The Short-Winged Zekes, Broken Birds, and a Spiffy Hangy Thingy

It's Sunday But You Gotta Do It When You Can

Which is another way of saying I'm trying to keep things going during The Great Northern Invasion of South Texas by the inlaws. Maybe I can crank out another one of these tomorrow, which is when I'm actually supposed to do that, or maybe I won't be able to. With that thought in mind, here's a little something to tide you over 'til things settle down. If you'll pretend like yesterday's installment was really done tomorrow, and that today's won't exist until Tuesday, then we'll be right on schedule. It's a concept that works for me!

Let's Put an End to This Zero Madness

I'm going to work on a theory, one arrived at after endless minutes of entirely inconsequential pondering, that most of you are ready to get this whole Hasegawa Zero Thing behind us. It's probably The Right Thing to Do since the project could literally go on and on and on ad nauseum; there are after all some 14 or 15 different iterations of that kit to build, photograph, and write about. Brevity has never been the Long Pole in my very own personal tent, but I'm with you on this one; let's get 'er done.

What follows are a couple of photos of three of the short-wing Zekes in my collection. For the purpose of this ramble there really ought to be an A6M5C in there too, since it's got two guns per wing and those spiffy little rocket rails and is therefore different from the others, but I haven't built one yet. Suffice it to say that the kit that caters to that particular variant has an entirely new lower wing section included (as well as the original one for the A6M5, A6M5a, and A6M5b variants) so you'll end up with an accurate model of the thing when you're done. Let's also remember that we aren't detailing each and every A6M variant in plastic; we're just looking at The Big Picture.

A bone-stock Hasegawa A6M5 from the 253rd NAG at Rabaul in 1943. The model has the usual (for me) Eduard belts, stretched sprue antenna, and .006 brass wire for brake lines. Paint is my "standard" for late-War Zeros; Sky underneath, with 34079 up top. Hinomarus are airbrushed on with a stencil, which is exceedingly easy to do, and their white surrounds are overpainted (freehand, using an Omni 3000) with a darker green which seems to have been the norm on the Rabaul-based A6M5s.

The underside of that 253rd aircraft. This view illustrates the major differences between what I'm calling the Short-Winged Zeros and the earlier Long-Winged variants; the fuselage is different, the wings are the short-span variety introduced with the A6M5, that little piece at the front of the wing that was an insert on the Long Wings has been made integral with lower wing, and the flaps can be modeled in the deployed position. I went ahead and did that because it was the easiest thing to do, but on most military airplanes the flaps should be up all the time when on the ground. There are exceptions, of course, but mostly they're up, which is something a lot of modelers apparently don't pay attention to. One more thing; on this model the aux tank is painted with Floquil "Concrete" to break up the monotony of a large expanse of the undersurface color. Recent research by the guys over at J-Aircraft (a site you really ought to look at some time) has proven that the "early" drop tanks could be natural metal or painted. I use Sky as an undersurface color for my late-War Zeros and "Concrete" for the earlier ones. The mix-and-match on the tank isn't too far-fetched and adds, or at least I think it adds, to the model. If you think otherwise I'd suggest not doing it that way.

Hasegawa's A6M7 fighter-bomber. This one's a case of Second Verse; Same as the First---same belts, same antenna, same paint, same stencilled hinomarus. What makes it worthy of inclusion is a fuselage mod that you can't see because I didn't photograph the starboard side of the model---there's a tiny little window on the other side just behind the cockpit of the real airplane that Hasegawa provides in the kit---and the 4-gun wings with underwing drop tanks.

The underside of the A6M7. This view shows the bomb mounting (the A6M7 was a dedicated fighter-bomber variant that was frequently used for Kamikaze attacks) and the flaps. Once again the Sky undersurfaces have their monotomy relieved by different colored tanks. Hasegawa definitely has this Zero thing figured out!

The Competition. Here's Tamiya's recent A6M5 kit done for the Yokosuka NAG as deployed at Iwo Jima prior to the invasion and featuring Tamiya's own aftermarket brass gun barrels and pitot tube. I used them because I wanted to see if they added that much to the model; they did, but they also added almost $20 to the price of it and I'm not sure the trade-off is worth the cost unless you're building for a contest. The interior is better than Hasegawa's (although Tamiya was up to their old tricks and copied their interior from a museum specimen that's missing a couple of components in its cockpit so you still have some work to do there), and the overall level of detail on the rest of the model is slightly better too. Build difficulty is about the same for both kits, at least in my never-humble opinion, but Tamiya only offers the A6M5 and A6M5a in their kit. Given its expense and its lack of relatives (as opposed to Hasegawa's entire family of Zekes) I'd consider it a one-trick pony, at least for now. I bought one, and I built it. My next Short Wing will be a Hasegawa kit. So will the one after it.

Another view of the Tamiya kit. It's got a really great presence, and definitely gets the point across; it's a Zero, by golly! This kit is a lot closer in price to Hasegawa's these days, primarily because Hase raised their prices across the board a few months back, but the pain may still not be worth the gain, mainly because Tamiya never issued any other variants of the airplane. They probably will in another year or two, given the way they've historically done such things, but that won't help you much today.

