09 - Comet Empire Kukulkan Class Destroyer.

Category: Model Kit.

Name: Comet Empire Kukulkan Class Destroyer.

Scale: Non.

Series: Mecha Collection.

Origin: Space Battleship Yamato.

Brand: Bandai.

Material: Styrene plastic.

Release Date: 1979.

Condition: Unassembled.

*Note: Pics not by us. It's just for reference.

This is a Model Kit collected by my BB.

More in My Collection Corner.

As seen in upcoming review of this fabulous lens. Review will be posted at Ω image.

Mainly I've shot it with the the Fujifilm X-Pro1. I love its viny OOF rendering, gentle corner fall off, and semi-earthy colours. This particular lens is in B condition, so it has many blemishes. I didn't bother to clean them up as it was too much work for a review.

A few photos I've taken with it can be see here.

This was taken with the Sony A7r and the PC Mikro 85/2,8 ED Nikkor.

Strobist: 9 o'clock and 3 o'clock soft boxes, trigger rear. Lens surrounded by 6 styrene reflectors.

+++ 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 "Entwicklung" tank series (= "development"), more commonly known as the E-Series, was a late-World War II attempt by Germany to produce a standardized series of tank designs. There were to be six standard designs in different weight classes, from which several specialized variants were to be developed. This intended to reverse the trend of extremely complex tank designs that had resulted in poor production rates and mechanical unreliability.

The new tank hunters only saw limited use, though, since they suffered from many early production flaws, and general technical reliability was also low. Other weaknesses were soon revealed, too. The SdKfz. 191/2's high casemate design made the vehicle hard to camouflage. With its almost vertical front and side armor, as well as the separate and edgy driver and radio operator compartments, it proved to be very vulnerable, too, so that - on the same chassis - an improved hull (similar to the Jagdpanther, but with the engine in front of the crew section and armed with a new 105 mm cannon) for the newly developed SdKfz 195 hull (a.k.a. "Jagdpanther II") was quickly developed, offering a much improved ballistic protection from any angle.

Specifications:

Crew: Six (commander, gunner, 2x loader, radio operator, driver)

Weight: 54 tonnes (60 short tons)

Length: 7.27 metres (23 ft 8 in) (hull only)

9.36 metres (30 ft 8 in) incl. gun

Width: 3.88 metres (12 ft 9 in)

Height 3.35 metres (11 ft)

Ground clearance: 495 to 510 mm (1 ft 7.5 in to 1 ft 8.1 in)

Suspension: Conical spring

Fuel capacity: 720 litres (160 imp gal; 190 US gal)

Armor:

10–70 mm (0.4 – 2.75 in)

Performance:

Speed

- Maximum, road: 46 km/h (28.6 mph)

- Sustained, road: 38 km/h (24 mph)

- Cross country: 15 to 20 km/h (9.3 to 12.4 mph)

Operational range: 160 km (99 miles)

Power/weight: 16,67 PS/tonne (14,75 hp/ton)

Engine:

V-12 Maybach HL 234 gasoline engine with 900 PS (885 hp/650 kW)

Transmission:

ZF AK 7-200 with 7 forward 1 reverse gears

Armament:

1× 12.8 cm KwK L/61 with 32 rounds

2× 7.92 mm Maschinengewehr 34 with a total of 5.200 rounds (one in the casemate front

and an optional AA gun on the commander's cupola)

The kit and its assembly:

This build was spawned from the question: with the German Experimental-Panzer designs becoming available, what would have been an initial solution for the large 12,8cm PaK, and a kind or predecessor of the more effective designs that were to follow (like the Jagdpanther II on E-50/75 basis or the heavy ‘Krokodil’ from the E-100 chassis)? Creations like the Jagdtiger or the Elefant/Ferdinand had failed due to their weight, and roofless self-propelled designs like the Nashorn or the lighter Marder family had also not been very effective designs.

Consequently I tried my luck with a kitbash: the standard E-50 chassis (from a Model Collect combat tank variant), combined with the superstructure of the “Sturer Emil” SPG prototype (Trumpeter kit).

Work started with the lower hull, which was more or less taken OOB – just the upper side was completely re-arranged and the engine roof cut out, together with the attachment ring for the original Schmalturm turret, and transplanted to the front. In this step, the original driver hatches on top of the hull were deleted, too.

On the hull’s gaping rear end I tried to integrate the (originally roofless) weapon compartment from the “Sturer Emil” SPG. The latter comes as a single piece and turned out to be a little too narrow. I could have taken it OOB, but then a small step in the hull’s side walls had to be accepted. So I cut the box structure into pieces and tried to blend them as smoothly into the lower hull’s lines as possible – with the benefit of slightly more angled side walls. The resulting gaps at all four corners were filled with styrene sheet and putty, and the rear wall called for some major adjustments because it has a convex shape with an entry hatch. A bit messy, but the flanking exhaust pipes cover most of the mess.

On the new roof (cut from styrene sheet using a pattern made from adhesive tape and graphite rubbed along the edges), a commander cupola from a Panzer IV and some details like rangefinder optics or air vents were added. Since the interior would not be visible anymore, I only added a primitive console that would hold the OOB cannon bearing and allow slight movement with the barrel in place.

The kit would receive new tracks – vinyl pieces instead of the single styrene pieces from the Model Collect kit. And for a more lively look, the mud guards and side skirts (integral part of the upper hull half) were dented – using a candle flame to warm and warp the material.

Painting and markings:

The rather massive and tall tank was to look simple, yet a bit improvised, so I decided to mimic a primer finish with some thin camouflage paint added on top, so that much of the primer would still shine through.

In an initial step, the hull and still separate parts like the barrel and the wheels received a uniform coat of RAL 3009 Oxidrot – a rich, rust-red tone that comes close to the German primer used on late-war tank hulls. This basic tone was considerably lightened, through dry-brushing and shading with Humbrol 70, 113 and 119 (Brick Red, Rust and Red Brown, respectively), since paint was sparse in Germany in late WWII and colors frequently stretched and thinned with added pigments like white lead, resulting in an almost pinkish tone.

Once dry, the kit received an overall cover with thinned acrylic Sand and Beige (Revell 16 and 314) – almost a custard-colored wash - so that a good amount of the light paint would cling to details and run down the vertical surfaces, leaving an uneven, partly translucent coat on top the red primer that shines through everywhere. This finish was later tailored with brass brush, steel wool and sand paper treatments. No further camouflage (e. g. with Olivgrün) was added, for a simple look.

On top of the basic paint, a dark brown washing was added and the edges further emphasized through dry-brushing with light grey and pale sand tones, plus some acrylic silver. Once the wheels and tracks were fitted into place and the few decals applied, a coat of matt acrylic varnish was added. Finally, dust and dry mud were simulated with mixed pigments, applied with a soft brush onto wet stains of varnish.

An impressive whif tank, and the complex superstructure was quite challenging. Even though it’s a kitbashing, the whole thing looks pretty plausible and “German”, so the original objective was accomplished.

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based on authentic facts. BEWARE!

Some background:

The Austrian Air Force in its current form was created in May 1955 by the victorious Allied powers, subject to restrictions on its use of guided missiles. The Austrian State Treaty of 1955 committed Austria to permanent neutrality. Pilot training started out with a four Yak-11 Moose and four Yak-18 Max aircraft donated by the Soviet Union, and Austria purchased further light trainer types under the Military Assistance Program. Until 1960 Austria purchased training and support aircraft under the MAP, but no modern fighter aircraft; the role of a fighter was rather inadequately filled by thirty already outdated Saab 29 Tunnan, bought second-hand from the Swedish Air Force in the early 1960s which equipped two fighter bomber squadrons.

The Austrian Lightnings’ planned service period of 10 years was almost doubled, though, due to massive delays with the Eurofighter’s development: In 2002, Austria had already selected the Typhoon as its new “Phase II” air defense aircraft, having beaten the F-16 and the Saab Gripen in competition, and its introduction had been expected to occur from early 2005 on, so that the Lightnings could be gradually phased out. The purchase of 18 Typhoons was agreed on 1 July 2003, but it would take until 12 July 2007 that the first Typhoon would eventually be delivered to Zeltweg Air Base and formally enter service with the Austrian Air Force. This operational gap had to be bridged with twelve F-5E leased from Switzerland for EUR 75 mio., so that Quick Reaction Alert (QRA) duties for the Austrian airspace could be continued.

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 55 ft 3 in (16.84 m)

Wingspan: 34 ft 10 in (10.62 m)

Height: 19 ft 7 in (5.97 m)

Wing area: 474.5 sq ft (44.08 m²)

Empty weight: 31,068 lb (14,092 kg) with armament and no fuel

Gross weight: 41,076 lb (18,632 kg) with two AIM-9B, cannon, ammunition, and internal fuel

Max takeoff weight: 45,750 lb (20,752 kg)

Powerplant:

2× Rolls-Royce Avon 301R afterburning turbojet engines,

12,690 lbf (56.4 kN) thrust each dry, 16,360 lbf (72.8 kN) with afterburner

Performance:

Maximum speed: Mach 2.27 (1,500 mph+ at 40,000 ft)

Range: 738 nmi (849 mi, 1,367 km)

Combat range: 135 nmi (155 mi, 250 km) supersonic intercept radius

Range: 800 nmi (920 mi, 1,500 km) with internal fuel

1,100 nmi (1,300 mi; 2,000 km) with external overwing tanks

Service ceiling: 60,000 ft (18,000 m)

Zoom ceiling: 70,000 ft (21,000 m)

Rate of climb: 20,000 ft/min (100 m/s) sustained to 30,000 ft (9,100 m)

Zoom climb: 50,000 ft/min

Time to altitude: 2.8 min to 36,000 ft (11,000 m)

Wing loading: 76 lb/sq ft (370 kg/m²) with two AIM-9 and 1/2 fuel

Thrust/weight: 0.78 (1.03 empty)

Armament:

2× 30 mm (1.181 in) ADEN cannon with 120 RPG in the lower fuselage

2× forward fuselage hardpoints for a single AIM-9 Sidewinder AAM each

2× underwing hardpoints for 1.000 lb (454 kg) each

2× overwing pylon stations for 2.000 lb (907 kg each),

typically occupied with 260 imp gal (310 US gal; 1,200 l) ferry tanks

The kit and its assembly:

This was another submission to the “Hunter, Lightning and Canberra” group build at whatifmodellers.com in 2022 and intended as a rather simple build since it was based on an alternate reality plot: the weird story that Austria was offered a revamped fleet of ex-Saudi Arabian Lightnings is true(!), but the decision eventually fell in favor of revamped Saab J 35Ds from Sweden. For this what-if build I used the real historic timeline, replaced the aircraft, and built both story and model around this – and the result became the BAC Lightning F.56 in Austrian Air Force service.

Initially I wanted to use an Airfix BAC Lightning in The Stash™, a really nice model kit and a relatively new mold, but it turned out to be the kit’s F.2A variant. While very similar to the F.6, changing it into a F.53 analogue with the OOB parts turned out to be too complex for my taste. For instance, the F.2A kit lacks the ventral gun bay (it just comes with the auxiliary tank option since the guns are already located in front of the cockpit) and the cable conduits on the lower flanks. Procuring a suitable and priceworthy Airfix F.6 turned out to be impossible, but then I remembered a Hasegawa Lightning F.6 in The Stash™ that I had shot at ev!lbay many moons ago for a laughable price and without a concrete plan. However, this kit is pretty old: it has raised (yet quite fine, less robust than the Matchbox kit) panel lines and even comes with a pilot figure, but also many weak spots like the air intake and the jet exhausts that end in flat walls after some millimeters depth and a very basic cockpit. But for this rather simple what-if project the kit appeared to be a suitable basis, and it would eventually find a good use.

The Hasegawa Lightning was basically built OOB, even though I made some cosmetic amendments like a better seat for the pilot, hydraulic fluid lines on the landing gear made from wire or opening the flat walls inside of the air intake opening and the jet nozzles. Behind the radome, a simple splitter plate was added as well as a recessed bulkhead in front of an implanted Me 262 cockpit tub (the Hasegawa kit just offers a bare floor panel, nothing else!), the afterburners were extended inwards with parts from a Matchbox A.W. Meteor night fighter.

The Red Top AAMs and the in-flight refueling probe were omitted. Instead, I added extra F.53-style forward-swept pylons under the outer wings, scratched from 1.5 mm styrene sheet due to their odd, raked shape, and I added Sidewinder launch rails plus suitable missiles from a Hasegawa air-to-air weapons set to all four stations. After long consideration I also retained the ‘overburger’ tanks, partly because of the unique layout on the Lightning, and also because of operational considerations.

Chaff dispensers were scratched from styrene profiles and placed at the fin’s base. A fairing for the retrofitted radar warning sensor was added to the fin tip, created from 1.5 mm styrene sheet.

Painting and markings:

To reflect the “alternate reality” role of the Lightning I gave the model a livery similar to the Saab J 35Ö that were actually procured: an adaptation of the USAF “Egypt One” scheme, carried primarily by the USAF F-16s. Adapting this simple three-tone camouflage from the flat F-16 to the Draken was easy and straightforward, but applying it to a Lightning with its many vertical surfaces turned out to be a tough challenge. I eventually came up with a paint scheme that reminds of the late RAF low-viz Lightning liveries, which existed in a wide range of patterns and graduations of grey.

The colors were authentic, FS 36118, 36270 and 36375 (using Humbrol 125, 126 and 127), and I decided to emphasize the camouflage of the flanks against the horizon, so that the vertical surfaces and the fin became FS 36270. The undersides of wings, stabilizers and fuselage became FS 36375. The dark FS 36118 was only applied to the upper sides of the wings and the stabilizer, and to a high dorsal section, starting at the wing roots. As a small contrast, the tank area on the spine was painted in light grey, simulating unpainted fiber glass. The radome was painted with a streaky mix of Humbrol 155 and 56.

As usual, the model received a light black ink washing, some post-panel-shading in lighter tones, and, due to the raised panel lines, was very lightly rubbed with graphite. The cockpit interior was painted in medium grey (Revell 47) with an olive drab fabric fairing behind the black pilot seat, which received ejection handles made from thin wire as eye candy. The landing gear and the respective wells were painted in Humbrol 56 (Aluminum Dope).

The decals are a wild mix: The fuselage roundels are actually wing markings from a Hasegawa J 35OE, as well as the huge orange "06" on the wings (I could not resist; they will later be partly obscured by the overwing tanks, but the heck with it!). The roundels on the wings come from a generic TL Modellbau sheet - I found that I needed larger markings than those on the Draken.

Both unit and individual aircraft identifiers are single black DIN font digits, also from TL Modellbau. The unit badges on the fin are authentic, even though from an earlier era: they came from an Austrian J 29 of Fliegerregiment 2 from a PrintScale sheet, and all stencils were taken from the OOB low-viz RAF markings sheet, plus four small warning triangles for the underwing pylons.

A ‘what-if’ model in the purest sense, since this model depicts what could really have been: ex Saudi-Arabian export BAC Lightnings over the Austrian Alps! However, refurbished Saab J 35D Draken made the race (and later followed by the Eurofighter Typhoon at ‘Stage 2’), so that this Lightning remains fictional. It does not look bad in the ‘Egypt One’ paint scheme, though, better than expected!

Nostromo Main Air Lock - 1:18 scale UPDATE. ALIEN (1979). Spent some time creating the interior wall racking using butyrate tubing. Took some time to get the hang of it and I may still want to go back and redo a couple because of irregularities but all in all they turned out pretty nice for it being my first time using the tube material. Next up for this project will be the finer detail to the interior walls as well as the ceiling build. I've attached some updated images of my progress. #alien #nostromo #airlock

Some background:

The VF-1 was developed by Stonewell/Bellcom/Shinnakasu for the U.N. Spacy by using alien Overtechnology obtained from the SDF-1 Macross alien spaceship. It was preceded into production by an aerodynamic proving version of its airframe, the VF-X. Unlike all later VF vehicles, the VF-X was strictly a jet aircraft, built to demonstrate that a jet fighter with the features necessary to convert to Battroid mode was aerodynamically feasible.

However, the fighter remained active in many second line units and continued to show its worthiness years later, e. g. through Milia Jenius who would use her old VF-1 fighter in defense of the colonization fleet - 35 years after the type's service introduction!

General characteristics:

Equipment Type: all-environment variable fighter and tactical combat battroid

Government: U.N. Spacy, U.N. Navy, U.N. Space Air Force

Accommodation: pilot only in Marty & Beck Mk-7 zero/zero ejection seat

Dimensions:

Fighter Mode:

Length 14.23 meters

Wingspan 14.78 meters (fully extended)

Height 3.84 meters

Battroid Mode:

Height 12.68 meters

Width 7.3 meters

Length 4.0 meters

Empty weight: 13.25 metric tons;

Standard T-O mass: 18.5 metric tons;

MTOW: 37.0 metric tons

Powerplant:

2x Shinnakasu Heavy Industry/P&W/Roice FF-2008 thermonuclear reaction turbine engines, output 650 MW each, rated at 11,500 kg in standard or in overboost (225.63 kN x 2)

4 x Shinnakasu Heavy Industry NBS-1 high-thrust vernier thrusters (1 x counter reverse vernier thruster nozzle mounted on the side of each leg nacelle/air intake, 1 x wing thruster roll control system on each wingtip);

18 x P&W LHP04 low-thrust vernier thrusters beneath multipurpose hook/handles

Performance:

Battroid Mode: maximum walking speed 160 km/h

Fighter Mode: at 10,000 m Mach 2.71; at 30,000+ m Mach 3.87

g limit: in space +7

Thrust-to-weight ratio: empty 3.47; standard T-O 2.49; maximum T-O 1.24

Design features:

3-mode variable transformation; variable geometry wing; vertical take-off and landing; control-configurable vehicle; single-axis thrust vectoring; three "magic hand" manipulators for maintenance use; retractable canopy shield for Battroid mode and atmospheric reentry; option of GBP-1S system, atmospheric-escape booster, or FAST Pack system

Transformation:

Standard time from Fighter to Battroid (automated): under 5 sec.

Minimum time from Fighter to Battroid (manual): 0.9 sec.

Armament:

2x internal Mauler RÖV-20 anti-aircraft laser cannon, firing 6,000 pulses per minute

1x Howard GU-11 55 mm three-barrel Gatling gun pod with 200 rds fired at 1,200 rds/min

4 x underwing hard points for a wide variety of ordnance, including

- 12x AMM-1 hybrid guided multipurpose missiles (3/point), or

- 12x MK-82 LDGB conventional bombs (3/point), or

- 6x RMS-1 large anti-ship reaction missiles (2/outboard point, 1/inboard point), or

- 4x UUM-7 micro-missile pods (1/point), each carrying 15x Bifors HMM-01 micro-missiles,

or a combination of above load-outs

Optional Armament:

Shinnakasu Heavy Industry GBP-1S ground-combat protector weapon system, or

Shinnakasu Heavy Industry FAST Pack augmentative space weapon system

The kit and its assembly:

The second vintage 1:100 ARII VF-1 as a part of a Zentraedi squadron series, the canonical SVF-789. This one was inspired by a profile of such a machine in the “Macross Variable Fighter Master File: VF-1 Valkyrie Part 1” Art Book – true robot porn and full of valuable detail and background material for anyone who’d consider building a VF-1.

The SVF-789 machine shown in the book is a simple VF-1A, but with Zentraedi language markings and in a rather unusual livery in all dark green, yellow and black trim and grey low-viz roundels. While this does IMHO not really look sexy, I found the idea of a squadron, manned by former (alien) enemies very interesting. And so I took up the idea and started fleshing it out – including the idea of SVF-789’s initial base deep in the Amazonian jungle (justifying somehow the all-green livery!?).

This second build was to represent a flight leader’s aircraft, and consequently the basis is a VF-1J kit (which only differs outwardly through the head). In order to set the machine a little more apart I decided to incorporate some “Plus” program updates, including a different nose tip for the updated radar and two small fairings for IRST and laser designator sensors above and below the nose section, respectively. The fins’ tips were also modified – they were elongated a little through styrene sheet replacements.

This update is a bit early for the official Macross timeline, but I just wanted more than a standard J Valkyrie in a more exotic paint scheme.

Otherwise, this VF-1J fighter kit was built OOB, with the landing gear tucked up and the usual additions of some blade antennae, a pilot figure and a custom display stand in/under the ventral cannon pod.

The ordnance is non-standard, though; in this case the aircraft received two pairs of air-to-ground missiles (actually some misshapen Soviet AAMs from the Academy MiG-23 kit – either very fat R-60 ‘Aphid’ AAMs or very poor renditions of vintage K-6 ‘Alkali’ missiles?) inboards and four AMM-1 missiles on the outer pylons, with the lowest missile replaced by scratched ECM and chaff dispenser pods. The gun pod was also modified with a new nozzle, with parts from a surplus AMM-1 missile – also inspired by a source book entry.

Painting and markings:

This was planned to be a more exotic or extravagant interpretation of the profile from the book, which was already used as a guideline for the VF-1A build. The overall design of an all-green livery with a white nose tip as basis was kept, together with yellow trim on wings, fins and the stabilizer fins on the Valkyrie’s legs. The VF-1A already deviated from this slightly, but now I wanted something more outstanding – a bold flight leader’s mount.

Zentraedi vehicles tend to be rather colorful, so the tones I chose for painting were rather bright. For instance, the initial idea for the green was FS 34079, a tone which also comes close to the printed profile in the book. But it looked IMHO too militaristic, or too little anime-esque, so I eventually settled for something brighter and used Humbrol 195 (called Dark Satin Green, but it’s actually RAL 6020, Chromoxyd Grün, a color used on German railway wagons during and after WWII), later shaded with black ink for the engravings and Humbrol 76 (Uniform Green) for highlights.

The nose became pure white, the leading edge trim was painted with Revell 310 (Lufthansa Gelb, RAL 1028), a deep and rich tone that stands out well from the murky green.

In order to set this J Valkyrie apart from the all-dark green basic VF-1As, I added two bright green tones and a light purple as flight color: Humbrol 36 (called Pastel Green, but it’s actually very yellow-ish), 38 (Lime) and Napoleonic Violet from ModelMaster’s Authentic Line, respectively. 36 was applied to the lower legs and around the cockpit section, including the spinal fairing with the air brake. The slightly darker 38 was used on the wings and fins as well as for the fuselage’s and wings’ underside. On top of the wings and the inner and outer fins, the surfaces were segmented, with the dark green as basic color.

As an additional contrast, the head, shoulder guards and additional trim highlights on the legs as well as for a double chevron on the breast plate were painted in the pale purple tone. A sick color combination, but very Zentraedi/Meltraedi-esque!

The cockpit interior was, according to Macross references, painted in Dark Gull Grey. The seat received brown cushions and the pilot figure was turned into a micronized Meltraedi (yes, the fictional pilot Taqisha T’saqeel is to be female) with a colorful jumpsuit in violet and white, plus a white and red helmet – and bright green skin! The gun pod became dark blue (Humbrol 112, Field Blue), the AMM-1 missiles received a pale grey livery while the air-to-ground missiles and the chaff dispenser became olive drab. As an additional contrast, the ECM pod became white. A wild mix of colors!

This was even enhanced through U.N. Spacy roundels in standard full color – their red really stands out. The squadron emblem/symbol on the fin was painted with a brush, but in this case in a smaller variant and with two USN/USAF style code letters for the home basis added.

Since I can not print white letters onto clear decal sheet at home, the aircraft’s tactical code ‘300’ was created with letters from the human alphabet. A simplification and deviation from the original concept, but I found the only alternative of painting tiny and delicate Zentraedi codes by brush and hand just to be too risky.

Finally, the kit was sealed with a sheen acrylic varnish – with the many, contrasting colors a pure matt finish somehow did not appear right.

Building was relatively simple, just the rhinoplasty was a little tricky – a very subtle modification, though, but the pointed and slightly deeper nose changed the VF-1’s look. The standard Zentraedi-style VF-1 of SVF-789 already looked …different, but this one is … bright, if not challenging to the naked eye. Anyway, there’s more in the creative pipeline from the Zentraedi unit – this aircraft’s pilot in the form of a modified resin garage kit.

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!

Some background:

In September 1952, the United States Navy announced a requirement for a new fighter. It was to have a top speed of Mach 1.2 at 30,000 ft (9,144.0 m) with a climb rate of 25,000 ft/min (127.0 m/s), and a landing speed of no more than 100 mph (160 km/h). Korean War experience had demonstrated that 0.50 inch (12.7 mm) machine guns were no longer sufficient, and as the result the new fighter was to carry a 20 mm (0.79 in) cannon. In response, the Vought team led by John Russell Clark, created the V-383. Unusual for a fighter, the aircraft had a high-mounted wing which necessitated the use of a fuselage-mounted short and light landing gear.

From this point on, the F-8Qs lost their raison d’être, since the Argentinian air force already had, with the Mirage III and IAI Nesher/Dagger, capable and less costly land-based interceptors available. Due to lack of spares and funds, the remaining Argentinian Crusaders (after several accidents, only eight F-8Qs were still in service and only five of them actually operational) were in 1988 transferred to Villa Reynolds air base in Western Central Argentina, grounded and stored in the open, where they quickly deteriorated. Eventually, all F-8Qs were scrapped in the early Nineties. Only one specimen survived and has been preserved in its original Gull Grey/White livery as a gate guard at the Naval Aviation Command headquarters at Comandante Espora Airport, Bahía Blanca.

