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Septa-Surface all-electric PCC 2099 (St Louis 1948) emerges from 40th & Woodlawn portal outbound on Route 13 YEADON 8-20-80
When I was mulling this Asian pear tree as its' blossoms were at their peak, I was enamored by this one rain drop that was being held in place by three stamen. I really cool example of surface tension.
Towards the end of 1914, early in World War I, disturbing rumours began to circulate that the newest German submarines were capable of a much higher surface speed than British boats, one report giving their speed at about 22 knots. The rumours were sufficiently strong to force serious consideration of the matter by the Admiralty, and at the same time consideration was given to the idea that submarines should have a high enough surface speed to be able to work with the fleet. The reports concerning the speed of the German submarines proved to be spurious, but the idea of a British submarine with a high surface speed gained ground. The immediate result of this concern was the development of the J Class, which were unique with their three shafts. Originally eight boats were planned but this was reduced to six and then increased to seven. As a result of these changes the boats originally intended to be J7 and J8 were renumbered in April 1915 as J3 and J4 respectively.
J7's submerged displacement of 1,760 tons was 60 tons less than that of her sister boats. Her conning tower was located further aft and the gun was mounted in a lower position.
HMS J7 commissioned in the Royal Navy on 15 September 1917 under the command of Lieutenant Commander F.H.D. Byron RN and was allocated to a flotilla based at Blyth, Northumberland.
On 5 November 1917 J7 departed Blyth for her first patrol. Whilst on patrol in the North Sea on 6 March 1918 an enemy submarine was sighted, but J7 was unable to attack and the enemy passed from sight.
The submarine was under refit during April and May 1918 at Walker Naval Yard on the River Tyne. She sailed for patrol on 25 May and evaded a U-boat attack the same day.
On 10 July an enemy submarine was sighted and both vessels dived. Shortly after a sighting was made of an enemy submarine on the surface, going away, J7 surfaced, challenged and opened fire. The enemy dived. An enemy submarine was sighted on 23 July, but J7 was unable to attack and the enemy disappeared.
On 5 October 1918 J7 dived to intercept a reported submarine, but broke off the search without contact.
The boat was at sea when the Armistice was signed on 11 November 1918. She returned to Blyth on 15 November. On 19 February 1919 she proceeded to Jarrow.
Following the conclusion of hostilities in World War I, the Admiralty in 1918 presented the six remaining boats of the J Class to the Australian Government - J6 had been sunk in error in 1918 by a British ship. All the submarines commissioned into the Royal Australian Navy at Portsmouth on 25 March 1919, as tenders to the submarine depot ship HMAS Platypus, J7 being the senior boat, under the command of Lieutenant Commander Oswald E. Hallifax DSO RN.
The beam tubes were removed from all six J Class submarines before they sailed for Australia. The tubes were despatched separately to Garden Island. The reasons given for the removal were that the beam tubes were not a success and that increased accommodation was required.
HMS Submarine J7 off the River Tyne prior to sailing for Australia in February, 1919.
On 9 April 1919 Platypus and the submarines, escorted by the light cruiser HMAS Sydney, sailed from Portsmouth for Australia, their first two ports of call being Gibraltar and Valetta.
On the night of 28 April, the night before the vessels arrived at Port Said, J3's starboard main engine shaft snapped. Thus handicapped she could not keep up with the others and consequently on departure for Aden on 30 April, J3 was in tow of Sydney.
The vessels arrived at Aden on 5 May. On the same day the light cruiser HMAS Brisbane, which had left Portsmouth on 17 April, also arrived. On 7 May all the vessels sailed for Colombo. Brisbane took over the tow of J3 while Sydney took J5 in tow as that boat had also developed engine trouble. Three days after arrival at Colombo on 15 May, Brisbane sailed with J5 in tow, taking her all the way to Sydney, where they arrived on 27 June.