The bottom of the Tamiya kit. The stencilling you see is from an aftermarket decal sheet included in one of those spiffy Polish (I think) books. Tamiya drops the flaps for us too, and I really wish they hadn't. That's Life, I suppose...

So we got the Zero out of our systems in only two days. That's not bad when you consider how much I normally ramble on about such things, and it may in fact be a record of sorts! Now, how about a couple of odds and ends to finish up with?

Some Broken Airplanes in The 'Nam

It's been a while since I've run anything by our old friend Gandy. I found this one last night while looking for something else and it's just so neat I had to share it with you. Enjoy!

The Kelly repair and overhaul team that deployed to South Vietnam was involved with aircraft other than the F-4. Here's a ramp full of broken birds undergoing repair for battle damage at DaNang in 1968. Visible in this shot are "Ruptured Duck", an otherwise unidentified EC-47, A C-130 from the 41st TAS/374th TAW, a C-123 from the 311th TAS/315th TAW, and an EC-47 from the 360th TEWS/460th TAW, which is presumably the parent unit of "Ruptured Duck" as well. That EC-47 in the middle of the photo has been pretty well peppered by something!  I. Gandara

This'll Just Blow You Away

It's simply amazing the things I've been finding since this rebirth began some two months ago. I've found photos and documents I'd completely forgotten I'd ever had, and some of them are seriously cool. This is one of those Too Cool Photographs.

Jim Sullivan never ceases to amaze me. He's been a valued friend for more years than either one of us care to remember, and the stuff he routinely comes up with will knock your socks off pretty much each and every time. Grab your ankles and hold on, 'cause this photo is one of those. The airplane is a Marine SBD-3 (or more likely -4) on Bougainville in December of 1943, but that's not what's so special about the picture. Look at that 250-lb GP bomb and at what's wrapped around it; that's a belt of time-expired .30 caliber machine gun ammunition that's turned the bomb into a home-made anti-personnel weapon. How cool is that! And, how easy would it be to replicate it in 1/48th or 1/32nd scale using some of the photo-etched belted machine gun ammunition that's available to the modeler these days? If you do it, and I really think you should, remember that this was done on land-based SBDs only, and probably only on those at Bougainville. I wouldn't duplicate that on a Navy SBD, ya'll, and definitely not on anything flying off a boat. A big tip of the hat to Jim for this one!  USMC via Sullivan

Until We Meet Again

I'm told that The Tribe (Jenny's, not mine) is en route for a day of recreation and tourism that's going to involve the driving of a great many miles and a day of which I'm to be an integral part. Lord only knows when or where it'll all end, but I might see you again tomorrow, or maybe I won't until later in the week. Either way, be good to your neighbor and we'll talk again soon!
phil

Hustler Maintenance, Bad Day in Birmingham, and a Token Zero

All Tore Down; Hustlers in the Barn

I saw my first real B-58 in 1961, when one flew over our quarters at Sheppard AFB. It was loud (four J-79s, remember?) and it looked like something from another world. It also looked like the landing gear was about to fall off, a characteristic of the Hustler's MLG trucks when in flight and a visual that's stayed with me to this day. (In retrospect I think my friends and I were all hoping the wheels would fall off so we could have them. It's funny how the 12-year-old mind works...) That was, if memory serves, the only time I ever saw a B-58 in flight; we went to Japan the next year and SAC started phasing the aircraft out of service shortly after we got back. It seemed that PACAF just didn't have much use for the beast, Southeast Asia War Games notwithstanding.

To get to the point for once, the Air Force operates several Air Logistics Centers around the country (but fewer than before thanks to that BRAC thing), each depot dedicated to a number of different aircraft, engines, and weapons systems. Kelly AFB in San Antonio was prime on the B-58, and it wasn't unusual for several Hustlers to be there at the same time undergoing maintenance. Here are a couple of photos of the B-58 for those of you who like to open things up on your models. Anybody out there brave enough to turn one of these shots into a diorama?

OK Gang, here's a project for you; how about three Monogram Hustlers undergoing depot level maintenance? This 1965-vintage photo shows three B-58s with various panels removed and work well underway. The escape pods have been removed and a small amount of cockpit console detail is visible on the aircraft in the foreground, while 61-2068 shows extensive use of paper and masking tape on the intakes and windscreen.   KAFB History Office 51832277

Here the escape pods are ready for installation on a 305th BW B-58A. This photo provides us with an excellent view of the nose gear and landing light detail as well. It's hard to imagine the clutter that surrounds an aircraft that's undergoing major maintenance until you've seen it first-hand, but the area is properly squared away. There's a lot to be seen here including jacks and access stands.  KAFB History Office 6672184

So You Think You're Having a Bad Day?