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 54 ft 3 in (16.54 m)

Wingspan: 35 ft 8 in (10.87 m)

Height: 15 ft 9 in (4.80 m)

Wing area: 375 sq ft (34.8 m²)

Aspect ratio: 3.4

Airfoil: root: NACA 65A006 mod;

tip: NACA 65A005 mod

Zero-lift drag coefficient: CD0.0133

Drag area: 5.0 sq ft (0.46 m²)

Empty weight: 17,541 lb (7,956 kg)

Gross weight: 29,000 lb (13,154 kg)

Max takeoff weight: 34,000 lb (15,422 kg)

Fuel capacity: 1,325 US gal (1,103.3 imp gal; 5,015.7 L)

Powerplant:

1× Pratt & Whitney J57-P-20A afterburning turbojet engine

with 10,700 lbf (48 kN) dry thrust and 18,000 lbf (80 kN) with afterburner

Performance:

Maximum speed: 1,066 kn (1,227 mph, 1,974 km/h) at 36,000 ft (10,973 m)

Maximum speed: Mach 1.86

Cruise speed: 495 kn (570 mph, 917 km/h)

Combat range: 394 nmi (453 mi, 730 km)

Ferry range: 1,507 nmi (1,734 mi, 2,791 km) with external fuel

Service ceiling: 58,000 ft (18,000 m)

Rate of climb: 19,000 ft/min (97 m/s)

Lift-to-drag: 12.8

Wing loading: 77.3 lb/sq ft (377 kg/m²)

Thrust/weight: 0.62

Armament:

4× 20 mm (0.79 in) Colt Mk 12 cannons in lower fuselage, 125 RPG

2× side fuselage mounted Y-pylons for up to four AIM-9 Sidewinders and/or Zuni rockets

2× underwing pylon stations with a capacity of 4,000 lb (2,000 kg)

The kit and its assembly:

This relatively simple build was triggered by the “In the navy” group build at whatifmodelers.com in April/May 2020, even though I started it too late for the deadline.

After having recently read a lot of stuff about the Falklands/Malvinas conflict, I wondered if Argentina could not have procured a dedicated fighter for its single carrier – and the F-8 from US surplus stocks was a perfect candidate for the potential timeframe of the Seventies, when the type was retired from USN/USMC service or, in part, modernized and/or put up for sale, like the machines for the Philippines. The only real-world problem would have been the weight: the F-8E weighed up to 15 tons, while the Super Étendard, which was reportedly already hard to launch from Veinticinco de Mayo, had a MTOW of “only” 12 tons. Not certain if the F-8’s afterburner engine and the wings’ raised angle of incidence would have been enough to launch a Crusader? Well, it’s whifworld, after all. 😉

The basis is the Hasegawa F-8E, a kit that I had originally stashed away as a donor for a different project.

The model was built mostly OOB, I just sanded the dorsal avionics hump away and gave the machine a pair of drop tanks under the wings (from an A-4) – a rather unusual sight on a Crusader, and it looks even more weird with the wings in the raised position! The Sidewinders, relatively simple pieces, too, were taken OOB, since they look very much like early AIM-9Bs.

The kit goes together well, but it is a simple affair and you see the mold’s age. You get raised (though fine) panel lines, a rather simple cockpit tub with flat dashboards (for decals), a clumsy seat and no cockpit back wall at all. Fit is basically O.K., but the windscreen refused to fit well, and the hatch turned out to be somewhat too narrow for the rear bulkhead you are supposed to glue into it. Furthermore, the fuselage halves, especially on the underside, have shallow shrink areas close to the seams, so that PSR is mandatory. I would, not call the kit my first choice for the F-8 (which would rather be the Academy kit), but you get the Hasegawa kit at reasonable prices, and I originally purchased it as a body donor bank.

Since the kit lacks a proper air intake duct, sanding the fuselage halves inside of the respective orifice is not easy - I used a soft acrylic putty and left the radome away until the job was done. Furthermore, I added a visual blocker inside of the intake, a piece of black foamed styrene under the cockpit tub - otherwise you have direct sight down the empty interior in a head-on view.

Further small additions are some blade antennae on the hull and on the fin, inspired by the Argentinian Skyhawks.

Painting and markings:

Again, I wanted a rather subtle, semi-authentic look. The most natural choice would certainly have been a Light Gull Grey/White livery like the A-4Qs, but for a twist and because I like the late French F-8Ps in their all-over dark grey livery, I settled upon something that resembles the French/Argentinian Super Étendards: a dark, bluish-grey upper surface with white undersides and the upper colors well wrapped around the wings’ leading edges.

Concerning the French grey tone there are many different opinions and recommendations – ranging from Dark Gull Grey (FS 36231, which is IMHO much too light) over Gunship Grey (FS 36118) to dark blue.

I settled for Humbrol 79 (Blue Grey) as basic tone, which is AFAIK Humbrol’s interpretation of the German RAL 7012 (Basaltgrau), a tone that is very close to the British Dark Sea Grey. The undersides, including the landing gear, were painted with acrylic semi-gloss white from a rattle can. This was done as the first step, with a masked low waterline. Then the grey was applied by brush, and also wrapped around the wings’ leading edges. In order to improve the camouflage effect from above, the pylons as well as the outer sides of the stabilizers under the tail were painted in blue grey, too.

The flags on the rudder as well as the on the stabilizers were painted with white and Humbrol 48 (Mediterranean Blue), too, just the sun emblems on the fin are decals. Since the F-8 has, unlike the A-4 or the Sue, all-mowing stabilizers, I decided to paint the whole tail surface in white and blue and not just the trailing edge. This looks quite bright, but it is IMHO a great detail that sets this whif really apart and shows some pride.

The afterburner fairing was painted with a mix of Humbrol 27002 and 27003 (Polished Aluminum and Steel Metallizer) and later treated with graphite for a burnt look.

After an overall black ink wash the upper surfaces were treated with dry-brushed post shading (Humbrol 106 and 156). The decals come primarily from an Academy Super Étendard, augmented by markings from various decals from an Airfix Falklands War kit set sheet (e.g. the sun icons for the fin flash).

The silver leading edges of the wings, stabilizers and the fin were created with decal sheet material. the same material in black was used for walkway markings.

Decals come primarily from an Acedemy Super Étendard sheet, the tactical code was modified. Only the sun icons on the fin flash had to be procured from a different source (an Airfix A-4 Skyhawk sheet). The stencils come from the Hasegawa OOB sheet.

Finally, the kit received an all-over coat of matt acrlyic varnish.

Lotus Ford Type 72C, Jochen Rindt

Kit: Ebbro 1/20 (20009)

Paint:

- Zero Paint 2K Primer (ZP-3014) (A primer is really needed on this kit since the body is molded in red styrene. The red bleeds through even this 2K primer.

- Zero Paint Gold Leaf paint set (ZP-1074) (The set includes gold, white and red. The gold is similar to most other gold paint and the red is similar to Ferrari “Rosso Corsa” or Tamiya “Italian Red” so this set isn’t necessary to get a good result.)

- Zero Paint Diamond 2K Clear (ZP-3006)

- Spaz Stix Ultimate Mirror Chrome

- Various shades of Alclad metal

Album:

All my models: www.flickr.com/photos/98961263@N00/albums/72157603606379755

Photo Editing:

Adobe Lightroom

Helicon Focus (focus stacking)

The Lotus Type 72C won the 1970 Constructors’ Championship with Jochen Rindt wining the Drivers’ Championship. Unfortunately, Rindt was awarded the Championship posthumously after having perished on September 5, 1970 during practice at Monza prior to the 1970 Italian Grand Prix. Rindt was German-born but represented Austria during his career making him the first Austrian to compete in and win the Formula 1 Championship. Rindt discovered his love for racing along with his childhood friend, Dr. Helmut Marko, who is a two-time Le Mans winner and the current Director of Driver Development for Red Bull Racing and Scuderia Alpha Tauri.

This model represents the 72C as Rindt drove it at the German Grand Prix where he won his last race which was his 5th win of the year. With that win, Rindt earned sufficient points to take the Drivers’ Championship despite three subsequent races being contested by the field. Emerson Fittipaldi won one final race for Lotus that year at the U.S. Grand Prix to secure the F1 Constructors’ Championship for Lotus.

This is a great kit from Ebbro. These 70’s F1 cars were engineered using a lot of metal rod to hold them together and as a result, models of these cars are very fiddly to build. Ebbro has done a nice job designing this kit to go together smoothly. But there are a couple of problem areas. The radiators inside the side cowlings need trimming to allow the cowlings to fit snugly against the body. Also, the steering column is too short and does not attach to anything in the front steering assembly. The pedals also interfere with the steering column. The engine is a gem - it is very detailed and lends itself nicely to detailing. I added various wires and lines to the engine to reflect the “busy” look of the Cogsworth V8.

I used the kit decals which are superb. They laid-down nicely and were flexible and strong with perfect register. I did get a little silvering but I thing that was my fault for not squeegying out all the air bubbles carefully enough. If the modeller does not want to paint the gold nose of the 72C, Ebbro includes gold decals. One feature of this kit which I absolutely love is that the tyre logos and pinstripes are pre-printed on the tyre. This is so much better than using decals, painting with a template or hand painting tyres which rarely give me the results I want. I wouldn’t even know how to do the gold pinstripe. Thanks to Ebbro for this!!

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the model, the conversion or the presented background story might be based on canonical facts. BEWARE!

KX-series droids, also referred to as "enforcer droids", were a model of security droid manufactured by Arakyd Industries on Vulpter that was in service to the Galactic Empire during the Galactic Civil War.

Some further self-sentient KX droids escaped the Imperial realm and successfully led rogue careers, e. g. among smugglers, in neutral systems and even as bounty hunters.

The kit and its assembly:

In a wake of Star Wars nostalgia I got myself a Bandai K-2SO kit from the Rogue One movie – one of those purchases you make with no real plan, rather with the motivation to “build something different” from it. Somehow I was apparently lucky to get hold of one of these as a direct import, since these Bandai kits are only sold in Japan due to copyright issues. It was, however, clear from the start that I would not build the K-2SO movie character from it, and I wanted to get away from the OOB kit and its dull grey livery. I rather planned a fictional alternative.

As such, I did not want to change too much. The KX series droid was to be easily recognized, and I did not have too many appropriate spare parts at hand to make major changes like a totally different head. Nevertheless, I delved through the mecha donor box and found a few suitable pieces – but at the core it’s still a regular KX series droid.

Mods include:

- Mirror foil reflectors in the eyes instead of the OOB decals

- A set of “headphones” with antennae (actually parts from an 1:100 VF-1S head unit)

- Some hydraulic actuators around the waist and under the chin that add more depth

Besides, the Bandai kit was a mostly pleasant build: it's technically a snap-fit kit, and you can put the character figure together quite quickly. I just did some PSR on the major hull joints, but that was no issue since I wanted to paint the figure, anyway. The kit even comes with stickers as an alternative to a sheet with water slide decals. And when you pay attention to cleaning the parts, and stick strictly(!) to the instructions, the whole thing goes together very well.

The only drawback is a somewhat soft styrene material (after all, this is a poseable action figure) that is not as durable as it should be - I had issues in two arm joints where the parts disintegrated upon the attempt to put them together. As a consequence, I had to repair the joints with super glue and fix the position.

Painting and markings:

Here’s the more obvious part – somehow I had the idea of giving this droid a red livery. I wanted an Imperial flavor, but something different from K-2SO’s cold black/metallic grey look. Maybe I was inspired by the Imperial Guards from TESB (Ep. 5)? However, I found a wine red droid interesting and suitable, and it certainly sets it apart from its standard black/grey brethren. Its actual role is left to the beholder, though, but with this subtle but striking paint scheme, it’s probably something special. ;-)

The model was fully (re-)painted – you can actually build this it as a simple snap-fit kit without need for painting at all. But since I did some light PSR work on some seams, painting had become a necessity.

The two basic colors are Humbrol 20 (Crimson Gloss enamel) and Revell 9 (Tar Black acrylic). Due to the figure’s large scale and a clean/clinical look (the Empire is certainly not untidy!) I did not add any paint effect to the glossy red areas.

The matt black sections, which more or less cover the structural parts under the red hull , received a light dry-brushing with Revell 77 (Staubgrau), so that the many surface details became more obvious. This effect was also added as a stylistic complement to the light reflexes on the glossy areas.

Due to the good finish of the paint I did not apply a final coat of varnish, just the decals on the grey "shoulder rings" were treated with matt acrylic varnish.

Well, not a truly simple project, but I like the outcome. The red livery changes the droid's look considerably, not certain if it looks better than the dark grey movie livery?

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!

Some background:

In the late 1920s, the Aéronautique Militaire (Belgian Air Force) set out to replace its old aircraft. Accordingly, Belgian officers attended the Hendon Air Display where they saw a Fairey Firefly and met Fairey staff. The Firefly toured Belgian air bases in 1930 and met with approval from pilots. This led to a contract for 12 UK-built Firefly II to be followed by a further 33 aircraft built in Belgium.

With the looming German neighbors, Belgium also ordered Hawker Hurricanes to be built in Belgium. However, on 10 May 1940, the Avions Fairey factory was heavily bombed by the Germans, the company personnel evacuated to France, and then left for England. Their ship was sunk by German bombers outside St Nazaire, though, and eight Fairey staff were killed; the survivors worked for the parent company during the Second World War. None of the Belgian Faunes survived this WWII episode.

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 27 ft 5 in (8.36 m)

Wingspan: 32 ft 3 in (9.83 m)

Height: 11 ft 9 in (3.58 m)

Wing area: 323 ft2 (30.0 m2)

Empty weight: 3,217 lb (1,462 kg)

Loaded weight: 4,594 lb (2,088 kg)

Powerplant:

1× Bristol Mercury VIII radial engine, 625 kW (840 hp)

Performance:

Maximum speed: 253 mph (220 knots, 407 km/h) at 14,500 ft (4,400 m)

Cruise speed: 210 mph[94]

Stall speed: 53 mph (46 knots, 85 km/h)

Endurance: 2 hours

Service ceiling: 32,800 ft (10,000 m)

Rate of climb: 2,300 ft/min[94] (11.7 m/s)

Climb to 10,000 ft (3,050 m): 4.75 min

Armament:

Initially (Mk. I) two synchronised .303" Vickers machine guns in fuselage sides,

plus two .303" Lewis machine guns; one beneath each lower wing.

Mk. IA aircraft had the wing-mounted machine guns replaced by

two 20mm Hispano-Suiza HS.404 cannon

The kit and its assembly:

This one was inspired on short notice by a series of side profiles of a fictional British creation called "Bristol Badger", published by whatifmodeler.com's NightHunter with support from Eswube and Darth Panda - very reminiscent of the PZL 24 fighter, but a biplane. A very pretty creation that could rival with the Gloster Gladiator - and seeing the profiles I wondered if a retractable landing gear could be added, in the style of a Grumman F4F or the Curtiss SBC? Hence the idea was born to take this CG creation to the hardware stage.

Another side of the story is that I had been pondering about changing the ugly Curtiss SBC into a single seat fighter. And since the "Badger" would be an equivalent build I eventually decided to combine both ideas.

Legwork turned out that the Bristol Badger actually existed, so it was not the proper name for this creation. Since my designh benchmark was a Belgian aircraft I simply switched the manufacturer to Avions Fairey (see above). ;)

Effectively the Faune is a kitbash of a Heller SBC and a Polikarpov I-15 from ICM - the latter is a noteworthy, small kit because it is full of details, including even an internal frame structure for the cockpit and a highly detailed engine - without any PE parts.

From the SBC the fuselage and the lower wing was taken. The I-15 donated the upper gull wing and its tail - the SBC's was cut away where the observer's station would be, and the diameter of both fuselage sections matches well. The I-15's fabric cover on the tail disappeared under putty. The SBC's canopy was also used , just the observer's rearmost part was cut away and a new spine and fairing sculpted from putty.

Since I wanted a different engine installation (not the streamlined but somewhat ugly solution of the SBC) the SBC fuselage was also cut away in front of the landing gear wells. Bulkheads from styrene sheet were added, and I implanted the nose section and the Bristol Jupiter engine with an open ring cowling from a Matchbox Vickers Wellesley.

Once the wings were in place I implanted the SBC's struts and some wiring was added. The landing gear comes from the SBC, too. The cannons under the wings come from a Hobby Boss Bf 109F.

Painting and markings:

As mentioned above, I used a Belgian Air Force aircraft as design benchmark, and this meant a simple livery in khaki and aluminum dope, similar to Belgian Gloster Gladiators or Fairey Foxes in the late 30ies.

The paint scheme is very simple, I used "French Khaki" from Modelmaster's Authentic enamel range and acrylic Aluminum from Revell. All internal surfaces were painted with RAF Cockpit Green (Modelmaster). The wing struts were painted glossy black, just as on Belgian Foxes or Gladiators of the time.

After a light black ink wash I did some shading with Faded Olive Drab, Humbrol 102 and even some RLM 02, while the Aluminum received some panels in Humbrol 56 and Modelmaster's Aluminum Lacquer. Panel lines were added with a simple, soft pencil.

The decals had to be puzzled together - originally I wanted to use a set for a Belgian Hurricane, but the carreir film turned out to be brittle, so the roundels now come from a generic TL Modellbau sheet, the "Cocotte Bleue" from an anniversary Mirage 5BE, and the codes actually belong to a Chilean D.H. Venom...

Finally, everything was sealed under a mix of 80% flat and 20% gloss acrylic varnish.

In the end, a major kitbash that looks rather simple - but I am actually surprised how well the parts of the I-15 and SBC went together. And the result does not look like the Frankenstein creation this whif kit actually is... ;)

The kit and its assembly:

Well, this is a rather unusual what-if “build”, since this not a model kit as such but rather the conversion of a readymade H0 gauge model railway locomotive for the “Back into service” group build at whatifmodelers.com in late 2019.

The inspiration was not original, though: some time ago I stumbled across a gift set from the former East-German manufacturer Piko, apparently for the Polish market. It contained a set of double deck passenger wagons, and a (highly simplified, toy-like) German BR 216 in PKP markings. It was called SU-29 and carried a very crude and garish green livery with yellow front ends – inspired by real world PKP diesel locomotives, but… wrong. I found this so bizarre that it stuck in my mind. When I dug a little further, my surprise even grew when I found out that there were other national adaptations of this simple Piko BR 216 (e .g. for Denmark) and that Piko’s competitor Roco offered a similar BR 215 in PKP colors, too! This time, the fictional locomotive was designated SU-47 (which cannot be since this would indicate a locomotive with electric power transmission – poor job!), and it also wore a bright green livery with yellow front markings. Bizarre… And the PKP does NOT operate any BR 216 at all?!

However, with the GB topic in mind, I decided to create my own interpretation of this interesting topic – apparently, there’s a market for whiffy model locomotives? The basis became a 2nd hand Märklin 3075 (a BR 216 in the original red DB livery), not a big investment since this is a very common item.

In order to easy painting, the locomotive was disassembled into its major sections and the body stripped of any paint in a one-week bath in oven cleaner foam, a very mild and effective method.

The heavy metal chassis was not modified, it just received a visual update (see below).

The upper body underwent some cosmetic surgery, though, but nothing dramatic or structural, since the DH 1504 described above only differs in minor external details from the original BR 216. I decided to modify the front ends, especially the lights: Locomotives in PKP service tend to have VERY large lamps, and I tried to incorporate this characteristic feature through masks that were added over the original light conductors, scratched from styrene tube material.

In the course of this facial surgery, the molded handles at the lower front corners were lost. They were later replaced with three-dimensional silver wire, mounted into small holes that were drilled into the hull at the appropriate positions. Fiddly stuff, but I think the effort was worth it.

The original vent grills between the lower lamps were sanded away and covers for the multiple working cable adapters on the front ends added – scratched with small styrene profile bits.

For a cleaner, modern look, I removed the original decorative aluminum profile frame around the upper row of cooling louvers. The roof was modified, too: beyond the bigger headlight fairing, the exhaust for the auxiliary diesel engine was removed, as well as the chimney for the old steam heating system. The diesel engine’s exhaust pipes were lengthened (inspired by similar devices carried by DB BR 218), so that the fumes would be deviated away from the locomotive’s hull and the following wagons. Horns and a blade antenna for each driver’s cabin were added, too.

Painting and markings:

Both Piko and Roco V 160s in PKP markings look garish – righteously, though, since PKP locomotives used to carry for many years very striking colors, primarily a dark green body with a light green/teal contrast area on the flanks and yellow quick recognition front markings. However, I did not find any of the two model designs convincing, since they rather looked like a simple toy (Piko) or just wrong (Roco, with a surreal grass green contrast tone instead of the pale teal).

I rather went for something inspired by real world locomotives, like the PKP’s SU- and SP-45s. The basic design is an upper body with a dark green base (Humbrol 76, Uniform Green) and a pale green-grey area around the upper row of louvres (an individual mix of Humbrol 96 and 78). The kink under the front windows was used for waterline reference, the front section under the windows (in the dark green base) was painted in bright yellow (Humbrol 69) as a high-viz contrast, a typical feature of PKP locomotives. The chassis received a grey-green frame (somewhat visually stretching the locomotive) with bright red (Humbrol 19) headstocks, a nice color contrast to the green body and the yellow bib.

Silver 1.5mm decal stripes (TL Modellbau) were used to create a thin cheatline along and around the whole lower section. At some time I considered another cheatline between the light and dark green, but eventually ignored this idea because it would have looked too retro. The locomotive’s roof became medium grey (Revell 47).

The running gear and the tanks between the bogies were painted in very dark grey (Humbrol 67, similar to the original DB livery in RAL 7021) and weathered with a light black ink wash, some thinned Burnt Umbra (simulating dust and rust) plus some light dry-brushing with dark grey that emphasized the surface details. This used look was also taken to the upper body of the locomotive with watercolours (Grey, Black and some Sienna and Burnt Umbra) for a more natural look of daily service – rather subtle, and I emphasized the louvres, esp. on the light background, where they tended to disappear.

Individual markings consist of single decal letters in silver and white in various sizes (also TL Modellbau) for the locomotive’s registration code as well as of H0 scale catenary warnings from Nothaft Hobbybedarf, plus some generic stencils from various model decal sheets (incl. Cyrillic stencils from an 1:72 MiG-21 decal sheet…).

For a uniform finish I gave the locomotive an overall coat of matt acrylic varnish from the rattle can – it still has a slightly sheen finish and matches well the look of Märklin’s standard rolling stock.

A scratch-built AW L96 Sniper rifle in 1/6 scale.

Abnormally long just for fun ;)

+++ 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 Focke-Wulf Fw 190 Würger (English: Shrike) was a German single-seat, single-engine fighter aircraft designed by Kurt Tank in the late 1930s and widely used during World War II. The 190 was used by the Luftwaffe in a wide variety of roles, including day fighter, fighter-bomber, ground-attack aircraft and, to a lesser degree, even night fighter.

Plans had been made to develop the Fw 190 Z into a two-seated night fighter (with the second cockpit in the right fuselage re-installed), but this was not carried out. A high altitude version, with the long outer wings from the Ta 152 H, also remained on the drawing board, and at least one Z-16 had been tested with a 55 mm MK214 autocannon, carried in a streamlined pod under the central wing where the Z-17’s jet booster was originally installed.

General Focke Wulf Fw 190 Z-17 characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 10.20 m (33 ft 5½ in)

Wingspan: 14.580 m (47 ft 9 in)

Height: 3.35 m (11 ft 0 in)

Empty weight: 15,997 lb (7,271 kg)

Loaded weight: 4,270 kg (9,413 lb)

Max. takeoff weight: 11,632 kg (25,591 lb)

Powerplant:

2× Junkers Jumo 213E liquid-cooled inverted V-12, 1,287 kW (1,750 PS; 2,050 PS with MW-50 boost)

1× Junkers Jumo 004 B-1 turbojet, rated at 8.8 kN (1,980 lbf)

Performance:

Maximum speed: 805 km/h (500 mph) at 6,600 m (21,655 ft), 740 km/h (460 mph) at 37,000 ft (11,000 m)

Range: 1.800 mi (1.563 nmi, 2.900 km)

Service ceiling: 12,000 m (39,370 ft)

Rate of climb: 17 m/s (3,300 ft/min)

Armament:

2× 30 mm (1.18 in) MK 108 machine cannon with 110 RPG, firing through the propeller hubs

4× 20 mm MG 151 cannons with 250 rpg in the wing roots

Up to 1.000 kg (2.202 lb) of external ordnance at two hardpoints under the central wing, including bombs, drop tanks; under the outer wings additional hardpoints for four 50 kg (110lb) bombs, two racks with 12 unguided 'R4M' 55 mm (2.2 in) each, two pods with 2× 20mm MG 151/20 machine guns each or up to four WGr21 launch tubes.

The kit and its assembly:

This whif was inspired by the P-82 “Twin Mustang”, and the result is a rather bizarre creation which would nevertheless appear plausible for Germany during the late stages of WWII. Actually, Arado’s real paper project E.530 looked very similar to this creation, but it was a bigger aircraft and intended as a fast bomber.

Other Zwilling designs even entered the hardware stage or were very concrete: the He 111 Z bomber was built and used mainly as a glider tug, the Bf 109 Z and Me 609 were derivatives of their respective normal ancestors, there was even a Do 335 with two fuselages as a long range reconnaissance aircraft on the drawing board! With this real world background, the Fw 190, as a starting point for a Zwilling fighter, appears rather harmless...

Anyway, the resulting model is also not the first attempt into this direction, though, just a personal interpretation of the basic idea. The kitbashing is based on two Fw 190 D-9 kits from Italeri. While the kit is some decades old it is IMHO still a good choice (despite its fine, raised panel lines), because you get it easily and with a relatively small price tag.

Building the fuselages was straightforward, mostly OOB. The right cockpit was faired over with putty, and the fuselage machine guns disappeared (Fw 190 D-13 style) in front of both cockpit openings.

