw the delivery of the first two squadrons operated by the Fleet Air Arm: 805 Squadron with Hawker Sea Furies, and 816 Squadron with Fairey Fireflies. The RAN's second aircraft carrier, HMAS Melbourne, had encountered delays while upgrading to the latest technology, and the British aircraft carrier HMS Vengeance was loaned to the RAN from 1952 until 1955, when Melbourne was commissioned.
At this stage it was clear that the RAN needed some more aerial punch for its new carriers beyond its fast Sea Furies and outdated Fireflies. Hence, search began for a complementary fighter bomber. The Douglas A-1 Skyraider was an initial candidate, but it finally was rejected because it appeared to be too slow and limited to the CAS role. The Westland Wyvern was another candidate, but considered to be too complex and large. Despite the advent of the jet age, a rather simple and robust aircraft with a piston engine was demanded as a ground-attack version for low altitudes. In early 1949, a proven candidate was found: Vought's F4U-5 Corsair, even though in a much modified version.
The Corsair was quickly adopted, since time was pressing. But despite the urgency through the Commonwealth Defense Council, the RAN Corsair would considerably differ from its American counterparts: The RAN decided to replace the original Pratt & Whitney R-2800 radial engine with a Rolls Royce Griffon engine. A major change, but the Griffon offered better fuel efficiency and saved overall weight, despite the prominent water radiator bath under the propeller.
The longer nose section earned the Australian Corsairs the nickname ‘Longneck’, inspired by typical 750ml bottles of beer in South Australia. These aircraft could also be easily identified through a massive, four-bladed contraprop with a long, pointed spinner. Major benefit of the contraprop was a much improved low speed handling through reduced torque effects and enhanced throttle response - a vital feature on the relatively small Australian carriers' flight decks. This new arrangement changed the Corsair's silhouette completely, but also improved aerodynamics, so that, despite a nominal decrease in power, almost all performance features could be kept.
Other obvious external modifications were an enlarged fin with a square shape for better directional stability at low speeds and the introduction of an almost frameless perspex bubble canopy - reminiscent of Goodyear's F2G "Super Corsair" from late WWII and improving both aerodynamics as well as the rearward field of view. Less visible were many British standard equipment pieces, like the Hispano Mk. V cannons, the radio or the electric system. Effectively, almost no part of the Australian Corsairs would be interchangeable with its US cousins!
The aircraft were to be assembled in Australia at the Port Melbourne plant of CAC. Raw airframe kits were imported from the USA via ship, as well as the Australian Corsairs' engines, which came directly from Great Britain. A total of 34 ‘Longnecks’ were built from these imported kits. The new aircraft were ready for service in October 1950 and received the official designation ‘Corsair S.1’, All machines were exclusively allocated to 806 Squadron, which was initially based on HMAS Sydney.
RAN Corsairs quickly saw hot action, when HMAS Sydney was deployed to Korean waters in late 1951, with a wartime CAG of 805, 806, 808, and 817 Squadrons embarked. The CAG conducted its first raids on 5 October 1951 with 32 sorties mounted in the 'Wales' area in the south-west of North Korea. Six days later, Sydney's CAG flew a light fleet carrier record to date of 89 sorties in one day conducting attacking raids and targeting sorties for USS New Jersey. The Fleet Air Arm operated in a strike, ground support, and escort role during the deployment, which saw three RAN pilots killed and a fourth seriously wounded, while a total of fifteen aircraft were lost, including two Corsair S.1.
After just three years of service, starting in 1953 towards the end of the Korea crisis, all RAN Corsairs saw a major equipment update, including an AN/APS-4 radar which was added in a housing under the starboard wing. This simple radar could be used for radar navigation, radar beacon homing and radar bombing, as well as airborne target search, so that the Corsairs could even be employed as night fighters. The modified machines were re-designated SAW.1 ("Strike - All Weather").
