A Brand New Year, Corsairs, a Zapped Bug Sucker, an Uncommon Boeing, Thuds, Stoofs, and Some Nose Art

Our First Edition for a Brand New Year

This is going to be what we might call a Brief Blog, but I wanted to do a little something to kick ff our brand new year with. I haven't rambled senselessly for a while, so let's start off with Some Thoughts On the Hobby:

Thought the First:  As scale modelers we've never had it so good. In spite of the worst economic times many of us have ever known the new kits keep coming, albeit at a reduced pace when compared to a couple of years ago. There's an amazing selection of aftermarket decals to choose from, and an equally amazing (if sometimes unnecessary) selection of aftermarket parts. To put the icing on the cake, we're also blessed with proliferation of reference works that we could only dream of back in those Halcyon Days of Long Ago.  It's truly a Golden Age for our hobby, doomsayers notwithstanding.

Thought the Second:  I think we should mostly build for fun. It's a hobby. When it's all said and done I try to do my best to get things right,  but at the end of the day it's still a hobby, and I don't go nuts over stuff I miss or mistakes I make, at least not most of the time, and when I do get bothered by such Intrusions into My World I either fix them and move on or, more likely than not, decide I can live with whatever the problem might be and, you guessed it; move on. My personal standards are still relatively high but nowadays I build for me, not for anybody else. In my world that's the way to do it.

Thought the Third:  Because I build for fun it rarely takes more than three or four weeks for me to finish something, and a kit such as the Tamiya Bf 109E can generally go from box to display shelf in three or four days if I can stay with the project with minimal interruptions. That takes us back to Thought the Second---it's a hobby and it ought to be fun.

Thought the Fourth and Final:  Because it's a hobby and because we're building for fun, we ought not make a given project harder than it needs to be. There's another side to that coin too, of course, because we won't get better as modelers if we don't constantly challenge ourselves, but a challenge is different from a ritual beating, and it's relatively easy to turn the hobby into just that. Challenge is Good. Beatings are Bad.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled ("Scheduled"? Did he say "scheduled"?) program.

A Few Things I Like

In the truest spirit of producing a brief New Year's edition of this missive, here are a couple of photos of airplanes that I like. Don't look for a theme because there isn't one; we're just going to look at some pictures that I think are neat.

Fighting Seventeen was the first Navy squadron to take the legendary F4U Corsair aboard a carrier, where they quickly discovered that it was a handful around the boat. That long nose, coupled with a short tailwheel strut and mushy main mounts (on the F4U-1), made for quite an adventure when trying to recover aboard ship. As a result, VF-17 ended up flying their first combat tour from shore bases, although the Navy was ultimately able to cure most of the carrier suitability problems by lengthening that tailwheel strut and stiffening up the oleos on the mains. This photo is from those early evaluations; better days lay ahead.  Tailhook Association via Doug Siegfried

Somewhere in the South Pacific...   This F4U-1A could be the poster child for what some folks might call an Evocative Shot. 901 is from an unknown (at least to me) Marine outfit, and I have no idea where the photo was taken, but it's a fine study of a beautiful airplane. Modelers note that not all SWPAC Corsairs were beat to snot; every one of them was relatively new when they got there. This one probably got grungy pretty quickly, but it's relatively pristine here.  Tailhook Association via Doug Siegfried

The AU-1 was the final American version of the "Hog". The type saw combat in Korea and survived far enough into the 50s to wear the then-new grey over white paint scheme in service. 129411 would be(and has been, come to think of it) a neat subject for a model. Check out that Glossy Sea Blue gas bag down there; it's a nice touch. The rudder of this bird is almost fully deflected, making it look as though the last four of the BuNo painted on the verticals have been applied incorrectly. The elevators are deflected too, making me suspect that some plane captain had a really bad day shortly after this was taken. Tailhook Association via Doug Siegfried

Zapped!