Biggest challenge were the central wing section that connects the fuselages. Just cutting the original wings and glueing them together was no option, since the leading and training edges would not be straight, and the wings have a slight anhedral. Additionally, I had to put the landing gear somewhere, and modify it, as the original Fw 190 landing gear is rather wide and it would make IMHO no sense under a twin fuselage aircraft, I have big stability doubts.

I finally settled on a scratched solution for both problems. For the landing gear, I took a look at the P-82 solution (new, single wheels which retract inwards, under the fuselages), and derived a totally new landing gear installation. It now features twin wheels (from the Fw 190 kits) in order to distribute the aircraft’s weight on soft ground, mounted on new struts, taken from a Me 262. This new construction became so “thick”, though, that it had to be retracted into the fuselage – the area under the cockpit was the only place to put it, but this is IMHO plausible since there is no radiator or other installment under the Fw 190’s belly. There's no place for ventral hardpoints now, but that's a small price to pay for a pure fighter.

With that solution found, the original landing gear wells in the wings were filled, the "inner" wings were cut away at the wing roots and a new central wing section added. This consists of a an enlarged horizontal stabilizer from a 1:100 A-10 SnapFit kit - it was perfect in span, had both straight leading and training edges, and the central fuselage part was creatively integrated into an additional idea (see below). The wing was deepened by 14mm wide with styrene strips (several layers, 2.5mm thick), and some putty was needed to blend everything together.

The final span between the fuselages was dictated by the new horizontal stabilizer. This comes from an Airfix Fw 189, the tail wheel well was filled. The outer attachment points on the fuselages' outer sides for the original stabilizers were simply faired over and sanded even.

But back to the new central wing section: the additional jet booster was a spontaneous idea. Even though the Zwilling layout is odd enough, adding a podded jet would make it SO weird that it would look even more like a serious, futuristic German design! And the idea is not far-fetched: Luftwaffe's RLM actually worked on such podded jet booster designs, e. g. for the Me 410, Ar 240 or He 219 as well as for some paper projects with mixed propulsion.

The pod’s place under the central wing section was just perfect, as the hot exhaust gasses would pass between the fuselages and under the stabilizer (without burning away the tail wheel, as on some early pod-and-boom jet fighter designs like the Yak-15). The nacelle itself comes from a leftover Hobby Boss He 162 fighter. It was taken OOB and just integrated into the lower wing. It looks so strange, but gives the aircraft a relatively compact look, too.

The drop tanks and their respective hardpoints come from the two Italeri kits. I had orginally intended to add air-to-air ordnance under the outer wings (two pairs of WGr21 launch tubes), but when everything came together I rather settled for the drop tanks.

Painting and markings:

The paint scheme is fictional, but inspired by a museum aircraft's livery: the sole surviving Fw 190 D-13, now on display in the USA. The museum aircraft's scheme looks a bit too shaggy, IMHO, but it's an interesting interpretation and uses authentic colors.

Basic colors for my version are RLM 82 and 83 on the upper surfaces, and RLM 76 below, with RLM 81 spots, streaks and blotches on the flanks. To make the thing look a bit more interesting I also added some “snaky” streaks with thinned RLM 76 on some upper surface areas, too. All basic tones were taken from the Modelmaster Authentic enamel line.

Typical for late Fw 190s, parts of the lower wings were left bare metal (painted with Revell Acrylic Aluminum), a typical result of material shortage in the late WWII stages. The leading edges were painted RLM 75 while the ailerons are RLM 76.

Taking this idea further, “my" Z-17 would not carry anymore a colored Reichsverteidigung fuselage band, indicating its Geschwader. From 1945 on, yellow ID markings (RLM 04) were carried: a band around the engine, sometimes with an added yellow field under the engine, and the rudder was frequently painted yellow, too. National markings were more and more simplified, and only a color-coded number and sometimes a symbol indicated the fighter’s group.

I used very simplified national markings on the flanks and below the wings, seen on real life Fw 190s: just black crosses without any outline. The rest of the markings were puzzled together from the scrap box, again using late war Fw 190s and Bf 109s as benchmarks.

I decided to put my aircraft into a Stab (Wing Commander's Chief-of-staff) squadron, so the markings differ from normal fighters. This one carries the horizontal bar for the 2. Gruppe among the Geschwader, in this case Jagdgeschwader 53, the “Pik As” [Ace of Spades] Squadron which dealt with interception tasks until the end of WWII in the southern regions of Germany

.

The chevron denotes an officer's aircraft; the “1” could denote the 1st aircraft of the Stab Gruppe in numerical order, but it's also possible that it is a personal symbol, as officers' aircraft would carry symbols instead of simple numbers, sometimes personal, non-standard icons or letters.

As the number is black I added dark green spinners, the typical ID color of the Stab flight among II. Group. A geek detail, and and I do not claim this to be correct – but German WWII aircraft would tend to be marked rather erratically, anyway, and I tried to do justice to historical benchmarks. Hey, it's a whif, after all!

In the end, a bizarre aircraft, but it is not as far-fetched as one might think. In this case, several single German ideas and developments were just incorporated into one model. What amazes me most is that the whole thing was assembled and painted in just three days – excluding the kit purchase and the work on the final beauty pics. Sometimes I get scared by myself...

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!

Some background:

In September 1952, the United States Navy announced a requirement for a new fighter. It was to have a top speed of Mach 1.2 at 30,000 ft (9,144.0 m) with a climb rate of 25,000 ft/min (127.0 m/s), and a landing speed of no more than 100 mph (160 km/h). Korean War experience had demonstrated that 0.50 inch (12.7 mm) machine guns were no longer sufficient, and as the result the new fighter was to carry a 20 mm (0.79 in) cannon. In response, the Vought team led by John Russell Clark, created the V-383. Unusual for a fighter, the aircraft had a high-mounted wing which necessitated the use of a fuselage-mounted short and light landing gear.

From this point on, the F-8Qs lost their raison d’être, since the Argentinian air force already had, with the Mirage III and IAI Nesher/Dagger, capable and less costly land-based interceptors available. Due to lack of spares and funds, the remaining Argentinian Crusaders (after several accidents, only eight F-8Qs were still in service and only five of them actually operational) were in 1988 transferred to Villa Reynolds air base in Western Central Argentina, grounded and stored in the open, where they quickly deteriorated. Eventually, all F-8Qs were scrapped in the early Nineties. Only one specimen survived and has been preserved in its original Gull Grey/White livery as a gate guard at the Naval Aviation Command headquarters at Comandante Espora Airport, Bahía Blanca.

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 54 ft 3 in (16.54 m)

Wingspan: 35 ft 8 in (10.87 m)

Height: 15 ft 9 in (4.80 m)

Wing area: 375 sq ft (34.8 m²)

Aspect ratio: 3.4

Airfoil: root: NACA 65A006 mod;

tip: NACA 65A005 mod

Zero-lift drag coefficient: CD0.0133

Drag area: 5.0 sq ft (0.46 m²)

Empty weight: 17,541 lb (7,956 kg)

Gross weight: 29,000 lb (13,154 kg)

Max takeoff weight: 34,000 lb (15,422 kg)

Fuel capacity: 1,325 US gal (1,103.3 imp gal; 5,015.7 L)

Powerplant:

1× Pratt & Whitney J57-P-20A afterburning turbojet engine

with 10,700 lbf (48 kN) dry thrust and 18,000 lbf (80 kN) with afterburner

Performance:

Maximum speed: 1,066 kn (1,227 mph, 1,974 km/h) at 36,000 ft (10,973 m)

Maximum speed: Mach 1.86

Cruise speed: 495 kn (570 mph, 917 km/h)

Combat range: 394 nmi (453 mi, 730 km)

Ferry range: 1,507 nmi (1,734 mi, 2,791 km) with external fuel

Service ceiling: 58,000 ft (18,000 m)

Rate of climb: 19,000 ft/min (97 m/s)

Lift-to-drag: 12.8

Wing loading: 77.3 lb/sq ft (377 kg/m²)

Thrust/weight: 0.62

Armament:

4× 20 mm (0.79 in) Colt Mk 12 cannons in lower fuselage, 125 RPG

2× side fuselage mounted Y-pylons for up to four AIM-9 Sidewinders and/or Zuni rockets

2× underwing pylon stations with a capacity of 4,000 lb (2,000 kg)

The kit and its assembly:

This relatively simple build was triggered by the “In the navy” group build at whatifmodelers.com in April/May 2020, even though I started it too late for the deadline.

After having recently read a lot of stuff about the Falklands/Malvinas conflict, I wondered if Argentina could not have procured a dedicated fighter for its single carrier – and the F-8 from US surplus stocks was a perfect candidate for the potential timeframe of the Seventies, when the type was retired from USN/USMC service or, in part, modernized and/or put up for sale, like the machines for the Philippines. The only real-world problem would have been the weight: the F-8E weighed up to 15 tons, while the Super Étendard, which was reportedly already hard to launch from Veinticinco de Mayo, had a MTOW of “only” 12 tons. Not certain if the F-8’s afterburner engine and the wings’ raised angle of incidence would have been enough to launch a Crusader? Well, it’s whifworld, after all. 😉

The basis is the Hasegawa F-8E, a kit that I had originally stashed away as a donor for a different project.

The model was built mostly OOB, I just sanded the dorsal avionics hump away and gave the machine a pair of drop tanks under the wings (from an A-4) – a rather unusual sight on a Crusader, and it looks even more weird with the wings in the raised position! The Sidewinders, relatively simple pieces, too, were taken OOB, since they look very much like early AIM-9Bs.

The kit goes together well, but it is a simple affair and you see the mold’s age. You get raised (though fine) panel lines, a rather simple cockpit tub with flat dashboards (for decals), a clumsy seat and no cockpit back wall at all. Fit is basically O.K., but the windscreen refused to fit well, and the hatch turned out to be somewhat too narrow for the rear bulkhead you are supposed to glue into it. Furthermore, the fuselage halves, especially on the underside, have shallow shrink areas close to the seams, so that PSR is mandatory. I would, not call the kit my first choice for the F-8 (which would rather be the Academy kit), but you get the Hasegawa kit at reasonable prices, and I originally purchased it as a body donor bank.

Since the kit lacks a proper air intake duct, sanding the fuselage halves inside of the respective orifice is not easy - I used a soft acrylic putty and left the radome away until the job was done. Furthermore, I added a visual blocker inside of the intake, a piece of black foamed styrene under the cockpit tub - otherwise you have direct sight down the empty interior in a head-on view.

Further small additions are some blade antennae on the hull and on the fin, inspired by the Argentinian Skyhawks.

Painting and markings:

Again, I wanted a rather subtle, semi-authentic look. The most natural choice would certainly have been a Light Gull Grey/White livery like the A-4Qs, but for a twist and because I like the late French F-8Ps in their all-over dark grey livery, I settled upon something that resembles the French/Argentinian Super Étendards: a dark, bluish-grey upper surface with white undersides and the upper colors well wrapped around the wings’ leading edges.

Concerning the French grey tone there are many different opinions and recommendations – ranging from Dark Gull Grey (FS 36231, which is IMHO much too light) over Gunship Grey (FS 36118) to dark blue.

I settled for Humbrol 79 (Blue Grey) as basic tone, which is AFAIK Humbrol’s interpretation of the German RAL 7012 (Basaltgrau), a tone that is very close to the British Dark Sea Grey. The undersides, including the landing gear, were painted with acrylic semi-gloss white from a rattle can. This was done as the first step, with a masked low waterline. Then the grey was applied by brush, and also wrapped around the wings’ leading edges. In order to improve the camouflage effect from above, the pylons as well as the outer sides of the stabilizers under the tail were painted in blue grey, too.

The flags on the rudder as well as the on the stabilizers were painted with white and Humbrol 48 (Mediterranean Blue), too, just the sun emblems on the fin are decals. Since the F-8 has, unlike the A-4 or the Sue, all-mowing stabilizers, I decided to paint the whole tail surface in white and blue and not just the trailing edge. This looks quite bright, but it is IMHO a great detail that sets this whif really apart and shows some pride.

The afterburner fairing was painted with a mix of Humbrol 27002 and 27003 (Polished Aluminum and Steel Metallizer) and later treated with graphite for a burnt look.

After an overall black ink wash the upper surfaces were treated with dry-brushed post shading (Humbrol 106 and 156). The decals come primarily from an Academy Super Étendard, augmented by markings from various decals from an Airfix Falklands War kit set sheet (e.g. the sun icons for the fin flash).

The silver leading edges of the wings, stabilizers and the fin were created with decal sheet material. the same material in black was used for walkway markings.

Decals come primarily from an Acedemy Super Étendard sheet, the tactical code was modified. Only the sun icons on the fin flash had to be procured from a different source (an Airfix A-4 Skyhawk sheet). The stencils come from the Hasegawa OOB sheet.

Finally, the kit received an all-over coat of matt acrlyic varnish.

006: Millennium Falcon.

Category: Model Kit.

Name: Millennium Falcon.

Scale: 1/350 scale.

Origin: Star Wars.

Brand: Bandai.

Material: Styrene Plastic.

Release Date: 16 Dec 2016.

Condition: Mint in box/Unassembled.

*Note: Pics not by us. It's just for reference.

This is a Model Kit collected by my BB.

More in My Collection Corner.

+++ 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 Curtiss P-40 Warhawk was an American single-engined, single-seat, all-metal fighter and ground-attack aircraft that first flew in 1938. The P-40 design was a modification of the previous Curtiss P-36 Hawk which reduced development time and enabled a rapid entry into production and operational service. The Warhawk was used by most Allied powers during World War II, and remained in frontline service until the end of the war.

The squadron claimed 34 aircraft destroyed July to December 1940, but lost 26 aircraft itself, with 16 pilots killed and three badly wounded. After the Battle of Britain ended, the squadron engaged in convoy patrols, interspersed with escort duty to medium bombers in their attack on objectives in occupied France, but got totally rid of the Tomahawks, which were in service replaced by the more capable Kittyhawk (P-40D) and mostly transferred to RAF training units or to the Soviet Union in the course of the Lend Lease program.

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 31 ft 9 in (9.68 m)

Wingspan: 37 ft 4 in (11.38 m)

Height: 10 ft 7 in (3.23 m)

Wing area: 235.94 ft² (21.92 m²)

Airfoil: NACA2215 / NACA2209

Empty weight: 5,600 lb (2,636 kg)

Loaded weight: 7,464 lb (3,393 kg)

Powerplant:

1× Allison V-171-33 liquid-cooled V12 engine, 1,040 hp (750 kW) at take-off,

driving a three blade Curtiss Electric constant spee propeller

Performance:

Maximum speed: 350 mph (307 kn, 565 km/h)

Cruise speed: 270 mph (235 kn, 435 km/h)

Range: 730 mi (640 nmi, 1,175 km) on internal fuel

Service ceiling: 29,000 ft (8,800 m)

Rate of climb: 2,656 ft/min (810 m/min)

Armament:

2× 0.50 in (12.7 mm) M2 Browning machine guns with 235 RPG above the engine;

one hardpoint under the fuselage for bombs or a drop tank

The kit and its assembly:

This is the first submission to a ‘Battle of Britain’ Group Build at whatifmodelers.com that runs Sep.-Dec. 2015, in rather strict limits concerning time frame, region and potential hardware.

This one is nothing fancy – and the P-40B just falls into the GB’s historic window, even though it arrived too late for 46 Squadron’s Norway expedition. But the Tomahawk had just become available when the Squadron regrouped.

The model is Trumpeter’s P-40B, a very nice kit, built almost OOB. I just added a camera opening on the left flank fuselage (drilled open and filled with Humbrol Clearfix) and a camera fairing under the rear fuselage - similar to real life mods that were made to some RAF Tomahawks when they were found to be unsuitable as fighters.

As an extra I removed the wing machine guns and filled their casing ejection openings , as a plausible weight-saving measure.

The propeller received a home-cooked styrene tube adapter with a long metal axis that allows free spin for photographs.

The radiator exhaust was placed in a slightly opened position and the inside filled with dark, foamed styrene as light/sight barrier.

Painting and markings:

The original plan had been to paint the Tomahawk in the unique scheme that the Hurricanes of 46 Squadron in Norway carried: Temperate Land scheme with black/white wing undersides, but the fuselage flanks and the fin were painted in a pale grey, the fin flash was painted over, too!

Even though the Tomahawk did not take part in the Norway campaign, the squadron’s later duties over the Channel and open sea made a similar livery plausible, so I stuck with the idea - and it yields an interesting look, together with other standard RAF design elements of the mid-1940 period.

The kit was painted in RAF Dark Green/Dark Earth and Canadian Voodoo Grey (all Modelmaster enamels), the black and white wings with Revell acrylics. The black spinner matches the look of RAF Hurricanes and Spitfires of the mid to late 1940 era.

The roundels and code letters were puzzled together – again, 46 Squadron Hurricanes from the Norway campaign were the benchmark, but I added a fin flash. Some light weathering was done, as well as panel shading with lighter tones of green, brown and grey. Finally, matt varnish was applied.

A simple project, but very ‘underneath the radar’. And the relatively ‘colorful’ livery sets this one well apart from the standard Temperate Land Scheme Hurricanes and Spitfires of the Battle of Britain period in 1940.

Some background:

A vanship is a type of flying machine from the animated series Last Exile. It is often referred to as a "flying boat" in that it does not fly by means of aerodynamics like planes do, but rather by floating on the air and propelling itself through the use of a substance known as "Claudia" (see below).

All vanships in the series were rendered as 3D images, a hallmark of Japanese animation studio Gonzo, makers of such series as Vandread and Blue Submarine No. 6.

The kit and its assembly:

I love the Vanships from Last Exile - even though I have never seen the series.

While these vehicles appear as retro stuff, they are very original and unique in look and feel - a modeler's dream if you are into scratchbuilding and kitbashing. There's also a 1:72 Vanship kit available (actually, in two versions) from Hasegawa, but it is IMHO overpriced. And there are so many different Vanships in the series that it is a shame that not more of them have been kitted, scratched, or at least used as a source of modelling inspiration.

The latter's the case here. I had a scratched Vanship on the agenda for a long time and also a basic idea with what I'd start, but it took a SF racing GB at phoxim.de ( a German SF model building forum) to make a move.

I wanted a small and fast single seater, and this evolved through the GB into a Racer with a more prominent engine unit and a rather purposeful livery instead of bright colors. But the basic concept was retained: originally, the plan was to use a 1:72 F4U as fuselage basis, and I had the idea to integrate some parts of a 1:43 Citroen 11CV from Heller, e. g. its grill and bonnet.

The F4U is the SMER kit, and it has the benefit of having separate wings for a folded display. The fin was cut off and the landing gear wells covered.

The cockpit opening was slightly enlarged in order to take a 1:48 Japanese WWII resin pilot and a seat from the 1:43 11CV - pretty cramped, but it worked and looks good. Only the wind screen of the OOB F4U canopy was used, as well as the original dashboard.

Most work was done on the outside, though. The first problem turned up when I realized that the 11CV bonnet could hardly be mated with the F4U. As a plan B I found a cover for the brush head of a Philipps electric toothbrush in my donor bank - a bit too high and narrow, but overall a unique addition and characteristic nose for my creation!

The landing gear comes from an Amodel Ju-87A - together with the drooped F4U inner wings the result looked a bit stalky at first, but the Vanship still needed its engines.

As a racer, I went for double power, and the long pods that carry the propulsion system were scratched from several non-model-kit parts:

- Front comes from a Revell 1:32 AH-64 Apache, its engines

- The intakes come from a Matchbox Gloster Meteor NF.14

- The "ring" consists of wheel parts from the Heller 11CV

- The conic isolators are ball pen grips, cut to size and closed with tank wheels on both ends

- The fins are plastic knives, primarily the blades and parts of the handles

In between these engine pods, which are only held under the wings and stabilized internally through steel wire, a generator pod from a 1:72 Matchbox EA-6B fills the void. It also holds a characteristic "knife" under the front grill - again carved from the handle of the plastic knives.

In order to blend the changes in fuselage shape and diameter and create a kind of Cord-style grill I added three styrene strips which were wrapped around the nose, the upper line reaching back to the cockpit - a kind of 3D rally stripe that also streches the shape.

Some air scoops and surface details were added, made from styrene, and stiff cable was used under the front fuselage to create hoses between the bonnet with the Claudia reactor and the engines.

I was frequently tempted to add more things and details or decoration, but found that a rather clean look would better suit a dedicated racer Vanship - the Stutz Blackhawk land speed record car was a vague benchmark.

Painting and markings:

I wanted to keep things simple and dry. Before this turned into a racer I considered several colors like pale blue, a greyish-green, British Racing Green or Crimson, with ivory trim. Anyway, I rejected this in favir of a pure, bare metal finish. I even did not add colorful stripes - the only "color" comes from the mechanical parts (ivory and dark brown on the engine pods, the idea was to add an isolator impression) and the small sponsor decals.

The kit initially received a basic coat of Revell's acrylic Aluminum, and onto that panels/field with several Metallizer tones (Steel, Magnesium, Titanium, polished Aluminum) were added. On top of that, the whole thing received a rubbing with grinded graphite - intensifying the metal shine and also weathering the vehicle.

The pilot received a rather conservatie outfit, with a brown leather jacket - matching the overall style of the Vanship. Some engine parts (e. g. the blades and the knife under the nose) were painted with a mix of Steel Metallizer and Gold. The cockpit interior was painted in RLM 02.

The markings were puzzled together. The start number '24' in that nice retro type comes from an 1:72 Airfix Il-2, the black disc below is from a slot car aftermarket sheet. The many sponsor stickers come mostly from an 1:72 Su-27 demonstrator aircraft sheet from Begemot - with their cyrillic typo they blend well into the Last Exile look and feel (where Greek/Cyrillic typo pops up).

Finally, the kit received a coat with acrylic gloss varnish, while the anti glare panel in front of the windscreen became matt.

+++ 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 Vickers Type 287 was a British 1930s light bomber built by Vickers-Armstrongs at Brooklands near Weybridge, Surrey, for the Royal Air Force. The Type 287 was originally built as a private venture and designed as a single-engine monoplane with a very high aspect ratio wing, and a manually operated, retractable undercarriage. It used the same geodetic design principles for both the fuselage and wings that had been derived from that used by Barnes Wallis in the airship R100. As it was not known how the geodetic structure could cope with being disrupted by a bomb bay, the Wellesley's bomb load was carried in two streamlined panniers under the wings.

By 1943 Coastal Command finally received the recognition it needed and its operations proved decisive in the victory over the U-Boats, and when more powerful Vickers Wellington aircraft became available, the Wellesleys of Coastal Command were withdrawn or deployed to Greece, and performed various support duties during the RAF interference in the Greek Civil War. By 1944, the last aircraft had been retired.

General characteristics:

Crew: 3

Length: 39 ft 3 in (11.96 m)

Wingspan: 74 ft 7 in (22.73 m)

Height: 15 ft 3½ in (4.67 m)

Wing area: 630 ft² [11] (58.5 m²)

Empty weight: 6,760 lb (3,066 kg)

Loaded weight: 11,048 lb (5,011 kg)

Max. takeoff weight: 12,500 lb (5,670 kg)

Powerplant:

1× Bristol Hercules VI, rated at 1,675 hp (1,250 kW)

Performance:

Maximum speed: 228 mph (198 kn, 369 km/h) at 19,700 ft (6,000 m)

Cruise speed: 180 mph (157 kn, 290 km/h) at 15,000 ft (4,600 m) (57% power)

Range: 1,220 mi (1,963 km)

Service ceiling: 25,500 ft (7,772 m)

Wing loading: 18 lb/ft² (86 kg/m²)

Power/mass: 0.08 hp/lb (0.14 kW/kg)

Climb to 15,000 ft (4,600 m): 17.8 min

Armament:

5× .303 in (7.7 mm) Vickers machine guns, one fixed forward in the right wing, four in a dorsal powered turret

Up to 2.000 lb (907 kg) of bombs in underwing panniers

The kit and its assembly:

Honestly, this kit conversion was inspired by an idea from fellow users (NARSES2 and pyro-manic) at whatifmodelers.com, who suggested a Wellesley in Coastal Command service. I have always liked these aircraft's elegant livery with a dark top side, white undersides and a very high waterline - and using THIS on a Wellesley, which traditionally carried Dark Green/Dark Earth uppers and Night (Black) undersides, would certainly look cool.

But it would certainly not remain a standard Mk. I bomber for sure, and as I cooked up a story I found the idea of a re-engined, radar-equipped reconnaissance aircraft pretty convincing - the Wellesley's long range and payload (the thing could carry more than it weighed itself!) made it an excellent choice.

The basis is the vintage Matchbox kit, which actually has some nice features. The geodetic surface is fine and not over-emphasized, just the landing gear is rather poor - I decided to drill open the landing gear wells and add some interior, as the kit offers OOB offer neither a well nor any detail. Inside, I glued parts from a plastic cookie box - not intended to be realistic, I just wanted to have some depth and structure.

As further means to enhance the overall look I also lowered the flaps, which was easy to realize.

Engine conversion to a Hercules (from a Matchbox Wellington bomber) was straightforward, as the Wellesley kit not only offers the original Jupiter engine of the Mk. I. bomber, but also an alternative, streamlined engine cowling for the Type 292 Long Range Development Aircraft. This offers a nice adapter for the Hercules – and with the bigger propeller and a spinner, this changes the look of the Wellesley a lot.

In order to beef up rearward defense I decided to implant a powered gun turret - a quadruple .303 turret from a Boulton Paul Defiant. The turret was taken from a Pavla kit and consists of styrene and resin parts, plus a vacu canopy. The gunner is a personal addition, I think it comes from a Matchbox Privateer, from one of the optional dorsal turrets.