All RAN Corsairs served exclusively with 806 Squadron alongside Hawker Sea Furies and later De Havilland See Venom all-weather fighters. After the Korean War the squadron was quickly relocated to HMAS Melbourne when HMAS Sydney was to be decommissioned in the late 50ies. The robust machines were withdrawn from carrier use in 1965 but remained in land-based service at Nowra Air Station until 1968, when the squadron was disbanded and the last machines retired. They were effectively replaced by A-4 Skyhawks.
General characteristics
• Crew: 1 pilot
• Length: 37 ft (11.09 m)
• Wingspan: 41 ft 0 in (12.5 m)
• Height: 17 ft 1 1/2 in (5.11 m)
• Empty weight: 9,205 lb (4,174 kg)
• Loaded weight: 14,670 lb (6,653 kg)
Powerplant:
• 1 × water-cooled V12 Rolls Royce Griffon RG.25.SM engine with 2.625 hp (1.955 kW)
Performance
• Maximum speed: 426 mph (350 kn, 688 km/h)
• Range: 900 mi (783 nmi, 1,450 km)
• Service ceiling: 41.500ft (12.649 m)
• Rate of climb: 3,870ft/min (19.7 m/s)
Armament:
4 × 20 mm (.79 in) Hispano Mk V cannons
4.000 pounds (1.800 kg) of external ordnance, including drop tanks, iron bombs of up to 1.000 lbs. calibre or up to 16× 3" (76.2 mm) rockets
The kit and its assembly:
Another whiffy 'science fiction' model. I found the idea of an après-WWII-Corsair in Commonwealth use interesting, since the type had a very long and successful career, and the 2012 “Aussierama” group build at whatifmodelers.com fuelled this project further.
Neither a RAN Corsair ever existed, nor a V12 engine variant, though. My initial idea was a Corsair with a Centaurus engine and a five-bladed propeller. But this is a rather common whif conversion, you find a lot of these – easy to do and it looks great, too. But I wanted "something more".
An early concept element was the bubble canopy with the lowered rear fuselage, but the Griffon entered the scene relatively late, just when I found a resin conversion set from Red Roo Models of Australia with RAAF Avro Lincoln engine nacelles. That engine would make the difference I had been looking for – and it was furthermore a nice ‘excuse’ for fitting a massive contraprop… ;)
The basis kit for this conversion is a French F4U-7 from Italeri. It is a very good kit which is still around in several permutations and re-boxings, e .g. from Revell o. G.. Wings, horizontal stabilizers and landing gear were taken OOB, but the fuselage saw heavy modification:
a) The resin Griffon from Red Roo was implanted just in front of the wing's leading edge. The fuselage was simply cut off and the former exhaust niches filled with putty. Easier than expected, even though tedious and time-consuming!
The Red Roo engines come without any props, so that the propeller is a donation part: it comes from a vintage Plasticart Tu-20/95 bomber in 1:100 scale. The blade tips were clipped for a modern look, matching the diameter of the original F4U propeller. Ground clearance would not be a problem, since the propeller sits higher on the fuselage than with the original radial engine.
b) The original round fin was completely replaced by a new horizontal stabilizer. This piece is the outer section of a vintage 1:100 scale An-12(!), also from Plasticart. As a side note: this donation part is probably 35 years old, but here it finally found a new and good use! It is a simple but very effective change – with the new fin the converted Corsair now looks a little like a Blackburn Firebrand or later Firecrest?
c) The complete upper fuselage was replaced by a lower, scratch-built/hand-welded polystyrene piece. It received a new cockpit opening and a scratch-built fairing for the new bubble canopy. The latter comes from a Hasegawa Vought XF5U-1 (the 'Flying Pancake') and makes the Corsair look pretty fast and streamlined. A pilot (Italeri?) was added to the cockpit, which was otherwise kept OOB since it is nicely detailed, just like the rest of the OOB kit.
I guess that only 50% of the original fuselage survived this major surgery! A wonder that the thing still holds together...