J3 was taken in hand at Colombo for repairs. On 31 May Sydney, J1, J2, J4 and J7 sailed for Singapore, followed on 2 June by Platypus and J3. The vessels were reunited at Singapore from where all except Sydney sailed on 18 June. Sydney sailed for Australia a few days later but did not rejoin the other vessels. On 29 June Platypus and the five submarines arrived at Thursday Island, although J7 was three hours late because of trouble with her engine lubricating system. The last call before Sydney was Brisbane, Sydney being reached on 15 July.
Having arrived in poor condition, the submarines were taken in hand at Garden Island Dockyard for refitting. After her refit was completed J7 sailed for the submarine base at Geelong, Victoria.
After uneventful service, little of which was spent at sea, J7 and her five sisters paid off into Reserve at Westernport on 12 July 1922. The boats had become victims of the worsening economic conditions of the time, coupled with their high cost of maintenance.
On 1 November 1929 J7 was sold to Morris and Watt Pty Ltd of South Melbourne. She was towed from Flinders Naval Depot, Crib Point, where she had served as a reserve source of electric power, on 4 December 1929. She was dismantled and the hull sunk in 1930 as a breakwater at the Sandringham Yacht Club, Sandringham, Port Phillip Bay, where it remain
+++ 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 Sondergerät SG104 "Münchhausen" was a German airborne recoillless 355.6 mm (14-inch) caliber gun, intended to engage even the roughest enemy battleships, primarily those of the Royal Navy. The design of this unusual and massive weapon began in 1939. The rationale behind it was that a battleship’s most vulnerable part was the deck – a flat surface, with relatively thin armor (as typical hits were expected on the flanks) and ideally with vital targets underneath, so that a single, good hit would cripple of even destroy a ship. The purpose of such a high angle of attack was likely to allow the projectile to penetrate the target ship's deck, where the ship's armor, if there was any, would have been much thinner than the armor on its sidesHowever, hitting the deck properly with another ship’s main gun was not easy, since it could only be affected through indirect hits and the typical angle of the attack from aballistic shot would not necessarily be ideal for deep penetration, esp. at long range.
The solution to this problem: ensure that the heavy projectile would hit its target directly from above, ideally at a very steep angle. To achieve this, the gun with battleship caliber was “relocated” from a carrier ship or a coastal battery onto an aircraft – specifically to a type that was capable of dive-bombing, a feature that almost any German bomber model of the time offered.
Firing such a heavy weapon caused a lot fo problems, which were severe even if the gun was mounted on a ship or on land. To compensate for such a large-caliber gun’s recoil and to make firing a 14 in shell (which alone weighed around almost 700 kg/1.550 lb, plus the charge) from a relatively light airframe feasible, the respective gun had to be as light as possible and avoid any recoil, which would easily tear an aircraft – even a bomber – apart upon firing. Therefore, the Gerät 104 was designed as a recoilless cannon. Its firing system involved venting the same amount of the weapon's propellant gas for its round to the rear of the launch tube (which was open at both ends), in the same fashion as a rocket launcher. This created a forward directed momentum which was nearly equal to the rearward momentum (recoil) imparted to the system by accelerating the projectile itself. The balance thus created did not leave much net momentum to be imparted to the weapon's mounting or the carrying airframe in the form of felt recoil. A further share of the recoil induced by the moving round itself could be compensated by a muzzle brake which re-directed a part of the firing gases backwards. Since recoil had been mostly negated, a heavy and complex recoil damping mechanism was not necessary – even though the weapon itself was huge and heavy.
Work on the "Münchhausen" device (a secret project handle after a fictional German nobleman created by the German writer Rudolf Erich Raspe in the late 18th century who reputedly had ridden on a cannonball between enemy frontlines), was done by Rheinmetall-Borsig and lasted until 1941. The first test of a prototype weapon was conducted on 9th of September 1940 in Unterlüss with a satisfactory result, even though the weapon was only mounted onto an open rack and not integrated into an airframe yet. At that time, potential carriers were the Ju 88, the Dornier Do 217 and the new Junkers Ju 288. Even though the system’s efficacy was doubted, the prospect of delivering a single, fatal blow to an important , armored arget superseded any doubts at the RLM, and the project was greenlit in early 1942 for the next stage: the integration of the Sondergerät 104 into an existing airframe. The Ju 88 and its successor, the Ju 188, turned out to be too light and lacked carrying capacity for the complete, loaded weapon, and the favored Ju 288 was never produced, so that only the Dornier Do 217 or the bigger He 177 remained as a suitable carriers. The Do 217 was eventually chosen because it had the biggest payload and the airframe was proven and readily available.