Mounting the Defiant turret in the fuselage was tricky, as the turret is relatively wide, almost the same diameter as the Wellesley’s. I placed it where the original navigator cockpit with the rearwards-facing Vicker K is located. I carefully opened up the fuselage around that opening until the turret would fit, and then added covers made from styrene strips so that the whole thing would look a bit organic and streamlined. Inside, the turret sits on a styrene axis, so that it can be inserted/taken out at will. Very handy during painting, and the construction makes the turret 360° turnable.

Otherwise, the interior was taken OOB, as there’s hardly anything to identify once the canopy is fitted. The latter would remain closed, anyway.

The radome under the fuselage was a late addition: originally I had planned to add antenna masts for an ASV Mk. II radar, but then found the ASV Mk. III radome from the aforementioned Matchbox Wellington kit. As the Wellesley did not have a bomb bay, that space between the landing gear was just perfect. And while it would not be necessary I still added some antenna masts (scratched from heated sprues) under the wings and on the fuselage flanks - it just looks cool... ;)

Painting and markings:

The interior (cockpit, turret, landing gear) was painted in classic Interior Green (Humbrol 78).

On the outside, rather simple, classic Coastal Command colors were used: Dark Sea Grey and Dark Slate Grey on the upper side, with the pattern taken from the RAF Wellesley, and white undersides with a very high waterline and white leading edges on the wings.

Painting started with the lower sides – I used spray paint from the rattle can, since the large areas are hard to paint, esp. with white. Consequently I rather used a very light grey (RAL 7047, Telegrau 4), since pure white would be too bright/ by tendency. The color pictures I consulted for reference suggest that these machines would easily tend to become dirty, much room for weathering! After basic spray painting, the “white” areas received a counter-shading and dry-brushing with Humbrol 196 (RAL 7035, Lichtgrau), which is slightly more yellow-ish and lighter than RAL 7047.

After that had dried up, waterlines and leading edges were masked with Tamiya Tape, for the upper colors. Humbrol 27 and 224 were used as basic enamel colors, as they are the darkest tones for the job. Later, these were treated with Modelmasters’ 2056 and 2059, in order to weather the upper surfaces and work out the geodetic structure – similar procedure as for the lower surfaces.

The kit received a wash with black ink and serious dry-brushing in order to work out the wonderful surface structure - basically with some Humbrol 64 (Light Sea Grey) all around - no pure white has been used on the kit at all. Dirt, soot and stains were added with grinded graphite and thinned Humbrol 224.

Decals were puzzled together from the scrap box, from various RAF aircraft. Even though I took 179th Squadron Wellingtons as benchmark, I decided to add a full three-digit code with dull red letters – it adds an eye-catcher to the aircraft’s flanks, and the letters come from a MIcroscale aftermarket sheet.

The respective Wellingtons only had scarce markings and just single-letter codes (the full squadron code, "OZ", had obviously been omitted?).

In the end, not a major conversion, but the different paint scheme and the more massive nose change the overall look of the Wellesley considerably. I am quite happy with the result.

Some background:

The VF-1 was developed by Stonewell/Bellcom/Shinnakasu for the U.N. Spacy by using alien Overtechnology obtained from the SDF-1 Macross alien spaceship. Its production was preceded by an aerodynamic proving version of its airframe, the VF-X. Unlike all later VF vehicles, the VF-X was strictly a jet aircraft, built to demonstrate that a jet fighter with the features necessary to convert to Battroid mode was aerodynamically feasible. After the VF-X's testing was finished, an advanced concept atmospheric-only prototype, the VF-0 Phoenix, was flight-tested from 2005 to 2007 and briefly served as an active-duty fighter from 2007 to the VF-1's rollout in late 2008, while the bugs were being worked out of the full-up VF-1 prototype (VF-X-1).

However, the fighter remained active in many second line units and continued to show its worthiness years later, e. g. through Milia Jenius who would use her old VF-1 fighter in defense of the colonization fleet - 35 years after the type's service introduction!

General characteristics:

All-environment variable fighter and tactical combat Battroid,

used by U.N. Spacy, U.N. Navy, U.N. Space Air Force and U.N.S. Marine Corps

Accommodation:

Pilot only in Marty & Beck Mk-7 zero/zero ejection seat

Dimensions:

Fighter Mode:

Length 14.23 meters

Wingspan 14.78 meters (at 20° minimum sweep)

Height 3.84 meters

Battroid Mode:

Height 12.68 meters

Width 7.3 meters

Length 4.0 meters

Empty weight: 13.25 metric tons;

Standard T-O mass: 18.5 metric tons;

MTOW: 37.0 metric tons

Power Plant:

2x Shinnakasu Heavy Industry/P&W/Roice FF-2001 thermonuclear reaction turbine engines, output 650 MW each, rated at 11,500 kg in standard or 225.63 kN in overboost

4x Shinnakasu Heavy Industry NBS-1 high-thrust vernier thrusters (1 x counter reverse vernier thruster nozzle mounted on the side of each leg nacelle/air intake, 1 x wing thruster roll control system on each wingtip)

18x P&W LHP04 low-thrust vernier thrusters beneath multipurpose hook/handles

Performance:

Battroid Mode: maximum walking speed 160 km/h

Fighter Mode: at 10,000 m Mach 2.71; at 30,000+ m Mach 3.87

g limit: in space +7

Thrust-to-weight ratio: empty 3.47; standard T-O 2.49; maximum T-O 1.24

Design Features:

3-mode variable transformation; variable geometry wing; vertical take-off and landing; control-configurable vehicle; single-axis thrust vectoring; three "magic hand" manipulators for maintenance use; retractable canopy shield for Battroid mode and atmospheric reentry; option of GBP-1S system, atmospheric-escape booster, or FAST Pack system

Transformation:

Standard time from Fighter to Battroid (automated): under 5 sec.

Min. time from Fighter to Battroid (manual): 0.9 sec.

Armament:

2x Mauler RÖV-20 anti-aircraft laser cannon, firing 6,000 pulses per minute

1x Howard GU-11 55 mm three-barrel Gatling gun pod with 200 RPG, fired at 1,200 rds/min

4x underwing hard points for a wide variety of ordnance, including…

12x AMM-1 hybrid guided multipurpose missiles (3/point), or

12x MK-82 LDGB conventional bombs (3/point), or

6x RMS-1 large anti-ship reaction missiles (2/outboard point, 1/inboard point), or

4x UUM-7 micro-missile pods (1/point) each carrying 15 x Bifors HMM-01 micro-missiles,

or a combination of above load-outs

2x auxiliary hardpoints on the legs for light loads like a FLIR sensor, laser rangefinder/

target designator or ECM pod (typically not used for offensive ordnance)

The kit and its assembly:

This fictional VF-1 was born from spontaneous inspiration and the question if the USMC could have adopted the Valkyrie within the Macross time frame and applied its rather special grey/green/black paint scheme from the Nineties that was carried by AH-1s, CH-46s and also some OV-10s.

The model is a simple, vintage ARII VF-1 in Fighter mode, in this case a VF-1D two-seater that received the cockpit section and the head unit from a VF-1J Gerwalk model to create a single seater. While the parts are interchangeable, the Gerwalk and the Fighter kit have different molds for the cockpit sections and the canopies, too. This is mostly evident through the lack of a front landing gear well under the Gerwalk's cockpit - I had to "carve" a suitable opening into the bottom of the nose, but that was not a problem.

The kit was otherwiese built OOB, with the landing gear down and (finally, after the scenic flight pictures) with an open canopy for final display among the rest of my VF-1 fleet. However, I added some non-canonical small details like small hardpoints on the upper legs and the FLIR and targeting pods on them, scratched from styrene bits.

The ordnance was changed from twelve AMM-1 missiles under the wings to something better suited for attack missions. Finding suitable material became quite a challenge, though. I eventually settled on a pair of large laser-guided smart bombs and two pairs of small air-to-ground missile clusters. The LGBs are streamlined 1:72 2.000 lb general purpose bombs, IIRC from a Hobby Boss F-5E kit, and the launch tubes were scratched from a pair of Bazooka starters from an Academy 1:72 P-51 kit. The ventral standard GU-11 pod was retained and modified to hold a scratched wire display for in-flight pictures at its rear end.

Some blade antennae were added around the hull as a standard measure to improve the simple kit’s look. The cockpit was taken OOB, I just added a pilot figure for the scenic shots and the thick canopy was later mounted on a small lift arm in open position.

Painting and markings:

Adapting the characteristic USMC three-tone paint scheme for the VF-1 was not easy; I used the symmetric pattern from the AH-1s as starting point for the fuselage and gradually evolved it onto the wings into an asymmetric free-form pattern, making sure that the areas where low-viz roundels and some vital stencils would sit on grey for good contrast and readability. The tones became authentic: USMC Field Green (FS 34095, Humbrol 105), USN Medium Grey (FS 35237, Humbrol 145) and black (using Revell 06 Tar Black, which is a very dark grey and not pure black). For some contrast the wings' leading edges were painted with a sand brown/yellow (Humbrol 94).

The landing gear became standard white (Revell 301), the cockpit interior medium grey (Revell 47) with a black ejection seat with brown cushions, and the air intakes as well as the interior of the VG wings dark grey (Revell 77). To set the camouflaged nose radome apart I gave it a slightly different shade of green. The GU-11 pod became bare metal (Revell 91). The LGBs were painted olive drab overall while the AGMs became light grey.

Roundels as well as the UNSMC and unit tags were printed at home in black on clear decal sheet. The unit markings came from an Academy OV-10. The modex came from an 1:72 Revell F8F sheet. Stencils becvame eitrher black or white to keep the low-viz look, just a few tiny color highlights bereak the camouflage up. Some of the characteristic vernier thrusters around the hull are also self-made decals.

Finally, after some typical details and position lights were added with clear paint over a silver base, the small VF-1 was sealed with a coat of matt acrylic varnish.

A spontaneous interim project - and the UMSC's three-tone paint scheme suits the VF-1 well, which might have been a very suitable aircraft for this service and its mission profiles. I am still a bit uncertain about the camouflage's effectiveness, though - yes, it's disruptive, but the color contrasts are so high that a hiding effect seems very poor, even though I find that the scheme works well over urban terrain? It's fictional, though, and even though there are canonical U.N.S. Marines VF-1s to be found in literature, none I came across so far carried this type of livery.

Every now and then I feel a dire urge to tackle one of the Dorvack PA kits from the pile, and in early 2021 it was about time to build the next one. This one is canonical, and close to the OOB offering, even though it is not an original kit but rather a re-release (2008) from Aoshima’s PAC-48 twin combo kit. The PAC-48C “Doldian” is a bit obscure, though, because I have never seen this type (or better: its armament) in the OAV. It’s probably the usual alternative to the canonical model variants from the series.

Even though the Dorvack PAs are rather simple kits, they need some skill because the parts do not fit THAT well. However, you have to keep in mind that the molds were created in the early 80ies, as a quick merchandising shot for a new "Real Robot" TV series that were all the rage in Japan at that time, even though the series eventually flopped. The designs are also older than Yokoyama Kow's Ma.K./ZbV3000/Maschinenkrieger stuff, which they actually inspired!

The kit and its assembly:

Since I lacked an “authentic” PAC-48G in my collection, I decided to build the kit only with little modifications/improvements and stick to the OOB livery. As such, the only physical mods include slightly twisted legs (feet canted outwards for a more natural stance) and left arm, and I added some jet nozzles inside of the jump jet exhausts on the back. Fine plastic mesh was added to the gun and to the air intake on the back, in an attempt to hide the lack of depth in the orifices behind it.

To my surprise, the body parts of the kit were molded in an almost translucent, deep purple styrene with added mica pigments!? Weird. The kit went together quite well, but I have enough experience with these PAs to avoid the biggest troubles. For instance, I expanded the joints were plastic hits plastic, and the lower leg construction of the PAC-48, with its integral stabilizer jets on the heels, just does not fit properly.

Painting and markings:

The paint scheme is OOB, and I was lucky to have an original Gunze Sangyo PAC-48G kit and its instructions at hand, because they are better illustrated than the Aoshima documentation. For instance, the Aoshima painting instructions lack a rear view and respective details. The old document also shows better the different shades of metallic grey in which the model is to be painted, and lacks the fact that the helmet, the gun and a small cap/bulge on top of the air intake are in a slightly darker tone than the overall hull of this PA.

The basic overall tone became Humbrol 53 (Gun Metal; OOB this is a mix of silver and steel), a simple but suitable solution, after considering some other tones at hand, including car paints. The previously mentioned, darker sections on the gun and the hull were painted with a 3:1 mix of Humbrol 53 and 22 (Gloss Black), for a subtle difference.

Other hull sections like the upper legs and right arm were painted with Revell 09 (Anthracite), a very dark grey. The original instructions suggest something close to German WWII Panzergrau. The helmet’s front half was painted with Humbrol 19 (Gloss Red), the jump jet nozzle fairing became orange (Humbrol 18, originally it is supposed to be fluorescent orange, but found that rather cheesy) and the smaller veneer jet nozzles were painted with Revell 310 (Lufthansa Yellow). The “chest box” became bright white, a good contrast to the dull rest of this PA.

Deviating slightly from the original, I painted the ball joints on the arms and knees in Revell 91 (Iron Metallic), which is slightly brighter than Humbrol 53. Originally they are supposed to be painted matt dark grey, too, but IMHO this does not make them look like joints at all?

Another personal change is the visor slit’s design; the original PAC-48G features an opaque black surface with a silver/steel frame on the red helmet background, but I changed this into a black frame with a chrome PET foil inlay, with an OOB decal on top. The foil insert was also a cheap trick to hide the recessed seam of the hull halves that runs right down the visor slit, making it hard to sand it away or use putty.

As per usual, the kit received a black ink wash for weathering and some dry-brushing for light effects and panel shading. I also gave the metallic surfaces a treatment with grinded graphite, enhancing the metallic shine and giving the model a noticeably worn look that adds some seriousness to the colorful PA - after all, it is a piece of military equipment, fighting an alien invasion! Once the kit had been prepared this far, decals were added. All stencils and markings come from the PAC-48G's OOB sheet, which is quite exhaustive for such a small model.

After some more detail painting work the PA was sealed with matt acrylic varnish, and I gave the model a dusting with grey-brown mineral artist pigments, simulating dust in general and mud crusts around the feet in specific.

Another member for the growing Dorvack PA family, there are already more than 20 of them in the collection! The PAC-48G was still missing, and it was a quick build, but while the kit itself went together with relatively few problems, but I did not change much and could concentrate on the inherent flaws. It did not end up 100% authentic, and - in hindsight - the Gun Metal as basic color unfortunately turned out to be a little too dark and dull for the model, the Doldian does not look too spectacular in this rather greyish livery.

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the model, the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!

Some background:

The roots of the Estonian Air Force go back to the Russian revolution of February 1917, after which the Estonian state obtained a degree of autonomy within Russia, which included the establishment of national armed forces. Following the February 1920 peace treaty with the Soviet Russia, the Estonian Army was demobilized, but the Aviation Company was retained. With the delivery of more aircraft, it was reorganized as an Aviation Regiment (Lennuväe rügement), comprising a landplane squadron, seaplane squadron, flying school and workshops. More bases and seaplane stations were built.

The timing was tight: After the defeat of Poland, Estonia was forced to accept a Mutual Assistance Pact with the Soviet Union, signed on 28 September 1939. This allowed the Russians to establish military bases in Estonia, which were later used in the Winter War against Finland, and any Estonian military force was neutralized. On 17 June 1940, the three Baltic States were eventually invaded by Soviet forces, and the remains of the Estonian Air Defence took no action and subsequently aircraft remained locked in their hangars, and the Estonian Air Force became the Aircraft Squadron of the 22nd Territorial Corps of the Soviet Army in the summer of 1940.

General characteristics:

Crew: one pilot

Length: 29 ft 11 in (9.12 m)

Wingspan: 36 ft 10 in (11.23 m)

Height: 11 ft 5 in (3.86 m)

Wing area: 242.1 ft2 (22.48 m²)

Airfoil: NACA 2213 (root)

NACA 2209.4 (tip)

Empty weight: 5,065 lb (2,297 kg)

Loaded weight: 6,622 lb (3,000 kg)

Max. takeoff weight: 6,700 lb (3,039 kg)

Powerplant:

1× Rolls-Royce Merlin II liquid-cooled V12 engine, delivering 1,030 hp (768 kW),

driving a de Havilland three blade two pitch constant speed propeller with 9 ft 8 in (2.97 m) diameter

Performance:

Maximum speed: 362 mph (583 km/h) at 18,500 ft (5,600 m)

Combat radius: 410 nmi (470 mi (756 km))

Ferry range: 991 nmi (1,135 mi (1,827 km))

Service ceiling: 36,500 ft (11,125 m)

Rate of climb: 2,490 ft/min (12.6 m/sec) at 10,000 ft (3,000 m)

Wing loading: 27.35 lb/ft2 (133.5 kg/m2)

Power/mass: 0.22 hp/lb (0.36 kW/kg)

Armament:

8× 0.303” (7.62 mm) Browning Mk II machine guns (300 RPG) in the outer wings

The kit and its assembly:

Another one of the quickie build from April/May 2019, when I was busy at work and did not have the mojo for a bigger project. This one is a classic whif: something that existed on paper and has a real historic background, but never materialized. And it’s a free, personal interpretation of the subject – for instance, KORA recently released a decal set for Estonian Spitfires, and individual models frequently pop up at model kit conventions.

Since the Spitfire was a relatively young type during this model’s scenario, I decided to use an early Spitfire Mk. I as starting point, and my choice fell on the (vintage) Hasegawa kit, which comes with optional propellers and canopies for the Mk. I. Basically, the kit was built OOB, using the flat, “early” canopy and the three blade propeller that was actually introduced in 1940. For the latter, I just integrated a styrene tube into the front fuselage and added a metal axis to the propeller, so that it could spin freely.

Overall, the Hasegawa kit is a very simple affair, there are certainly better and more detailed kits available – but for this distraction project it was good enough.

Painting and markings:

How could an Estonian Spitfire have looked like? KORA suggests either an all-NMF aircraft or standard RAF camouflage in Dark Green/Dark Earth, but also with the white/black undersides for quick AA ID of the era.

I found the NMF finish, while a plausible option, since types like the Avro Anson were operated in this guise, a bit dull. But the RAF camouflage appeared quite plausible to me, since many other British export fighters of the pre-WWII era were delivered in such a finish, and I used Humbrol 116 and 29 as basic tones), but gave the aircraft a uniform underside in duck egg blue (Humbrol 23). Just inside of the landing gear well, I subtly added the British heritage in the form of a black and white interior. The cockpit was painted in standard RAF cockpit green (Humbrol 78).

Whiffery became more obvious through the markings. The Estonian triangles actually belong to a post-WWI Sopwith Camel. The blue is quite pale, but these markings came with the bonus of a white edge, which improves contrast esp. on the upper surfaces. The Estonian flag on the rudder was improvised with paint and decal material: the blue was mixed individually, trying to match the roundels’ tone, and the white section was painted, too, with a piece of black decal sheet between them.

The same blue was also added to the spinner – I wanted a little individual touch, and this detail was IMHO just enough to make the Estonian aircraft look less RAF-ish.

The other few markings were puzzled together from various sources. The tactical code number comes from an Xtradecal sheet for a Bristol Blenheim, the squadron emblem comes from a Polish pre-WWII aircraft.

The kit received no black ink wash, just some subtle panel post-shading and some soot stains around the machine gun nozzles and the exhausts. Finally, everything was sealed under matt acrylic varnish (Italeri).

Certainly nothing that raises eyebrows, but a pleasant build, realized in just a couple of days. It just took some weeks to find the right mojo for pics, and the file with the original background story was eaten by a mighty star goat in the meantime and had to be rewritten…

Some background:

The VF-1 was developed by Stonewell/Bellcom/Shinnakasu for the U.N. Spacy by using alien Overtechnology obtained from the SDF-1 Macross alien spaceship. Its production was preceded by an aerodynamic proving version of its airframe, the VF-X. Unlike all later VF vehicles, the VF-X was strictly a jet aircraft, built to demonstrate that a jet fighter with the features necessary to convert to Battroid mode was aerodynamically feasible. After the VF-X's testing was finished, an advanced concept atmospheric-only prototype, the VF-0 Phoenix, was flight-tested from 2005 to 2007 and briefly served as an active-duty fighter from 2007 to the VF-1's rollout in late 2008, while the bugs were being worked out of the full-up VF-1 prototype (VF-X-1).

However, the fighter remained active in many second line units and continued to show its worthiness years later, e. g. through Milia Jenius who would use her old VF-1 fighter in defense of the colonization fleet - 35 years after the type's service introduction!

General characteristics:

All-environment variable fighter and tactical combat Battroid,

used by U.N. Spacy, U.N. Navy, U.N. Space Air Force and U.N.S. Marine Corps

Accommodation:

Pilot only in Marty & Beck Mk-7 zero/zero ejection seat

Dimensions:

Fighter Mode:

Length 14.23 meters

Wingspan 14.78 meters (at 20° minimum sweep)

Height 3.84 meters

Battroid Mode:

Height 12.68 meters

Width 7.3 meters

Length 4.0 meters

Empty weight: 13.25 metric tons;

Standard T-O mass: 18.5 metric tons;

MTOW: 37.0 metric tons

Power Plant:

2x Shinnakasu Heavy Industry/P&W/Roice FF-2001 thermonuclear reaction turbine engines, output 650 MW each, rated at 11,500 kg in standard or 225.63 kN in overboost

4x Shinnakasu Heavy Industry NBS-1 high-thrust vernier thrusters (1 x counter reverse vernier thruster nozzle mounted on the side of each leg nacelle/air intake, 1 x wing thruster roll control system on each wingtip)

18x P&W LHP04 low-thrust vernier thrusters beneath multipurpose hook/handles

Performance:

Battroid Mode: maximum walking speed 160 km/h

Fighter Mode: at 10,000 m Mach 2.71; at 30,000+ m Mach 3.87

g limit: in space +7

Thrust-to-weight ratio: empty 3.47; standard T-O 2.49; maximum T-O 1.24

Design Features:

3-mode variable transformation; variable geometry wing; vertical take-off and landing; control-configurable vehicle; single-axis thrust vectoring; three "magic hand" manipulators for maintenance use; retractable canopy shield for Battroid mode and atmospheric reentry; option of GBP-1S system, atmospheric-escape booster, or FAST Pack system

Transformation:

Standard time from Fighter to Battroid (automated): under 5 sec.

Min. time from Fighter to Battroid (manual): 0.9 sec.

Armament:

2x Mauler RÖV-20 anti-aircraft laser cannon, firing 6,000 pulses per minute

1x Howard GU-11 55 mm three-barrel Gatling gun pod with 200 RPG, fired at 1,200 rds/min

4x underwing hard points for a wide variety of ordnance, including…

12x AMM-1 hybrid guided multipurpose missiles (3/point), or

12x MK-82 LDGB conventional bombs (3/point), or

6x RMS-1 large anti-ship reaction missiles (2/outboard point, 1/inboard point), or

4x UUM-7 micro-missile pods (1/point) each carrying 15 x Bifors HMM-01 micro-missiles,

or a combination of above load-outs

2x auxiliary hardpoints on the legs for light loads like a FLIR sensor, laser rangefinder/

target designator or ECM pod (typically not used for offensive ordnance)

The kit and its assembly:

This fictional VF-1 was born from spontaneous inspiration and the question if the USMC could have adopted the Valkyrie within the Macross time frame and applied its rather special grey/green/black paint scheme from the Nineties that was carried by AH-1s, CH-46s and also some OV-10s.

The model is a simple, vintage ARII VF-1 in Fighter mode, in this case a VF-1D two-seater that received the cockpit section and the head unit from a VF-1J Gerwalk model to create a single seater. While the parts are interchangeable, the Gerwalk and the Fighter kit have different molds for the cockpit sections and the canopies, too. This is mostly evident through the lack of a front landing gear well under the Gerwalk's cockpit - I had to "carve" a suitable opening into the bottom of the nose, but that was not a problem.

The kit was otherwiese built OOB, with the landing gear down and (finally, after the scenic flight pictures) with an open canopy for final display among the rest of my VF-1 fleet. However, I added some non-canonical small details like small hardpoints on the upper legs and the FLIR and targeting pods on them, scratched from styrene bits.

The ordnance was changed from twelve AMM-1 missiles under the wings to something better suited for attack missions. Finding suitable material became quite a challenge, though. I eventually settled on a pair of large laser-guided smart bombs and two pairs of small air-to-ground missile clusters. The LGBs are streamlined 1:72 2.000 lb general purpose bombs, IIRC from a Hobby Boss F-5E kit, and the launch tubes were scratched from a pair of Bazooka starters from an Academy 1:72 P-51 kit. The ventral standard GU-11 pod was retained and modified to hold a scratched wire display for in-flight pictures at its rear end.

Some blade antennae were added around the hull as a standard measure to improve the simple kit’s look. The cockpit was taken OOB, I just added a pilot figure for the scenic shots and the thick canopy was later mounted on a small lift arm in open position.

Painting and markings:

Adapting the characteristic USMC three-tone paint scheme for the VF-1 was not easy; I used the symmetric pattern from the AH-1s as starting point for the fuselage and gradually evolved it onto the wings into an asymmetric free-form pattern, making sure that the areas where low-viz roundels and some vital stencils would sit on grey for good contrast and readability. The tones became authentic: USMC Field Green (FS 34095, Humbrol 105), USN Medium Grey (FS 35237, Humbrol 145) and black (using Revell 06 Tar Black, which is a very dark grey and not pure black). For some contrast the wings' leading edges were painted with a sand brown/yellow (Humbrol 94).