For those of you who may not have spent a significant portion of their adult lives photographing military airplanes, a zap is the application of an emblem or similar device to an airplane that ought not be wearing same. Sometimes such things are painted onto the airframe, although that particular method of application is generally highly frowned upon; mostly zaps are stickers or aviation decals (real "decalcomania", not the scale stickies we modelers use), easily applied and, most importantly, relatively easily removed. Here's an example:

The 178th FIS/119th FIG of the North Dakota ANG, known to one and all as The Happy Hooligans, operated the F-4D for several years. 64-0973, an F-4D-26-MC from the "Hooligans",  is an example of a bird that's been zapped by the Candian Armed Forces. This sort of thing used to happen fairly frequently during international (or even joint services) training operations. It probably still does. Don Jay Collection

It was once considered a Good Idea to make airliners, or at least civil transports, out of bombers. Boeing went down that road with both the B-17 and the B-29 (not to mention the B707 to KC-135 thing, although that one went the other direction, from airliner to tanker). The transport you see here is the Boeing 307, which was based on the B-17. It wasn't a bad airplane, but tricycle landing gear and a need for better capacity kept it out of the big time. It looks pretty cool in spite of all that, and was a good airplane that just happened to be built at the wrong time. If we had a 1/48th scale kit I probably wouldn't build it, but it's still a neat airplane. Nankivil Collection

A Pair of Pretty Thuds

Last time around we saw an example of an F-105 that survived both North Vietnamese AAA and the smelter to end up in the back lot of a truck repair facility. Here's something a little closer to the beginning:

In the Beginning...  54-0099 is the second of two JF-105A-1-RE Thunderchiefs built, shown here proving the feasibility of buddy pack refueling with 54-0102, one of three F-105B-1-REs constructed. The "Thud" could tank off either probe and drogue or a boom, although both methods resulted in a cockpit full of JP-4 fumes. 102 ultimately ended up on public display, a rare survivor of her type.  USAF via Don Jay

A Taste of What's in Store

You may remember, but then maybe not, that we ran a couple of Grumman "Stoof" shots a while back. That elicited a comment from Doug Siegfried (of Tailhook Association fame) to the effect that he'd been an S2F driver for the greater part of his Navy career and would sure like to see us run some more pictures of his favorite airplane. As much as I love that bird (and I truly do, an addiction that dates back to my childhood) I don't have much in the way of photography in my own personal collection. Mention of that sad fact led to action on Doug's part, which will result in several installments of S-2s and C-1s over the next few months. Here's a taste:

It seems as though every single airplane that the United States operated during the ten years between 1959 and 1969 was equipped to fire the AGM-12 Bullpup. That list of aircraft includes the "Stoof", as demonstrated here by an S-2E from VS-21. Shooting a command-guided missile from a slow airplane was a recipe for Certain Disaster in an operational environment, but to the best of our knowledge the type never made an actual war shot with the weapon.  It was probably a Good Thing.  Tailhook Association via Doug Siegfried

Some Nose Art From Desert Storm

If you've been following us for a while you'll recall that we periodically run nose art photos taken by Rick Morgan immediately following his combat tour with VAQ-141 during Operation Desert Storm. You've seen most of it, but for some reason we never got around to running the A-6 photos that constitute the final installment of the series. It's time to correct the ommission, I think.

You may recall that the nose art found on certain of the aircaft assigned to the Theodore Roosevelt immediately post-War was the result of an ad-hoc competition within the air wing. "The Big Stick" was VA-65's entry in the competition. Aside from the nose art this is a useful shot for modelers; check out the deployed curtain and canopy bow detail that's shown in this photo.  Rick Morgan

And here's "Heartless", VA-36's entry in the competition. Note the mission markers beneath the wing root and the intake cover. Yes, Virginia, that's a real, honest-to-goodness cover purpose-made for the A-6 family; it's far more practical than the "hard" type of cover around the boat.  Rick Morgan

Our First Relief Tube of the New Year

When last we met Don Jay sent us a comment regarding The End of Kodachrome. Here's a follow-up to that comment. It's the end of an era.

