Iron Modeler

Author: Iron Modeler

  • Superseding Kits, and The Power of Words

    Hi, all!

    (Fair warning: I started writing this piece 9 or 10 months ago. I’m busy at work—as always. Well, maybe busier—our Senior Technical Writer retired early last year, making me “it” when it comes to dealing with our largest customer…)

    I’ve been busy at the real job of late, but I’ve almost managed to dig myself out of the workload. I have an article just about ready for Prime Time on Paco Four Zero, so look for that to hit the interwebs shortly.

    Meanwhile, I’ve still managed to keep some hobby-related work going…

    Back in the mid 1980’s, FineScale Modeler ran an article by Ron Lowry on scratchbuilding a Pilatus PC-6 Turbo-Porter. At the same time, I had discovered an offshoot of Project Gunship called Credible Chase.

    Credible Chase was started to explore the use of armed light utility short takeoff and landing aircraft in Southeast Asia. The program was designed to add mobility and firepower to the South Vietnamese Republic of Vietnam Air Force (RVNAF) in a relatively short time within a small budget. The United States Air Force settled on two aircraft: The Pilatus PC-6 Turbo-Porter and the Helio HST-550 Stallion. Several examples of each aircraft were leased and entered into a trial program called PAVE COIN. The Pilatus aircraft was designated AU-23A and the Stallion was the AU-24A.

    The AU-23A was based on the Fairchild-built PC-6/C2-H2. Powered by a Garrett/AirResearch TPE 331-101F turboprop engine, the aircraft was modified with four hardpoints under the wings to carry stores such as rocket pods, bombs of varying size, SUU-11 gun pods, napalm canisters, or propaganda pods. The cabin could be fitted with a pedestal mounted, manually aimed General Electric side-firing 20mm 3-barreled M197 electric cannon – the same cannon used in the later AH-1 Cobra attack helicopters. An XM93 Minigun mount was also tested. In short, it was envisaged as a “mini-gunship”.

    PAVE COIN revealed problems that should have been evident from the start. The aircraft was susceptible to damage from even small arms, had a slow operating speed and low operating altitude, and lack of crew protection. Despite that, 14 AU-23A’s were ordered for further testing. The final aircraft from the initial order was delivered in July 1972. By that time, the situation in Vietnam had changed. President Nixon’s “Vietnamization” plans meant U.S. troops were being sent home. Instability withing the South Vietnamese government put their military in a shambles. As a result, the surviving AU-23A’s, still in the United States, were put into storage until it was decided to sell them to Thailand for their border police. An additional 20 aircraft were ordered, and delivered by 1976. Of the 34 aircraft delivered, 14 of them are still in use in Thailand.

    So, with the research done, I decided that I “needed” an AU-23A in the collection. This was back in my strictly 1/48th scale days, and of course there was no kit of any type in existence. As I read the FSM article, I realized that I could scratchbuild a model. I made several copies of the included plans (which were published in 1/48th scale—Ron’s model was in 1/24th scale) and began my quest. I managed to get as far as having a nearly complete wing and fuselage before several moves made me shut the project down and put it away. I will always remember the advice I received from John Alcorn at the 1999 IPMS/USA National Convention as we were chatting about our current projects. Knowing it was my first fully scratchbuilt models, he was full of advice. He asked about my progress, and I described my attempts at making the wing. “How many tries did it take?”, he asked. “Three”, was my answer. “You’re just about on schedule, then”, he said with a grin. At the time, his second book, The Master Scratchbuilders, and just come out, where he detailed how many attempts he made before he arrived an an acceptable wing for his DH.9 project…if memory serves, third time was the charm for him, too…

    Just when you think you’ll be resigned to scratchbuilding or using a crude limited run kit, every now and again the modeling Gods smile upon you.  That was the case with 1/48th scale Turbo-Porters when, in 2009, the Ukrainian company Roden Models announced a series of 1/48th scale Pilatus Porters. The kits hit the store shelves in 2010, and I bought not only the AU-23A kit (actually, two, but one was later donated to a show raffle), but also the Air America PC-6/C2-H2 and a PC-6/B2-H2 kits as well—another interest in Southeast Asian air operations happened to be Air America and the other small airlines associated with the U.S. Government (in this case, Continental Air Services, Inc., or CASI). And, in a state of delerium after finishing Paco Four Zero, I started building all three kits. Concurrently.

    All three are complete now, which means an article on them is also in the works.

    ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~

    Fast forward to the present: there is another project already in work: a trio of 1/48th scale P-51D Mustangs. I had a pair of the new (well, they were new back in 2017 when I bought them) Airfix kits on the pile, and after watching Jen Wright at Jenesis Designs and Modelcraft build the kit for her YouTube series “More Modeling for Beginners” (and which I had intended to build along with Jen, but the Turbo-Porters got in the way), I decided to have a go. One will be Don Strait’s “Jersey Jerk”, and the other will be “Miss Miami” (which is often said to have been the mount of Ernest “Feeb” Fiebelkorn, but was actually assigned to Carp. R.D. Jones).

    And, in a weekend session of spring cleaning, I came across a first-issue Tamiya P-51D from 1995. I bought it new when it came into the shop along with the also new Kendall Model Company (KMC) Merlin Engine. I had initially intended to build it out of the box using thre kit decals for Col. Leonard “Kit” Carson’s “Nooky Booky IV” and place the Merlin on a stand next to the airplane. In the 30 (!) interceding years, that plan has changed. I’m still going to put the Merlin on a stand, but the airplane will be one of the P-51D’s assigned to the Florida National Guard in 1947.

    I’ll build “Nooky Booky IV” in the near future with Part 2 (or maybe Part 3) of “Mustang Madness”—I have two P-51B’s to build (Howard’s “Ding Hao!” and Don Lopez’s “Lope’s Hope), and an F-6 (“Li’l Margaret, maybe) and a P-51K—you guessed it, the P-51K will be “Nooky Booky IV”. It will replace an Otaki kit I built in 1984 using Microscale sheet 48-39 back in the day. Yeah, it had accuracy issues, but back in the day many modelers “in the know” either didn’t know or didn’t care—I certainly didn’t. Anyway, Eduard’s P-51K has the markings in the box, I’ll probably use them if they behave…

    And I have one of the initial release “Chattanooga Choo-Choo” kits that I’d like to build, too…

    So yeah, by the time “Mustang Madness” is over, I should have seven or eight Mustangs done in short order. Stay tuned.

    ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~

    I’ve been keeping up with the hobby on YouTube, too. There are a lot of talented folks out there producing content, and I manage to look at quite a bit of it. And, of course, there are some things I like, and some I cringe at…

    • Using a big word where a small word works better
    • Using the wrong word or nomenclature
    • Not understanding what you are speaking about.

    The worst example of the first two points is the use of the word fitment where the presenter means fit. From Mr. Webster’s book:

    • fitment (noun): furnishing, fixture, cabinetry
    • fit (noun): the degree of closeness between surfaces in an assembly of parts.

    So, when describing how well the parts go together (or how badly they don’t), the word is fit.

    And yes, I understand that some folks who use this don’t count English as their first language, but it seems to come most often from folks in the UK—and the definition for fitment listed above even noted it was “chiefly British”…

    Another violation of the second point (and the third point entirely) is calling something a “thingie” because you can’t be bothered to try and learn at least a little bit about your subject matter. That “little bent thingie” under the wing is a pitot (pronounced PEE-toh, not PIT-ot) tube, and it is part of the aircraft’s air data system that provides altitude, airspeed, and rate of climb information to the pilots. It’s no secret, the answer is out there—just take a few minutes and find it. This grates with me because ask any scale modeler and they’ll tell you that they are the most detail oriented people on the planet.

    An offshoot of this? “I attached the tail wings”, or “I installed the front nose landing gear”. Unless you are dealing with a canard-type aircraft, “tail wings” do not exist—and even at that, they’re still simply “wings”. And unless you have the goofiest airplane in the world, the nose is *always* at the front of the airplane.

    Oh, and there is a difference between a canopy and a windscreen, too…

    Incorrect nomenclature? There is a huge difference between an F4F, an F4-F, and an F-4F. One is the Grumman Wildcat, one is nonsense, the other is a variant of the McDonnell Douglas Phantom. I covered this topic a while back in an article for the IPMS/Mid-Carolina Newsflash.

    What brought this on? My second career as a Technical Writer. I write aerospace maintenance manuals where each and every detail—no matter how large or small—is important. Leave out a critical detail, and the technician using the manual might find the job is more difficult, if not impossible. Leave a step out of a test procedure, or incorrectly identify something in the results, and we will hear from the user. So we strive to get it correct the first time, every time. And as I said, scale modelers claim to be the most detail-oriented people on the planet—we should make sure we live up to that claim, shouldn’t we?

    ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~

    That’s all for now.  I will make an honest effort to drag out the photographic equipment and get photos of all the projects from last year ready for posting in the next few weeks.  Stay tuned…

    Thanks for reading. Be good to one another, and, as always, I bid you Peace…

  • Can You Really Go Home Again?

    “My first job, I was in-house at a fur company, with this old pro copywriter. Greek, named Teddy. And Teddy told me the most important idea in advertising is ‘new’. Creates an itch. You simply put your product in there as a kind of… calamine lotion. But he also talked about a deeper bond with the product: nostalgia. It’s delicate… but potent. Teddy told me that in Greek, ‘nostalgia’ literally means, ‘the pain from an old wound’. It’s a twinge in your heart, far more powerful than memory alone.” — Don Draper (Jon Hamm), “Mad Men”

    Hi, all…
    I’ve been meaning to write this ever since my 40th High School reunion in 2022. Given that I recently began my 61st personal solar orbit, I’ve been running ideas through my head, and I think I finally will be able to put something coherent together…

    ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~

    Have you ever been bored and in an attempt to entertain yourself, you type in an old address, the name of your old school, or an old place you used to go, into Google? You click on the map and zoom in to a place you knew like the back of your hand—unless it has met the fate many places like that do and been razed and replaced…

    Take the house you lived in as a kid. Go to Google Maps, find the house, and zoom in. Look at the neighboring houses. Try to look at them as they are, not as you remember them. Is that possible?

    Many times, you might think, “I wonder what that house is like now?” In one of those strange moments, you might even think something like, “If it went on the market, it would be fun to walk through it.” And, in a crazy minute, “What if I was to buy it?”

    Snap out of it.

    These thoughts are a sure sign that nostalgia has bitten you. Hard.

    Here’s the truth: Nothing is as it was. It never will be. It never can be.

    Why? That thief we call Father Time dictates that things will never be the same, except in your memories.  Places change.  You have changed.

    Ever since I moved to the Greater Upper Midlands Co-Prosperity Sphere in 2001, friends from South Florida would ask me if I miss the old stomping grounds. Based on a visit made a mere three months after I left, my answer shocks them.

    I told them that I miss people (some who have departed this world) and I miss places that were no longer the places I knew—if they still exist at all. For instance, for several years our Friday Night eating establishment of choice was 3 Guys from Italy on University Drive just north of the I-595 interchange. In my return at the end of 2001 (again, three months after I left), it was gone, closed and reopened as (IIRC) some sort of taqueria.

    Our other Friday night spot after closing the hobby shop used to be the Applebee’s at University Drive and Peters Road next to the Albertson’s. Don’t go looking for it. It is now a Charles Schwab office. And the Albertson’s is now a Publix. And the old hobby shop is gone—destroyed when the building exploded four or five years ago.

    The yardstick I use tends to be hobby shops. I know, you’re shocked. But I take a look at what was then and what was now. None—and I mean zero—of the hobby shops I frequented in my South Florida days remains today. They’ve all been closed for a least a decade, some even longer. The same goes for restaurants, craft stores, grocery stores, movie theaters, golf courses…

    Even during my brief travels out and about in town when running to and fro for reunion duties during my visit in 2022 proved to me that the Ft. Lauderdale I knew lived only in my memories. Even if a building or an establishment was still there, it wasn’t the same as it was when I left 23 years ago.

    Well, except Lester’s Diner—that place is a time capsule.

    Lest you think this is a phenomenon of big cities, ask my wife about her small home town, and how it has changed over the years.

    No, these places we knew in our youth are, in the here and now, vastly different.