The landing gear became standard white (Revell 301), the cockpit interior medium grey (Revell 47) with a black ejection seat with brown cushions, and the air intakes as well as the interior of the VG wings dark grey (Revell 77). To set the camouflaged nose radome apart I gave it a slightly different shade of green. The GU-11 pod became bare metal (Revell 91). The LGBs were painted olive drab overall while the AGMs became light grey.

Roundels as well as the UNSMC and unit tags were printed at home in black on clear decal sheet. The unit markings came from an Academy OV-10. The modex came from an 1:72 Revell F8F sheet. Stencils becvame eitrher black or white to keep the low-viz look, just a few tiny color highlights bereak the camouflage up. Some of the characteristic vernier thrusters around the hull are also self-made decals.

Finally, after some typical details and position lights were added with clear paint over a silver base, the small VF-1 was sealed with a coat of matt acrylic varnish.

A spontaneous interim project - and the UMSC's three-tone paint scheme suits the VF-1 well, which might have been a very suitable aircraft for this service and its mission profiles. I am still a bit uncertain about the camouflage's effectiveness, though - yes, it's disruptive, but the color contrasts are so high that a hiding effect seems very poor, even though I find that the scheme works well over urban terrain? It's fictional, though, and even though there are canonical U.N.S. Marines VF-1s to be found in literature, none I came across so far carried this type of livery.

1:34 scale 6-yard recycling dumpster built out of styrene plastic. Done up with Waste Management of Kennewick "Single Stream Recycling" decals

Sculpt update on the Space Jockey - 1:18 scale - ALIEN 79. After a few video updates, thought I'd produce a few pictorial updates on my progress.

Phase II has begun, building and sculpting the forward section of the creature's vessel. This section will support the large "cannon" that towers over the doomed pilot (to be sculpted later).

I've also added 1/2 inch more to the base of the sculpture, as the original proportions didn't match up to the amount of space needed to produce the lower half of the sculpt below the creature's body. This was done by creating a 1/2 styrene frame, attaching it to the base and sculpting over it. Originally it was a full inch but I realized quickly it was too much and reduced accordingly. I'm happy with how it looks now, not only in its own proportions but to the scale of the 1:18 EVA figures that I'm also working on (seen in the shots).

Do I continue on or take a break? I need to take a pause and work on other projects to keep things fresh. Not that I won't work on this while taking on other builds but I need to get into those projects first and bring this back into the fold later. It's that or I keep working on this and let the other projects gather dust. Not cool with doing that.

Hope you enjoy the video updates I've posted recently. You can find them all in one place on my youtube page that I'm slowly populating.

www.youtube.com/user/Sithfire30Creations

I'm nowhere near as good shooting video updates as many of you are but a guy has to start somewhere.

Thanks again for all the interest! More to come!!! #nostromo #spacejockey #sculpture #biomechanical #hrgiger #miniature

Shell Oil Company

59’5” 31,780gal Styrene Tank Car (DOT Class 111A100W1)

SCMX 6508

Blt. Trinity Rail (TRN), 02/14 (SCMX 6000-6519)

CN MacMillan Yard, Vaughan, Ontario, Canada

February 18th, 2017

1600 x 1050

Shell Oil Company

59’5” 31,760gal Styrene Tank Car (DOT Class 117R100W)

SCMX 6381

Blt. Trinity Rail (TRN), 01/14 (SCMX 6000-6519)

Green Ln (CN Bala Sub), Markham, Ontario, Canada

July 7th, 2023

1600 x 1050

The kit and its assembly:

Well, this is a rather unusual what-if “build”, since this not a model kit as such but rather the conversion of a readymade H0 gauge model railway locomotive for the “Back into service” group build at whatifmodelers.com in late 2019.

The inspiration was not original, though: some time ago I stumbled across a gift set from the former East-German manufacturer Piko, apparently for the Polish market. It contained a set of double deck passenger wagons, and a (highly simplified, toy-like) German BR 216 in PKP markings. It was called SU-29 and carried a very crude and garish green livery with yellow front ends – inspired by real world PKP diesel locomotives, but… wrong. I found this so bizarre that it stuck in my mind. When I dug a little further, my surprise even grew when I found out that there were other national adaptations of this simple Piko BR 216 (e .g. for Denmark) and that Piko’s competitor Roco offered a similar BR 215 in PKP colors, too! This time, the fictional locomotive was designated SU-47 (which cannot be since this would indicate a locomotive with electric power transmission – poor job!), and it also wore a bright green livery with yellow front markings. Bizarre… And the PKP does NOT operate any BR 216 at all?!

However, with the GB topic in mind, I decided to create my own interpretation of this interesting topic – apparently, there’s a market for whiffy model locomotives? The basis became a 2nd hand Märklin 3075 (a BR 216 in the original red DB livery), not a big investment since this is a very common item.

In order to easy painting, the locomotive was disassembled into its major sections and the body stripped of any paint in a one-week bath in oven cleaner foam, a very mild and effective method.

The heavy metal chassis was not modified, it just received a visual update (see below).

The upper body underwent some cosmetic surgery, though, but nothing dramatic or structural, since the DH 1504 described above only differs in minor external details from the original BR 216. I decided to modify the front ends, especially the lights: Locomotives in PKP service tend to have VERY large lamps, and I tried to incorporate this characteristic feature through masks that were added over the original light conductors, scratched from styrene tube material.

In the course of this facial surgery, the molded handles at the lower front corners were lost. They were later replaced with three-dimensional silver wire, mounted into small holes that were drilled into the hull at the appropriate positions. Fiddly stuff, but I think the effort was worth it.

The original vent grills between the lower lamps were sanded away and covers for the multiple working cable adapters on the front ends added – scratched with small styrene profile bits.

For a cleaner, modern look, I removed the original decorative aluminum profile frame around the upper row of cooling louvers. The roof was modified, too: beyond the bigger headlight fairing, the exhaust for the auxiliary diesel engine was removed, as well as the chimney for the old steam heating system. The diesel engine’s exhaust pipes were lengthened (inspired by similar devices carried by DB BR 218), so that the fumes would be deviated away from the locomotive’s hull and the following wagons. Horns and a blade antenna for each driver’s cabin were added, too.

Painting and markings:

Both Piko and Roco V 160s in PKP markings look garish – righteously, though, since PKP locomotives used to carry for many years very striking colors, primarily a dark green body with a light green/teal contrast area on the flanks and yellow quick recognition front markings. However, I did not find any of the two model designs convincing, since they rather looked like a simple toy (Piko) or just wrong (Roco, with a surreal grass green contrast tone instead of the pale teal).

I rather went for something inspired by real world locomotives, like the PKP’s SU- and SP-45s. The basic design is an upper body with a dark green base (Humbrol 76, Uniform Green) and a pale green-grey area around the upper row of louvres (an individual mix of Humbrol 96 and 78). The kink under the front windows was used for waterline reference, the front section under the windows (in the dark green base) was painted in bright yellow (Humbrol 69) as a high-viz contrast, a typical feature of PKP locomotives. The chassis received a grey-green frame (somewhat visually stretching the locomotive) with bright red (Humbrol 19) headstocks, a nice color contrast to the green body and the yellow bib.

Silver 1.5mm decal stripes (TL Modellbau) were used to create a thin cheatline along and around the whole lower section. At some time I considered another cheatline between the light and dark green, but eventually ignored this idea because it would have looked too retro. The locomotive’s roof became medium grey (Revell 47).

The running gear and the tanks between the bogies were painted in very dark grey (Humbrol 67, similar to the original DB livery in RAL 7021) and weathered with a light black ink wash, some thinned Burnt Umbra (simulating dust and rust) plus some light dry-brushing with dark grey that emphasized the surface details. This used look was also taken to the upper body of the locomotive with watercolours (Grey, Black and some Sienna and Burnt Umbra) for a more natural look of daily service – rather subtle, and I emphasized the louvres, esp. on the light background, where they tended to disappear.

Individual markings consist of single decal letters in silver and white in various sizes (also TL Modellbau) for the locomotive’s registration code as well as of H0 scale catenary warnings from Nothaft Hobbybedarf, plus some generic stencils from various model decal sheets (incl. Cyrillic stencils from an 1:72 MiG-21 decal sheet…).

For a uniform finish I gave the locomotive an overall coat of matt acrylic varnish from the rattle can – it still has a slightly sheen finish and matches well the look of Märklin’s standard rolling stock.

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!

Some background:

The Bell P-39 Airacobra was one of the principal American fighter aircraft in service when the United States entered World War II. Designed by Bell Aircraft, it had an unusual layout, with the engine installed in the center fuselage, behind the pilot, and driving a tractor propeller in the nose with a long shaft. It was also the first fighter fitted with a tricycle undercarriage. Major users of the type included the Free French, the Royal Air Force, the United States Army Air Forces, and the Italian Co-Belligerent Air Force.

A total of 4,719 P-39s were sent to the Soviet Union, accounting for more than one-third of all U.S. and UK-supplied fighter aircraft in the VVS, and nearly half of all P-39 production. Soviet AiraCobra losses totaled 1,030 aircraft (49 in 1942, 305 in 1943, 486 in 1944 and 190 in 1945). AiraCobras served with the Soviet Air Forces as late as 1949, when two regiments were operating as part of the 16th Guards Fighter Aviation Division in the Belomorsky Military District.

General characteristics:

Crew: One

Length: 30 ft 2 in (9.19 m)

Wingspan: 34 ft 0 in (10.36 m)

Height: 12 ft 5 in (3.78 m)

Wing area: 213 sq ft (19.8 m2)

Empty weight: 7,060 lb (3,205 kg)

Gross weight: 8,092 lb (3,674 kg)

Max takeoff weight: 9,053 lb (4,110 kg)

Powerplant:

1× Shvetsov M-82FN 14-cylinder air-cooled radial piston engine,

delivering 1,460 kW (1,960 hp) emergency power and driving a four-blade propeller

Performance:

Maximum speed: 395 mph (636 km/h, 343 kn)

Stall speed: 95 mph (153 km/h, 83 kn) power off, flaps and undercarriage down

Never exceed speed: 525 mph (845 km/h, 456 kn)

Range: 496 mi (800 km, 432 nmi) on internal fuel

Service ceiling: 35,000 ft (11,000 m)

Rate of climb: 4,225 ft/min (21,5 m/s) at 7,400 ft (2,300 m) (using emergency power)

Time to altitude: 15,000 ft (4,600 m) in 4 minutes 30 seconds, at 160 mph (260 km/h)

Wing loading: 34.6 lb/sq ft (169 kg/m²)

Power/mass: 0.16 hp/lb (0.26 kW/kg)

Armament:

1× 23 mm (0.91 in) VYa cannon with 60 rounds, firing through the propeller hub,

2× 20 mm (0.79 in) Berezin B-20 cannons in the fuselage with 120 RPG

Provisions for 2× 0.5 in (12.7 mm) Browning M2 machine guns in external pods,

one under each outer wing, but rarely fitted

Up to 500 lb (230 kg) of bombs under wings and belly, or a ventral 300 l drop tank

The kit and its assembly:

This fever-dream conversion of an innocent Bell P-39 was inspired by a profile drawing of this fictional conversion by fellow modeler and illustrator FrancLab at FlickR, called P-39R, even though it carried typical American markings:

www.flickr.com/photos/franclab/51073633507/in/faves-14802...

An AiraCobra with a radial engine in the place of the original V12 inline powerplant looked so weird and ugly – it had to be built some day. The idea lingered for some months, and when I recently got hands on a cheap Heller P-39 I eventually tackled this stunt. Due to the conversions weirdness I rather decided to change this aircraft’s origins to the Soviet Union – where, in real life, some very AiraCobra-esque projects (e. g. the Gudkov Gu-1, which was a straightforward P-39 clone, or the Belyayev OI-2, a kind of twin-P-39!) appeared on the drawing board. On the other side, there actually was an Italian fighter prototype in WWII with a similar layout, the Piaggio P.119 from 1942, even though it was a tail-sitter

It was soon clear that the profile layout could not be exactly realized, but I stayed true to the concept. The P-39 was basically built OOB, just the area behind the cockpit saw considerable modifications. The original engine bay was cut open and the carburetor intake disappeared. Since the water cooler was not necessary anymore the outer pair of intakes in the wing roots as well as the outer outlets under the wings’ trailing edge disappeared. The intakes and duct in the middle were retained, though, for an oil cooler.

The engine cover consists of a pair of annular radiators from 2 different Fw 190D kits (IIRC, one from Academy and the other from Intech), one of them was reduced in depth. The cooling fan came from a, Italeri BMW 801 engine. At the rear the engine pod is held by a nose fairing from a KP biplane, nicely blended into the fuselage with some PSR- The area behind the cockpit was trimmed down to form intake slits for the radial engine, and also blended with PSR. A new spine fairing behind the cockpit replaced the original clear part.

The only other mods are a better seat in the cockpit, a styrene tube adapter inside the nose (plus lots of lead beads) for the propeller, which was mounted onto a metal axis, and a different drop tank that replaced the teardrop-shaped original, for a different look. The flaps were lowered, too.

Painting and markings:

This was not easy. The real VVS AiraCobras were delivered as complete aircraft from the USA and carried standard olive drab/neutral grey colors, just some early P-400 for/from UK came with RAF colors. Since the fictional Go-1 would be based on aircraft kits imported from the USA, these would probably have just been primed or left in bare aluminum, to be painted in local colors when finished. With this in mind I settled for a typical early WWII VVS scheme in light green and black (the ‘tractor scheme’), even though I rather used a dark olive drab for the latter, and blue-grey undersides. The pattern was based on a standard La-5 scheme, found on many specimen of this fighter type.

The light green became a mix of FS 34227 (ModelMaster) and Humbrol 159 in a 3:1 ratio, Humbrol 66 and 87 for the undersides. As colorful unit markings I gave the aircraft a light blue spinner and rudder. After basic painting I gave the kit a washing with thinned black ink and some panel post-shading.

The decals and markings come from various sources, including a sheet for Soviet P-40s from PrintScale for the tagline on the nose. Once these were in place, I added a coat of weathered whitewash as worn winter camouflage to the upper surfaces, around the markings. This was created with thinned acrylic matt white (Revell 5), applied with a flat, soft brush and then treated with a soft piece of cloth, alcohol and a hard, flat brush as well as wet sanding after drying. Additionally, soot stains were created with graphite and some detail dry-brushing with light grey and aluminum was added. Finally, the model was sealed with matt acrylic varnish.

I built this from scratch out of sheets of styrene and some metal parts. It is built to 1:34 scale to match the model refuse trucks made by First Gear Diecast. It's nearly complete now, I just need to build a cart dumper and special order some of the decals, like the truck number and DOT numbers that need to be done in white lettering on clear decal paper, since I don't have that capability to do myself.

Today I was mainly focusing on building the cockpit, and starting the head.

I must've spent at least 6 or 7 hours making the cockpit canopy, trying to get it right, but it's a tremendously strange shape to get perfect (or at least that's what I found)

I detailed the interior ceiling as much as I dare to mould, and then began creating the new styrene head, using the wooden piece as both a forming buck and a prototype. I'm not very keen on 'skinning' the wood pieces with styrene as it's just as time consuming as building entirely from sheet plastic.

Regardless, stay tuned for more.

Remember, this is a kit master!

Some Background:

Fang of the Sun Dougram (太陽の牙ダグラム Taiyō no Kiba Daguramu) is a 75-episode anime television series, created by Ryosuke Takahashi and Sunrise, and aired in Japan from October 23, 1981 to March 25, 1983 on TV Tokyo.

The series begins in a desert on the colony planet Deloyer, where the remains of a destroyed robot are resting as a red-haired woman is standing in front of it. The woman hallucinates what appears to be a group of armed soldiers alongside the robot in a non-destroyed state. A man named Rocky appears, leading to the woman running into his embrace where she cries tears of joy. After this, the series flashes back to an earlier time, in order to explain the circumstances leading up to the first episode.

Malcontents on the Deloyer colony agitate for the independence of their world from the Earth Federation. In an unexpected coup, the elected Governor declares martial law and sets himself up as absolute dictator. With the approval of the Federation, he rules the planet with an iron fist. In reaction, a ragtag group (including the governor's estranged son) rises in open rebellion, using a powerful prototype Combat Armor: the Dougram. Their goal is the end of the dictatorship and total independence from the Federation's influence.

The story follows the actions of the guerilla freedom fighters known as "The Deloyer 7." The war is fought across the planet Deloyer as the Federation vigorously pursues the rebels. The series is noted for its realistic use of not just the combat armors and support vehicles, but also military tactics. The series also followed a wide range of characters and political intrigue, with many shady characters switching sides throughout the series.

Crinn Cashim is the show's main character. Son of Governor Donan Cashim, he becomes trained in piloting the Soltic H8 “Roundfacer” standard army robot by Jacky Zaltsev, a Federation Ace, because of his father's political connections. When his father appears to be overthrown by a coup led by Colonel Von Stein, he pilots a Roundfacer while Federation forces battle Garcia's forces. He is stunned to learn that his father has actually sided with Von Stein in a secret plan, and eventually becomes angry at his father's forces in how they deal with the rebellion following the coup. Following a meeting with Dr. David Samalin, who introduces him to a combat armor he has designed, the Dougram, Cashim and his friends form The Fang of the Sun and join the rebellion against the Federation.

general characteristics

Unit type: CB (combat) armor

Manufacturer: Soltic Company

Crew: 1 pilot

Overall height: 10.02 meters

Base weight: 30.5 metric tons

Generator type: Rolls-Royce N8E x 1

Generator output: 54 points per second

Maximum running speed: 45 km/h

Continuous operational time: 324 minutes

Armament:

1x hand gun (various types, incl. a grenade launcher or a linear gun)

4x 25mm chain guns in the lower arms

1x shoulder-mounted 9-tube missile pod

Optional equipment: hang glider, camouflage suit, shield

Mechanical designer: Kunio Okawara

The kit (and its revival):

This is another model of an 1:72 Soltic H8 "Roundfacer" (there’s already one in my mecha collection), but it's not an original Takara kit, but rather comes from the Revell re-boxing in the mid Eighties among their Robotech line. It was there part of a kit set, called "Armored Combat Team", and came together with a wheeled vehicle set.

However, this model was originally not built and painted by me. It's rather a generous donation from a good friend who made an attempt into mecha when these kits were distributed. It was built roundabout 30 years(!!!) ago and, AFAIK, never 100% finished; for instance, the hoses around the neck were never mounted, and the handgun had never been never painted.

As the only one of its kind it never found a true place in my friend’s model kit collection, and after some years of disregard it even got damaged: the delicate hip joint got broken, the Roundfacer lost one of its legs. In this sorry status the model rested in a dark corner, collected dust...

...until it was given to me many years ago, unfortunately after I had already gone through my hot mecha phase in the Nineties, in which I resurrected many of my own builds for a second life. So the Roundfacer lay (again) around in my spare parts deposit for some more years, until I finally decided to tackle and revamp it in early 2018. Inspiration strikes in unexpected occasions.

At first I thought that I could just repair the leg and add some parts in order to finish the model, but this plan was soon foiled. However, the biggest issue remained the broken attachment point for the left leg - and it turned out to be more severe than first expected. Initially I tried to mend the problem with a metal pin reinforcement, so that the original pintle could be re-attached again. But then the right leg came off, too, and the whole joint turned out to have become so brittle (it literally fell apart) that it had to be replaced completely!

So I scratched a completely new hip joint and a sturdy attachment construction from styrene profiles and plastic-coated steel wire, which would allow a similar range of movement as the original construction, even though not as flexible - but the Roundfacer would be displayed anyway.

The rest of the kit was otherwise in good shape, and the joints free from paint for high movability. I made some changes and improvements, though. This included the cleaning of the seams on both legs (PSR) and the addition of some surface details with IP profile material. This meant that the original paintwork would have at least party to be renewed, but fortunalety I knew the paints and respective tones my friend had used when he had built the kit.

Another challenge were the characteristic hoses that lay around the Roundfacer's neck like a scarf. I was lucky to find leftover parts from a vintage 1:144 Gundam Zaku in my stash, the fit almost perfectly. Otherwise, they had had to be scratched.

The original missile launcher was re-fitted, even though it had to be fixed since the original attachment construction had also fallen victim to the styrene's brittleness over the ages. The handgun - while complete and available - was replaced by the weapon from a H-102 Bushman, which looks a bit more beefy, like a grenade launcher instead of the OOB assult rifle.

Painting and markings:

I was not certain whether I would re-paint the Roundfacer, which would have meant stripping it off of of its original enamels - but I eventually rejected this for two reasons: First of all I thought and still think that the brittle material of the finished kit made any surgery or chemical intervention hazardous. Esp. the joints were delicate, the loss of the hip joint was already trouble enough. And then I liked the fictional scheme the Roundfacer had been given, a kind of winter camouflage in black and light grey, separated by thin white lines. I simply wanted to keep the original concept, since it looks pretty unusual - and also in order to honor my friend's original approach.

So, instead of a new or additional layer of paint I limited my work to the areas with PSR and added details, and the original (and highly translucent!) decals had to go, too.

The original colors are Humbrol 64 (Light Sea Grey), 33 (Flatblack) and 34 (Flat White). For the repairs the same tones were used, just the pure black (which had suffered in the meantime) was replaced by Revell 6 (Tar Black). The result is pretty good, you hardly recognize the touch-ups.

In order to take the model a step further I also did some thorough weathering, at first with a dark grey acrylic wash, which was also texturized with vertical brush streaks along the flanks, and some later dry-brushing on the edges, emphasizing the robot's shape and details.

The new markings were puzzled together from various sheets, including some Dougram models.

For an even more unique look, and in order to hide some flaws, I decided to add a thin coat of snow – also in line with the small base I created for display (an somewhat in order to justify/explain the paint scheme).

The display base:

This is certainly not a diorama, but I wanted a small, scenic setting that would show surroundings in order to justify the Roundfacer’s strange black/grey scheme.

The foundation is a small MDF wood board, 8” x 6” in size, leftover from a street base gone bad many moons ago. On top of the wooden base, the landscape was sculpted with Styrofoam, using the Roundfacer as benchmark for the overall layout. The idea was to show an unpaved path or street, flanked by rock formations. Due to the base’s small size the rocks had to be limited in size. Since the robot would dominate the scene, anyway, I placed it further in the background.

In the foreground, some space was saved for a small vehicle, which would add some variety and create some kind of scene. Since I did not want to invest too much effort into building or even converting or scratching a scout car or something similar.

After some search I settled upon a modern Bundeswehr “Dingo” from Panzerstahl, a completed plastic model. I found it to be a very good match for the base and the Roundfacer – and for the scene I took it OOB and just re-painted it in black with light grey mottles and dusted it with snow (see below), too.

With the positions of the vehicles determined it was time to add details to the landscape. Most inspiration came from Antarctica and Iceland – you have volcanic rock formations, namely black basalt, with hexagonal structures, and ice and snow on top. Anything that the Roundfacer’s livery reflects.

The hexagonal rocks would be the most prominent structure on the base, and these were created with bits from …pencils. They were tailored to size with the help of a paper cutting machine, then glued into bundles and finally stuck into the Styrofoam ground and arranged into bigger structures.

Once dry the rest of the surface was covered and sculpted with plaster. A coat of thinned plaster was also spread over the pencils, blurring their shapes. On the street, track marks were created with a truck model kit wheel and the Roundfacer.

Once the plaster had dried, the diorama received a coat of thinned white glue, mixed with black paint, into which different grains of sand were strewn. Around the rock formations, broken shell gravel (from a home decoration shop) was used to mimic bigger chunks of rock. Again, things had to dry thoroughly.

Next came an overall basic coat of black – applied with a rattle can, so that the paint would evenly reach all recesses. After more drying time the landscape received washes with dark grey and dull olive green. Into the wet paint some grass fiber and wood pieces were glued, in areas behind the rock formations which would offer some protection against the weather.

Another drying period followed, for the second-to-last treatment: a thin coat of snow (which was also added to the Roundfacer and the car). I prefer white tile grout for this task, because it is easy to handle, sticks well to wet surfaces and remains white and stable in the course of time. For application, I put some of the dry material in a glass and cover it with a nylon stocking, and shake it over the wetted (water with drop of detergent) surface. This makeshift device is easy to handle and has the charm that you can gradually adjust the grit and amount of tile grout that rains down.

The street area received some additional treatment with thinned black and grey paint, simulating a mix of snow and dirt.

In a final step, the base and the vehicles received a coat of acrylic matt varnish from the rattle can for protection and snow fixation.

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!

Some background:

After the Second World War, France’s armored force consisted, almost entirely, of US-built vehicles, such as the M4 Sherman, M26 Pershing, and M24 Chaffee (among others). France received these vehicles as aid as part of the Marshall Plan and the Mutual Defense Assistance Act (MDAA). These aid pacts also financed the reconstruction of France’s economy and armed forces from 1948 until the late 1950s. In April 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty was signed, and NATO was born, resulting in the United States extending the MDAA. This resulted in France receiving newer vehicles, such as the M47 Patton II tank.

In 2000, nearly ten years after the end of the civil war, the SLA disbanded, and the surviving former IDF tanks were returned to Israel to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands – spelling the end to the AMX-US long career, of which four were returned and subsequently scrapped.