This makes me sad, ya'll.  via Don Jay

I ran some early FJ-3 photos a while back, and immediately thereafter ran a comment from Tommy Thomason regarding the hard-wing FJs that we didn't look at in that particular piece. He mentioned he'd sent a photograph of same, which you didn't get to see because I couldn't figure out how to open it. I've since worked past that particular Act of Random Stupidity on my part and can now show you the photo that Tommy wanted you to see last time.

BuNo 136153 is an FJ-3M from VF-51 and shows the hard (slatless) wing to advantage, and if you look at the front of the wing root you can see what Tommy was referring to when he said the aircraft was missing the little fairing that ran up against the gun bay door. And, speaking of guns, this bird has obviously just returned from the range; note that it's slick, with no underwing tanks, and there's a considerable amount of blast residue and gun lubricant all over the nose by the cannon ports. Thomason Collection

When we ran those most recent OP-2E photos I made comment about the racks hanging off the wing stations, mistakenly referring to them as TERs. I should've known better! Here's a correction from Rick Morgan:

(The rack in question) is a Practice Multiple Bomb Rack, usually held Mk76 or Mk106 Blue Bombs, frequently used by A-4s and A-6s Stateside. Jim Rotramel tells me the PMBR is an A/A37B-3.  Rick

Thanks, Morgo! Rick also sent along a photo of a PMBR from the era with sensors attached, thus defining the reason VO-67 was using that particular piece of equipment at the time. Those of you who can still remember things (and I'm obviously not part of that group) may recall the caption to an A-4 photo we ran way back when this blog first got started where we described a practice bomb dispenser attached to said "Scooter" as a "Banger Board". Those Neptunes were carrying "Banger Boards", I think.

And that's it for our Very First Edition of 2011. Stay tuned; we've got some really neat stuff coming to you during the coming year. Meanwhile, be good to your neighbor. We'll meet again soon.
phil

More of Dora Than You Probably Wanted, and Turkey Feathers

Reducton to Production: The Dismantling

Here we are, movin' right along with the rebuild of Black 12. Before we start in on the hulk let's discuss how we got here and why I picked this particular airframe to model. The story starts back in the mid-60s, when Lindberg issued a quartet of Luftwaffe subjects in 1/72nd scale. One of those kits (all of which were molded in a stomach churning yucky green color) was a Dora, the second kit to be released of that variant in 1/72nd scale and seemingly an improvement on the aging Airfix offering. We thought the Lindberg kit had everything going for it because it had, among other "improvements", a blown canopy. In retrospect it was  pretty poor but it was what we had, and it was cheap. Kookaburra released their monographs on the Fw190 series shortly thereafter, and I discovered Black 12. I have absolutely no idea why I wanted to model that particular airplane but I had to do it, and model it I did, religiously following the color plate in that little book. That particular Dora had a place of honor on my display shelf until late 1982, when my 2-year old son rearranged the components of approximately 60% of my miniature air force. Black 12 was one of the models that ended up being scrapped, but I was still fond of it.

There was a period of hiatus from modeling during the late 90s, after which I rediscovered the hobby with a vengeance. By then Tamiya had released their 1/48th scale Dora, and The Modeling World had yet to tag it as a poor model. (It does have its faults, and we may even fix a couple of them in this R to P project although the jury's still out on that.) I bought one, drug out that old Kookaburra pub, and built myself a brand new Black 12. Then came JAPO and Jerry Crandall, each offering a two-volume set of books containing anything anybody could possibly want to know about the camouflage and markings of the Fw190D series. Volume I of both sets included Black 12 in considerably more detail than we'd been privy too before, and both proved the aging Kookaburra monograph to be in error in regard to colors. "Live with it", said I, but it was a bitter pill to swallow. The time would come when I'd fix the thing, do it right. After a little bit of thought I came to the conclusion that the Production part of the R to P deal would result in the rebuild of my old friend, Black 12. The die is cast. Black 12 it is.