    Our nostalgia makes us want to believe that they are the same—that, if you could go back to that house of your youth, you could stand in the same place in the family room and watch the sunset stream through the windows the same way they did when you were a kid. That is an illusion, created by the effect of mist of time on your memories. It is what we want to see, because humans tend to remember the very good things we’ve experienced in vivid detail while allowing the really bad experiences to fade.

    And yes, sitting here at my desk, I can close my eyes and imagine a cool fall day in Ft. Lauderdale, standing in the family room of that house, and noting how much softer the light is compared to the summer time. I can sense the difference in how the shadows fall at various times of the year. The air is cool and dry—not the humid hot air of summer.

    I miss those days, I miss that experience…

    But in the 30+ years since I moved out of that house, changes have taken place that make those visions I have impossible to duplicate.

    It is best to leave them as memories and move on.

    “This device isn’t a spaceship. It’s a time machine. It goes backwards, forwards. It takes us to a place where we ache to go again. It’s not called the Wheel. It’s called a Carousel. It lets us travel the way a child travels. Around and around, and back home again… to a place where we know we are loved.” — Don Draper (Jon Hamm)

    Even though the subject of the “Mad Men” episode quoted was a Kodak Carousel slide projector, each of us has our own mental Carousel. Replay the memories, because you cannot truly re-live them in the present.

    ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~

    As I type this, I have “My Mix” on YouTube playing. In the time it took me to type this, I’ve heard songs from my formative years, ranging from mid-1970’s Blue-Eyed Soul (Robin Trower’s “Too Rolling Stoned”) to early 1980’s Genesis (“Home By The Sea” and “Keep it Dark”) to 1990’s Girl Group rock (The Donnas’ “Take it Off”). Right now, Al Stewart is singing about strolling through a crowd like Peter Lorre, as a girl comes out of the sun, silk dress running like a watercolor in the rain (how I adore the imagery in the lyrics for “The Year of the Cat”)…

    This music evokes the same memories—remembering where I was and what I was doing when I heard them for the first time…or the hundredth time…

    As we get older, the experiences of youth seem to come rushing back, in sharper detail than they ever had before.

    My advice? Enjoy the ride. Soak up the vision of days past. What if one of those experiences that makes you cringe hits you? Enjoy that, too. Because all of those experiences are part of the person you’ve become over the years.

    ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~

    Thanks for reading. Be good to one another, and, as always, I bid you Peace.

  • The Hows and Whys of Post-War United States Military Air Power

    Howdy, all!  Today (28 March 2024, to be exact) is a rare day–I’m making multiple posts on the same day for your reading enjoyment.  Sit back, relax, and enjoy…
    ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~
    Today, let’s examine how the creation of the United States Air Force as a separate branch of the military created the military’s air power structure. This is a much larger brief than I had planned, but it answers a friend’s questions of “Why doesn’t the Army or Marines operate the A-10” and “How did the military air power structure get the way it is?”

    Several names to remember—these acts of Congress, conferences, memorandums, and agreements shaped the United States’ post-WWII air power doctrine:

    • The National Security Act of 1947
    • The Key West Agreement of 1948
    • The Pace-Finletter Memorandum of Understanding of 1952
    • The Howze Board of 1961
    • The Johnson-McConnell Agreement of 1966

    It is a tangled tale, and if you really want to start at the start, it goes back to 1907.

    The U. S. Army got into the aviation business during the Civil War, actually, but things began in earnest when the Aeronautical Division, U. S. Army Signal Corps was formed in 1907. The Aeronautical Division began acquiring aircraft in 1908, purchasing one nonrigid airship and one Wright Model A airplane from the Wright Brothers. The dirigible was delivered in July 1908, and the airplane came along in September. It was this airplane that also caused the first military fatality related to the new machines, when, on 17 September 1908, a propeller split, severed a guy wire, causing the airplane to crash. Killed in the crash was LT Thomas E. Selfridge, one of the early officers of the Division…

    As the years went by, the Aeronautical Division would be replaced with the Air Division, which became the Aviation Section of the U. S. Signal Corps, which was in turn replaced by the U. S. Army Air Service in the World War I years. In 1926, the Army’s aviation group became the U. S. Army Air Corps, a title it would maintain until 1941, when it was changed to the U. S. Army Air Forces. The Air Corps still would exist in the army, relegated to battlefield observation and liaison duties, while the USAAF would handle the ever evolving concept of strategic and tactical air power.

    Things got interesting. Since the early 1920’s, there had always been a faction of the USAAC/USAAF who believed that the service should be separate and independent from the Army. In 1947, the National Security Act did just that—in among many items that discussed intelligence gathering, a National Military Establishment, and security, President Truman ordered the creation of a United States Air Force as an independent branch of a revamped Department of Defense. In part, the duties were broadly outlined:

    “In general, the United States Air Force shall include aviation forces both combat and service not otherwise assigned. It shall be organized, trained, and equipped primarily for prompt and sustained offensive and defensive air operations. The Air Force shall be responsible for the preparation of the air forces necessary for the effective prosecution of war except as otherwise assigned and, in accordance with integrated joint mobilization plans, for the expansion of the peacetime components of the Air Force to meet the needs of war.”

    At the same time, the U. S. Navy realized the importance of aviation, and began to develop their own organic air arm for the Fleet, as well as for the United States Marine Corps. Indeed, through the better part of two World Wars, the Navy’s investment in aviation paid off, much to the chagrin of long-time “Black-Shoe” officers. As aircraft became more capable, they would replace the big guns of the Navy’s battleships and cruisers. They became the eyes and ears of the Fleet, and they employed it quite effectively. The one drawback to post-war Navy aviation was that the early jets caused some issues. They were slow, thirsty, and early jet engines’ performance made them less than ideal from operations from a carrier deck.

    At the end of the war, the United States possessed nuclear weapons. The nuclear weapons of the day were large, and required large aircraft to deliver them—aircraft that were in the USAF inventory. Naval aircraft, operating off carrier decks, could not carry and deliver the nukes of the period. As a bit of a sop to the Navy, Truman promised the Navy that they could build their “supercarrier”, the USS United States (CVA-58), and allowed them to maintain an aviation wing of their own—for tactical, not strategic functions.

    As the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions…

    In March 1947, the service chiefs met in Key West, Florida to come up with specified duties for each branch of the United States armed forces. The documents that resulted from these meetings have been collectively called the “Key West Agreement of 1948”, formally Functions of the Armed Forces and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The largest outcome of the meetings was an outline on how air assets would be deployed. The aforementioned Supercarrier and Naval Air Arm were indeed part of the discussion, but the largest discussion concerned the new USAF. Because they felt they were in the strategic airpower business, the USAF wanted to be the sole branch to conduct strategic aerial warfare. The truth be told, Curtis LeMay, USAF Chief of Staff, thought the USAF should be the sole service branch to operate any form of aircraft—or, as he put it, the Air Force should operate “everything that flies, right down the last puddle jumper.”

    In the end, the Key West Agreement specified that the Navy (and by extension, the Marines) needed to have their own tactical (but not strategic) air power, and were permitted to develop the same. The Army was sort of left out in the cold in all these talks, and the aviation duties left within the Army structure at the time of the National Security Act were more or less kept as-is. The Air Force’s specific areas of operation were kept a bit vague at the time the Agreement was signed.

    The papers, and the resulting memorandum, was sent to the Joint Chiefs in March 1948. A few months later, the Agreement was amended, and specific duties for the USAF were outlined:

    • Gain/maintain air superiority
    • Air defense of the United States
    • Strategic air warfare
    • Interdiction of enemy land power and communications
    • Close combat and logistical air support
    • Intelligence (including tactical intelligence) and aerial photography
    • Airlift, air transport and resupply, and support for airborne and amphibious operations
    • Interdict enemy sea power
    • Antisubmarine warfare and shipping protection
    • Aerial mine-laying

    At the end of the day, the Army got to say their piece. The Agreement was said to bind the Armed Forces together into an “efficient team of land, naval, and air forces”. The USAF was to provide CAS, airlift, resupply, reconnaissance, and infrastructure interdiction. The Navy was given responsibility for developing and maintaining a tactical air arm. The Army could retain aviation assets for battlefield reconnaissance and medical evacuation (Medevac).

    In 1948, this arrangement worked given the equipment then being fielded. However, time and technology stand still for no man…

    In 1952, a memorandum of understanding was drafted and signed by then-Secretary of the Air Force Thomas K. Finletter and then-Secretary of the Army Frank Pace. Called the Pace-Finletter Memorandum of Understanding, it accomplished two objectives.

    The first objective was removing the gross weight capacity of the Army’s rotary wing aircraft. As helicopters developed and could carry more and do more than simple battlefield observation and short-distance medevac tasks, the Army would find ways to use them to their advantage. The Pace-Finletter MOU codified these changes, to a certain extent, by allowing the Army to operate larger helicopters to serve their combat needs.

    At the same time, the MOU imposed a 5,000-lb. empty gross weight restriction on the Army’s fixed-wing assets. This limited the types of aircraft the Army could use, mostly directed at the liaison and administrative types in use.

    This MOU also placed limits on what the USAF could do with their own helicopters. They could be used for airlift and medevac purposes to support combat operations using either fixed- OR rotary-wing aircraft.

    It also stated the following:

    “Army organic aviation will consist of aircraft primarily utilized by the Army within the Army combat zone as an integral part of its components for the purpose of expediting and improving ground combat and logistical procedures, subject, however, to the limitation that such aircraft will not duplicate the functions of the U.S. Air Force in providing the Army, by fixed-wing and rotary-wing type aircraft, close combat support, assault transport and other troop carrier airlift, aerial photography, tactical reconnaissance and interdiction of enemy land power and communications.”

    But wait, there’s more!

    By the early 1960’s, the Army (and, to some extent, the Marines) were developing what would become known as the Airmobile concept. One of the tenets of this new way of thinking was that the Army would use specialized helicopters to provide organic Close Air Support to their troops in the field. The war in Southeast Asia was beginning to create a lot of friction between the Army and Air Force. The Air Force pointed to the Key West Agreement and the Pace-Finletter MOU and bluntly told the Army to:

    A. Stop using armed helicopters for CAS

    B. Stop arming the new Grumman OV-1 Mohawk Battlefield Surveillance airplane

    C. Terminate the AC-1 Caribou program.

    As discussed, LeMay firmly believed that the USAF should be the only service branch to operate any type of aircraft. And, to LeMay, that meant strategic air warfare doctrine developed around the deployment and use of nuclear weapons. However, the Key West Agreement and Pace-Finletter MOU challenged that notion.

    Enter the Howze Board. And enter more fuel to the fire.

    The Howze Board was convened at the behest of Secretary of Defense McNamara to discuss a working plan for integrating helicopters into a coherent unit. It also wanted to explore the use of helicopters as Close Air Support aircraft, something the Air Force was vehemently against. After all, one of the tenets of both the Key West Agreement and the Pace-Finletter MOU was establishing the USAF’s responsibility for fielding CAS assets, and the stipulation that the Army should not develop aircraft in parallel to the Air Force for the same mission.

    Tangent: For those who want to point at the USMC’s use of their own CAS (from the use of F4U Corsairs in Korea to AV-8B Harriers in modern times), recall that the Key West Agreement allowed the Navy and Marines to develop and field “tactical” aviation assets. Loophole? Yeah. But the fact that the Air Force was split off from the Army as a separate, mature force was much different than the way the Marines were always a paired service with the Navy, and developed their own air arms together.

    The result of the Howze Board was the formation of the 11th Air Assault Division (Test) in 1963 at Fort Benning, Georgia. The subordinate units of the 11th Air Assault Division planned and tested various concepts until they found a workable formula. In 1965, the 11th Air Assault Division (Test) was merged with the 10th Air Transport Brigade and the 2nd Infantry Division. The Division was then inactivated and the personnel and materiel were assigned to the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile). They were sent to Vietnam in July, 1965, and began to prove the Airmobile concept to the Army leadership. The Army was satisfied that organic Army units could indeed carry out any mission that the situation called for.

    This is where what would be “another story for another time” needs to be told now. The AC-1 (later CV-2) Caribou was a deHavilland Canada cargo airplane designed at the request of the U. S. Army capable of short field operations. The Army saw these aircraft as ideal for carrying troops and cargo into the battlefield. The Air Force, however, insisted that the Fairchild C-123 could carry more for a longer distance. What rankled the USAF was that, with the acquisition of the Caribou and the OV-1, the Army was building an organic tactical air arm.