After calculations had verified that the designed 14 in rifle would have effectively no recoil, preliminary tests with dumm airframes were carried out. After ground trials with a Do 217 E day bomber to check recoil and blast effects on the airframe, the development and production of a limited Nullserie (pre-production series) of the dedicated Do 217 F variant for field tests and eventual operational use against British sea and land targets was ordered in April 1942.
The resulting Do 217 F-0 was based on the late “E” bomber variant and powered by a pair of BMW 801 radial engines. It was, however, heavily modified for its unique weapon and the highly specialized mission profile: upon arriving at the zone of operation at high altitude, the aircraft would initiate a dive with an angle of attack between 50° and 80° from the horizontal, firing the SG 104 at an altitude between 6,000 and 2,000 meters. The flight time of the projectile could range from 16.0 seconds for a shot from an altitude of 6,000 meters at a 50° angle to just 4.4 seconds for a shot from 2.000 meters at an almost vertical 80° angle. Muzzle velocity of the SG 104 was only 300 m/s, but, prior to impact, the effective velocity of the projectile was projected to range between 449 and 468 m/s (1,616 to 1,674 km/h). Together with the round's weight of roughly 700 kg (1.550 lb) and a hardened tip, this would still ensure a high penetration potential.
The operational Sondergerät 104 had an empty mass of 2.780 kg (6,123 lb) and its complete 14 inch double cartridge weighed around 1.600 kg (3,525 lb). The loaded mass of the weapon was 4,237 kg, stretching the limits of the Do 217’s load capacity to the maximum, so that some armor and less vital pieces of equipment were deleted. Crew and defensive armament were reduced to a minimum.
Even though there had been plans to integrate the wepaon into the airframe (on the Ju 288), the Gerät 104 was on the Do 217 F-0 mounted externally and occupied the whole space under the aircraft, precluding any use of the bomb bay. The latter was occupied by the Gerät 104’s complex mount, which extended to the outside under a streamlined fairing and held the weapon at a distance from the airframe. Between the mount’s struts inside of the fuselage, an additional fuel tank for balance reasons was added, too.
The gun’s center, where the heavy round was carried, was positioned under the aircraft’s center of gravity, so that the gun barrel markedly protruded from under the aircraft’s nose. To make enough space, the Do 217 Es bomb aimer’s ventral gondola and his rearward-facing defensive position under the cockpit were omitted and faired over. The nose section was also totally different: the original extensive glazing (the so-called “Kampfkopf”) was replaced by a smaller, conventional canopy, similar to the later Do 217 J and N night fighter versions, together with a solid nose - the original glass panels would have easily shattered upon firing the gun, esp. in a steep high-speed dive. A "Lotfernrohr" bomb aiming device was still installed in a streamlined and protected fairing, though, so that the navigator could guide the pilot during the approach to the target and during the attack run.
To stabilize the heavy aircraft during its attack and to time- and safely pull out of the dive, a massive mechanical dive brake was mounted at the extended tail tip, which unfolded with four "petals". A charecteristic stabilizing dorsal strake was added between the twin fins, too.
The ventral area behind the gun’s rear-facing muzzle received additional metal plating and blast guiding vanes, after trials in late 1940 had revealed that firing the SG 104 could easily damage the Do 217’s tail structure, esp. all of the tail surfaces’ rudders and the fins’ lower ends in particular. Due to all this extra weight, the Do 217 F-0’s defensive armament consisted only of a single 13 mm MG 131 machine gun in a manually operated dorsal position behind the cockpit cabin, which offered space for a crew of three. A fixed 15 mm MG 151 autocannon was mounted in the nose, too, a weapon with a long barrel for extended range and accuracy. It was not an offensive weapon, though, rather intended as an aiming aid for the SG 104 because it was loaded with tracer bullets: during the final phase of the attack dive, the pilot kept firing the MG 151, and the bullet trail showed if he was on target to fire the SG 104 when the right altitude/range had been reached.