Here are a couple of photos to show you what I'm doing with the airplane. It's not a major sort of rework and, with any luck at all, will show just how quickly you can accomplish such a task (and don't anybody even think about using the word "makeover"; not now, not ever!).

Here we are, all disassembled. The transparencies came off easily because I always attach that sort of thing with white glue, while the prop was easy to pull off thanks to those nifty little nylon bushings the Japanese are so fond of putting in their kits. The spinner fell apart when I took the prop off, thus saving me the trouble of separating it later. One of the exhausts fell off too, as did the cowl ring which I'd apparently never bothered to glue in place. (Laziness has some virtues, don't you think?) Neither of those things was in The Plan but it's ok. It'll all turn out ok in the end.

The belly of the beast. The undersurface color is RLM 76 and not the late-war greenish tint of same, although the lighting (it's always that darned lighting, isn't it?) makes it look that way. There's an issue with the kit down here in the form of inaccurate cartridge case ejection ports, but we'll fix that (or maybe just ignore it, since it's almost impossible to see if you've got the drop tank installed as we go long. There's no plan to detail the wheel wells or add an engine. This is going to be relatively quick and dirty.

There will bit quite a bit done on the paint, but the intention is to salvage as much of what's there as possible. The interior would be a bear to re-do so the only thing that'll happen in that department is the addition of the ubiquitous Eduard belts and harnesses and maybe, but only maybe, a better gunsight. Most of the work on this rebuild will occur in the paint shop. Stay tuned...

Sometimes We Get There Before We Should

Whch means that I'm here by myself, never a good idea in the best of circumstances. I'm supposed to be cleaning the garage (my Sunday Project, but not particularly one of my choosing), but we're piddling on the Dora instead. Since last we spoke (a mere column-inch or so ago) I decided that taking the air scoop off the starboard nose would be a really good idea. The panel around the exhaust stacks needs to be painted black, and the masking thereof will be substantially easier without that Big Ol' Honkin' Scoop in the way. It popped right off of there, so the masking will be easy. We're going to talk about what I've been doing for a minute or two, because the techniques used might be of use to you on one of your own projects.

Black 12 was a pretty famous Focke Wulf; the very first D-model to fall intact into Allied hands. Its pilot whacked a bird during Operation Bodenplatte, thus turning himself into an instant PoW and his aircraft into an Object of Affection for the RAF. The airplane was studied in considerable detail and notes were made that, with a tiny bit of circumspection, serve us well today. The wings and horizontal tail were noted as being in a dark green and a lighter shade of same, with the light color described as substantially brighter than normally observed. The fuselage was in the late-War Focke Wulf treatment of RLM 75/83, although most of us didn't snap to that fact Way Back When, which resulted in a lot of green on green on blue renditions of Black 12. To make things worse, the demarcation lines of those two greens were poorly defined by almost everybody. The JAPO and Crandall books come close to agreeing on the color separation, etc., making that part of the job pretty easy to figure out. First, though, let's talk about those techniques.

This is a rebuild of an existing model, and my personal philosophy on that sort of thing is to try to preserve what you can and only rework or replace what actually needs fixing. With that thought in mind, there seemed to be no great need to remove most of the existing decals. True, they're Tamiya kit decals and therefore on the thick side, but DullCote hides a multitude of sins and we're going to do some sin-hiding on this particular Dora anyway. Let's salvage what we can.

First there are those underwing crosses. They were a little bit wrinkled on my model, mostly due to poor application when it was originally built. (Put those decals on the bottom of the wings, then turn the thing over and start on the top---NOT!!!) A light sanding with 2400 grit polishing cloth knocked down the wrinkles, and application of succeedingly finer grits of cloth completely restored the surface finish with no need for a repaint or different decals.

The crosses on the top wings are next, and they have to go if we intend to correct the upper surface paint demarcation lines. The crosses that used to live there have therefore been sanded off, and the model will have its plastic surface restored to like-new condition with applications of polishing cloth, once again starting with 2400 grit and working up. When the polishing is finished the wings will be repainted and new crosses applied. It doesn't get a whole lot easier than that.