Contract maintenance for military aircraft isn't a new thing; it's been going on for years. Mostly it's a business-as-usual sort of deal, but every once in a while there's Drama. Sometimes there's a lot of Drama. Sometimes there's so much drama that you need fire trucks to get it to stop being Drama so you can go back to Business-As-Usual, which is what's happened in the series of photos below. The ramp is the Hayes Aircraft Corporation facility in Birmingham, Alabama (now Pemco); the year is 1957. I don't know much about the incident except that Hayes must've been big into KB-50 maintenance at the time, and either Hayes, the Alabama ANG,  or the airport had a really good fire team.

This is how things are supposed to be when you work in the aircraft maintenance business; just a nice quiet ramp with nothing much going on. In addition to KB-50 work, there was apparently some C-119 and B-25 activity at Birmingham as well.  Hayes AC 1-57-863

This bird's been burning for a while, but the fire team has it under control. Note the color of the smoke; this wasn't a fuel fire. (It would be normal for the aircraft to be de-fueled while undergoing maintenance.) Notice the proximity of other aircraft to the fire scene. Yikes!  Hayes AC 57-375

This closeup shows how the aircraft has broken in two at the wing. Note the fireman standing between the fus and the inboard engine still playing a stream of foam onto the fire. As bad as this looks, it could have been far worse. Somebody was definitely on the ball when this one started.  Hayes AC 1-57-362

The fire is out and the investigation begins. The KB-50 is a write-off, but as far as is known nobody was injured.   Hayes AC 1-57-374

Just how bad could this have been? Take a look at the rows of KB-50s parked near 8052 and figure that one out for yourself. There's no doubt that a tremendous amount of skill went into extinguishing the fire and minimizing the damage, but there had to have been a fair amount of good luck going on as well. You might want to think about this series of photos the next time something goes wrong where you work---maybe things aren't so bad after all!  Hayes AC 1-57-376

A Token Model For Today

Today's been a Real Airplane kind of day, so here's a shot of a model to keep things in perspective. It is, after all, Replica in Scale and it's a model airplane sort of deal, right? Right!

You can never have too many Zeros. This is Hasegawa's 1/48th scale A6M3 Type 32 marked as V-190 of the Tainan Ku as based at Buna during 1943. My dad was there, helped to take the place in fact, and may have even gotten a first-hand look at V190. That's something I can never know, but I always liked the airplane and wanted to build something from the Tainan Ku that wasn't a Type 21. Here's the result.

I'm lazy at heart, so extensive mixing of paint to get to the Flavor of the Month for the Zero's factory color just had no appeal for me at all. I'd read someplace that Floquil's "Concrete" (we're talking about the New Floquil here, not the much-loved DioSol-based paint of our youth) was a pretty close match to what the color faded to when exposed to the tropical sun for a while. That, plus the fact that the color comes reasonably close to matching the few chunks of Real Zero that I've been priviledged to examine clinched the deal; Concrete it was! The hinomarus were painted rather than decalled---it's really easy to mask and paint a Great Big Spot on a model---while all other markings were from the kit's decals. The back of the prop blades should be brown primer and not black as shown and it's in the plan to repaint them some day, but that pretty obviously hasn't happened yet. I mention it only to quell those of you who are poised to commence jumping up and down shouting things like "look at the prop blades, look at the prop blades".

Anyway, the model has the ubiquitous Eduard belts and harness but the rest of the cockpit is courtesy of the kit. The radio mast has been sawn off flush with the canopy per the Tainan Ku's long-established habit of removing the com gear(which apparently didn't work any too well in any case) from their aircraft. Hasegawa molds a radio into the side of the cockpit and removing it from the model to ensure that last bit of scale accuracy would be what an English modeler might term "fraught with difficulties", so it's still there should you care to pick up the model and take a look. I did give thought to removing it, but so doing would require a fairly extensive rework of the cockpit and I just didn't feel inclined to jump into that particular bucket, thus giving the Jump-Up-and-Downers an opportunity to do that again.

One final thing about the Hasegawa Zeros before we sign off. They all have a little triangular doohickey molded in front of the arresting hook well, and it shouldn't be there. Sand it off and fair in the hook because this airplane didn't have one installed. Build the model. Move on.

Something I Keep Forgetting

A few days ago I ran a color photo of a really pretty T-28B from VT-27 that a friend of mine shot at NAS Corpus Christi back in 1980. Robert Perry wrote me (at replicainscale@yahoo.com ) to let me know that the bird ended up at War Eagles Air Museum in New Mexico. There's a photo of it in its present guise at http://www.airliners.net/photo/North-American-T-28B/1313760/L/ if you're interested in what it looks like today. Robert let me know about this back on the 12th, which may mean I forgot to mention his update until now. Late is better than never, right?

And Something Else I Keep Forgetting to Remember

I've got a project underway and am looking for photography and/or personal recollections on the 21st TFW while they were flying F-100s out of Misawa AB, Japan during the late 1950s up through 1964-65. The squadrons would be the 416th and 531st TFS, and their operations included frequent TDYs to Kunsan AB, RoK. Any help would be greatly appreciated and all loaned materials returned promptly. Please contact me at, you guessed it:  replicainscale@yahoo.com if you can help.

And that's what I know for a Wednesday. Be good to your neighbor and we'll meet again soon.
phil