The first Do 217 F-0 was flown and tested in late 1943, and after some detail changes the type was cleared for a limited production run of ten aircraft in January 1944. The first operational machine was delivered to a dedicated testing commando, the Erprobungskommando 104 “Münchhausen”, also known as “Sonderkommando Münchhausen” or simply “E-Staffel 104”. The unit was based at Bordeaux/Merignac and directly attached to the KG 40's as a staff flight. At that time, KG 40 operated Do 217 and He 177 bombers and frequently flew reconnaissance and anti-shipping missions over the Atlantic west of France, up to the British west and southern coast, equipped with experimental Henschel Hs 293 glide bombs.
Initial flights confirmed that the Do 217 airframe was burdened with the SG 104 to its limits, the already rather sluggish aircraft (the Do 217 had generally a high wing loading and was not easy to fly) lost anything that was left of what could be called agility. It needed an experienced pilot to handle it safely, esp. during start and landing. It is no wonder that two Do 217 F-0s suffered ground accidents during the first two weeks of operations, but the machines could be repaired, resume the test program and carry out attack missions.
However, during one of the first test shots with the weapon, one Do 217 F-0 lost its complete tail section though the gun blast, and the aircraft crashed into the Bay of Biscay, killing the complete crew.
On 4th or April 1944 the first "hot" attack against an enemy ship was executed in the Celtic Sea off of Brest, against a convoy of 20 ships homeward bound from Gibraltar. The attack was not successful, though, the shot missing its target, and the German bomber was attacked and heavily damaged by British Bristol Beaufighters that had been deployed to protect the ships. The Do 217F-0 eventually crashed and sank into the Atlantic before it could reach land again.
A couple of days later, on 10th of April, the first attempt to attack and destroy a land target was undertaken: two Do 217 F-0s took off to attack Bouldnor Battery, an armored British artillery position located on the Isle of Wight. One machine had to abort the attack due to oil leakages, the second Do 217 F-0 eventually reached its target and made a shallow attack run, but heavy fog obscured the location and the otherwise successful shot missed the fortification. Upon return to its home base the aircraft was intercepted by RAF fighters over the Channel and heavily damaged, even though German fighters deployed from France came to the rescue, fought the British attackers off and escorted the limping Do 217 F-0 back to its home base.
These events revealed that the overall SG 104 concept was generally feasible, but also showed that the Do 217 F-0 was very vulnerable without air superiority or a suitable escort, so that new tactics had to be developed. One consequence was that further Do 217 F-0 deployments were now supported by V/KG 40, the Luftwaffe's only long range maritime fighter unit. These escorts consisted of Junkers Ju 88C-6s, which were capable of keeping up with the Do 217 F-0 and fend of intercepting RAF Coastal Command’s Beaufighters and later also Mosquitos.
In the meantime, tests with the SG 104 progressed and several modifications were tested on different EKdo 104's Do 217 F-0s. One major upgrade was a further strengthening of the tail section, which added another 200 kg (440 lb) to the aircraft's dry weight. Furthermore, at least three aircraft were outfitted with additional dive brakes under the outer wings, so that the dive could be better controlled and intercepted. these aircraft, however, lost their plumbed underwing hardpoints, but these were only ever used for drop tanks during transfer flights - a loaded SG 104 precluded any other ordnance. On two other aircraft the SG 104 was modified to test different muzzle brakes and deflectors for the rear-facing opening, so that the gun blast was more effectively guided away from the airframe to prevent instability and structural damage. For instance, one machine was equipped with a bifurcated blast deflector that directed the rearward gasses partly sideways, away from the fuselage.