Specifications:

Crew: Four (Commander, Loader, Gunner, Driver)

Weight: 15 tons

Length: 4.88 m (16 ft) overall

Width: 2.51 m (8 ft 2 in)

Height: 2.30 m (7 ft 5 in)

Suspension: Torsion arms; Tracked chassis, 5 roadwheels, drive sprocket front, idler rear,

3.00 m length, 0.35 width, 2.16 m track

Ground clearance: 0.37 m (1 ft 2½ in)

Fording depth: 2 ft (0.6 m) unprepared, 6.9 ft (2.1 m) with snorkel

Grade: 60%

Side slope: 60%

Trench crossing: 1.6 m (5 ft 3 in)

Vertical wall climb: 0.65 m (2 ft 1½ ft)

Fuel capacity: 480 l (127 gal)

Engine:

1× water-cooled Renault SOFAM Model 8Gxb 8-cylinder gasoline with 250 hp

Transmission:

Hydramatic automatic transmission; 8 speeds forward, 4 reverse

Armor:

Hull: 10 - 40 mm (1.57 in)

Turret: max. 38 mm (1.49 in)

Performance:

Speed: 60 km/h (40 mph) maximum, road

Operational range: 350 km (217 mi) on streets with internal fuel only

Power/weight: 17 hp/t

Armament:

1× 75 mm Lightweight Tank Gun M6 in Mount M64 with 48 rounds

1× co-axial 0.30 Cal. (7.62 mm) Browning M1919 machine gun, 2.200 rounds

1× 0.50 Caliber (12.7 mm) M2 Browning anti-aircraft heavy machine gun, 440 rounds

The kit and its assembly:

This fictional tank model is the result of recycling: After a T-34 conversion, which used an AMX-13 turret, I was left with the chassis of a 1:72 Heller kit. The latter is a rather simple and primitive affair, with many wrong details and a very weak running gear. From another, even older conversion project I also had an almost complete turret from a Hasegawa M24 Chaffee left over. When I stumbled in literature over the French AMX-US hybrid I decided to use these leftover bits to create one!

The AMX-13 chassis was taken OOB, because I did want to invest too much energy into this build, despite its many flaws. Its running gear is rubbish, the vinyl tracks featureless, and overall the detail level is rather soft. From a distance it looks like an AMX-13, but any closer inspection reveals the model's simplicity and toy-likeness. The Chaffee turret was also built with the original parts – but I had to replace the gun barrel and find a replacement for the gunner’s hatch.

Nevertheless, some scratch work had to be done. The biggest challenge was the AMX-US’ characteristic turret adapter ring, which markedly raises the M24 turret above the AMX-13 hull. My solution became a manually bent a piece of soft styrene profile - it’s not perfectly circular, but that’s not obvious when the turret is in place, and it looks the part. Furthermore, some small bits were added to hide flaws and distract. These include vertical bars in the exhaust opening, shallow storage boxes on the fenders (hiding the wacky distance ring) and tarpaulin/cammo net packs (created from paper tissue and nylon stockings drenched with white glue). The commander cupola’s hatch was left open and a figure (an ESCI German WWII tank commander) added, to make the model appear livelier. Since the M24’s AA machine gun had been gone, I had to replace it with one from an ESCI Merkava, its mount was moved in front of the cupola.

Painting and markings:

Initially, I just had the French army as potential operator for the AMX-US but found that rather boring due to the very limited livery options: any French tank from the era would have carried a dark olive-green livery, even those operated in North Africa! Some French M24s had been operated in South-East Asia in a sand/green/brown/green jungle scheme, but the time frame would not match well. So, I checked other AMX-13 operators and took liking in an IDF vehicle. However, while looking for potential liveries I came upon the SLA. The AMX-US, had it been handed over to the IDF, could have been among these donor tanks, and their unique (if not spectacular) light blue livery made them outstanding. I am not certain whether the blue tone was intended as serious camouflage or just as an IFF measure? However, among typical light rocks and mountains of the Lebenon and in dusty/hazy air, the bluish tone actually works quite fine, better than expected.

While a uniform livery is not complex, finding a suitable tone for the model took a while. Real life color pictures (of dubious quality) show a wide range of light blue and/or grey tones, ranging from a bright sky blue over pale grey (like FS 36375) to a medium bluish grey (FS 35237), frequently with severe signs of weathering/sun-bleaching which makes some tanks appear almost white. Some M50s also had olive drab or dark grey patches or patterns added on top as additional camouflage.

After testing several options I chose RLM78 (Modelmaster 2088) as basic tone. Odd choice, but it turned out to be light enough, is a rather blue tone (with a slight hint of green), but still dull enough to look like a military tone. An overall washing with a mix of grey, black and red brown followed, and then the model received a thorough, overall dry brushing treatment with various shades of light blue grey, including Modelmaster RLM76, FS 36320 and Revell 75, for a worn and bleached appearance.

The markings had to be completely improvised, though, and were created with Corel Draw on an ink jet printer and with white and clear decal paper. They include the SLA’s cedar tree emblem and the Arabic tactical codes. The white “X” markings were created with generic decal stripes.

After the model had been sealed with matt acrylic varnish, sand and dust residues were created with watercolors, and some beige mineral pigments were dusted into the running gear and over the upper surfaces.

A quick build and a good use of leftover parts from other projects, melded into a plausible result. The SLA livery adds a weird twist to this model, even though it is – in the end – just a mix of real-world elements: the AMX-US existed, and the SLA operated light blue tanks! Life is sometimes stranger than fiction.

Some background:

The Leyland “Type D” was one of several armoured vehicle types designed in 1940 on the orders of Lord Beaverbrook and Admiral Sir Edward Evans, as a part of the hasty measures taken by the British Government following the Dunkirk evacuation and the threat of invasion.

The “Type D” was a heavy scout car, intended to replace the Lanchester 6x4 and Rolls-Royce 4x2 armoured cars, which dated back to the WWI era and the early interwar period. While they were reliable vehicles and still in active service, their off-road capabilities, armament and armour left a lot to be desired – esp. in the face of the modern German army and its effective equipment.

However, the Type D was not popular, quickly replaced by smaller and more agile vehicles like the Humber scout car, and by 1944 outdated and retired. Leyland built a total of 220 Type Ds of both versions until early 1943, whilst an additional 86 Mk. IIs were built by the London, Midland and Scottish Railway's Derby Carriage Works.

Specifications:

Crew: Four (commander, gunner, driver, co-driver/radio operator/loader)

Weight: 8.3 tons

Length: 20 ft 5 in (6,30 m)

Width: 7 ft 5 in (2,27 m)

Height: 9 ft 2¾ in (2,81 m)

Ground clearance: 12 in (30.5 cm)

Turning radius: 39 ft (12 m)

Suspension: Wheel, rigid front and rear axles;

4x8 rear-wheel drive with selectable additional 6x8 front axle drive

Fuel capacity: 31 imp gal (141 litres)

Armour:

5–15 mm (0.2 – 0.6 in)

Performance:

Maximum road speed: 35 mph (56 km/h)

Sustained road speed: 30 mph (48 km/h)

Cross country speed: up to 20 mph (32 km/h)

Operational range: 250 mi (400 km)

Power/weight: 11,44 hp/ton

Engine:

1× Leyland 7-litre six-cylinder diesel engine, 95 hp (70 kW)

Transmission:

4-speed, with a 2-speed auxiliary box

Armament:

1× QF Two-pounder (40 mm/1.57 in) cannon with 94 rounds

1× 7.92 mm Besa machine gun mounted co-axially with 2.425 rounds

2-4× smoke dischargers, mounted on the turret

The kit and its assembly:

This fictional British WWII vehicle might look weird, but it has a real-world inspiration: the Marmon Herrington Mk. VI armoured heavy scout car. This vehicle only existed as a prototype and is AFAIK still preserved in a museum in South Africa – and upon a cursory glance it looks like an SdKfz. 232 with the shrunk turret from a “Crusader” cruiser tank with a short-barreled six pounder gun. It looks like a fake! Another reason for this build was a credible “canvas” for the application of the iconic “Caunter Scheme”, so that I placed the Type D in a suitable historic time frame.

The Type D was not supposed to be a truthful Marmon Herrington Mk. VI copy, so I started with a 1:72 “First to Fight” SdKfz. 232. This is a simple and sturdy tabletop wargaming model, but it is quite accurate, goes together well, is cheap and even comes with a metal gun barrel. It’s good value for the money, even though the plastic is a little thick and soft.

However, from this basis things changed in many ways. I initially wanted to shorten the hull, but the new wheels (see below) made this idea impossible. Nevertheless, the front glacis plate was completely re-modeled with 2C putty in the style of the Humber scout car, and the crew cabin was extended backwards with the same method. New observation slits had to be scratched with styrene profile material. The engine bay received a raised cover, simulating extra air intakes. The turret was replaced with a resin piece for an A13 “Valentine” Mk.III tank (S&S Models), which had a perfect size and even came with a suitable gun.

The suspension was taken OOB, but the wheels were replaced with two aftermarket resin sets (Silesian Models) with special Allied desert wheels/tires from 1941, they originally belong to a Chevrolet truck and are markedly bigger and wider than the SdKfz. 232 wheels. However, they had to be modified to match the rest of the suspension, and their size necessitated a thorough modification of the mudguards. They were not only mounted 1mm higher on the flanks, their sides, normally consisting of closed skirts, were fully opened to make sufficient room for the new wheels to change the vehicle’s look. They were furthermore separated into four two-wheel covers and their front and rear ends were slightly bent upwards. Sufficient space for the side doors had to be made, too. The spare wheels that came with the respective sets were mounted to the front (again Humber-style) and onto the engine bay cover, under a scratched tarpaulin (made from paper tissue drenched with white glue).

To conceal the SdKfz. 232 heritage even more I added more equipment to the vehicle’s flanks. Tool boxed were added to the engine bay’s flanks, some more tools to the fenders, scratched tarpaulin rolls above the side doors and I tried to scratch PSP plates with aluminum foil rubbed against a flight stand diorama floor made from PSP. Not perfect, but all the stuff livens the Type D up. A new exhaust (IIRC from a Panzer IV) was added to the rear and bumpers scratched from wire and mounted low unto the hull.

Painting and markings:

Finally, the British, so-called “Caunter Scheme”, a great source of misinterpretation not only in museums but also by modelers who have painted their British tanks in dubious if not garish colors. I do not claim that my interpretation of the colors is authentic, but I did some legwork and tried to improvise with my resources some tones that appear plausible (at least to me), based on descriptions and contemporary references.

The pattern itself was well defined for each vehicle type, and I adapted a M3 “Stuart” pattern for the model. All three basic colors, “Light Stone”, “Silver Grey” and “Slate”, were guesstimated. “Slate” is a relatively dark and greenish tone, and I chose Tamiya XF-65 (Field Grey). “Light Stone” is rather yellow-ish, light sand tone, and I used Humbrol 103 (Cream). Some sources suggest the use of Humbrol 74 (linen) as basis, but that is IMHO too yellow-ish and lacks red. The most obscure tone is “Silver Grey”, and its depictions range from a pale and dull light olive drab over blue-grey, greenish grey to bright light blue and even turquoise. In fact, this tone must have had a greenish-blue hue, and so I mixed Humbrol 145 (FS 35237) with maybe Humbrol 94 in a 3:1 ratio to achieve an “in between” tone, which is hard to describe - maybe as a greenish sand-grey? A funny effect of the colors in direct contrast is that the XF-65 appeared with an almost bluish hue! Overall, the choice of colors seems to work, though, and the impression is good.

Painting was, as usual, done with brushes and, due to the vehicle’s craggy shape, free-handedly. After basic painting the model received a light washing with a mix of black ink and brown, and some post-shading was done with light grey (Revell 75) and Hemp (Humbrol 168). Decals came from the scrap box, and before an overall protective coat of matt acrylic varnish was applied, the model received an additional treatment with thinned Revell 82 (supposed to be RAF Dark Earth but it is a much paler tone).

A more demanding build than one would expect at first sight. The SdKafz. 232 is unfortunately still visible, but the desert wheels, including the spare wheels, change the look considerably, and the British replacement turret works well, too. Using the tabletop model basis was not a good move, though, because everything is rather solid and somewhat blurry, esp. the many molded surface details, which suffered under the massive body work. On the other side, the Counter Scheme IMHO turned out well, esp. the colors, even though the slender hull made the adaptation of the pattern from a (much shorter) tank not easy. But most of the critical areas were hidden under extra equipment, anyway. 😉

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!

Some background:

The Yokosuka J1Y was a land-based interceptor for the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service (IJN/大日本帝國海軍航空隊, Dai-Nippon Teikoku Kaigun Kōkū-tai) that was based upon a research aircraft and introduced into service during the final months of WWII. Work on the J1Y commenced at the Yokosuka Naval Air Technical Arsenal (海軍航空技術廠, Kaigun Kōkū Gijutsu-shō) during 1942 and 1943, in the midst of the Second World War. The J1Y was initially intended to test the benefits of different aircraft layouts in order to exploit the available engines’ potential further, albeit the aircraft had been designed from the start in a fashion that was suitable for combat and easily adaptable into a light fighter aircraft. It would eventually be developed into Yokusuka’s only fighter project.

The J1Y3 arrived at IJN units in March 1945, but only a few were operational until the end of hostilities in the PTO, probably only around 40 aircraft were eventually delivered.

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 30 ft 9 in (9.37 m)

Wingspan: 38 ft (12 m)

Height: 8 ft 10 in (2.69 m)

Wing area: 262 ft² (24.3 m²)

Empty weight: 2,839 kg (6,259 lb)

Gross weight: 3,211 kg (7,079 lb)

Powerplant:

1× Mitsubishi Kinsei 62 14 cylinder radial engine with 1,163 kW (1,560 hp)

Performance:

Maximum speed: 640 km/h (397 mph, 346 kn) at at 6,096 m (20,000 ft)

560 km/h (348 mph, 303 kn) at sea level

Cruising speed: 495 km/h (308 mph, 267 kn)

Range: 1,078 km (670 mi, 582 nmi) at 272 km/h (169 mph; 147 kn) at 457 m (1,500 ft)

Ferry range: 1,190 km (740 mi, 640 nmi)

Service ceiling: 10,200 m (33,500 ft)

Rate of climb: 15 m/s (3,000 ft/min)

Armament:

2× 20 mm belt-fed Type 99-2 Mark 4 cannon with 125 RPG and

2× 7.7 mm (.303 in) Type 97 machine guns with 250 RPG in the lower fuselage

2× hardpoints under the outer wings for 60 kg (132 lb.) bombs

or 200 l (53 US gal; 44 imp gal) drop tanks

The kit and its assembly:

This build followed a spontaneous inspiration, and it became another contribution to the “in the navy” group build at whatifmodlers.com in early 2020. I actually had the Vampire kit already stashed away for a while, and the plan to convert it into a propeller-driven aircraft with a radial engine and a pusher configuration à la Saab 21 had been there – but I lacked an idea for an operator, so that I could build the background story around it. With the “in the navy” theme, it suddenly clicked – why not the IJN? The Vampire is a rather compact and slender aircraft, so there’s IMHO some Japanese “style” in the design, and after the torturous build of HMS Cerberus I wanted some kind of relief.

The Vampire kit is the vintage Heller mold from 1979, but actually in a mid-Nineties Revell re-boxing. Like many other Heller kits, it comes with raised panels, but detail is sufficient (nice dashboard, landing gear is O.K., and the kit comes with separate air brakes) – the molds seem to be a bit worn, though, I guess a “true” old Heller kit is more crisp and would be the better choice.

At the core of the conversion plan was the implantation of a radial engine in place of the jet exhaust. I found a donor part from a Hobby Boss MC.200 Saetta – a bit vintage, but it had the right diameter and I actually liked the ring of bulges on the cowling. Internally, a styrene tube adapter was added for a freely spinning propeller.

While adding a prop to a jet seems to be an easy task, the real challenge behind such a conversion are the many other changes that have to be made to the airframe. This includes a (considerably) longer landing gear and the respective wells, but also the tail surfaces. There’s also the question how the new radial engine actually breathes, where exhausts can be located, and a cooling system is necessary, too.

Work started with the search for new landing gear struts, and I also used different wheels – for instance, the main wheels come from a Hasegawa F9F Panther, while the front wheel comes from a Frog He 162 and is probably 35 years old(!). In order to make the longer struts fit into the airframe, I elongated the wells in the wings towards the fuselage, so that the track width was reduced – but with the Vampire’s small airframe and original wide stance, this was no serious problem. From the inside, they were faired with styrene profile material, and the extended covers were scratched – esp. the parts for the wings, with their bulges for the tail boom tips, were fiddly.

In order to move the overall look a bit further away from the Vampire, I completely changed the fin arrangement. The original, rounded and rather small fins and the bullet-shaped fairings that hold the stabilizer outside of the original exhaust blast were deleted. Once the wings and the tail booms were added to the fuselage, the stabilizer was mounted between the booms, in a slightly lower position. For the new fins I wanted a layout that would, beyond a more squarish shape that would better match the wings, protect the propeller. Therefore, I used stabilizers from a KP Yak-23; each was cut into two pieces, tailored further to match the rest of the aircraft, and glued in positions above and underneath the booms. Looks quite weird, as if the aircraft had been designed upside down, but it’s a rather pragmatic solution that has already been used on some pusher designs in the past.

The six-blade propeller was scratched from a spinner, carved from a thick piece of sprue, plus a metal axis and six single blades that were taken from the rather wacky one-piece propellers of Airfix’s Ki-46 kit.

Hollow steel needles were used as barrels for the Type 99 cannons in the lower fuselage.

Painting and markings:

Once more, a rather conservative approach – and the IJN was not creative when it came to liveries. Almost every aircraft carried a typical dark green over light grey scheme, with minimal individual markings or tactical codes. I wanted to stay true to this concept but decided to simplify the scheme even more since this would be a late-war aircraft, pressed into service under rather dire supply circumstances. This resulted in a NMF livery (basis is Tamiya XF-60, which turned out soemwaht grainy, plus some Polished Aluminum Metallizer from Humbrol on top), with only the upper surfaces camouflaged with IJN Green (ModelMaster) without primer underneath, resulting in a somewhat flaky and worn look. Since they are rather slender, the tail booms were completely painted in IJN green, too.

The yellow ID markings on the wings’ leading edges were created with decal material (TL Modellbau), the cockpit interior as well as the landing gear wells were painted with a mix of silver and blue, mimicking the typical “aodake iro” protective clear lacquer of Japanese IJN aircraft. The struts were painted black, according to A6M museum exhibits. The propeller blades ware painted in a red-brown primer, a mix of Humbrol 160 and 180.

Markings were taken from a PrintScale Yokosuka N1K2 decal sheet and mixed from two aircraft. Placing the fuselage hinomaru was tricky – the natural choice would have been the tail booms, but they’d be very small, so I rather put them on the fuselage under the cockpit. With the individual aircraft number added to the meatball, it looks now like a racing aircraft, though...

Finally, the kit received some soot stains and dry-brushing with aluminum, and everything was sealed with semi-gloss acrylic varnish from Italeri - even though the result is a little too glossy for my taste, but I left it that way.

A rather quick build, but structurally not much from the Vampire was changed. The new engine was relatievly easy to integrate - the other small bits like the fins, the propeller and esp. the landing gear took more time. The result looks quite odd - the whole thing has also a certain German touch? Could have worked well with a BMW 801 engine, too!

Custom 1:34 scale dumpster, handmade out of styrene for use with the First Gear Diecast 1:34 scale front-load garbage truck. This one is a 6-yard recycling dumpster, done up with Waste Management decals.

This is Sharp's MD-DS8/9 portable MD player. It is the world's first mass portable audio device with true balanced output. It is also the first with 1-bit audio codec used in DSD and SACD and other bitstream audio that's popular today.

Low noise floor, good measurements overall, but almost no stereo separation. Like, almost mono.

I've measured its output with RMAA here:

ohm-image.net/data/audio/rmaa-sharp-md-ds8-9-16-bit

I've recorded a video review of it here:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKnjJoonCF0

Strobist:

Two Profoto D1 lights: one object left, 4/10 power, behind styrene sheet; one object behind and above, power 5/10 and behind diffuser and styrene sheet.

Camera: Leica SL. Lens: 24-90 vario elmarit

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!

Some background:

Although Japan had designed and manufactured a number of military aircraft before and during World War II, it was forbidden according to the Potsdam Declaration from engaging in the production of airplanes and other products that could be used to rearm a military. These restrictions, however, were lightened by the United States during the Korean War, opening up the possibility for a Japanese company to produce a civilian aircraft.

The YS-21 turned out to be a reliable and sturdy aircraft, popular among its crews for its good low speed handling. On 29 April 1995, the last YS-21s in service flew their last commercial flights. Throughout their combined cumulative operational lifetimes, the YS-21s accumulated a total of 1.18 mio. flight hours, during which 80.4 million passengers were carried across 1.3 mio. individual flights, without any accidents and an impressive 98% in-service reliability.

General characteristics:

Crew: 3

Capacity: 85 with 8,400 kg (18,519 lb) payload

Length: 32.40 m (106 ft 1 1/2 in)

Wingspan: 34.3 m (112 ft 6 in)

Height: 10.80 m (35 ft 4 1/2 in)

Wing area: 146.7 m2 (1,579 sq ft)

Empty weight: 22,200 kg (48,943 lb)

Max takeoff weight: 46,000 kg (101,413 lb)

Powerplant:

2× Mitsubishi-built Pratt & Whitney JT8D-9 low bypass turbofans, 64 kN (14,500 lbf) thrust each

Performance:

Maximum speed: 590 mph (950 km/h, 510 kn) at 6,100 m (20,000 ft)

Cruise speed: 470–530 mph (750–850 km/h, 400–460 kn) at 6,100 m (20,000 ft)

Range: 1,700 km (1,100 mi, 920 nmi)

Service ceiling: 12,000 m (39,000 ft)

Rate of climb: 16.7 m/s (3,300 ft/min) at 2,135 m (7,005 ft)

Takeoff roll: 1,859 m (6,099 ft)

Landing roll: 1,755 m (5,670 ft)

The kit and its assembly:

Even though I am not a fan of small-scale airliners, I have recently (and successfully) built two what-if conversions, and I still had the idea of this short-haul airliner in the back of my mind since my Il-60 airliner build. The latter was based on a Caravelle airliner and featured two turboprops on the wings in new nacelles as well as a low tail. However, when I built it, I already considered a similar conversion, just with podded jet engines under the wings like the Dassault Mercure or the Boeing 737.

I had based the Il-60 on the rather crappy Caravelle kit from Mastercraft, so that I switched this time to the new (but much more expensive) Amodel kit – in this case the Caravelle 10R model, which comes with proper JT8 engine pods.

Despite a completely new layout of the aircraft, I wanted to change as little as possible and use only few donor parts. In fact, the only additional/new parts are the radome (actually a propeller spinner from a Matchbox He 115, simply glued onto the Caravelle’s nose and blended into the fuselage with PSR) and longer landing gear struts, because the re-located engines under the wings called for a bigger ground clearance. The front leg was completely replaced (taken from a 1:200 Space Shuttle, but still with OOB wheels), while on the main struts only the legs were replaced with longer parts from a 1:72 F4U. A weird detail: the kit comes with separate struts and bogies, but this makes this surgery relatively easy. In order to change the profile of the aircraft I replaced the round fin tip with a square one, scratched with styrene sheet and PSR.

Lots of PSR went into the build, in part because of peculiar solutions the mold designers chose. For instance, the window section consists of three clear panels per side, to be glued into recesses on the flanks, which have back walls. The benefit of this construction is beyond me, because it just causes surface mess and calls for sanding and filling. Naturally, the three panels per side do not lie perfectly flat or even in their recesses, and they are in total 2mm too long for their intended openings…? WHY!? If Amodel had wanted a clean solution, they could (and should) have molded the complete fuselage halves as clear parts? Another weak point I came across was the windshield, which comes (Minicraft style) as a clear cockpit area section and seemed to belong to an altogether different aircraft – it did not fit into the respective fuselage opening at all and called for massive trimming and more PSR…

These problems with the clear parts almost ruined everything, and that’s a shame because the Amodel Caravelle is a nice kit of this airliner, with fine, recessed surface details and delicate details. Nevertheless, even though it is a modern mold the kit does not get together easily, a typical short-run affair without locator pins.

As a typical feature of my airliner builds, I added a vertical styrene tube in the fuselage’s center of gravity as a display holder adapter for the in-flight scenes.

Painting and markings:

I had a hard time figuring out a potential manufacturer and operator for this aircraft – placed into the Seventies time frame, there were many similar designs on the market, so why add another short-/medium range airliner with a rather limited capacity which would rather be a Sixties design? After long considerations I settled upon a Japanese aircraft – national pride and stubborn processes might certainly lead to such an aircraft, and the YS-11 shows that the idea is not far-fetched.

I also considered a fictional airline as operator, but when I checked options for an aftermarket decal sheet, I realized that the early ANA livery, the so-called “Mohican” scheme due to the blue dorsal stripe, featured a da Vinci helicopter as a logo. I never noticed this before or wasn’t able to identify it, and I found this badge so charming and weird that I eventually settled for ANA as the aircraft’s operator. After some more search I even found a decal sheet from 26decals for an ANA Boeing 767 from 2009 in a retro scheme, and I was also able to organize a Mohican livery sheet from a Hasegawa 1:200 Boeing 737, because the 767 fin emblems were simply oversized for the Caravelle’s fin.

Creating and adapting the early ANA scheme to the model was complicated, though. In an initial step I gave the model’s underside and the upper wing surfaces a coat of White Aluminum from the rattle can – I opted for this simple quasi-NMF finish because of its retro look. The upper fuselage became white, with the help of decal sheet material and enamel paint (Humbrol 22). The blue spine and the fin were also painted with a brush in French Blue (Modelmaster), which came close to the cheat lines’ blue tone from the retro 767 sheet – even though these are IMHO a bit dark. Some fine-tuning and decal trimming had to be done in order to make the livery work, though, but I think the result looks quite good – better than expected after this material mish-mash.