    Incidentally, the Caribou proved to be a better aircraft in theater, but the USAF was still not happy. So…

    In 1966, Army Chief of Staff Harold K. Johnson and USAF Chief of Staff John P. McConnell came to an agreement, called the Johnson-McConnell agreement of 1966. The result: The Army agreed to give up the Caribou, which were transferred to the USAF in 1967 under Operation RED LEAF and re-designated as C-7. The agreement stated that the USAF was required to maintain the C-7 and were required to confer with the Army before replacing or retiring the type.

    The Army was allowed to retain the OV-1. They continued to arm them, much to the chagrin of the USAF.

    At the same time, this agreement made the USAF relinquish all rotary wing aircraft used for intra-theater transport and other Army-related missions. This was specifically aimed at the USAF use of the Sikorsky CH-3A as transports. The USAF’s use of these aircraft were to be limited to Special Air Warfare and Search and Rescue use.

    And the Air Force adopted the Navy’s Vought A-7 (as the A-7D) for the close air support mission.  After evaluating that aircraft’s combat performance in the skies over Vietnam, they began the A-X program, which resulted in the selection of the Fairchild-Republic A-10 as the USAF’s next CAS aircraft.  It boggles the mind that the final example of the 715 A-10’s built left Fairchild’s Hagerstown, Maryland facility in 1984–40 years ago.  The venerable Hawg, the airplane the generals didn’t want (until it proved itself, then they only wanted it when it was convenient because it wasn’t a sexy, pointy-nosed, speed demon of an airplane) is now in the twilight of its career, sadly, but as I’ve said before, technology and time stand still for no man…

    When the Army developed the Hughes Helicopters AH-64 Apache beginning in the early 1970’s (to replace the Lockheed AH-56 Cheyenne cancelled in part to free up funding for the A-10 and AV-8 Harrier), there was some growling from the Air Force, but by then the Army was going to do what was good for the Army, Air Force arguments and the patchwork of inter-service agreements and memorandums be damned.

    So, here we are. What did we learn? Intra-service rivalries are not exactly a good thing…even though the various agreements specified no overlap of assets, this is what happens. It is expensive. But is there an alternative?

    In one of those “chew the rag” sessions at the hobby shop, a discussion about the various military forces around the globe started. One thing led to another, and the conversation shifted to something along the lines of, “What would happen in the U.S. if the individual branches of the military were combined into a unified force (such as the unified armed forces of Canada)?”

    But that truly is another story for another time.

    ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~

    Sorry to be so long, but it is a story that few people even know about. And again, if I got some of the details not quite correct, let me know.

    Thanks for reading.  As always, be good to one another, and I bid you Peace.

  • Paint for Scale Models – The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly…

    Hi, all! Welcome to the latest edition of “There’s another paint fail…”

    I’ve documented my recent searches for a good model paint.

    In my model building years, I started (as did most modelers in the 1970’s) with either Testors PLA Enamels or the Pactra equivalent. I stuck with Testors, since it was what I could find at most of the local places that sold models and supplies for them.

    When I discovered modeling magazines and dedicated hobby shops in the late 1970’s, I also discovered the Pactra Authentic International Colors. I used them in 1981 to paint an Otaki F6F Hellcat, and I was smitten. I found that when thinned with Aerogloss Dope Thinner, the paint laid down very thin, dried very quickly, and gave an almost eggshell finish. Of course, that meant that the paint was on its way out—indeed, Pactra had discontinued the line. No matter, a change was coming…

    When I went off to college and resumed my model building activities during my second semester, I decided to give my dorm neighbors a break and switch to something more friendly. At the time, there was only one acrylic paint for models, that being the OG of modeling acrylics, Polly-S. I continued to use Polly-S (with one exception) until that line, too, began to be phased out. Polly-S was a strange paint—it was a latex paint that could be brushed without leaving brush marks, but it was tricky to airbrush. You could thin it with water or alcohol, but it took some trial and error to see which one and how much would do the job. It seemed to me that no two bottles were the same, so I got used to making changes on the fly. In hindsight, it was merely okay, nothing stellar, but I had decided to be kind to my neighbors, so I was stuck with that decision…

    For those of you who just “gotsta know”, the exception was in 1983, when I built the then-new Monogram 1/48th scale F-105G. Since the Polly-S representations of the SEA colors weren’t available to me at the time, and because I wanted to see what the fuss was all about, I used the new Testors Model Master paints. I used them also on a Monogram 1/48th scale F-100D and a kitbashed ESCI/Monogram A-7D. They worked really well, but they came with all of the issues of a solvent-based paint—namely, how do you dispose of the thinners used to clean out the airbrush (I used an empty thinner can) and what to do with the thinned paint (not a good idea to return it to the bottle, as it would cause the paint to jell more times than not)…

    In the meantime, two new acrylics came into view—Tamiya Acrylics and the then-Gunze-Sangyo (now GSI/Creos) Aqueous Color Range. The paints were similar in chemical composition, and early on I could get them to work quite well. But back in the day, there were frequent changes in the paint chemistry for the Tamiya paints, and accordingly I had to learn how to use it all over again with each change. In the case of the GSI Aqueous paint, I liked the way it sprayed, but it seemed to take a lot of paint to cover, and that a jar didn’t seem to go far.

    I took a side trip into the 1992-era Floquil Enamels for about six months, then Floquil/Polly-S graced the world with a new acrylic paint: PollyScale. I loved this stuff, and couldn’t (still can’t) understand the negativity surrounding the paint. It thinned with distilled water (it said so on the jar AND in the literature available for the paint), sprayed nicely, and dried to a tight layer of color. It feathered out well, too, and I could mask it with no peeling/lifting issues whatsoever. I have a feeling that those who had problems with the paint were busy playing home chemist and using some strange concoction to thin the paint, which caused all the problems mentioned. Hint: Windshield washer fluid is good for removing dirt and bugs from glass. I doubt it was designed to thin paint. As I said in previous paint discussions, use the thinner recommended by the manufacturer—in this case, that thinner was distilled water, period. I was reminded of this sometime later, when I would add Future to the paint and thin with either alcohol or the Testors Acryl Thinner—the paint would give me fits. Once I went back to plain old distilled water added to just the paint, those issues went away.

    Of course, in time RPM International (the parent company to Testors, Floquil/Polly-S, Bondo, Zinsser, and a handful of other companies) killed off both the Floquil enamels and PollyScale lines (and the Aeromaster Warbird Colors and Acrylic Warbirt Colors, which were checmically identical and manufactured by Floquil/Polly-S).

    In response, Testors introduced a new acrylic line that was supposed to combine the best features of PollyScale and the Pactra Acrylic line (that was also fairly nice paint—I only used it once or twice, and I don’t recall any issues). This new line was called the Testor Model Master Acrylic line, and it was the Shop Vac of suck. The pigment settled hard at the bottom of the jar, so it took a powered stirrer and a good deal of shaking to mix the paint. It would clog the airbrush at the drop of a hat, it didn’t cover well, and when you could get it to spray, it would dry with a rough, chalky finish.

    Another pair of new acrylics that popped onto the scene briefly were the Niche Paints (they had two lines, one featured WWII Luftwaffe colors and the other was a line of modern Soviet colors) and the Monogram ProModeler paints.

    The Niche paints were rumored to be custom shades of regular eggshell finish interior house paints. I’ve only used it a few times, but I can almost buy the rumor. It wasn’t around long…

    The ProModeler paints came along in 1999-2000, and were touted as the first hobby paints to be certified Non-Toxic by some US government entity. I used it once. The paint took forever to dry—if it dried at all. Again, they didn’t last long…

    Anyway, I had to find another go-to paint line in the early 2000’s. Since PollyScale went away, I have tried the following:

    • Testors Acryl
    • Vallejo Model Air
    • Lifecolor
    • Hataka Orange Line
    • Mission Models Paint
    • AK Real Color
    • ICM Acrylics

    In addition, I have renewed my acquaintance with the chemically similar GSI/Creos Aqueous and Tamiya Acrylic line.

    So, what did I experience?

    Testors Acryl

    When I first used it, I wasn’t too thrilled—PollyScale, back in the day, was a superb acrylic paint that could be thinned with distilled water, airbrushed well, hand brushed well, and had good adhesion. As I started to switch from PollyScale to Acryl (the writing was on the wall—RPM was discontinuing PollyScale), I learned to work with it, as I have done with every single brand of model paint I’ve used since way back in the early 1970’s. After a while, I reached a point where I was comfortable in how the paint behaved. It became my go-to paint brand for several years, until RPM once again decided to cut back on their product line and killed the Acryl line off.

    Verdict: It is a shame that RPM killed it off, since it was head-and-shoulders better than the previous Model Master Acrylics. The color fidelity was good, and the paint performance was good and predictable.

    Vallejo Model Air

    With the demise of the Acryl line, my next stop was Vallejo. The learning curve was steeper, since it really didn’t like to spray to my liking. Once I learned to use their thinner, things went better. I wasn’t thrilled about using a paint that required a primer—and I did use it without primer many times—but my bigger gripes were with color accuracy and shelf life.

    Vallejo’s idea of color accuracy is to get it somewhere within city limits; i.e. FS36622 gray will be gray. Whether it comes close to FS36622 or not is a matter of personal choice, but usually it did not. Which is okay, I can mix colors. But when I use a small amount from a bottle and close the bottle tightly, I don’t expect the remaining paint to turn to thick goo in a month. Also, they almost always required a primer, and the “hotter”, the better, which sort of defeats the purpose of using an acrylic paint, no?

    Verdict: Not a full fail, and their Metal Color paints are still my go-to for bare metal finishes. And I’ll still use it for hand brushing. But for airbrushing camouflage schemes, nope, this ain’t it. And their shelf life is still hit/miss.

    Lifecolor

    I used Lifecolor for the orange patches on the Sea King I built several years ago, and I was impressed. It laid down smoothly, with no orange peel or other issues. I was so impressed that I bought their ship colors and their version of Air Superiority Blue for when I get around to building my original-issue Revell 1/72nd scale F-15 as one of the prototypes. It does require you to use their thinner, but I’m good with that. See my take on PollyScale above…

    Verdict: I like this based on one use. We’ll see how other colors behave, but I’m optimistic.

    Hataka

    My experience with the Hataka acrylics was not good. They clogged the airbrush, no matter what I did. I used their thinner alone. I added some flow aid and retarder to the mix. It would still clog the airbrush. I wound up using the colors I had to paint terrain, where I could use a brush.

    Verdict: Fail.

    Mission Models Paint (MMP)

    This stuff was being pimped as the greatest paint ever* (*IF you use their primer, their reducer, their poly-mix, and strictly follow their application procedure to the letter). I painted two 1/72nd scale F-16s with it, following their instructions to a ‘T’. And when I went to apply the decals, as soon as I put a wet decal on the surface of the model, the paint began to run like watercolors.

    I ran some further tests on styrene card. No matter what I did, the result was the same—a fragile paint that would run when a little water was placed on top of the paint.

    Verdict: Fail. Big fail, given the advertising hype. And yes, I know people who have been able to make it work. The bigger point here is that I shouldn’t have to go through a Graduate-Level course on how to use their paint and get it to yield a permanent, durable finish…

    AK Real Colors (AKRC)

    I was reluctant to use this product for two reasons—one, nobody could tell me whether it was miscible with AK’s acrylic thinner as well as their “High Compatibility Thinner”; and two, AK has, in the past, stepped on their ding-dongs with golf shoes in their advertisement department—promoting the Holocaust and other forms of forced slavery to sell books and then, when getting called on it, brushing it off as it was not a big deal.

    But when I needed paint for my Hasegawa 1/72nd scale A-10A, I decided to give it a try. I had, by this time, been thinning Tamiya acrylics with lacquer thinner, so the first issue was mooted. I still wasn’t thrilled with their advertising gaffes, but I figured I was buying the paint from someone who had already paid AKI.

    From a performance standpoint, thinned with either Tamiya lacquer thinner or Mr. Color Leveling Thinner, the paint sprayed very nicely, laid down smoothly, and dried quickly.