These tests did not last long, though. During the Allied Normandy landings in June 1944 E-Staffel 104 was hastily thrown into action and made several poorly-prepared attack runs against Allied support ships. The biggest success was a full hit and the resulting sinking of the Norwegian destroyer HNoMS Svenner (G03) by "1A+BA" at dawn on 6th of June, off Sword, one of the Allied landing zones. Other targets were engaged, too, but only with little effect. This involvement, however, led to the loss of three Do 217 F-0s within just two days and four more heavily damaged aircraft – leaving only two of EKdo 104's Do 217 F-0s operational.
With the Allied invasion of France and a worsening war condition, the SG 104 program was stopped in August 1944 and the idea of an airborne anti-ship gun axed in favor of more flexible guided weapons like the Hs 293 missile and the Fritz-X glide bomb. Plans for a further developed weapon with a three-round drum magazine were immediately stopped, also because there was no carrier aircraft in sight that could carry and deploy this complex 6.5 tons weapon. However, work on the SG 104 and the experience gained from EKdo 104's field tests were not in vain. The knowledge gathered from the Münchhausen program was directly used for the design of a wide range of other, smaller recoilless aircraft weapons, including the magnetically-triggered SG 113 "Förstersonde" anti-tank weapon or the lightweight SG 118 "Rohrblock" unguided air-to-air missile battery for the Heinkel He 162 "Volksjäger".
General characteristics:
Crew: 3 (pilot, navigator, radio operator/gunner)
Length: 20,73 m (67 ft 11 in) overall
18,93 m (62 ft 3/4 in) hull only
Wingspan: 19 m (62 ft 4 in)
Height: 4.97 m (16 ft 4 in)
Wing area: 57 m² (610 sq ft)
Empty weight: 9,065 kg (19,985 lb)
Empty equipped weight:10,950 kg (24,140 lb)
Max takeoff weight: 16,700 kg (36,817 lb)
Fuel capacity: 2,960 l (780 US gal; 650 imp gal) in fuselage tank and four wing tanks
Powerplant:
2× BMW 801D-2 14-cylinder air-cooled radial piston engines, delivering
1,300 kW (1,700 hp) each for take-off and 1,070 kW (1,440 hp) at 5,700 m (18,700 ft),
driving 3-bladed VDM constant-speed propellers
Performance:
Maximum speed: 475 km/h (295 mph, 256 kn) at sea level
560 km/h (350 mph; 300 kn) at 5,700 m (18,700 ft)
Cruise speed: 400 km/h (250 mph, 220 kn) with loaded Gerät 104 at optimum altitude
Range: 2,180 km (1,350 mi, 1,180 nmi) with maximum internal fuel
Ferry range: 2,500 km (1,600 mi, 1,300 nmi); unarmed, with auxiliary fuel tanks
Service ceiling: 7,370 m (24,180 ft) with loaded Gerät 104,
9,500 m (31,200 ft) after firing
Rate of climb: 3.5 m/s (690 ft/min)
Time to altitude: 1,000 m (3,300 ft) in 4 minutes 10 seconds
2,000 m (6,600 ft) in 8 minutes 20 seconds
6,100 m (20,000 ft) in 24 minutes 40 seconds
Armament:
1x 355.6 mm (14-inch) Sondergerät 104 recoilless gun with a single round in ventral position
1x 15 mm (0.787 in) MG 151 machine cannon with 200 rounds, fixed in the nose
1x 13 mm (0.512 in) MG 131 machine gun with 500 rounds, movable in dorsal position
Two underwing hardpoints for a 900 l drop tank each, but only used during unarmed ferry flights
The kit and its assembly:
This was another submission to the "Gunships" group build at whatifmodellers.com in late 2021, and inspiration struck when I realized that I had two Italeri Do 217 in The Stash - a bomber and a night fighter - that could be combined into a suitable (fictional) carrier for a Sondergerät 104. This mighty weapon actually existed and even reached the hardware/test stage - but it was never integrated into an airframe and tested in flight. But that's what this model is supposed to depict.