The fuselage is next, and that's where we get to have some fun! Not a week goes by that you can't find a discussion on the relative merits of different airbrushes someplace on the internet. You'll find proponents of just about any brand you can imagine and, as is usual with internet discussions, things can get a little bit passionate as folks write in to extoll the virtues of their particular favorite. My weapon of choice is the Omni 3000, a Thayer and Chandler design now sold by Badger. You can, and this is no exageration, get a line with that brush that's so fine it's almost impossible to detect the overspray. By using a combination of that Omni plus low air pressure and really thin paint, I was able to add the RLM 74 around the cockpit area by painting around the numbers on the fuselage. It was accomplished without compromising those numbers and very little was masked. I can't recommend the Omni strongly enough, especially since street price is generally under a hundred bucks. Anybody who sells Badger can get one for you, although they may not know that since Badger really doesn't press the issue. Let me know if you want one and can't find it; maybe I can help.

The underwing crosses sanded smooth. Nothing had been polished out when this was taken. Note the Big Nasty Fingerprint under the starboard wing (that's the one on the left side of the picture). That smudge is the result of a messy thumb and lack of situational awareness; looks like there's a little unscheduled sanding in my future!

The upper wings have had their decals completely removed by sanding. Polishing is underway but not yet completed. Some of the upper fuselage has been repainted in RLM 74 and 83, but it's not finished yet; final demarcation will come after careful study of JAPO/Crandall to make sure everything's where it should be. Look at that Shiny Propeller at upper right. That's Testor RLM 70 Black Green over a dark blueish-black base. Mr. DullCote will be our friend!

The port side of the fus showing how fuselage colors have been sprayed around the existing markings. There's still a quite a bit to do here to match existing photos of Black 12, but we're well underway. The RLM 76 blue areas will need to be repainted too, once again to match the photos. That washed-out yellow on the rudder and under the nose will stay as-is; they were applied with a temporary paint on the actual aircraft and the RAF report states that the original colors were showing through. No reason to change that.

And the starboard side. Lots of work yet to do, but you can get an idea of how easy it is to paint around things. Get yourself a decent airbrush and practice, then go practice some more. It's easy to do once you get the hang of it!

Turkey Feathers

It seems like a lot of folks were interested in last Friday's photo essay on the EA-6B nose art, so I figured we'd do a reprise to apologize to those of you who don't care about Luftwaffe subjects. Today's offering is another from Rick Morgan (you can all say THANK YOU, Rick!), also from the Roosevelt while she was involved in Desert Storm.

A semi-Easter Egg in an age of TPS. Here's BuNo 162689 "Queen of Spades" from Fighting 41. The artwork is best defined as restrained.  Rick Morgan Photo

Remember that part where we used the word "restraint"? Looks like we might've been mistaken! Here's "Queen of Spades" in all her glory. There was a time when the Air Force had most of the good nose art. Those days are gone...  Rick Morgan Photo

Anytime, Baby! This is what the Tomcat's all about. Check out the weapons load and the gas bags; defense of the Fleet is the name of the game, and 162692 "Cat Snatch Fever" from VF-84 is ready to make it all happen.  Rick Morgan Photo

A great shot of the verticals on BuNo 162692. Fighting 84's Skull & Crossbones looks particularly menacing in this shot. Of interest is the considerable paint touch-up at the base of the fins. TPS works well as a camouflage system but the corrosion control guys don't care for it very much---as this photo proves, it's a first classs booger to keep clean.  Rick Morgan Photo

Here's the office of 162692. This is a well-used Tomcat and provides an excellent example of the way TPS fades and discolors. Sometimes the paintwork gets so nasty you'd swear it was a deliberate attempt at camouflage. Does anybody besides me miss the old Easter Egg Navy?  Rick Morgan Photo

You know, we really don't need to say anything here. FLY NAVY!!!  Rick Morgan Photo

Be good to your neighbor. We'll see you tomorrow! 

phil