    From a color accuracy standpoint, there were issues. Their idea of what 34102 and 34092 looked like weren’t in line with what was indicated in the FS595a fan deck I keep handy. It wasn’t close to something I had painted earlier with the PollyScale acrylics. The 34012 was too brown and not olive enough, the 34092 was almost turquoise rather than a deep green with a blueish cast. The 36081 gray was also too light—even if you subscribe to the scale color theory (which I do), it was still far too light.

    Verdict: Fail. Not a hard fail, because they performed well. But they failed where it matters most—the paint should be close to what the label says. Talking with friends, this is a hit/miss thing with AK. Some colors are spot on, others are not correct.

    ICM Acrylics

    I’m building the “Ghost of Kyiv” release of ICM’s 1/72nd scale MiG-29 Fulcrum C. It was given to me as a gift along with the ICM paint set specifically intended for this kit. The kit gives you the gray “pixel” camouflage as decals, but I scanned the sheet and created masks on my Cameo 4.

    As I began to paint the airplane, I noted that the paint said when airbrushing, thin “with water or thinner”, the thinner being unspecified. I’ve read a few accounts of folks using X-20A. I also noted that it said to use a primer. So, I primed the model with a coat of Tamiya X-18 Semigloss Black and allowed it to dry for a few days.

    I began with the lightest of the gray colors. I used distilled water to thin the paint, and it seemed to go down fairly nicely. I did note that the surface was a bit chalky, but nothing that couldn’t be buffed out when the paint was dry with a microfiber towel.

    I let that color dry for a few nights. I then airbrushed the next darker shade of gray on the underside. This time, I used Tamiya X-20A thinner. Again, it laid down okay, but with a chalky finish. Again, it was allowed to dry overnight.

    When I resumed painting, I noted some dust that wouldn’t simply wipe off, so I dampened a Q-Tip with a wee bit of distilled water—the swab was barely moist. As I tried to wash the dust off, I noted that the paint was dissolving—almost like a watercolor. As I continued, the paint wiped off the model. I did the same thing in several other locations on the model to make sure it wasn’t a localized issue. Nope, the paint—whether it had been thinned with water or X-20A—dissolved and wiped off of the surface.

    The final confirmation was when it took a little over 10 minutes’ scrubbing with a toothbrush under the faucet. The paint simply wiped off.

    Verdict: I hate to say this, because I think ICM is hitting it out of the park with their kit releases over the past few years, but the paint gets a Hard Fail. I will do some more tests with the paint I have left to see if it wasn’t a “me problem”, so stay tuned. But for the MiG, the paint got stripped and the model will be painted with Tamiya Acrylics, thinned with lacquer thinner. That combination has not let me down for as long as I’ve been using it.

    Which brings us to the GSI Aqueous and Tamiya Acrylics.

    As mentioned earlier, I used both when they first arrived in the scene. As other paints were available that worked better for me, I didn’t use them that much. But was the other acrylic lines died off, I took another look.

    The initial impetus to revisit them was a pair of 1/72nd scale Phantoms in British colors I built, Academy’s F-4J as a 74 Sqn F-4J(UK) and the Fujimi FG.1. British Standard colors are hard to come by in acrylic paints, and I had already stockpiled some of the required colors, so I gave them another go. This time, I used X-20A thinner (this predated my use of Mr. Leveling Thinner buy a few months), and found they worked much better than my previous efforts. The only issue I had was with the decal application on the FG.1, which did weird things to the paint. I blame this not on the paint, but the decal adhesive, as the same paint/clear coat combination worked with no issues on the F-4J(UK). I imagine the paint would work even better with the use of that magic elixir known as Mr. Leveling Thinner, MLT, or simply “Unicorn Tears”…

    And so my search ended at the Tamiya Acrylics. I guess I learned that the paint could be thinned with lacquer thinner in the late 1990’s. At the time, I was trying to remain as “hot solvent free” as I could (the exception was using Testors Metalizer Sealer as a clear coat before decals and weathering, as it was nearly bulletproof), so I steered clear. However, as the acrylic lines continued to shrink, I saw what some of my AMPS club buddies were achieving with this combination. So, I bit the bullet and tried it. As far as the fumes were concerned, I crack a window and wear a respirator. I use alcohol to clean the airbrush. So far, the results have been good—and they are repeatable. I’ve painted an Airfix 1/72nd scale Bristol Blenheim I and the Hasegawa 1/72nd scale A-10A (after I abandoned the AK Real Colors paints) with them. I painted all three of the Vermont ANG F-16’s using this mix. I had no surprises down the road when the decals went on.

    I’m convinced, and it will take something Earth-shaking to change that opinion.

    For those who want to know about the Andrea, Ammo by Mig, Citadel, Games Workshop, or the AK Interactive acrylics, I can only speak on the Citadel paints—I use them for detail painting only. Like the Vallejo Model Air and Model Color, they brush on well and I have no complaints. I had pondered using the AKI 3rd Gen acrylics, but the other factor on paints, for me, is local availability. If I run out of a color, I’d like to be reasonably sure that I can buy a new jar/bottle locally and not have to put together a larger order with one of the online shops (I almost used the phrase “Mail Order”–kids, ask your parents). And in my area, I can get Tamiya Acrylics at several shops. So why would I want to venture too far away from that?

    And yes, I said I also liked the Lifecolor paints. But I believe their use will be in limited, specific scenarios such as the Air Superiority Blue for the early F-15A, or the ship colors (unless I mix those, too, from Tamiya colors) because these too will need to be ordered online.

    A final word on the GSI/Creos Aqueous line. I’d use them more IF I could find the H3XX and H4XX colors anywhere—these are the colors matched to AN/ANA, FS, RAL, and BSC paint specifications. I’ve scoured the various online shops, and all of them show stock on colors up to the H9X numbers. I contacted GSI/Creos, they say the colors in question are still being made (good thing, since most Hasegawa and Fujimi kits use their color call-outs). Knowing that, I would figure that Hobby Link Japan would have them, but recent searches have come up empty. If anyone can tell me what’s up here, I would appreciate it. And yes, I know I can use the Mr. Color lacquers (or the Tamiya Lacquer Paints, for that matter)—but their smell is much sharper, and lingers much longer, than that of either the Aqueous or Tamiya Acrylics thinned with MLT or lacquer thinner does.

    As for the new breed of acrylic lacquers (MRP, SMS, etc.), I have not tried them for the reasons listed above. Some friends have used them, and they think they’re the best thing since bottled beer, sliced bread, apple pie, and Mom. Getting them can be an issue, which defeats the “locally stocked” availability question.

    Postscript. A few weeks ago, Ammo by Mig announced a new acrylic line called “ATOM”. They are supposed to combine the best features of an acrylic paint with the best features of a lacquer. Several online shops are showing them as preorders. Just for giggles, I may have to try the line to see whether its performance is that much better than my current Tamiya/MLT mix. I don’t envision any of the local shops rushing out to start stocking ATOM, so it will have to be that much better than my current go-to to make me switch.

    This opens another can of worms, one that some friends and I discussed several years ago, when MMP became available and folks were flocking to it. At the time, it seemed there was a new paint line announced every month, and modelers were flocking to them the way the 5-year olds playing soccer all follow the ball rather than playing their position. They never stick with one product long enough to become competent with it, before they run to the next shiny new paint line. I suppose you could say that I did the same thing during my recent search for a replacement for PollyScale and Acryl. I don’t think I fall into the same category, since my go-to lines were going away and I was trying to find a line that worked for me.

    The other player at work are the manufacturers themselves. They change the formulations of their paint so often that a user doesn’t really have time to become properly attuned to them before they are gone, replaced by this year’s new darling.

    And this is yet another reason I came to the conclusion I did—Tamiya Acrylics have been around since 1983 or 1984, and I don’t seem them going anywhere any time soon…

    I have friends who still wish they could go buy some good, old, Dio-Sol/Xylene-laden Floquil paint. Sorry, gang, those days are long gone. With the recent demise of the Model Master paint, the same laments can be seen far and wide on the various modeling boards. Yeah, you can pine for them all you like, but they ain’t comin’ back…

    There you go, my take on the State of Hobby Paints.

    As always, thanks for reading.  Be good to one another, and I bid you Peace.

  • 87,600 Hours

    Howdy, all!

    “That’s an interesting title”, you say. “What does it mean? Is it a countdown to something?”

    Allow me to explain…

    Many years ago, a friend and I were discussing models. It was in the early 2000’s, right when the Monogram ProModeler 1/48th scale F-86D arrived at hobby shops. At the time, it was a much welcomed release, since nobody to that point had released an accurate, state of the art kit of the Dog Sabre. Of course, it didn’t take long for the online community to bring up several items to note. If memory serves, they were (in no particular order):

    • It was based on an early Block number airframe (Block 5, IIRC) at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force that had been used for flight testing, therefore had the early tail without the drag chute compartment and an additional rudder trim tab;
    • It had the early instrument panel layout;
    • And, after a bit of math, it was determined that the wing sweep was too steep by 3.2°.

    Of course, Revell AG later released the later configuration of the fuselage with the drag chute, but kept the instrument panel and wing from the earlier ProModeler issue of the kit. But for all the carrying on, the issues were minor.

    One thing I said then (and still say it now) is that 99.9% of the people who even see the completed model on my display shelf wouldn’t know the difference between an early and late Dog Sabre instrument panel—even if they were die-hard fans of the F-86. I told one of the guys making a lot of noise over it that I was sure that Eduard or Airwaves (remember Airwaves?) would more than likely make a photoetch set with the proper layout that could easily fix that problem.  And, lacking that, a reference photo, a bit of Evergreen sheet, a set of punches or drills, and about an hour’s work could fix the problem.

    As for the wing, Jennings says it in his article—unless you had the Revell Dog Sabre placed next to a Hasegawa or Academy Sabre with a gridded shelf under them and could view them from directly above, it wouldn’t be noticeable. And, for those intrepid types who couldn’t live with the 3.2° error, they could always do the work and fix it.

    I added that unless I put them in the case at the shop (I was still in Florida at the time, and several of my models were in the cases at Warrick Custom Hobbies) or took them to a show, most of my models never got seen by anyone else for more than a few hours—and on a display shelf, nobody ever got close enough to inspect the model to make sure it was “nuts-bolts-rivets” accurate anyway.  Plus, if you build models so you can do the contest thing, AMPS or IPMS contest judges are instructed not to evaluate accuracy, anyway. So unless you get so hot and bothered over a half-inch long bit of plastic…

    That prompted us to do some math to figure out just how much time our models were being looked at by other people.

    The logic worked out something like this:

    We estimated an average 10-year life span for a completed model. It seemed like a good starting place.

    10 years X 365 days/year X 24 hours/day equals 87,600 hours.

    Next, we estimated a few more things.

    • You build a model, and take it to the club meeting. The average club meeting clocks in at 2 hours.
    • You take it to a contest. The average one day contest is about six or eight hours. To be fair, we’ll call it eight.
    • You might take it to the local hobby shop (if such a thing still exists in your area) to show it off for an hour.

    So, total that up. We’re at 11 hours. Add on an hour or two for when friends come to visit—you *do* have friends, don’t you? Anyway…

    Let’s just say 15 hours. Do some cipherin’…naught from naught…carry the two…and we have 0.017%. If we round it, 15 hours is 0.02 percent of 87,600. Other people look at your model for a total of 0.02% of the model’s life span, using 10 years as the average life span. If the model “lives” longer, the percentage gets even lower.

    Maybe you take it to a local, “regional”, and “national” show, the latter being a three-day affair. That comes to 30 hours at shows, plus the other time. Let’s just triple the initial estimate from 15 to 45 hours. What the hell, let’s say 50 hours. That computes to a whopping 0.06% of it’s life span.

    Want to stretch it to 100 hours? Okay…that works out to 0.11%. Still less than 1%.

    You can split hairs all you want, but on average a completed model that goes from workbench to your personal display shelf will only be looked at by other people for a very small sliver of the total lifespan. Otherwise, your peepers are the only ones to view your work.

    So again, *who* do you build your models for?
    ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~
    Work on the A-10A’s continues slowly. The pylon depressions on the 1/48th scale model are filled and ready to have the ResKit pylons (for the Hobby Boss kit, explaining why the depression on the Tamiya wing had to be filled), and some color has been applied to the 1/72nd scale model. I want to try and complete the 1/72nd scale model in the next few weeks.
    ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~
    In the meantime, I’ve bought some stuff.