On the Do 217, the Sg 104 would have been carried externally under the fuselage, even though there had been plans to integrate this recoilless rifle into airframes, esp. into the Ju 288. Since the latter never made it into production, the Do 217 would have been the most logical alternative, also because it had the highest payload of all German bombers during WWII and probably the only aircraft capable of carrying and deploying the Münchhausen device, as the SG 104 was also known.
The fictional Do 217 F-0 is a kitbashing, using a Do 217 N fuselage, combined with the wings from a Do 217 K bomber, plus some modifications. What initially sounded like a simple plan soon turned into a improvisation mess: it took some time to realize that I had already donated the Do 217 K's BMW 801 engines to another project, an upgraded He 115... I did not want to use the nightfighter's more powerful DB 603s, and I was lucky to have an Italeri Ju 188 kit at hand which comes with optional BMW 801s and Jumo 211s. Transplanting these engines onto the Do 217's wings took some tailoring of the adapter plates, but was feasible. However, the BMW 801s from the Ju 188 kit have a flaw: they lack the engine's characteristic cooling fans... Another lucky find: I found two such parts in the scrap box, even though from different kits - one left over from another Italeri Do 217 K, the other one from what I assume is/was an Italeri 1:72 Fw 190 A/F. To make matters worse, one propeller from the Ju 188 kit was missing, so that I had to find a(nother) replacement. :-/
I eventually used something that looked like an 1:72 F6F Hellcat propeller, but I an not certain about this because I have never built this model...? With some trimming on the blades' trailing edges and other mods, the donor's overall look could be adapted to the Ju 188 benchmark. Both propellers were mounted on metal axis' so that they could also carry the cooling fans. Lots of work, but the result looks quite good.
The Do 217 N's hull lost the lower rear gunner position and its ventral gondola, which was faired over with a piece of styrene sheet. The pilot was taken OOB, the gunner in the rear position was replaced by a more blob-like crew member from the scrap box. The plan to add a navigator in the seat to the lower right of the pilot did not work out due to space shortage, but this figure would probably have been invisble, anyway.
All gun openings in the nose were filled and PSRed away, and a fairing for a bomb aiming device and a single gun (the barrel is a hollow steel needle) were added.
The SG 104 was scratched. Starting point was a white metal replacement barrel for an 1:35 ISU-152 SPG with a brass muzzle brake. However, after dry-fitting the barrel under the hull the barrel turned out to be much too wide, so that only the muzzal brake survived and the rest of the weapon was created from a buddy refueling pod (from an Italeri 1:72 Luftwaffe Tornado, because of its two conical ends) and protective plastic caps from medical canulas. To attach this creation to the hull I abused a conformal belly tank from a Matchbox Gloster Meteor night fighter and tailored it into a streamlined fairing. While this quite a Frankenstein creation, the overall dimensions match the real SG 104 prototype and its look well.
Other cosmetic modifications include a pair of underwing dive brakes, translanted from an Italeri 1:72 Ju 88 A-4 kit, an extended (scratched) tail "stinger" which resembles the real dive brake arrangement that was installed on some Do 217 E bombers, and I added blast deflector vanes and a dorsal stabilizer fin.
In order to provide the aircraft with enough ground clearance, the tail wheel was slightly extended. Thanks to the long tail stinger, this is not blatantly obvious.
Painting and markings:
This was not an easy choice, but as a kind of prototype I decided that the paint scheme should be rather conservative. However, German aircraft operating over the Atlantic tended to carry rather pale schemes, so that the standard pattern of RLM 70/71/65 (Dunkelgrün, Schwarzgrün and Hellblau) with a low waterline - typical for experimental types - would hardly be appropriate.