Further minor mods include the radar housing (leftover from another Italeri F4U kit), new guns in the wings and the unguided 3" missiles with launch rails instead of USN HVARs. They add IMHO much to the British look of the aircraft. The RPs come from a Matchbox Bristol Beaufighter, the racks, too, but the original, massive four-missile-pallets were separated into single launch rails, for a more delicate look.
The drop tank comes from the original kit, even though its centerline position is individual. The bomb hardpoints under the wing roots were retained, but left empty. You can IMHO easily ‘kill’ a whif plane with too much and/or too exotic ordnance, and there's already enough extra about this model to discover.
Painting and markings:
To make the plane a bit exotic (and for the aforementioned group build) I decided to build it in Australian Navy colors, with Kangaroo Roundels. Initially I wanted to place the RAN Corsair into the Korean War era, but at that time the Kangaroo roundels had not been in use yet (they were introduced in July 1956, after the war). On the downside of that time window, quick ID "invasion stripes" from the Korean War era would not be plausible anymore - and they'd only go together with RAF-style roundels, which I did not want to use since I wanted a clear identification of the Corsair's (fictional) user. Therefore, the model was placed in the late 50ies.
I kept the Corsair in typical RAN colors of that era, though. Sea Furies and Gannets were benchmarks, not only for the paint scheme but also for the markings/decals. Basic colors are Extra Dark Sea Grey (Humbrol 123) from above and Sky Type S (Testors 2049) from below, with a high waterline and with EDSG wrapped around the leading edges – a detail I copied from RAN Gannets.
As a little design twist I tried to make some areas look as if Korean War ID stripes on wings and fuselage had recently been painted over - and approprtaiet detail for 1957, and just after the RAAF/RAN introduced the Kangaroo Roundels. Therefore, upper sides of wings and fuselage were painted with Testors 2079 (RLM 66) and Humbrol 90 (Beige Green, actually Sky Type S, too, but with a kore yellow-ish hue than the Testors paint). I think it worked well, and makes the simple two-tone livery a bit more attractive?
Cockpit interior was painted in RAF Cockpit Green (Humbrol 78), the landing gear as well as its wells were left in aluminum (Humbrol 56).
The kit was only slightly weathered, with a very thin black ink wash, some dry painting with lighter shades of the basic tones in order to emphasize panel lines, and even less dry painting with silver on leading edges.
Additionally, some light exhaust and gun soot stains were added, simple dry painting with matt black and some dark grey.
The decals were puzzled together from several Xtracedal aftermarket sheets (for Fairey Gannets and Hawker Sea Furys) and the scrap box. In order to add a colorful contrast I decided to add some bold squadron colors on fin and spinner, since I have seen similar markings on RAN Gannets of that time. I went for black and yellow, as complementary colors to the red/white/blue roundels. The checkered rudder was cut from an aftermarket sheet for small-scale tabletop vehicles. The spinner was painted by hand.
Finally, everything was sealed under stain varnish (Tamiya), and a slightly sprayed some matt varnish onto the upper front areas, so that the paint looks a bit dull and worn without sacrificing the sheen look.
All in all, a major conversion with little problems – waiting for the resin parts from Australia to arrive was the biggest challenge. I think that the aircraft looks pretty plausible? A subtle whif. ^^
Multiple exposure using an SX-70 camera.
Open the front of the SX-70 camera while shooting the image. Easiest to do this when the exposure is long - so turn off all the light, have the camera on a tripod, press the shutter button. Open the front of the camera...
now you're ready to make your exposures.
For this I used quick flashes of a torch, and repeated, until I had done enough exposures.
Then I close the front of the camera, press the shutter again (best to do this in the dark too) and then wait for the pic to eject and voila!
Shot on Impossible PX70 test film.
The fire in the newly constructed house on Old Deane Road in unincorporated Drew County went defensive quickly and required a number of hose lines. Firefighters' efforts were hampered by a lack of water. The nearest fire hydrant was further than the amount of supply hose carried on the fire engine, so water had to be shuttled in to help fight the fire.