Once the basic livery had been applied, the windows were added with decals. The cockpit windows had to be improvised, since Amodel’s Caravelle sheet does not offer a decal option for the windscreen. But I am not sure if it would have matched the modified nose section at all? So I trimmed down the Boeing 767 windscreen from the 26decal sheet and improvised. The cabin windows were taken from the 767, too. I wanted a very different look from the Caravelle’s original triangular window rows, and with the 767 windows' rather oval shape and higher density, this worked well. It also makes the YS-21 look bigger than it actually is.

After that, the airline markings and some more details like walkways on the wings (created with generic decal strips from TL Modellbau) were added.

In a final step, the landing gear was finished and some more detail painting (position lights, exhausts and thrust reversers) was done, before the kit was sealed with an overall coat of gloss acrylic varnish for a clean and shiny look.

I am torn about the outcome of this build, esp. the Amodel base. After long waiting, I hoped for a decent Caravelle kit in 1:144 scale. It is basically there, but the weird window panel construction really ruins what could have been a crisp up-to-date offering. This does not ruin the model as such, but the panel solution is IMHO far from perfect and user-friendly. :(

The layout conversion into the 737-style YS-21 whif worked well, despite some problems, and I think there’s only little left of what reminds of the model’s Caravelle heritage. The ANA Mohican livery also looks stylish, it adds a nice retro touch to the aircraft, very Seventies (if not Sixties?). With the glossy and bright finish, the model even looks, from certain angles, like a vintage Chinese tin toy?

"Hawaiian Pineapple Resort"

420mm x 420mm x 700mm

16.5" x 16.5" x 27.5"

steel/ resin clay/ resin/ plaster/ plastic/ balsa veneer sheet/ epoxy putty/ FRP/ styrene foam

Private Collection since 2011

All images copyright TOKYO GOOD IDEA Development Institute Co., Ltd. All rights reserved.

www.tokyogoodidea.com

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!

Some background:

The Hawker Fury was a British biplane fighter aircraft used primarily by the Royal Air Force in the 1930s. It was a development of the earlier Hawker F.20/27 prototype fighter, replacing the radial engine of the F.20/27 with the new Rolls-Royce F.XI V-12 engine (later known as the Rolls-Royce Kestrel), which was also used by Hawker's new light bomber, the Hawker Hart. The new fighter prototype, known as the Hawker Hornet, first flew at Brooklands, Surrey, in March 1929. The Hornet was a single-engine biplane, with single bay wings. It was initially powered by a 420 hp (313 kW) Rolls-Royce F.XIC engine enclosed by a smooth, streamlined cowling, but was quickly re-engined with a 480 hp (358 kW) Kestrel IS.

The prototype was evaluated against the similarly powered Fairey Firefly II, being preferred because of its better handling and its all-metal structure, compared with the mainly wooden construction of the Firefly.

The Hornet was eventually won the competition and was purchased by the Air Ministry in early 1930. It was, however, subjected to more tests, with a small initial production order for 21 aircraft placed during 1930. At this stage the Hornet was renamed Fury, as the Air Ministry wanted fighter names that "reflected ferocity". The ultimate production Fury Mk. I made its maiden flight at Brooklands on 25 March 1931.

The other active Yugoslav Fury squadron at the time of the invasion strafed enemy tanks and ground forces, some aircraft being lost to ground fire and one was destroyed in a dogfight with an Italian Fiat CR.42. The rest of the Yugoslav Furies were destroyed at the time of Armistice on 15 April or when they became unserviceable.

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 26 ft 7 in (8.11 m)

Wingspan: 30 ft 0 in (9.14 m)

Height: 10 ft 2 in (3.10 m)

Wing area: 252 sq ft (23.4 m²)

Empty weight: 2,9514 lb (1,340 kg)

Max takeoff weight: 3,814 lb (1,732 kg)

Powerplant:

1× Bristol Mercury IX 9-cylinder air-cooled radial piston engine, 830 hp (620 kW)

Performance:

Maximum speed: 253 mph (407 km/h, 220 kn) at 14,500 ft (4,420 m)

Range: 270 mi (430 km, 230 nmi)

Service ceiling: 32,800 ft (10,000 m)

Time to altitude: 3 min 35 sec. to 10,000 ft (3,000 m)

Armament:

4× 0.303 in (7.7 mm) Browning machine guns; two in the upper front fuselage, synchronized to fire

through the propeller disc with 600 RPG, plus one with 400 RPG beneath each lower wing

The kit and its assembly:

This quick build was based on the remnants of a Matchbox Hawker Fury biplane, which had donated its engine to another build, and leftover pieces from at least two Matchbox Gloster Gladiator kits, all mashed into one to create a fictional late Fury variant with a radial engine and some other updates. The Fury kit is a late Revell re-boxing, and while it retained the crisp details of the original, the molds seem to have suffered a little because the fuselage halves did not fit well and called for considerable PSR.

The Fury – or what was left of it – was built OOB, I just had to improvise the cowling ahead of the cockpit and scratch a front end to replace the inline engine. This was done with a piece from a bulbous (probably 1:48) drop tank, which was tailored to take the upper wing struts, and the rest of the fuselage was sculpted with 2C putty around an engine mount at the core, which was made from styrene profiles.

The different engine was 100% taken from a Matchbox Gladiator, even though I added a matching grid from another 9-cylinder radial for a different look. The three-blade propeller is new, too, probably from a Hobby Boss Fw 190A. From another Gladiator came the underwing machine gun pods as well as the Dowty wheels, which look more modern than the Fury’s OOB wheels. For an even more modernized look I replaced the Fury’s tailskid with a self-castoring tailwheel – apparently from a Gladiator, too.

The exhaust pipes were scratched from wire, the carburetor intake for the Mercury engine is a piece of sprue and the ventral oil cooler is a piece from a backrest (from a Matchbox Heinkel 70).

Painting and markings:

While the idea of an update Fury was quickly settled and defined by the ingredients at hand, finding a suitable operator was not an easy task. I considered various options and eventually settled for Yugoslavia, because this country was major Fury operator and I had appropriate national markings at hand.

The tri-color camouflage was based on the individual und very disruptive schemes that Yugoslavian Hawker Hurricanes carried. Information concerning the colors is quite contradictive, but AFAIK the schemes consisted of a yellowish sand brown, a medium khaki green and a dark, reddish brown, over light blue undersides with a low, wavy waterline raising from the wings to the stabilizers. Every aircraft carried a different pattern, and some machines of British origin also carried the former Temperate Land Scheme (Dark Green/Dark Earth/alu dope undersides), at least for a while.

I used Humbrol 63 (Sand), Modelmaster 2027 (FS 34096, Dark Olive) and Modelmaster 2106 (Burnt Umber), over Humbrol 87 (Steel Grey), because I wanted colors with good contrast from each other. The cockpit interior became anthracite (Revell 09), while the wing struts were painted in a dirty black (Revell 06).

The “windmill” roundels for the wings came from an Xtradecal sheet for Bristol Blenheims, the small fin flash was created with single decal stripes in red, white and blue, trying to match the roundels’ colors. The roman codes were typical for the Hurricanes between 1938-40 and created with single white letters from TL Modellbau. According to the typical Yugoslavian liveries of the era, the aircraft did, beyond national markings and tactical codes, not carry any colorful decoration, but I could not resist and added small unit badges in front of the fin flash.

The model received a light ink washing to emphasize the nice fabric structure on the wings, as well as some post-shading and weathering through dry-brushing with beige. Finally, the model was sealed with matt acrylic varnish and the rigging was added, created with heated and stretched black sprue material.

A relatively simple and quick build, and an attempt to “create something plausible” from leftover stuff. While Yugoslavia is not the most exotic operator of the Fury, I think that the fictional aircraft looks good in these colors and markings, even though the bulky radial really kills the Fury’s elegant lines, esp. its streamlined nose section. It looks quite backdated and reminds of a juvenile Fairey Swordfish?

Some background:

The VF-1 was developed by Stonewell/Bellcom/Shinnakasu for the U.N. Spacy by using alien Overtechnology obtained from the SDF-1 Macross alien spaceship. Its production was preceded by an aerodynamic proving version of its airframe, the VF-X. Unlike all later VF vehicles, the VF-X was strictly a jet aircraft, built to demonstrate that a jet fighter with the features necessary to convert to Battroid mode was aerodynamically feasible. After the VF-X's testing was finished, an advanced concept atmospheric-only prototype, the VF-0 Phoenix, was flight-tested from 2005 to 2007 and briefly served as an active-duty fighter from 2007 to the VF-1's rollout in late 2008, while the bugs were being worked out of the full-up VF-1 prototype (VF-X-1).

However, the fighter remained active in many second line units and continued to show its worthiness years later, e. g. through Milia Jenius who would use her old VF-1 fighter in defense of the colonization fleet - 35 years after the type's service introduction!

General characteristics:

All-environment variable fighter and tactical combat Battroid,

used by U.N. Spacy, U.N. Navy, U.N. Space Air Force and U.N.S. Marine Corps

Accommodation:

Pilot only in Marty & Beck Mk-7 zero/zero ejection seat

Dimensions:

Fighter Mode:

Length 14.23 meters

Wingspan 14.78 meters (at 20° minimum sweep)

Height 3.84 meters

Battroid Mode:

Height 12.68 meters

Width 7.3 meters

Length 4.0 meters

Empty weight: 13.25 metric tons;

Standard T-O mass: 18.5 metric tons;

MTOW: 37.0 metric tons

Power Plant:

2x Shinnakasu Heavy Industry/P&W/Roice FF-2001 thermonuclear reaction turbine engines, output 650 MW each, rated at 11,500 kg in standard or 225.63 kN in overboost

4x Shinnakasu Heavy Industry NBS-1 high-thrust vernier thrusters (1 x counter reverse vernier thruster nozzle mounted on the side of each leg nacelle/air intake, 1 x wing thruster roll control system on each wingtip)

18x P&W LHP04 low-thrust vernier thrusters beneath multipurpose hook/handles

Performance:

Battroid Mode: maximum walking speed 160 km/h

Fighter Mode: at 10,000 m Mach 2.71; at 30,000+ m Mach 3.87

g limit: in space +7

Thrust-to-weight ratio: empty 3.47; standard T-O 2.49; maximum T-O 1.24

Design Features:

3-mode variable transformation; variable geometry wing; vertical take-off and landing; control-configurable vehicle; single-axis thrust vectoring; three "magic hand" manipulators for maintenance use; retractable canopy shield for Battroid mode and atmospheric reentry; option of GBP-1S system, atmospheric-escape booster, or FAST Pack system

Transformation:

Standard time from Fighter to Battroid (automated): under 5 sec.

Min. time from Fighter to Battroid (manual): 0.9 sec.

Armament:

2x Mauler RÖV-20 anti-aircraft laser cannon, firing 6,000 pulses per minute

1x Howard GU-11 55 mm three-barrel Gatling gun pod with 200 RPG, fired at 1,200 rds/min

4x underwing hard points for a wide variety of ordnance, including…

12x AMM-1 hybrid guided multipurpose missiles (3/point), or

12x MK-82 LDGB conventional bombs (3/point), or

6x RMS-1 large anti-ship reaction missiles (2/outboard point, 1/inboard point), or

4x UUM-7 micro-missile pods (1/point) each carrying 15 x Bifors HMM-01 micro-missiles,

or a combination of above load-outs

2x auxiliary hardpoints on the legs for light loads like a FLIR sensor, laser rangefinder/

target designator or ECM pod (typically not used for offensive ordnance)

The kit and its assembly:

This fictional VF-1 was born from spontaneous inspiration and the question if the USMC could have adopted the Valkyrie within the Macross time frame and applied its rather special grey/green/black paint scheme from the Nineties that was carried by AH-1s, CH-46s and also some OV-10s.

The model is a simple, vintage ARII VF-1 in Fighter mode, in this case a VF-1D two-seater that received the cockpit section and the head unit from a VF-1J Gerwalk model to create a single seater. While the parts are interchangeable, the Gerwalk and the Fighter kit have different molds for the cockpit sections and the canopies, too. This is mostly evident through the lack of a front landing gear well under the Gerwalk's cockpit - I had to "carve" a suitable opening into the bottom of the nose, but that was not a problem.

The kit was otherwiese built OOB, with the landing gear down and (finally, after the scenic flight pictures) with an open canopy for final display among the rest of my VF-1 fleet. However, I added some non-canonical small details like small hardpoints on the upper legs and the FLIR and targeting pods on them, scratched from styrene bits.

The ordnance was changed from twelve AMM-1 missiles under the wings to something better suited for attack missions. Finding suitable material became quite a challenge, though. I eventually settled on a pair of large laser-guided smart bombs and two pairs of small air-to-ground missile clusters. The LGBs are streamlined 1:72 2.000 lb general purpose bombs, IIRC from a Hobby Boss F-5E kit, and the launch tubes were scratched from a pair of Bazooka starters from an Academy 1:72 P-51 kit. The ventral standard GU-11 pod was retained and modified to hold a scratched wire display for in-flight pictures at its rear end.

Some blade antennae were added around the hull as a standard measure to improve the simple kit’s look. The cockpit was taken OOB, I just added a pilot figure for the scenic shots and the thick canopy was later mounted on a small lift arm in open position.

Painting and markings:

Adapting the characteristic USMC three-tone paint scheme for the VF-1 was not easy; I used the symmetric pattern from the AH-1s as starting point for the fuselage and gradually evolved it onto the wings into an asymmetric free-form pattern, making sure that the areas where low-viz roundels and some vital stencils would sit on grey for good contrast and readability. The tones became authentic: USMC Field Green (FS 34095, Humbrol 105), USN Medium Grey (FS 35237, Humbrol 145) and black (using Revell 06 Tar Black, which is a very dark grey and not pure black). For some contrast the wings' leading edges were painted with a sand brown/yellow (Humbrol 94).

The landing gear became standard white (Revell 301), the cockpit interior medium grey (Revell 47) with a black ejection seat with brown cushions, and the air intakes as well as the interior of the VG wings dark grey (Revell 77). To set the camouflaged nose radome apart I gave it a slightly different shade of green. The GU-11 pod became bare metal (Revell 91). The LGBs were painted olive drab overall while the AGMs became light grey.

Roundels as well as the UNSMC and unit tags were printed at home in black on clear decal sheet. The unit markings came from an Academy OV-10. The modex came from an 1:72 Revell F8F sheet. Stencils becvame eitrher black or white to keep the low-viz look, just a few tiny color highlights bereak the camouflage up. Some of the characteristic vernier thrusters around the hull are also self-made decals.

Finally, after some typical details and position lights were added with clear paint over a silver base, the small VF-1 was sealed with a coat of matt acrylic varnish.

A spontaneous interim project - and the UMSC's three-tone paint scheme suits the VF-1 well, which might have been a very suitable aircraft for this service and its mission profiles. I am still a bit uncertain about the camouflage's effectiveness, though - yes, it's disruptive, but the color contrasts are so high that a hiding effect seems very poor, even though I find that the scheme works well over urban terrain? It's fictional, though, and even though there are canonical U.N.S. Marines VF-1s to be found in literature, none I came across so far carried this type of livery.

Category: Model Kit.

Name: Ostall.

Scale: 1/32 scale.

Origin: Crusher Joe.

Brand: Takara.

Material: Styrene Plastic.

Release Date: 1983.

Condition: Unassembled.

This is a Model Kit collected by my BB.

More in My Collection Corner.

The kit and its assembly:

Another small and vintage 1:100 VF-1 Fighter. This time it’s a non-canonical aircraft, based on a limited edition decal sheet that was published with the Japanese Model Graphix magazine in April 2001 (check this here for reference: www.starshipmodeler.com/mecha/jl_clrvalk.htm) with Hasegawa’s first release of their 1:72 Valkyrie Fighter kit. The give-away sheet featured several VF-1s, including an anniversary paint scheme for the 2.500th production Valkyrie. This is AFAIK neither ‘official’ nor canonical – but the pretty blue-and-white livery caught my attention, and I had for a long time the plan to re-create this livery on one of my favorite 1:100 models. This would not work 100%, though, so I had to improvise – see below.

The kit was built OOB, with the landing gear down and (after taking the flight scenic pictures) with an open canopy, mounted on a small lift arm. Some typical small blade antennae the 1:100 simple kit lacks were added around the hull as a standard measure to improve the look. In the cockpit I added side consoles and a pilot figure for the in-flight shots.

The only non-standard additions are the IRST sensor fairing in front of the cockpit – the model of the anniversary VF-1 in the Model Graphix magazine carries this canonical upgrade, too, it was created from clear sprue material. Another tiny addition are the RHAWS antenna fairings at the top of the fins, scratched from small styrene profile bits.

The Valkyrie’s ordnance is standard and was taken OOB, featuring twelve AMM-1 missiles under the wings plus the standard GU-11 gatling gun pod; the latter was modified to hold a scratched wire display for in-flight pictures at its rear end. The Model Graphix VF-1 is insofar confusing as it seems to carry something that looks like a white ACMI pod on a non-standard pylon, rather attached to the legs than to the wings? That's odd and I could not make up a useful function, so I rejected this detail. The magazine Valkyrie's belly drop tank was - even though canonical, AFAIK - also not taken over to my later in-service status.

Painting and markings:

The more challenging part of the build, in two ways. First, re-creating the original commemorative livery would have called for home-made decals printed in opaque white for the manufacturers’ logos, something I was not able to do at home. So, I had to interpret the livery in a different way and decided to spin the aircraft’s story further: what would become of this VF-1 after its roll-out and PR event? In a war situation it would certainly be delivered quickly to a frontline unit, and since I had some proper markings left over I decided to attach this colorful bird to the famous Skull Squadron, SVF-1, yet to a less glorious Flight. Since flight leaders and aces would frequently fly VF-1s in individual non-standard liveries, even bright ones, the 2,500th VF-1 could have well retained its catchy paint scheme.

The second part of the challenge: the actual paint job. Again, no suitable decals were at hand, so I had to re-create everything from scratch. The VF-1J kit I used thankfully came molded in white styrene, so that the front half of the aircraft could be easily painted in white, with no darker/colored plastic shining through. I painted the white (Revell 301, a very pure white) with a brush first. For the blue rear half, I settled upon an intense and deep cobalt blue tone (ModelMaster 2012). For the zigzag border between the colors I used Tamiya masking tape, trimmed with a tailor’s zigzag scissors and applied in a slightly overlapping pattern for an irregular edge.

The landing gear became standard all-white (Revell 301, too), with bright red edges (Humbrol 174) on the covers. Antenna fairings were painted with radome tan (Humbrol 7) as small color highlights.

The cockpit interior became standard medium grey (Revell 47) with a black ejection seat with brown cushions (Humbrol 119 and Revell 84), and brown “black boxes” behind the headrest. The air intakes as well as the interior of the VG wings were painted dark grey (Revell 77). The jet nozzles/feet were internally painted with Humbrol 27003 (Steel Metallizer) and with Revell 91 on the outside, and they were later thoroughly treated with graphite to give them a burnt/worn look.

The GU-11 pod became standard bare metal (Revell 91, Iron metallic), the AMM-1s were painted in light grey (Humbrol 127) with many additional painted details in five additional colors, quite a tedious task when repeated twelve times...

After basic painting was one the model received a careful overall washing with black ink to emphasize the engraved panel lines, and light post-shading was done to the blue areas to emphasize single panels.

The full-color ’kite’ roundels came from an VF-1A sheet, the skull emblems were left over from my Kotobukiya 1:62 VF-4 build some years ago, wich also carried SVF-1 markings. The 2.500th aircraft nose art decoration was printed on clear decal film with an ink jet printer at home. The SVF-1’s “ML” tail code was created with single white decal letters, the red “555” modex came from an PrintScale A-26 Invader sheet, it's part of a USAF serial number from an all-black Korean War era aircraft.

The wings' leading edges were for some extra contrast finished in medium grey, done with decal sheet material. The Model Graphix Valkyrie does not sport this detail, but I think that the VF-1 looks better with then and more realistic. Red warning stripes around the legs - also not seen on the model in the magazine - were made from similar material.

The confetti along the jagged edge between the white and the blue areas was also created with decal material; to match the cobalt blue tone, the respective enamel paint was applied on clear decal sheet material and cut into small bits. For the white and red confetti, generic decal sheet material could be used. All in all, this was another tedious process, but at the small 1:100 scale even using maskes for painting would have been much more complex and less successful. And the result looks really good for this home-made approach!

Finally, after some typical details and position lights were added with clear paints over a silver base, the small VF-1 was sealed with a coat of semi-matt acrylic varnish.

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the model, the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!

Some background:

The Henschel Hs 126 was a German two-seat reconnaissance and observation aircraft of World War II that was derived from the stillborn Henschel Hs 122. The pilot was seated in a protected cockpit under the parasol wing and the gunner in an open rear cockpit. The first prototype was not entirely up to Luftwaffe standards; it was followed by two more development planes equipped with different engines. Following the third prototype, ten pre-production planes were built in 1937. The Hs 126 entered service in 1938 after operational evaluation with the Legion Condor contingent to the Spanish Civil War.

The Hs 126 was well received for its good short takeoff and low-speed characteristics which were needed at the time. However, it was vulnerable and the Hs 126 A/Bs were already retired from frontline units in 1942, the better-performing Hs 126 Cs only a year later. The type was soon superseded by the light general-purpose STOL Fieseler Fi 156 Storch, which was simpler and cheaper to produce, and the medium-range two-engine twin-boom Focke-Wulf Fw 189 "flying eye" with a fully enclosed cockpit and a better defensive armament. However, many Hs 126s were still operated for some time in areas with little Allied aerial threat, or second-line duties as glider tugs or liaison aircraft.

General characteristics:

Crew: Two (pilot and observer/gunner)

Length: 10,90 m (35 ft 7 in) fuselage only

11,52 m (37 ft 9 in) overall

Wingspan: 14.5 m (47 ft 7 in)

Height: 4,61 m (15 ft 1 in) from waterline

Wing area: 31.6 m² (340 sqft)

Empty weight: 2,030 kg (4,480 lb)

Loaded weight: 3,090 kg (6,820 lb)

Powerplant:

1× BMW 132K air-cooled 9-cylinder radial engine with 809 kW (1,085 hp) emergency power

and 705 kW (960 hp) continuous output

Performance:

Maximum speed: 360 km/h (223 mph) at 3,000 m (9,850 ft) with floats

(C-1: 400 km/h (248 mph) with wheels)

Travelling speed: 280 km/h /174 mph)

(C-1: 300 km/h (186 mph)

Landing speed: 115 km/h (71 mph)

Range: 998 km (620 mi)

Service ceiling: 8,530 m (28,000 ft)

Rate of climb: 550 m/min (1,800 ft/min)

Time to height: 4,4 min to 1.000 m (3.275 ft)

14 min to 3.000 m (9826 ft)

Wing loading: 97.8 kg/m2 (20.1 lb/sqft)

Power/mass: 0.21 kW/kg (0.13 hp/lb)

Armament:

1× forward-firing 13 mm (.511 in) MG 131 machine gun

1× flexible, rearward-firing 13 mm (.511 in) MG 131 machine gun

The kit and its assembly:

This build was inspired by a similar project done by fellow modeler ericr at whatfimodellers.com in 1:48 a while ago: a combination of the German land-based Hs 126 observation aircraft with twin floats from an Ar 196 seaplane. This combo looked very natural and balanced, so I decided to re-create a personal interpretation in my “home scale” 1:72.

Basically, this what-if model is a straightforward combination of the Italeri Hs 126 A (a venerable but pretty good model, even today, despite raised panel lines) with floats from a Heller Ar 196 A (also a slightly dated but very nice model, also with raised panel lines). The selling point of both kits is their good fit and overall simplicity, even though mounting the Hs 126’s wings to the fuselage – it is held only at six points – is a tricky task. Furthermore, once the wing is in place, painting the area in front of the cockpit as well as the windscreen area is quite difficult, so that I did that ahead of the final assembly.

The Ar 196 floats feature lots of struts, and to mount them (only) under the fuselage the outer supports had to go, because they are normally attached to the Ar 196’s mid-wing section. What was a bit challenging is the struts’ attachment points on the floats: they come with square bases that offer relatively big surfaces to glue the party in place, adding stability to the whole construction. However, blending these areas into each other called for some PSR.

A similar attachment solution was chosen by Heller to mount the floats’ struts to the Ar 196 hull – again, the “end plates” had to go and the struts had to be trimmed to keep the floats parallel to the fuselage. Since the outer supports were gone, I added diagonal stabilizers between the front and rear struts cluster.

To add a personal twist and depict an evolutionary late version of the Hs 126, I decided to swap the engine for a donor part from a Matchbox He 115 – it is basically the same engine, but the cowling is slightly wider and cleaner. The engine part itself is simpler. Just a disc with an engine relief. But with the propeller in place (mounted on a metal axis to spin free), this is not obvious. With scratched exhaust pipes, the new cowling gives the aircraft a slightly more modern and beefier look?

Another personal addition is improved crew comfort: the original Hs 126 observer workplace was totally open, just protected by spoilers on the canopy that only covered the pilot’s station. Esp. at wintertime this must have been a real P!TA place, so that I tried to extend the glazing. A raid in the spares box revealed two things that created an almost perfect combo: a Hs 126 glazing from a Matchbox kit and a rear canopy section from the spurious ESCI Ka-34 “Hokum” kit. The Matchbox parts’ selling point: it fits perfectly into the respective opening on the Italeri kit and has a slightly “boxier” roof shape, which better too up the square profile of the Hokum cockpit, which, itself, perfectly fell into place over the observer station! To adapt the modern piece to the highly braced Hs 126 glazing I added fake stiffeners made from adhesive tape cross- and lengthwise. I thought that just painting braces onto the flat windows was not enough, and with some paint the tape’s 3D effect looks quite convincing!