I eventually found a compromise on a He 177 bomber (coded 6N+BN) from 1944 that was operated by KG 100: this particular aircraft had a lightened upper camouflage - still a standard splinter scheme but consisting of RLM 71 and 02 (Dunkelgrün and Grau; I used Modelmaster 2081 and Humbrol 240), a combination that had been used on German fighters during the Battle of Britain when the standard colors turned out to be too dark for operations over the Channel. The aircraft also carried standard RLM 65 (or maybe the new RLM76) underneath (Humbrol 65) and on the fin, but with a very high and slightly wavy waterline. As a rather unusual feature, no typical camouflage mottles were carried on the flanks or the fin, giving the aircraft a very bleak and simple look.
Despite my fears that this might look rather boring I adapted this scheme for the Do 217 F-0, and once basic painting was completed I was rather pleased by the aircraft's look! As an aircraft operated at the Western front, no additional markings like fuselage bands were carried.
To set the SG 104 apart from the airframe, I painted the weapon's visible parts in RLM 66 (Schwarzgrau, Humbrol 67), because this tone was frequently used for machinery (including the interior surfaces of aircraft towards 1945).
RLM 02 was also used for the interior surfaces and the landing gear, even though I used a slightly different, lighter shade in form of Revell 45 (Helloliv).
A light black ink washing was applied and post-shading to emphasize panel lines. Most markings/decals came from a Begemot 1:72 He 11 sheet, including the unusual green tactical code - it belongs to a staff unit, a suitable marking for such an experimental aircraft. The green (Humbrol 2) was carried over to the tips of the propeller spinners. The unit's code "1A" is fictional, AFAIK this combination had never been used by the Luftwaffe.
The small unit badge was alucky find: it actually depicts the fictional Baron von Münchhausen riding on a cannonball, and it comes from an Academy 1:72 Me 163 kit and its respective sheet. The mission markings underneath, depicting two anti-ship missions plus a successful sinking, came from a TL Modellbau 1:72 scale sheet with generic German WWII victory markings.
After some soot stains around the engine exhaust and weapon muzzles had been added with graphite, the model was sealed with matt acrylic varnish and final details like position lights and wire antennae (from heated black plastic sprue material) were added.
Well, what started as a combination of two kits of the same kind with a simple huge pipe underneath turned out to be more demanding than expected. The (incomplete) replacement engines were quite a challenge, and body work on the hull (tail stinger, fairing for the SG 104 as well as the weapon itself) turned out to be more complex and extensive than initially thought of. The result looks quite convincing, also supported by the rather simple paint scheme which IMHO just "looks right" and very convincing. And the whole thing is probably the most direct representation of the inspiring "Gunship" theme!
Surfacing by artist Kitty Cantrell of Starlite Studio. They make some incredible looking – yet very expensive – sculptures. IIRC, the whales are hand-painted & fired Aluminum then liquid lucite is poured around the whales in a mold, heated for 24 hours to harden the lucite, and then smoothed and polished by hand.
Quick-Look Hill-shaded Colour Relief Image of 2014 2m LIDAR Composite Digital Surface Model (DSM).
Data supplied by Environment Agency under the Open Government License agreement. For details please go to: www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/v...
For full raster dataset go to: environment.data.gov.uk/ds/survey
I've thought these recent art pieces that were added to the front yard of a new hotel in the area, were quite interesting.
So I stopped by to take a closer look on my way home from a quick run to the store.
Sort of like waves on a smooth pond after a leaf falls in.
I could find a nice angle for a picture, but the pieces themselves are still quite interesting.
Be well and stay safe. My other thought for the "Surfaces" theme, was cleaning the surfaces in my kitchen, but I've been doing that way too much of that of late. : (
WAH - Surfaces
via Outdoor Surface Painting outdoorsurfacepainting.tumblr.com/post/139533666381
Cycle Lane Line Markings in Welham Green #Cycle #Lane #Line #Markings #Welham #Green t.co/mWRwzk3nyF
via Tarmacadam Surfaces tarmacadamsurfaces.tumblr.com/post/149555401722
Tarmacadam Multi-Use Games Area in Dobwalls #Macadam #MUGA #Surface #Dobwalls t.co/wfEmuWiw0o
Video: youtu.be/7G2r37m35rU
The surface divides space into two congruent subspaces.
Inspired by these instructions by Damian.