    I’ve wanted to get a set of quick disconnects for the airbrushes for a few years, and figured I might as well buy a MAC valve, too. I still need to play with the valve and test things out, but the big benefit is being able to switch airbrushes quickly.

    I also bought some wax pencils. Back a long time ago, a modeling friend used them to position small parts. I had forgotten about them until a FineScale Modeler video reminded me how handy they were. And they’re dirt cheap—I bought 10 and some sorting trays on Amazon for less than $8 American…
    ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~
    Along with the tools, of course I bought some kits.

    Back in 1996, I used the KMC resin conversion kit to build an FM-2 Wildcat from the Tamiya kit. The model turned out pretty nice, but it always nagged me that the conversion was about as superficial as it could get. All KMC really gave you was a copy of the kit cowl, a casting of an extended kit rudder, and some very sketchy instructions (later versions of the conversion also offered an engine). So imagine my glee when Eduard introduced their FM-2 kit at the IPMS/USA National Convention. I was so happy, I bought two. I’m tempted to push the A-10’s to the side…

    At about the same time, my order from Ukraine arrived. Once again, I have to commend Plastic Models Store in Kyiv for their superb service. If you want kits made in Ukraine, give them a whirl.
    ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~
    I was discussing the A-10 project with someone at work. He wasn’t too versed on the whys and wherefores of the ThunderHog. I gave him a few places to read up on it, and told him if he really wanted some fun, he should look at all the various postwar agreements made between and among the various branches of the U.S. military. As I refreshed my own memory, I thought it might be a good idea to write it all down in capsule form and post it here as a companion to my piece on “The McNamara Effect” that I wrote a few years ago. Stay tuned, sports fans…

    That’s all I have for this installment.  Thanks for reading. Be good to one another, and, as always, I bid you Peace.

  • More on older model kits…

    Howdy, all…

    The other night, I recalled that the Monogram 1/48th scale kit of the F-106A turned 40 years old this year, having hit the hobby shop shelves in 1983.  I recall this specifically because a college friend was geeked to the max over the kit and bought it as soon as he could get his paws on a copy.  We were both attending the summer term at Embry-Riddle that year, and he kept showing me the progress he was making.  He dropped one of the missile launch rails and detailed the cockpit with the pilot in the seat.

    That model was a constant during the Fall semester.  He kept futzing over it incessantly until we finally told him to “finish the damn thing already!”  The way the rooms were in that particular dorm was such that they had a small “common” room that connected two rooms into a suite.  Well, he occupied that common room as his personal living space.  I recall when he painted the model–he closed the doors after supper on Friday night, and emerged in the morning–when he opened the doors, the unmistakable scent of Model Master enamel and thinner rolled out with him.  He did a great job, to be sure, but I still wonder how many brain cells he killed during that all-nighter paint session…

    Anyway, back to the point…

    It was a great time for modelers.  Monogram released the F-105G in 1982, the F-106A in 1983, a 1/72nd scale F-105G and EF-111A and a 1/48th scale F-84F in 1984.  The 1/48th scale F-101B followed in 1985.  And this was just Monogram.  Revell released their 1/48th scale B-1B and 1/32nd scale F-14A around the same time, Airfix had their 1/48th scale EA-6B, and Hasegawa released their 1/48th scale F-4, F-15, and F-16 families in 1/48th scale with 1/72nd scale versions to follow in the next several years.

    At the same time, we had the 1/72 scale aircraft and armor from ESCI, Hasegawa’s 1/72 scale line continued to expand, and Tamiya added to their line of aircraft kits with the 1/48th scale A-10A and F-15A and the 1/32nd scale F-14A.

    And this was just in the realm of aircraft models.  The scene was similar in armor, ships, and autos.  Life was good…

    As the years have passed, it is interesting to read the modern takes on these kits.  New modelers have become enamored of recessed panel lines and tight, precise fit.  Anything less makes the kit undesirable or “unbuildable”.  A lot of these kits are dismissed out of hand because there are more modern kits available with the aforementioned recessed panel details.  I’ve seen the Tamiya A-10A dismissed as “garbage” and the Hasegawa Phantoms reduced to shelf-sitters due to their age.

    As I said last time out, “New and Improved” does not always equate to “Better”.  Since I’m building one right now, let’s look at the Tamiya 1/48th scale A-10A.  It is a product of its time when it was released in 1977.  It best represents a preproduction airframe–it features the ESCAPAC seat, extended flap guides, and lacks the chaff/flare dispensers in the initial run (the latter were added in the 1991 reissue).  So, these days, it gets dismissed as being “not a good kit” simply because of what it is.

    It has the dreaded “raised panel line” disease on the wings, tail, and aft fuselage.  If you think about it, back in the day that may have been the easiest way for a mold maker to simulate the raised rivet heads that are prevalent on those areas of the A-10A.  The forward fuselage has nicely engraved panel lines, so it proves that Tamiya did have the technology to mold them.

    Back in the old Usenet days and the rec.models.scale group, the question “What is the best kit of a A-10?”  My answer was always the same–What era are you wanting to model?  To me, someone wanting an early 1/48th scale A-10A was set with the Tamiya or original Revell kit.  For a production Hawg through the Desert Storm period, Monogram’s was the best–fit issues, warts, and all.  But some modelers don’t see it that way–they believe that they need to start with the “best” kit and backdate or update as needed.  To me, that’s akin to performing a tonsillectomy through the rectum–you create a lot more work and have the potential to cause a lot more problems that you solve instead of starting with an older, but potentially better, kit.

    In the years since, a gaggle of new A-10 kits have come down the pike, and, with one exception, they all fall short.  The exception?  The new Academy 1/48th scale A-10C.  And yeah, being a definite fan of the A-10, I bought one.  Rumor has it that it may be joined by an A-10A at some point.  Me, I hope they decide to shrink it down to 1/72nd scale–both an A-10A and A-10C.  Otherwise, I stick with the Tamiya and Monogram kits in 1/48th scale and the Hasegawa 1/72nd scale Hawg kits, thanks…

    In the case of the Monogram 1/48th scale Century Series kits, they all (with the exception of the F-104) still stand above the more modern kits.  Trumpeter, Kitty Hawk, and Hobby Boss have tried to do the F-100, F-101, F-105, and F-106, but they all fall short.  The Trumpeter Hun has an odd inlet shape and vertical tail proportion errors.  Kitty Hawk’s Voodoos have a rack full of issues, not least of which is being an over-engineered nightmare.  Hobby Boss tried, but missed the mark with their F-105’s, as did Trumpeter with their F-106.  Of all the modern kits, I suppose the best of the lot are the Trumpeter F-106’s, but any modeler who sticks with the Monogram kits won’t be disappointed.

    The F-104, incidentally, is covered quite nicely with the Hasegawa and Kinetic offerings in 1/48th scale…

    I guess a lot of this comes from what we had back in the day.  Before the Monogram Century Series, we had nothing in 1/48th scale.  We did have the F-100, RF-101, F-102, F-105, and F-106 from Hasegawa in 1/72nd scale.  And outside that, there were F-104 kits available, executed in various degrees of success.

    When I downsized my jets (the first time, 1986), I collected the Hasegawa kits for later construction.  They were basically good kits–the shapes were there, the kit out of the box was adequate, and there was room for additional work for those who wished to go the extra mile.  The kit cockpits were nowhere near as detailed as we would start to see with the late 1970’s Monogram kits, but with closed canopies (and the kits almost always were designed to be built with the canopy closed), they were fine with maybe a few tape or paper seat belts added.

    Back in the day, modelers who wanted detailed cockpits and the like expected to do that additional work, including vacuum-forming a new canopy to be posed open to show off that extra work.  I recall making a comment to a friend about the Hasegawa cockpit tubs–a generic, three-sided affair with narrow “consoles” that had humps at the forward end.  He said they used to vacuum-form copies of those cockpit tubs to use on kits that had no cockpit tub…

    And yeah, this is another aspect of the hobby that does reflect when we joined it.  These days, new modelers experience such kits as the Tamiya 1/48th scale F-14A or F-4B, or the Eduard Wildcats and Zeros, and anything less leaves them disappointed because they had to do more work.  I get it.  And as much as I love kits that fall together, they always leave me a little empty, as if I missed something by not having to do even a little bit of problem solving during the process.  I guess it is why I’m actually enjoying the ride with the Tamiya A-10A (and the Hasegawa 1/72nd scale A-10A I’m building at the same time).

    Once again, there are as many ways to enjoy the hobby as there are people enjoying it.  I don’t necessarily knock the new breed of modelers when they dis a kit for its age, but I do wish they would see those kits in the context of when they were produced and what they meant to modelers at the time.  And maybe, just maybe, they can take one of those older kits and find out what we “old guys” already know…
    ~~~~~     ~~~~~     ~~~~~     ~~~~~     ~~~~~
    Something I also notice–apparently modelers are still unaware of this thing called Scalemates when they cite kit information.  For instance, I’ve seen the Monogram 1/48th scale B-26 Marauder dated to “sometime in the mid-1980’s” on one of the YouTube channels–the actual release date was 1978 (I know this because I got one back then when I was out of school with bronchitis).  It takes literally a minute to check things like this.  Hey, if you hold yourself out as a authority, you need to be accurate with your data…
    ~~~~~     ~~~~~     ~~~~~     ~~~~~     ~~~~~
    I’m expecting an order from Plastic Models Store any time now.  If you want kits from the Ukrainian manufacturers at good prices (and don’t mind waiting a few weeks), give these guys a try.  I’ve had nothing but great service from them–and they send a little bag of yummy Ukrainian candy with the order!  In my last order, I got the Dora Wings 1/48th scale Vengeance, the new ICM 1/72nd scale OV-10, and one of the ClearProp 1/72nd scale Seasprites.  This time, I got an early Seasprite, a Modelsvit 1/48th scale F-51H for the FANG collection, and the X-Scale 1/144th scale DC-8-32.  Kit prices were some 30-35% better than I could get through the domestic distributors, and I make sure to make the order large enough to qualify for free shipping.
    ~~~~~     ~~~~~     ~~~~~     ~~~~~     ~~~~~
    That’s all I have for you tonight.  Thanks for reading.  Be good to one another, and, as always, I bid you Peace.

  • To Quote the Rossington-Collins Band…

    Howdy, again!

    I’ve heard from some people about my latest post:

    “Why are you so against new kits”?

    “If we didn’t get new kits, we’d still be building wood models!”

    Don’t misunderstand me.  I love seeing new kits–from any manufacturer, of any subject, in any scale–whether it falls into my wheelhouse or not.  I hope they sell boatloads of them.  Why, if a new kit isn’t my cup of tea, do I care?

    Let’s use the new 1/48th scale Airfix Westland Sea King as an example.  It looks to be a neat kit, but being a 1/48th scale kit, it doesn’t fit in my rotary wing collection–I build helicopters in 1/72nd scale.  But my take is this–if the kit sells well, it puts money in the bank for Airfix.  With that money, they can later produce other kits.  At some point in time, they will produce something I will want to buy and build.  Its as simple as that.  It goes for any manufacturer–keep producing kits that sell well, so you can invest the money in even more new kits.  Sooner or later, there will be something I’m interested in.

    Another comment–“I don’t like to wrestle with ancient kits, I’d rather build a State-of-the-Art model!”

    What makes you think I find wrestling with a rough kit fun?  I know where this person is coming from–they’re “kit replacers”.  For example, they had several Otaki P-51’s in their stash when the Hasegawa kits came out in 1991.  So, they sold off their Otaki kits and replaced them with Hasegawa kits.  A few years later, they repeated the exercise when Tamiya’s P-51 came out in 1995.  The scenario was repeated again with the Meng kit, the Airfix kit, and, most recently, with the Eduard kit.  And look, I’m cool with that–your model, do what you want.