Other small additions are a barrel for the machine gun the cowling, a stabilizing fin made from styrene sheet material and PE ladders from the floats into the cockpit on both sides.

Painting and markings:

I wanted an authentic Luftwaffe livery – but the Hs 126 and similar German recce planes of the mid-WWII era only offer a small range of camouflage options. The generic paint scheme was a splinter pattern in RLM 70/71/65 with a low, hard waterline. Africa as optional theatre of operations offered some variations with field-modifications of this basic scheme with German and Italian sand added on top – but that would not have been the right option for a floatplane, I guess?

Eventually I decided to locate the model’s unit far up North and to add improvised winter camouflage to the standard livery. It was applied just as in real life: first, the whole model received its standard splinter camouflage with Humbrol 30, 91 and 65, then the decals were applied. The latter were puzzled together from the scrap box, using simplified Eiserne Kreuze without black edges. The white unit emblems are fictional and come from an MPM He 100 kit with spurious PR markings. The tactical code is “plausible” (“9W” is the AufklGr. 122’s unit code, “D” denotes the 4th aircraft, and “C” is the verification letter for the Stabgeschwader of the unit’s 2nd group) and created from single letters/digits. The black and the green have no strong contrast to the camouflage, but this style was common Luftwaffe practice. The Stabflieger color green was also incorporated on the spinner, another very typical Luftwaffe marking to denote an aircraft’s operational unit.

The temporary whitewash was the applied with white acrylic paint (Revell 05) and a flat, soft brush. Once dry, the whole model received a light black ink washing, post-panel shading and a light treatment with wet sandpaper on the white areas to simulate wear and tear. After some exhaust stains were created with graphite, the model was finally sealed with matt acrylic varnish.

Well, not a spectacular what-if model, and mounting the Hs 126 on floats was trickier than one would expect at first glance. Pimping the rather dull Luftwaffe standard livery with whitewash was a good move, though, adding an interesting and individual twist to the aircraft. And the resulting whole “package” looks pretty convincing?

The kit and its assembly:

This fictional tank was inspired by Trumpeter’s 1:72 models of the (real yet rare) Jagdtiger with the lighter 88 mm gun and the Porsche running gear. I thought about combining both into a late but fictional production model, but then also considered a more powerful variant of the main gun with a longer barrel – something that had been on the real-world drawing board, and ModelCollect offers one or two fictional Heer ’46 tanks with such a long weapon. An indirect inspiration for the gun and its eventual design on the model was the United States Department of Defense and Canada's Department of National Defence’s mutual HARP (High Altitude Research Project) project, in which light loads were literally fired into space/lower orbit with the help of guns instead of rockets. The ever bigger guns frequently featured lengthened and stiffened barrels to achieve and resist the massive firing pressures needed to reach altitudes with an apogee of up to 110 miles (180) km. Or even more than 300 miles (500 km) with a 40-lbs payload and rocket assistance!

To mount such a long barrel on a tank chassis, a gun position at the rear would make most sense to avoid a massive overhang and a wacky weight distribution. Therefore, the Jagdtiger’s casemate was moved accordingly, creating a more obvious (and challenging) what-if project.

Even though the Trumpeter Jagdtiger kit was used as base, my build is actually a kitbashing of two of them: the combination of the Porsche suspension and the respective hull from one kit with the 88 mm gun and its differing mantlet from another. Since the casemate and the engine cover were integral parts of the upper hull, both had to be cut off, switched and PSRed into their new places. Before the parts were cut off, though, internal stiffeners (simple sprue material) were added between the sloped rear side walls to ensure the upper hull’s stability and alignment. The change of the sections was quite easy; the engine deck cover was easy to re-mount, the casemate called for some PSR to hide the seam at the intersection with the hull. Anything else almost fell into place, just the gun mantlet had to be modified to create enough space for it over the armored fan casings of the engine bay cover.

The 88 mm gun barrel was taken OOB but lengthened with styrene tube plug by 35 mm (1.4 in) to achieve the intended L/100 length on the model instead of the original L/71. Reinforcement ribs along the barrel, made from thin styrene profiles, changed the look and underlined the science fiction aspect of this build. Finally, as a weird extra, I furthermore added a cable suspension construction that was used to stabilize the ultra-long barrels of the experimental HARP guns, too. This was also constructed with styrene bits and steel towing cable plastic dummies from an Revell 1:72 Panzer IV kit. Looks odd, but definitively different and whiffy!

The only other changes/additions are an antenna mast with a long-range “Sternantenne”, and I added mudguards (0.5 mm styrene strips) along the hull, which were dented for a more natiral look.

This is Campfire Audio's entry-level inner ear monitor. It goes for 349$ USD and carries a single balanced armature speaker.

campfireaudio.com/orion/

Camera:

Fujifilm GX680III

Lens:

Fujinon EBC 100/4

Back:

Hasselblad CFV-50

Strobist:

Two lights, one shot object rear through aluminium grill 1/2 power. 2nd light in softbox behind styrene object right 1/4 power.

Lights:

Profoto Pro-B head

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!

The English Electric Thunderbolt was a 1st generation jet fighter operated by the Royal AIr Force between the early Fifties and the late Sixties. Shortly after the sale of the Rolls-Royce Nene to the Soviets, the British MOD realized their serious and grievous error. Fortunately, Britain's famous MI6 was already on the case: they had managed to infiltrate Mikoyan-Gurevich Industries and their development of the I-310 project, the projected MiG-15 jet fighter.

The Thunderbolt's career was short-lived, though, because the fast pace of technological development quickly rendered the small aircraft obsolete. The Thunderbolt, as well as other first generation jet fighters like the Vampire, Venom or the Meteor, was soon replaced by the formidable and more capable Hawker Hunter. The first F.1 fighters were already retired in 1955 and, in small numbers, handed over to RAF Auxilliary Units as well as to some friendly air forces, e. g. Rhodesia, Southern Arabia (later Yemen), Burma (Myanmar) and the Dominican Republic. The more advanced F.2 and FR.3 Thunderbolts remained active in frontline units until 1958, but were also quickly retired, scrapped or relegated to second-line units. Only a few of these machines went to foreign operators, since they had become completely outdated. The last RAF Thunderbolts, a handful of FR.3s that served with No. 79 Squadron in Germany, were finally withdrawn in 1963.

Background story is based on facts conceived by fellow user nighthunter at whatifmodelers.com.

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 10.102 m (33 ft 2 in)

Wingspan: 10.085 m (33 ft 1 in)

Height: 3.7 m (12 ft 2 in)

Wing area: 20.6 m² (221.7 ft²)

Empty weight: 3,681 kg (8,113 lb)

Loaded weight: 5,044 kg (11,177 lb)

Max. takeoff weight: 6,106 kg (13,458 lb) with 2 × 600 l (130 imp gal; 160 US gal) drop tanks

Fuel capacity: 1,420 l (310 imp gal; 380 US gal)

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!

Some background:

The Saab 35 Draken ('The Kite' or 'The Dragon') was a Swedish fighter-interceptor developed and manufactured by Svenska Aeroplan Aktiebolaget (SAAB) between 1955 and 1974. Development of the Saab 35 Draken started in 1948 as the Swedish air force future replacement for the then also in development Saab 29 Tunnan dayfighter and Saab 32B Lansen night fighter. It featured an innovative but unproven double delta wing, which led to the creation of a sub-scale test aircraft, the Saab 210, which was produced and flown to test this previously unexplored aerodynamic feature. The full-scale production version entered service with frontline squadrons of the Swedish Air Force on 8 March 1960. It received the designation Flygplan 35 (Fpl 35; 'Aeroplane 35') and was produced in several variants and types, most commonly as a fighter type with the prefix J (J 35), standing for Jaktflygplan (Pursuit-aircraft), the Swedish term for fighter aircraft.

Another factor for the quick withdrawal was the disappointing performance of the type’s primary weapon, the Rb 05 missile: Its manual joystick steering in the cramped Draken cockpit (to be operated while the pilot was expected to fly at low altitude and evade enemy fire!) presented a number of problems, and the Rb 05’s ultimate accuracy was, even under ideal conditions, on the order of just 10 meters (33 ft), greater than desired. Targets like tanks or even ships were hard to hit with this level of scattering, combined with imminent danger for the pilot, and the air-to-air mode was even less effective. On the more modern Saab 37 the Rb 05 was therefore replaced by the Rb 75, a license-produced version of the American TV-guided AGM-65 Maverick “fire and forget” weapon. TV and laser seeker heads for the Rb 05 to improve the weapon’s accuracy and handling had been planned since the early Seventies, but were never realized.

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 15.35 m (50 ft 4 in)

Wingspan: 9.42 m (30 ft 11 in)

Height: 3.89 m (12 ft 9 in)

Wing area: 49.2 m² (530 ft²)

Airfoil: 5%

Empty weight: 8,175 kg (18,006 lb)

Gross weight: 11,500 kg (25,330 lb)

Max takeoff weight: 13,554 kg (29,845 lb)

Powerplant:

1× Svenska Flygmotor RM6C (license-built Rolls Royce Avon with Swedish EBK67 afterburner)

turbojet engine, 56.5 kN (12,700 lbf) thrust dry, 77.3 kN (17,240 lbf) with afterburner

Performance:

Maximum speed: 2,150 km/h (1,335 mph, 1,168 kn) at 11,000 m (36,089 ft), clean

1,430 km/h (888 mph, 777 kn) w. two dop tanks and two 454 kg (1.00 lb) bombs

Range: 1.120 km (605 nmi; 696 mi); clean, internal fuel only

Ferry range: 2,750 km (1,480 nmi; 1,710 mi) with four external 500 l drop tanks

Service ceiling: 20,000 m (66,000 ft)

Rate of climb: 199 m/s (39,200 ft/min)

Wing loading: 231.6 kg/m² (47.4 lb/ft²)

Thrust/weight: 0.7

Takeoff roll: 800 m (2,625 ft)

Armament:

2× 30 mm akan m/55 ADEN cannon with 100 rounds per gun

9× hardpoints with a total capacity of 4,500 kg (10.000 lb)

The kit and its assembly:

Even though the model depicts a what-if aircraft, the Draken’s proposed “Gustav” attack variant based on the J 35 D interceptor was real – even though I could not find much detail information about it. So, I took some inspiration from the contemporary Danish Saab 35XD export version, which probably had similar features to the Gustav? Another inspiring factor was a pair of Rb 05 missiles (from an Airfix Viggen) that I had bought with a spare parts lot some time ago – and an attack Draken would be the perfect carrier for these exotic (and unsuccessful) missiles.

For a low-budget build I used one of Mistercraft’s many recent re-boxings of the vintage Revell Draken from 1957(!), and this kit is nothing for those who are faint at heart. It is horrible.

The kit probably depicts a late J 35 A (already with a long tail section), but even for this variant it lacks details like the air scoops for the afterburner or a proper landing gear. The Draken’s characteristic tail wheel is also missing completely. Worst pitfall, however: there is NO interior at all, not even a lumpy seat! The canopy, the early model with struts, is disturbingly clean and crisp, though. The overall fit is mediocre at best, too – there are only a few visible seams, but any of them calls for filling and PSR. It’s a very toyish kit, even though the general outlines are O.K.

And the Mistercraft instructions are really audacious: they show all the parts that are actually NOT there at all. Suddenly a seat appears in the cockpit, a fin fairing from a J 35 D or later, or the tail wheel… And the decal sheets only roughly meet the aircraft you see in the painting instructions - there are three sheets, totally puzzled together, including material for aircraft not mentioned in the instructions, but that’s a common feature of most Mistercraft kits. But: how much can you taunt your disappointed customers?

So, this leaves lots of room for improvements, and calls for a lot of scratching and improvisation, too. First measure was to open both the air intakes (which end after 2mm in vertical walls) and the exhaust, which received an afterburner dummy deep inside to create depth. Next, I implanted a complete cockpit, consisting of s scratched dashboard (styrene sheet), the tub from an Italeri Bae Hawk trainer’s rear cockpit (which comes with neat side consoles and fits quite well) plus a shallow vintage ejection seat, probably left over from an early MiG from a KP kit or one of its many later reincarnations. As an alternative, there’s a Quickboost resin aftermarket set with a complete cockpit interior (even including side walls, IIRC intended to be used with the Hasegawa Draken) available but using it on this crappy kit would have been a waste of resources – it’s more expensive than the kit itself, and even with a fine cockpit the exterior would still remain sh!t.

Since I could not find any detail about the Gustav Draken’s equipment I gave it a laser rangefinder in a poor-fitting S 35 E (or is it a Danish export F-35?) nose that comes as an optional part with the vintage Revell mold – which is weird, because the recce Draken was built between 1963 and 1968 in 2 series, several years after the kit’s launch? Maybe the Mistercraft kit is based on the 1989 Revell re-boxing? But that kit also features an all-in-one pilot/seat part and a two-piece canopy… Weird!

Once the hull was closed many surface details had to be added. The afterburner air scoops were created from plastic profiles, which are aftermarket roof rails in H0 scale. Styrene profile material was also used to create the intakes behind the cockpit, better than nothing. The OOB pitot on the fin was very robust, and since it would be wrong on a J 35 D I cut it off and added a fairing to the fin tip, a shortened/modified ACMI pod, which bears a better pitot alternative at its tip. The pitot on the nose was scratched from heated styrene, since the kit offers no part at all.

Under the rear fuselage the whole tail wheel arrangement had to be scratched. The shallow fairing consists of a section from a Matchbox EA-6B drop tank, the wheel and its strut were tinkered together with bits from the scrap box and profile material. Not stellar, but better than OOB (= nothing!).

The landing gear struts were taken from the kit but beefed up with some details. The main wheels had to be replaced, the new ones come from a KP MiG-21, IIRC.

The ordnance consists of a pair of Rb 05’s from an Airfix Viggen, a pair of OOB drop tanks and MERs from a Matchbox A-7D, together with fourteen streamlined bombs from the same kit – twelve on the MERs and single bombs on the outer pylons. AFAIK, Sweden never used MERs on their aircraft, but the bombs come pretty close to some small bombs that I have seen as AJ 37 ordnance. Most pylons are OOB, I just added a single ventral station and two outer hardpoints under the wings. The Rb 05s received a prominent place under the air intakes on Sidewinder launch rails.

Painting and markings:

Finally a good excuse to apply the famous and complex “Fields & Meadows” paint scheme to a Draken model! However, this “combo” actually existed in real life, but only on a single aircraft: around 1980 a J 35 B (s/n 35520), aircraft “20” of F18, was painted in this fashion, but AFAIK it was only an instructional airframe. You find some pictures of this aircraft online but getting a clear three-side view (esp. from above!) as a reliable painting benchmark is impossible. However, a complete paint scheme of this aircraft is provided with one of Mistercraft’s Revell Draken re-boxings (not the one I bought, though), even though it is mismarked as a J 35 F of F10 in the instructions. One of the common Mistercraft errors, err, “surprises” (*sigh*).

Finding suitable model paints for the elaborate scheme is not easy, either, and after having applied it several times I stuck to my favorites: Humbrol 150 (Forest Green, FS 34127), 75 (Bronze Green), 118 (US Light Tan, FS 30219, a bit light but RAF Dark Earth is too somber) and Revell 06 (Tar Black, RAL 9021) on the upper surfaces and Humbrol 247 (RLM76) underneath.

A large ventral section was, typical for the J 35, left in bare metal, since leaking fuel and oil would frequently eat away any paint there. The section was painted with Revell 91 (Iron) and later treated with Matt Aluminum Metallizer (Humbrol). As per usual, the model received an overall light black ink washing and some post-shading in order to emphasize the panels, correct the splinter camouflage and dramatize the surface. Some extra weathering was done around the gun ports and the jet nozzle with graphite.

Internal details like the cockpit and the landing gear were painted with the help of Swedish Saab 35 reference pictures. The cockpit tub was painted in a dark, bluish green (Humbrol 76) with grey-green (Revell 67) side walls.

The landing gear and its respective wells were painted in a bluish grey (Revell 57), parts of the struts were painted in a bright turquoise (a mix of Humbrol 89 and 80; looks quite weird, but I like such details!). The wheel hubs became medium grey (Revell 47). The Rb 05 missiles were painted in white as live weapons, so that they stand out well from the airframe. The drop tanks received the same blue-grey as the underside (Humbrol 247). MERs and launch rails were painted in a neutral grey (RAL 7001) and the bombs became olive drab (RAL 6014, Gelboliv) with yellow rings and golden fuzes.

Decals/markings were puzzled together from a Moose Republic Saab 32 sheet (unit code number and emblem) and the spares box, including the red tactical tail code from an Italeri 1:72 Gripen and roundels from a Hasegawa Draken. Stencils were taken from the kit’s OOB sheet and also from the Hasegawa Draken sheet. Finally, the model was sealed with matt acrylic varnish (Italeri).

What a horror trip! The paint scheme itself was/is challenging enough, but modding the crappy vintage Revell kit into something more presentable was already a fight in itself. However, I like the outcome. “Fields & Meadows” suits the Draken with its huge and flat upper surface well, and while the Gustav conversion did not take much effort the “mud mover” ordnance under this Mach 2 fighter really looks strange and makes you wonder what this is. A nice what-if model, despite its blurriness!

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!

Some background:

The Cessna Model 336 and 337 “Skymaster” were American twin-engine civil utility aircraft built in a unique push-pull configuration. Their engines were mounted in the nose and rear of its pod-style fuselage. Twin booms extended aft of the wings to the vertical stabilizers, with the rear engine between them. The horizontal stabilizer was aft of the pusher propeller, mounted between and connecting the two booms.

The type’s versatility, low noise level, high travel speed and good loitering time in the operational area at low speed proved to be vital assets for these public service operators and justified its relatively high maintenance costs. A handful of the modernized Spectrum SA-550 machines were still in active service after the Millennium, primarily in the USA.

General characteristics:

Crew: 1 + 3 passengers (up to 5 passengers possible in special seat configuration)

Length: 32 ft 6½ in (9.94 m)

Wingspan: 38 ft ¾ in (11.62 m)

Height: 9 ft 2 in (2.79 m)

Wing area: 201 sq ft (18.81 m²)

Aspect ratio: 7.18:1

Airfoil: NACA 2412 at root, NACA 2409 at tip

Empty weight: 2,655 lb (1,204 kg)

Max takeoff weight: 4,400 lb (1,996 kg)

Fuel capacity: 92 US gal (77 imp gal; 350 l) normal,

128 US gal (107 imp gal; 480 l) with auxiliary tank

in the cabin instead of two passenger seats

Powerplant:

1× Pratt & Whitney PT6A-27 turboprop engine, delivering 550 shp (410 kW) and

driving a four-blade McCauley fully-feathering, constant-speed propeller, 6 ft 4 in (1.93 m) diameter

Performance:

Maximum speed: 199 mph (320 km/h, 173 kn) at sea level

Cruise speed: 144 mph (232 km/h, 125 kn) at 10,000 ft (3,000 m) (econ cruise)

Stall speed: 69 mph (111 km/h, 60 kn)

Range: 1421 mi (2.288 km, 1.243 nmi) at 10.000 ft (3.050 m) altitude and economy cruise

Service ceiling: 19,500 ft (5,900 m)

Rate of climb: 1,200 ft/min (6.1 m/s)

Takeoff distance to 50 ft (15m): 1,545 ft (471 m)

Landing distance from 50 ft (15m): 1,650 ft (500 m)

The kit and its assembly:

This build is the combination of ingredients that had already been stashed away for a long time, and the “Red Lights” Group Build at whatifmodellers.com in early 2021 was a good motivator and occasion to finally put everything together.

The basis is an ARII 1:72 Cessna T337 model kit – I had purchased it long ago with the expectation to create a military Skymaster from it, but I was confused by a fixed landing gear which would make it a 336? Well, without a further concrete plan the kit preliminarily landed in The Stash™…

However, the ARII model features the optional observation windows in the doors on the starboard side, in the form of a complete(!) fuselage half, so that it lends itself to a police or firefighter aircraft of some sort. This idea was furthermore fueled by a decal sheet that I had been given from a friend, left over from a 1:72 Italeri JetRanger, with three optional police helicopter markings.

The final creative element was the real-world “Pelican” conversion of six O-2As for the US Navy, as mentioned in the background above: the front engine was replaced with a longer nose and the engine configuration changed to a pusher-only aircraft with a single powerful turboprop engine. This looked so odd that I wanted to modify the ARII Cessna in a similar fashion, too, and all these factors came together in this model.

My Arii Cessna 337 kit is a re-boxing from 2009, but its origins date back to Eidai in 1972 and that’s just what you get: a vintage thing with some flash and sinkholes, raised (but fine) surface details and pretty crude seams with bulges and gaps. Some PSR is direly necessary, esp. the fit of the fuselage halves is cringeworthy. The clear parts were no source of joy, either; especially the windscreen turned out to be thick, very streaky (to a degree that I’d almost call it opaque!) and even not fully molded! The side glazing was also not very clear. I tried to improve the situation through polishing, but if the basis is already poor, there’s little you can do about it. Hrmpf.

However, the kit was built mostly OOB, including the extra O-2 glazing in the lower doors, but with some mods. One is a (barely visible) extra tank in the cabin’s rear, plus a pilot and an observer figure placed into the tight front seats. The extended “Pelican” nose was a lucky find – I was afraid that I had had to sculpt a nose from scratch with 2C putty. But I found a radome from a Hasegawa RA-5C, left over from a model I built in the Eighties and that has since long fallen apart. However, this nose fitted almost perfectly in size and shape, I just “blunted” the tip a little. Additionally, both the hull in front of the dashboard and the Vigilante radome were filled with as many lead beads as possible to keep the nose down.

The kit’s OOB spatted, fixed landing gear was retained – even though it is dubious for a Cessna 337, because this type had a fully retractable landing gear, and the model has the landing gear covers actually molded into the lower fuselage. On the other side, the Cessna 336’s fixed landing gear looks quite different, too! However, this is a what-if model, and a fixed landing gear might have been a measure to reduce maintenance costs?

The propeller was replaced with a resin four-blade aftermarket piece (from CMK, probably the best-fitting thing on this build!) on my standard metal axis/styrene tube adapter arrangement. The propeller belongs to a Shorts Tucano, but I think that it works well on the converted Cessna and its powerful pusher engine, even though in the real world, the SA-550 is AFAIK driven by a three-blade prop. For the different engine I also enlarged the dorsal air intake with a 1.5 mm piece of styrene sheet added on top of the molded original air scoop and added a pair of ventral exhaust stubs (scratched from sprue material).

Another addition is a pair of winglets, made from 0.5 mm styrene sheet – an upgrade which I found on several late Cessna 337s in various versions. They just add to the modernized look of the aircraft. For the intended observation role, a hemispherical fairing under the nose hides a 180° camera, and I added some antennae around the hull.

However, a final word concerning the model kit itself: nothing fits, be warned! While the kit is a simple affair and looks quite good in the box, assembling it turned out to be a nightmare, with flash, sinkholes, a brittle styrene and gaps everywhere. This includes the clear parts, which are pretty thick and blurry. The worst thing is the windscreen, which is not only EXTRA thick and EXTRA blurry, it was also not completely molded, with gaps on both sides. I tried to get it clearer through manual polishing, but the streaky blurs are integral – no hope for improvement unless you completely replace the parts! If I ever build a Cessna 337/O-2 again, I will give the Airfix kit a try, it can only be better…

Painting and markings:

The choice between the operator options from the JetRanger sheet was hard, it included Sweden and Italy, but I eventually settled for the LAPD because the livery looks cool and this police department not only operates helicopters, but also some fixed-wing aircraft.

I adapted the LAPD’s classic black-and-white police helicopter livery (Gloss White and Black, Humbrol 22 and 21, respectively) to the Cessna and extended it to the wings. At this point – already upset because of the poor fit of the hardware – disaster struck in the form of Humbrol’s 22 turning into a pinkish ivory upon curing! In the tin, the paint and its pigments looked pretty white and “clean”, and I assume that it’s the thinner that caused this change. What a crap! It’s probably the third tin with 22 that causes trouble, even though in different peculiarities!

The result was total rubbish, though, and I tried to rub the paint off as good as possible on the small model with its many windows, the fixed, delicate landing gear and the wing support struts. Then I overpainted the areas with Revell 301 (Semi-matt White). While this enamel yielded the intended pure white tone, the paint itself is rather gooey and not easy to work with, so that the overall finish turned out worse than desired. At least the black paint worked properly. The demarcations were created with black decal stripes (TL Modellbau), because the tiny model left little room for complex masking measures – and I did not risk any more painting accidents.

Since the aircraft would be kept shiny and clean, I just did a light black ink washing to emphasize surface details and did a light panel post-shading on the black areas, not for weathering but rather to accent surface structures. No further weathering was done (and necessary).

The markings/decals come – as mentioned above – from an Italeri 1:72 JetRanger, but they were augmented with some additional markings, e. g. grey walkways on the wings and “L-A-P-D” in large black letters under the wings, to distract from the poor finish of the white paint around them…

Finally, the kit was sealed overall with Italeri semi-gloss acrylic varnish, just with a matt anti-glare shield in front of the windscreen, which received thin white trim lines (generic decal stripes).

A challenging build due to the Arii kit’s rather poor basis, the massive rhinoplasty and the crisp paint scheme. However, I like the result – what-if models do not always have to be armed military vehicles, there’s potential in other genres, too. And this mono-engine “Pelican” Skymaster plays its role as a “flying eye” in police service credibly and well. However, this was my first and last Eidai kit…

Custom 1:34 scale dumpster, handmade out of styrene for use with the First Gear Diecast 1:34 scale front-load garbage truck. This one is a 3-yard dumpster, done up in the old burgundy Waste Management paint and logos.