    I still have at least one each of the Hasegawa and Tamiya kits hanging around here, but that did not stop me from buying a couple of the Airfix kits and the “Chattanooga Choo-Choo” version of the Eduard kit.  And I’ll probably buy more, as the need arises.  But at some point, I’ll probably still drag out a Hasegawa or Tamiya kit and build it.  Why?  I have it in my possession–I don’t need to spend more money to get a decent Mustang model.  Same goes for the Grumman Wildcats and Focke-Wulf 190’s (a few Tamiya and Tri-Master/Dragon kits rest in the stash, but I have one or two of the Eduard kits, too) and Mitsubishi Zero (Hasegawa, sure, but I also have the new-ish Tamiya kits.  An Eduard version isn’t outside the realm of possibility, either…)…

    Quite honestly, a new kit doesn’t always make an older kit obsolete.  I give you the Trumpeter F-105’s in 1/72nd and 1/48th scale.  They may not fill a magazine rack, but they still have issues.  Frankly, I still find the 1/72nd Revell and Monogram kits (I divested myself of all my 1/48th scale Thuds) to be better in all aspects than the Trumpeter kits–raised panel lines and all.  And again, here we are–yo’ pays yo’ money, yo’ takes yo’ choice.  Some people will do anything to avoid a kit with raised panel lines, and will opt for Trumpeter, warts and all.  And again, that’s cool.  As I’ve said before, there are as many different ways to enjoy the hobby as there are people enjoying it…

    Whether a newer kit is “better” than the “ancient” kits of the same subject is a personal matter.  I say the same thing about modelers who brand people “rivet counters”.  Without the “rivet counters” (and I loathe that term, by the way), we wouldn’t be seeing these wonderful new kits.  Whether or not you personally buy and build them, or stick to the older kits is your choice.  Whatever you do, enjoy the ride.

    ~~~~~     ~~~~~     ~~~~~     ~~~~~     ~~~~~
    If you’ve paid attention, the 2023 IPMS/USA National Convention was held in San Marcos, Texas last week.  Two items of note:

    1.  Apparently, there has been a rash of Covid infections amongst the attendees.  While I hope everybody affected gets well soon (I am just over a very mild case, myself), I have some heartburn here.  We all saw the same thing play out after last year’s Convention–no sooner did people get home, reports of Covid infections started to hit the forii.  This year, as the photos from San Marcos started to roll in, I noticed that there was nary a mask in sight.  Didn’t we collectively learn anything from the Vegas show?  C’mon, guys and gals…

    2.  “Cell Phone Guy” has probably become a popular meme.  In case you missed it, a photo of a judge holding an armor model over his head while examining the underside using his cell phone light is making the rounds.  It has spawned bushels of debate.  So…

    I get it–the IPMS/USA Competition Handbook says clearly that judges will be allowed to pick up a model.  However, Cell Phone Guy had to do some fancy juggling to get the model in the position shown in the photo.  Plus, he was bare-handing the model–no gloves, just his naked meathooks.  I don’t think this meets the “greatest care” clause in the CH.  Apparently, this guy was also absent from the Judges’ Meeting.  Why he was allowed to judge is a mystery.  Why no other judges called him out is even more curious.

    In all the comments, it has been also brought to the world’s attention that several (I’ve seen as many as a dozen or more) models were damaged during judging.  One had a prop sheared off when a judge dropped his flashlight.  One figure fell off the base when the judge decided to see if the modeler painted the underside of something.  A few aircraft had landing gear or landing gear doors sheared off.

    If I were a modeler walking in to the display room on Saturday and found my model damaged with a Post-It note that only says, “Sorry”, I would be livid.

    All of this could be avoided by two changes:

    1.  Contest staff members do not touch the models.  At all.  Ever.
    2.  Judge the model as presented by the modeler, i.e., as it sits on the table.

    There is no reason at all for any judge at any model show to touch a model.  None whatsoever.  Never.  Ever.

    You can try to debate me on that all you want, but you will be wrong.

    “But we’re trying to find that one thing that separates 1st from 2nd…”

    Of course, this stems from the IPMS/USA “triage, 1-2-3” judging system.  The judges have to compare the models to each other, and if they can’t find anything on the readily visible areas of the model, they have to dig.  Upturning models, sticking those million candlepower TactiCool flashlights up exhausts and down inlets, using 20X magnifiers, measuring wingtips with a caliper–that’s why these stupid methods are employed.  Heaven forbid there ever be a tie in the IPMS squared circle…

    This is yet again being used as an argument for juried exhibition style shows.  But the IPMS Purity Posse won’t budge:

    “It says ‘Contest’, what part of that don’t you get?”  I dunno, I don’t understand the bloodlust some modelers have to get some trinket that proclaims that they are Number One on that day for something they do as a hobby.

    “We’ve always enjoyed this healthy competition!”  Healthy?  I’ve told this story before, but when a modeler threatens to beat six shades of s*** from a contest judge because “My model shoulda won!”, that’s “healthy”?

    I like the Shep Paine approach.  “Wanna compete? Go play tennis…”

    At our show–a juried exhibition–judges are reminded that if a model needs to be moved, we will find the modeler and let them move their own model.  We do not pick models up during judging.  We allow flashlights to illuminate the visible areas of the model–face it, most venue lighting is piss poor.  We do our best to judge the undersides and hidden areas, but the mantra is “if you can’t see it, leave it be”.  We do not allow magnifiers (reading glasses, yes, if the judge requires them), we don’t allow judges to measure anything–either with a measuring gauge of some sort or the old “finger ruler” or “pen gauge”.  Why?  Because we don’t see the need.

    All participants are reminded to be careful of camera straps, hanging jewelry, and hats.  We don’t use lanyards for ID badges.  All that dangly stuff can wreak havoc on a table full of models in a nanosecond.  We also remind judges not to hold lights or pointers (we prefer laser pointers or bamboo skewers) directly over a model–if they drop is, it has less chance of becoming a missile.

    I can tell you this–I’ve been judging model shows (of all types) since 1989.  In that time, I have never picked a model up, turned a model over, or damaged a model. Why?  There’s simply no need to do so.  If you don’t touch the model, the chances that you’ll break something are minimized.  There’s never a 100% guarantee, because stuff happens, but the  danger is minimized.

    ~~~~~     ~~~~~     ~~~~~     ~~~~~     ~~~~~
    As I said above, we’re getting over a few mild cases of Covid at the house.  My wife got the fever, headache, sort throat, and cough.  I got the mental fog and lack of energy.  I’m just now, two weeks later, starting to regain a little spring in my step.

    I shudder to think what it would have been like had we not boosted our immunity via vaccines…

    Covid is still with us, and a new variant is making the rounds.  Please be careful.  It might not be as deadly as it was in 2020, but it’ll still knock you in the dirt.  I don’t know about you, but I don’t like being sick.

    Thanks for reading.  Be good to one another, and, as always, I bid you Peace.

     

  • Turning Corners and “From the Mouths of Babes”

    Howdy, all!

    Do you remember the projects you completed where you thought you had “turned a corner”—that is, you finally put a group of skills together into one project and brought it to completion?

    Given that this blog is centered on scale models, I can think of a few projects that fill the bill.  I consider these the first real fruits of my labors after discovering  Scale Modeler (and later, FineScale Modeler) magazine, Solvaset, and Squadron Green Putty, and after acquiring an airbrush.

    1979-ish, Monogram 1/48th scale Hawker Typhoon.  It was the first model where filled seams and painted with an airbrush.  It turned out fairly well, all things considered.  I think I was still using Propel cans, and the limitations with them didn’t help the project.  I seem to recall that shortly afterwards, I got a compressor for the airbrush.  For the life of me, I have no recollection of what became of the finished model.

    Around the same time, I built a Guillows’ 1/16th scale stick-and-tissue Spitfire model, just to show Dad that I could…

    1980, Revell 1/32nd scale F4U-1 Corsair.  I was inspired by Sheperd Paine’s “Pilots, Man Your Planes” article in one of the “Special” issues of Challenge Publications’ Scale Modeler.  He had done his usual superdetail job on the model.  I tried to duplicate some of what he did to his model.  I used masking tape to make seatbelts, I made the landing gear springs from wire, and I cut and dropped the flaps.  I left the wings unfolded, and didn’t do a whole lot to the rest of the model.  Like the Typhoon, I was still using the little square bottles of Testors Flat Enamels, so the colors were a little bit weird.  I also went my own way with the markings—I built the model as Tommy Blackburn’s “Big Hog”.  I painted the letters freehand, and rather than seek alternate markings with the red surround (not that I could have afforded such a luxury), I used a 3/0 brush and Testors Flat Red to “convert” the kit insignia to the pre-September 1943 version.  Again, I was rather pleased with the end result.  The model went to a friend and I never saw it again.  I have a strange feeling that it became an air rifle target…

    1981, Otaki 1/48th scale F6F-3 Hellcat.  This one put everything I had learned to that point  together.  The model was built, the seams were filled, and the scheme was airbrushed.  I applied the decals with Solvaset, and I did a little “toning down” and “weathering” with some washes.  I added some paint chips, and I was really happy when I finished the model.

    1984, Nichimo 1/48th scale Ki.43 “Oscar”.  This was a further extension to the process started with the Hellcat.  In this case, I did more paint chipping using an alternate method—I used a silver Tamiya paint marker on certain areas of the airplane before I added the camouflage colors.  I had switched to Polly-S acrylics, and I “chipped” them with a tight roll of masking tape right after the paint had started to dry.  I added more chips to the markings once the decals were on using the paint marker again.

    1985, Monogram 1/48th scale P-51B converted to an Allison-engined P-51 with the Koster Aero Enterprises vacuum-formed conversion kit.  This was my first vacuum formed kit.  Also, using the knowledge I gained from reading Bob Steinbrunn’s cockpit detailing article in FineScale Modeler, I did a lot of scratch detailing in the cockpit.  I really started to learn how to use alternate materials—the injection molded cannon barrels from the Koster kit were rather softly detailed, so I removed the various details and replaced them—I used vinyl tape for the bands and fine wire for the recoil springs.

    From this point on, I coasted on my abilities.  I was back in college, so my model building time was a bit limited.  It didn’t stop me from scratchbuilding a seat or adding plumbing to landing gear, but those were the exception rather than the rule.

    After college, I started hanging out in the hobby shop.  And I started learning more.  One of the locals brought some models in that had a really convincing finish—the camouflage colors weren’t “solid”—the upper surface olive drab was actually many different shades of olive drab, and the panel lines were highlighted.  In a sense, it was probably what “The Spanish School” was originally devised to be.  This was in 1988, and it was about the time Verlinden was really making inroads into the American modeling scene, but the guy told me he had been doing it for years.  He said all you have to do is vary the colors and make the whole thing look good.

    Undeterred, I took a Tamiya 1/48th scale F2A Buffalo from the shelf and refinished it.  I removed the decals and smoothed the paint, much as I did on a Monogram B-17 in 1984.  This time, when I painted it, I thought about those other models I saw, and tried to emulate the procedure.  It worked.  The result was rather nice, if I do say so…

    1989, Monogram 1/48th scale B-29.  This was the first model I totally rescribed.  It was an eye-opener, for sure.  I used a lot of filler to cover my mistakes, of which there were many.  In the end, I was happy with the result.  The model was sent to the Valiant Air Command museum.  I have no idea if it still survives…

    1990, Revell 1/72nd scale F-89.  My first really successful bare metal finish was achieved with Floquil silvers.  Since then, I have tried several methods.  My go-to these days are the Vallejo Metal Colors, but for a while I used a highly thinned mix of Isopropyl Alcohol, Future, and Tamiya X32 Titanium Silver over a gray primer base.  The impediment to continue using this method is the fact that SC Johnson discontinued Future, and I’m not convinced any of the alternatives folks are using would work.  With the Vallejo stuff available, there really is no need to look elsewhere.

    1999/2000, Hobbycraft 1/48th scale P-26A.  I had rigged models before, but none was really that good.  This time, fresh off a trip to the IPMS National Convention and armed with some nifty stainless steel orthodontic wire, I set out to change that.  The Hobbycraft Peashooter is a fabulous kit, and I did little additional work on the kit.  When it came time to rig it, I cut lengths of the aforementioned wire and glued it in place with small drops of white glue.  The model still sits in the display case, although it has developed a twist in the aft fuselage over the y
    ears.  I should probably build another one of these gems soon…

    The next big leap came only a few years ago, when I remembered that “This is just a plastic model, there isn’t a lot I could do to screw it up.”  The model was the 1/48th scale Special Hobby Macchi C.200 that I’ve shared previously.  I took the time and effort to detail things a bit more.  I added the landing gear trunnions to make the main landing gear more authentic.  And I added more and more of those little details to the model.

    What I learned on the Peashooter and Macchi was put to use on the Aeroclub 1/48th scale Gloster Gamecock I finished last year.  It was a vacuum-formed kit of a biplane with a scratchbuilt cockpit, wing struts, a lot of little details, and it was rigged.  The rigging was different, though–I used Davis’ Invisible thread looped through tiny “rigging blocks” and “turnbuckles” made from stretched Evergreen styrene tubing, secured with CA.  It featured a metallic finish (aluminum dope), and most of the markings were painted on.

    I used the latter skill to also paint the huge checkerboard patterns on a 1/72nd scale Fujimi Phantom FG.1,  I like the method so much that I bought a Cameo Silhouette with the intention of cutting masks for my paint schemes instead of using decals.  I’m not living under the illusion that I’ll never use decals, but knowing how to do this frees me of the limitations of decals, namely being able to do subjects that are never covered by any of the aftermarket decal sheets.

    To add to the story, today I bought some UV cure resin and a UV light to make my own lenses.  With MV Products lenses being difficult to obtain, this will allow me to “roll my own” when I need them.  Another tool in the toolbox, another skill in the portfolio…

    What is the moral to the story?  Keep exercising your skills, whatever your craft or hobby might be.  You might not realize it right away, but these skills build upon each other through the years, and one day you complete a model that puts it all in play.  And you’ll wonder—for a minute, maybe—how could you have done such work?  Then you recollect all the projects that came before and led up to this latest effort…

    It goes back to what I said a while ago on these very pages—it only takes an investment of time and a little effort to do good work.  Keep on trying…
    ~~~~~     ~~~~~     ~~~~~     ~~~~~     ~~~~~
    Something I’ve touched on before has risen again on the various forii.  I always get a kick out of the comments that come from the under-30’s in the hobby.  You know, the kids, the noobs, the folks who have only recently discovered the hobby.

    I saw someone speak in glowing terms of the yet-to-be-released Magic Factory 1/48th scale F4U-2 Corsair, and how it is “head and shoulders better than the ancient Tamiya kit!”

    Ancient?  Tamiya’s kits arrived on the scene in 1996.  They fit like a glove and exhibit Tamiya’s standard of excellence.  I won’t rush out to buy the Magic Factory kits just yet…

    Recall, too, that before the Tamiya kits made their debut, the options for a 1/48th scale Corsair were the 1996 Hobbycraft kits (which, had Tamiya not produced their kit, could have been a contender had there not been some unfortunate issues with the fit), the 1980 Mania/Hasegawa F4U-4 (still the standard for the -4 after all these years), the 1977 AMT F4U-1, the 1976 release by Otaki (still a fine kit, as I demonstrated a few years ago), the 1973 Monogram F4U-4, and the 1956 Lindberg F4U-5.

    After the Tamiya kits came the questionable Academy/ Minicraft “reworking” of the Hasegawa -4 (that somehow acquired a bloated fuselage), the absolutely awful Minicraft F4U-5/5N, and the superb Hasegawa F4U-5/-7, and AU-1 kits, followed by what I can only determine to be the hit-or-miss Hobby Boss kits.

    My point?  Be careful when you call a kit “ancient”.  By the same standard, the Accurate Miniatures 1/48th scale TBF/TBM and SBD kits are also “ancient”, but back in the day they were seen as absolute wonders.  Before they came along, you built the Monogram kits (or Nichimo knockoffs) and either did DIY detailing or, after they appeared, used the Medallion Models resin sets.

    Bottom line: these kits might be ancient to you, young pups, but to those of us who made do with the early 1950’s kits for years, they were—and still are—wonderful kits.

    That’s all I have for now.  Until next time, be good to one another.  As always, I bid you Peace.

  • New Year, New Stuff

    New Year, New Stuff

    Howdy, all! I trust you all had a safe, healthy, and happy holiday.

    We’re looking forward to the New Year. With a New Year comes new promise, new adventures, and new things to get done.

    ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~

    Speaking of getting things done, I am on the closing stretch on the trio of Vermont ANG F-16C’s. The paint is done, the decals are on, and I’ve begin final assembly. I still need to do the bases, and the in-flight model will take a little more work than normal since I have configured the landing gear to be shown in-transit. It should be a cool display…

    ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~

    On the “New Toy” front, I finally pulled the trigger and bought a Silhouette Cameo 4 at the beginning of December. I should have some time soon to get the beast set up and running. The intended purpose of the machine is to cut paint masks and stencils, but it can do so much more–creating styrene parts (one reason I opted for the Cameo over the Portrait), making vinyl stickers for displays, etc. Stay tuned…

    ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~
    Speaking of New Stuff, here’s something I’ve been meaning to share for a while. Once the F-16’s are done, I’ll be starting a new project, and I thought it would be fun if I shared how I plan my projects. Not all of them go into this depth of research, but this should give you an idea how I do things (note, this is how I do things—your mileage may vary). Without further fanfare, here’s the dope…

    Subject: A-10A, S/N 73-1669, C/N A10-0006
    Time/Date: 8 June 1978
    Place: Edwards AFB

    The project will be to replicate the ejection of then-MAJ Francis C. “Rusty” Gideon, Jr. from the sixth preproduction A-10A when a gun propellant test caused a double engine flameout after a secondary gun gas ignition event robbed them of oxygen.

    I want to show the airplane in flight, the canopy jettisoned, and the seat just starting to come out of the cockpit. So, that means that I won’t have to worry about detailing the landing gear wells or the cockpit.

    So, where would you start?

    I usually begin with the subject and drill down into the data. The basics usually result in the brief summation I started with above—What, Where, and When, and what configuration I want to display.

    Next, I start to drill down into the available references. What are the particulars of the subject? Is this something I can do with an existing kit or kits, or will I need to do some scratchbuilding? If it can be done from a kit, which kit best fills the need? What modifications do I need to make to show it in the configuration I want to display? What about additional details? What do I need to know about the colors and markings?

    Let’s look at these one at a time. We’ll start with the particulars…

    First, you should note that several well-traveled internet sites refer to the preproduction A-10A’s (serial numbers 73-1663 through 73-1669) as a YA-10’s. This is incorrect—there were only two YA-10’s built, 71-1369 and 71-1370. These were the two airplanes that were in the “fly-off” for the A-X contract against the Northrop (note spelling—there’s no “u” in that word!) YA-9’s. These two also participated in the later “fly-off’ between the A-7 and the A-10. The two YA-10’s were quite a bit different from both the preproduction and production A-10A’s.

    Here are the key things to consider:

    • Ejection Seat: The A-10 was originally built with the Douglas 1E9 ESCAPAC ejection seat. Incidentally, events such as this one hastened the conversion from ESCAPAC to ACES II across the A-10 fleet.
    • Leading edge slats, Ventral Strakes, and Trailing Edge Fairing: The YA-10’s had some issues with wing buffeting at high angles of attack (AoA, or “alpha”), particularly when the gun was fired. To combat this, leading edge slats were installed on the inboard section of the wings between the fuselage and landing gear sponsons, ventral strakes were added to the fuselage where the wing joined the fuselage, and a wing-to-fuselage fairing at the trailing edge junction. All the preproduction airplanes were so fitted.
    • Flap guides: The original design for the YA-10 allowed the flaps to extend 40 degrees. The flap travel was later limited to 30 degrees on the preproduction ships, and finally limited to a maximum of 20 degrees on the production aircraft. The flap guides—those rails on the underside of the wings at the ends of the flaps—were altered accordingly. 73-1669, being a preproduction aircraft, was limited to 30 degrees.
    • Gun: The YA-10’s were initially fitted with an M61 20mm Vulcan cannon because the GAU-8/A Avenger was still being developed. All the preproduction airframes had the Avenger from the outset, with the perforated sleeve at the muzzle end. The aft facing scoops covering the gun gas purge slots and fan were not present on the preproduction airplanes.
    • Chaff/Flare dispensers: Chaff and flare dispensers were not initially fitted to the preproduction or early production airframes (think early DM or MB A-10’s in the various camouflage schemes before Euro I was standardized), they used pods instead. The production aircraft were fitted with streamlined boxes under the wingtip turndowns and the underside of the aft end of the landing gear sponsons. 73-1669 did not have the dispensers at the time of the incident.

    The first thing most modelers consider are “which kit?” and “what scale?” Seems logical, right? In order to do this, let’s look at the data. We know we want to build a preproduction A-10A. Are there any kits out there that fill this bill?

    The answer is yes: Monogram and Hasegawa in 1/72nd scale, and Tamiya and Revell in 1/48th scale.

    They’re all older kits. Monogram’s dates back to 1977, as does Tamiya’s kit. Revell’s kit originated in 1979, and was later “retired” in favor of Monogram’s plastic (circa 1986) when Revell and Monogram merged. The easy way to tell them apart is to look at the box top—if the box top shows a photograph of a built-up model, it is the original Revell plastic. If it shows box art, it is Monogram plastic.

    Hasegawa’s is the youngest of the quartet, arriving in 1982.

    The pros and cons: In 1/72nd scale, Monogram’s kit is nicely done except for the engine nacelles—they’re egg-shaped. You can fix them, graft nacelles from another kit onto the Monogram fuselage, or built it as is and be happy. The pilot figure in Monogram’s kit is superb. While we’re speaking of such things, it appears that Gideon was wearing the blaze orange CWU-1/P or K-2B flight suit, as opposed to the sage green standard issue suits of the day.

    The initial issue of Hasegawa’s 1/72nd scale kit did not feature the chaff and flare boxes under the wingtips and sponsons, but all subsequent reissues had them. Removing them is a rather easy task, so don’t sweat it. Hasegawa kits issued in 2014 or later have started to add the additional bits (or modified parts) to depict the LASTE and more modern configurations, so these are more bits you will have to delete.

    In 1/48th scale, both Tamiya and Revell’s kits are great kits for their time. The nose of the landing gear sponsons on the Tamiya kit are a little square. Also, in subsequent reissues, Tamiya added the chaff and flare dispensers, so if you get a later issue of the kit you’ll need to remove these.

    The engine fans on the Revell kit sit too close to the inlet and the compressor blades turn the wrong way. I would think that any of the available resin fan sets would be a good start—they probably won’t be an exact fit, so you’ll have to exercise your modeling skills. Frankly, I wouldn’t worry about it…

    If you don’t like “ancient plastic”, you certainly could backdate any of the currently available kits—any production A-10 kit can be backdated to preproduction configuration, if you want to do the work. Depending on the kit, you may need to remove the LASTE humps and bumps, use an ESCAPAC seat, and delete the scoops over the gun purge slots, delete the modern antenna fits, and installing the earlier pattern bits.

    If you work in 1/32nd scale, you have one choice: Trumpeter’s 2001-vintage kit, and it will need to be backdated.

    Now, let’s look at some photos. The entire ejection sequence was caught on film by the chase aircraft, so we can determine a lot from stills taken from the recordings. As with all A-10’s, the aileron trim tabs were deflected a bit (both the fixed and adjustable tabs), so a little cutting and repositioning will be in order. Also, the flaps seem to be extended to some extent, so again, you’ll need to break out the razor saw and cut the flaps loose. Unfortunately, I know of no aftermarket flap sets for the A-10 in any scale. I’ll be happy to be proven wrong on this point.

    As mentioned earlier, there is really no need to go hog wild on detailing the cockpit or gear wells. So save those photoetched and resin doo-dads for a project where they will be seen.

    Ordnance, too, is no concern, as the airplane wasn’t carrying any. The wing pylons on Stations 1 through 4 and 8 through 11 were fitted, but I have yet to see a good photo of the underside of the fuselage, so I’ll assume the pylons were fitted to Stations 5, 6, and 7 as well. The PAVE PENNY pylon was not installed, the photos and videos clearly show this.

    Colors and markings are interesting. This was one of the early experimental paint schemes that featured a black undercoat with varying numbers of coats of white paint on top. As the white paint eroded, it resulted in a mottled gray finish. The rudders and wingtips were red.

    When it comes to decals, there are a few options. In 1/48th scale, the Tamiya kit features the basic markings for 73-1669, but the camouflage color notes are vague. Microscale (the OLD Microscale) offered sheet 48-69 back in the day that featured 73-1669 and most of the other preproduction airframes.

    In 1/72nd scale, Microscale’s sheet 72-313 will take care of you. You’re on your own in 1/32nd scale…

    As far as goes a good guide to the interesting minefield that is early A-10A camouflage, I can’t recommend a better reference than Dana Bell’s Colors and Markings of the A-10 Warthog (C&M Vol. 24) from the folks at Detail and Scale (ISBN 0890242247). A real good photo of 1669 appears on page 7, showing how the scheme looked before the white was allowed to erode, exposing more of the black undercoat.

    Likewise, Dana’s A-10 Warthog In Detail and Scale (D&S Vol. 19, ISBN 0816850305) is a good source for information.

    The last consideration that needs to be made concerns the display itself. How will the airplane be suspended “in flight”? For the VTANG F-16C, I plan to use a length of acrylic rod inserted into the tailpipe of the jet and plugged into a hole in a display base. Given the airplane was depicted just taking off, this was an easy choice. But the A-10 was at 2,000 feet AGL when MAJ Gideon pulled the handles, so the acrylic rod plugged into the base might not work. I’m still in the “thinking” phase on this one.

    That’s where I am on the project to date. I don’t plan to start this project until the VTANG F-16’s are complete, but I thought it would be interesting if I shared some of my methods with you.

    ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~

    That’s all I have at the moment. Take care of yourselves, and be good to one another. As always, I bid you Peace.

  • Stormy Weather

    Howdy, all…

    Every now and then during the day this past Wednesday and Thursday, I would check the progress of Hurricane Ian.  As landfall approached, my heart went out to the people in Southwest Florida.  Ian came ashore near Cayo Costa and Punta Gorda—nearly the same place Hurricane Charley landed in 2004.  Watching the TV coverage, my heart sank further.  The area is devastated.  We used to have family friends in North Ft. Meyers, and we used to take boat rides on the Caloosahatchee River in that same area.  Photos and footage after the storm show some extent of the devastation—a lot of what was there is gone and will never be the same.  Ever.

    Ian wasn’t through with Florida, though.  He plowed across Central Florida, bringing heavy rains and flooding to Orlando, Daytona, and St. Augustine before taking his leave of Florida (as a Tropical Storm) near the Kennedy Space Center.  He meandered out to sea, regained strength, and took aim at the South Carolina coast.  Thursday night’s forecast had Ian making a second landfall in Charleston and basically following I-26 on a path that would have taken the storm over our house.  Ian had other ideas—he meandered north and east before making landfall near Georgetown, causing damage in Charleston, Pawley’s Island, and Myrtle Beach.  Currently, what’s left of Ian is soaking Virginia and West Virginia and is headed to New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania.

    I’ve lived in South Carolina for 21 years.  Ian was only the second tropical system I’ve done any sort of prep for—Florence in 2018 was the other.  However, I’m no stranger to these kinds of meteorological events…

    1972:  Hurricane Agnes was the first time I experienced a hurricane—only I wasn’t in the Southeast.  We were vacationing in New Jersey when Agnes blew through, dumping a lot of rain on the area. By the time she hit, she was a strong tropical storm.  Agnes was one of two events that keep the summer of 1972 vivid in my memory.  The other?  I came down with chicken pox while we were there.  Chicken pox and tropical rain—not a combination I can recommend to anyone…

    1979:  Hurricane David was projected to make a direct hit on the Broward County coast on Labor Day weekend.  David reached Category 5 strength when he came ashore in the Dominican Republic.  After that passage, David weakened to a minimal hurricane, but gained strength.  My brother and I spent the weekend at a friend’s house in Sebring, since David was supposed to be past Ft. Lauderdale by Labor Day.  Yeah.  We drove home as David made landfall in West Palm Beach.  David would skim the Florida coast, barley on land, until he went to sea near New Smyrna Beach.

    Honorable Mention for 1979:  Hurricane Frederic.  David was supposed to be a major storm when it came ashore in Florida and Frederic was supposed to be his weaker brother.  Sure.  Frederic would  intensify to a Category 4 storm when it came ashore near Dauphin Island, Alabama.

    1981: Tropical Storm Dennis would come ashore in South Florida in August.  He dumped a lot of rain on the area.  I know this because I was camping that week.

    1986:  Hurricane Charley came ashore near Apalachicola and  traveled east, finally leaving via the Carolina coast.  I remember it because for a while it was predicted to cut across Florida and pummel the Daytona Beach area.  Embry-Riddle cancelled classes for a few days…

    1989:  Hurricane Hugo.  While Hugo only briefly brushed the Florida coast, he hammered South Carolina.  Friends of the family in Savannah and Hilton Head suffered some substantial damage.  Hugo would be a harbinger of future storms—he came ashore near Sullivan’s Island as a tightly wrapped Category 4 storm, and actually accelerated after making landfall, carrying hurricane force winds as far north as Charlotte.  The path of destruction was easily traced through the state, as it appeared someone took a 40-mile wide buzz saw and cleared a path from Charleston to Charlotte.

    1992:  Hurricane Andrew.  Andrew didn’t seem like he would amount to much in his early days.  But as he approached the Bahamas, Andrew rapidly gained strength and passed the Bahamas as a Category 5 storm.  Once clear of the Islands, Andrew made a beeline for the Southeastern Florida coast.  Initially predicted to come ashore in Ft. Lauderdale, he jogged to the south and made landfall near Homestead, south of Miami.  Andrew was a tightly wound and very dry storm—some likened him to a 30-mile wide tornado.  The damage Andrew caused made him the most expensive storm to hit the United States at the time.  After wrecking South Florida, Andy zoomed up the Gulf of Mexico and made a second landfall near Morgan City, Louisiana.

    Andrew brought a lot of issues to light.  The housing boom in Florida through the late 1970’s and 1980’s saw housing developments spring up seemingly overnight.  One such development, Country Walk, was leveled.  It was discovered that there were some construction anomalies—the roof trusses were only tenuously attached to the house, and the roof sheathing was likewise poorly attached.  In one study, one out of every ten staples meant to attach the sheathing actually hit the truss—the rest missed entirely.  The building codes were reviewed and reworked after Andrew.

    The insurance industry took a huge hit from Andrew.  Several companies went bankrupt.  The Florida legislature enacted several joint underwriting groups in response.

    Homestead Air Force Base was heavily damaged, and expected to be closed under BRAC.  However, the base was repaired under an austere budget.  The active-duty unit, the 31st Tactical Fighter Wing, was dispersed and later reformed at Aviano AB, Italy.  The Air Force Reserve unit, the 482nd Tactical Fighter Wing, remained at the renamed Homestead Air Reserve Base.

    In addition to all this, there is a very real psychological effect on people, as they see their homes and everything they ever had swept away.  South Florida saw a marked upswing in divorces and suicide attempts.  I went to Homestead a few times to help my boss at the time rebuild his mother’s house.  I had been there before, and I could not find any landmarks.  The area was more or less devoid of trees.  Roofs were torn off.  It was not a pretty sight, and I can see how stress would take a very large toll on people.

    There was a rash of looting after Andrew, too.  It took President Bush to activate the National Guard and impose curfews to slow the crime wave.  Imagine—you’ve lost pretty much everything, yet here comes someone who wants to steal what little you have left.

    FEMA was slow to react—they had never dealt with anything of this magnitude.  Relief supplies were slow to arrive on site.  This issue afforded me a ride on an Army CH-47 Chinook.  The Florida Aero Club started a relief drive, and a week after the storm a friend and I went to help them at North Perry Airport.  As we loaded carts of water bottles and dry goods, a UH-1 Huey would land, we’d load it, and the helicopter would depart.  Another one came in, loaded, and left.  Then the Chinook landed.  We packed it per the crew chief’s instructions, and then we looked at him.  “Who’s going to help you unload?”  He looked perplexed.  We both volunteered.  So, that afternoon I found myself following I-75 south to Homestead General Airport.  We unloaded, and took a quick look around.  I looked into a hangar.  The doors had been blown in, and in the far corner of the hanger stood a mountain of airplanes.  As we departed, we flew east and then north along the coast, where I got a good look at the damage along Cape Florida and the Miami Bayfront area.

    After Andrew, people started paying attention to warnings when the National Hurricane Center started tracking storms—and this not just in Florida.  As history has shown, Andrew set records.  Records are made to be broken…

    1998:  Hurricane Georges.  He was supposed to make landfall in Ft, Lauderdale.  I was in an apartment that was little more than a double-wide, so I went to stay with my brother in his apartment—a concrete-block-and-steel (CBS) building.  As it turned out, Georges remained south, and came ashore in Key West.

    Georges would be the last tropical weather system I would, by necessity, need to track to see if it would hit close to where I lived in South Florida.  I did follow the 2004 season, where Charley, Frances, and Jeanne criss-crossed the state, and 2005, when Wilma came ashore late in the year and wreaked havoc in South Florida.

    Of course, everyone watched as Katrina devastated New Orleans, much as Harvey did in Houston and Maria did in Puerto Rico.  Andrew’s crown as “most expensive disaster” has been given away several times since 1992.  I believe Ian will now wear that crown.

    Each of these events made impressions on me.  When Florence looked like she would be a strong storm and head inland, I did full-on hurricane prep—I stocked up on batteries, bottled water, provisioned with non-perishable foods, filled my bathtubs, and was ready for a bad time.  Florence stayed near the coast and dumped lots of rain over the Pee Dee region of SC and Wilmington and Fayettville in North Carolina.  As with Ian, we dodged a bullet…

    To my friends who have been affected by Ian, my heart goes out to you.  I’ve contacted most of you directly, and if you need anything, anything at all, please get in touch.  I may only be able to lend moral support, but every little bit helps.  For those who want to help who are able, the American Red Cross is one of several groups who are taking donations.  Again, every little bit helps.  Some things will take many months or years to recover.  Some things will never recover.
    ~~~~~     ~~~~~     ~~~~~     ~~~~~     ~~~~~

    As a further point to my last entry, I want to recommend several YouTube Channels to my scale modeling peeps.  These modelers do great work, and each of them will be the first to tell you that in some cases they don’t know if what they’re doing will work, but are willing to try and deal with the results rather than throw their hands up and say “I can’t!”

    The first is David Damek, aka PLASMO.  If you look through his history, you will literally see him try new things as he makes an effort to expand his horizons.  He’s gone from basic kit construction to 3D printing and resin casting his own parts.  https://www.youtube.com/c/idaemonplasmo/videos

    Armor modelers, here’s your guy.  Martin Kovac, aka Night Shift.  His results are stunning, and he’s very much a teacher.
    https://www.youtube.com/c/NightShiftScaleModels/videos

    Another guy who covers a multitude of subjects is Metodi Metodiev, MM Scale Models.
    https://www.youtube.com/c/MMScaleModels/videos

    Greg Phillips will plainly tell you that he does what he does–and he does it well.
    https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3uGdoOTmEsyn7m3ewRVDeQ/videos?app=desktop

    Jen Wright, aka Jenesis, is another modeler who shares how she does things.  She reminds you, like all the others I’ve referenced, that SHE does things this way, but it might not necessarily be the way YOU would do them.
    https://www.youtube.com/c/JenesisDesignsandModelcraft/videos

    Scale-A-Ton also shows some interesting techniques, such as using kitchen plastic wrap to texture fabric.  He’s another jack-of-all trades, and I enjoy his presentations.
    https://www.youtube.com/c/Scaleaton/about

    Finally, if you build ships, you need to follow Ebroin Song.  He does everything using hand tools, and isn’t afraid to rebuild assemblies to fit his resources.  His sculpting work is excellent, and all in all his work is exquisite.
    https://www.youtube.com/c/EbroinSong

    Take a look at these channels.  There are literally thousands of scale modeling channels on YouTube, and I’ve found these to be the ones I go back to time and time again.  Some of the others are fun to watch if you want to get the ASMR feels, but for learning content, these are my go-to channels.
    ~~~~~     ~~~~~     ~~~~~     ~~~~~     ~~~~~

    That’s all I have for now.  Thanks for reading, and if you can, please consider making a donation to help the victims of Ian.

    In other words, be good to one another.  As always, I bid you Peace.