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spaceshiprepairman

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  1. Has anyone modelled the Bristol Jupiter Fighter? This was a Brisfit that was modified to be powered by a Bristol Jupiter engine, its company designation was Type 76, as well as Type 89 Trainer.
  2. I never knew about this movie. If there is an English subtitled version, I'll be interested in buying a copy. As to the placement of seats and what they looked like, I'll have to borrow from other sources, or use my imagination. However, as I also have a 1/72 model of an Aerosan, after watching the movie, I see a small diorama.
  3. Last year, I bought a Mikro Mir 1/72 NIAI Fanera2 airliner. This is a nice little kit of a rather obscure airliner from 1930s Soviet Union. A nice kit, yes, but the seats are more generic seats for anything in 1/72. Likewise the AModel 1/72 Khai-1 airliner(looks a lot like a Vultee V11), nice kit, but seats leave a lot to be desired. Are there any extant photos of such seats? The Fanera has a lot of windows, so the seats are more visible than you might expect.
  4. Are there any extant photos of BAS Otters in flying condition? I know there is a thread on a 1/72 BAS Otter, but I've a Hobbycraft 1/48 Otter, and wanted to paint it in colors other than what the box art shows, and found the thought of a British Otter intriguing. While a diorama of VP-FAK in a mouldering pile would be a nice exercize of one's weathering abilities, but I'm more partial to a flyable one.
  5. I was trying to find the what if folder, and couldn't, so, since this could(in very broad terms) be considered armor, so I'd like to share this. Mods, if you could place this in the right folder, I'd truly appreciate it. While my main area of modelling is aviation and aviation related, there are times when I want to branch out a bit in other areas. And whiffing is what results. Sometimes, it is a fictional juxtaposition, such as taking the Pegaus Alpha Centauri short range saucer, which, by the way, is actually two kits, a pair of saucers complete with alien pilots, with a Jeep converted to a post war civilian tow truck, the setting being the saucer on the ground, and the tow truck giving the saucer's battery a boost, or dumping a can of something, while the pilot watches, an AAA(Alien Automotive Association) sticker on the saucer and an AAA sticker on the tow truck, or a 1960 Corvette driven down from orbit by an astronaut drive(the opening scene of the Heavy Metal(1978), I like to indulge my sense of humor, and have a quick eye for inspiration. In this case, it is a 1958 Mazda K360 3 wheel utility truck, very common in Japan with a quad .50 calbre in the bed. The inspiration for this was a line drawing in Pinterest, and I was immediately intrigued by this, as the equivalent to such a vehicle as this is the Cushman Scooter, a little bitty utility vehicle very common here in the US. Or something like the Vespa motor scooters that Italy mounted 75mm recoilless rifles on. There is a kit of it, a 1/35 Arii kit, part of the 1/32 Owner's Club, and has quite a few other similar vehicles of that era in Japan. I bought this off Evil Bay for around $12.00, and I do recommend if any are interested, there is more than just this one type. Now, while I'm considering the quad .50s, other ordinance comes to mind, including MLRS, as well as other types. However, would this qualify as armor, even under the broadest of definitions?
  6. Well, that is the problem with being an Airframe and Powerplant mechanic, stuck in realism. And I've seen enough fantasy for several lifetimes.
  7. Welp, funny you should say that, because I met someone on facebook who has a couple Rotodynes, one 1/72, the other 1/48 he makes from a 3d printer. While the quarter scale Rotodyne would be perfect(my preferred scale), the price is a tad dear for my taste at 130 pounds sterling, the 1/72 more affordable at 40. In case you're interested, his name is Rikki Wolfe. So, I think if I ask him to consider ceratain mods, such as the repositioned nose gear and others.
  8. Welp, I am going for a realistic whif, that is, everything and anything that it would've been capable of lifting and flying. My apologies, but as a real life A&P mechanic, I can't accept "hang anything anywhere you want. If I wanted a toy for amusement, then I'd go that child's route(hang all the cool stuff my imagine could think, and hang reality). I'd rather see what would fit within more realistic and restrictive factors. That's the way I swing.
  9. Unless I make the ordinance ad other things from scratch, given the odd scale, if I can afford it, find someone with a 3d printer, and blow it up to 1/72. The kit then would be an oob. But it's not a matter of hanging all kinds of stuff on the wings(them too, however), but the fuselage, sides and belly, with ordinance at specific stations. A friend of mine did a whif of a terrorist Cessna 172 that had all manner of ordinance to the point where the full size wouldn't've been able to taxi ten feet before the landing gear collapsed. Think a Mi24 that had been given growth hormones.
  10. I was finally able to find at a fair price the 1/78 Revell Fairey Rotodyne. While the aircraft itself does hold enough fascination for me to want to try an OOB with an alternate paint scheme(say a commuter subsidiary of BOAC, or similar), I've been wondering if this might've made a reasonably good tactical transport. I've seen discussions in the past of arming this as a gunship like the Apache or others, were it to have been produced for the military to carry arms and kill things, it wouldn't be a gunship, but a tactical transport, like the Mil Hind. Yes, that ugly beast does carry all manner of offensive stuff, but it also carries 8 fully equipped troops, making it a tactical transport. So, thinks I, it'd be nifty with fully kitted troops, as well as light vehicles like the SEALs' very aggressive dune buggies. And in addition to all manner of biologically offensive things that go boom, I've also been thinking of something in her tummy, something that shoots, kinda like Schrage muzik that the Germans used during WW2, only instead of firing at an angle upward, why not a quartet of something that shoots mounted in or on(in would be preferable, the part that peaks out would be a lot simpler, perhaps just some barrels poking out at a 30 degree angle downward. Perhaps even, given her size, more than one row of guns. However, given that I like to share what I learn, anyone else have any helpful suggestions(like "get your head examined"), I welcome them(glutton for punishment that I am). Besides that, another possibility would be a FAA COD for UnReps(underway replenishments)
  11. Several months ago, when I had a few extra dollars burning a hole in my checking account, I went shopping on EvilBay, wondering if there would be something that could tickle my fancy. Sure enough, I found something that did, and ticklish my fancy really was, because this was a resin rendition of an engine I never heard of, and the price being right, I ordered it. It was a 1/32 Anzani 10 cylinder engine. While I don't claim to be a trained historian, I am a scale modeller, and do a lot of research, but this seemed to be obscure enough that a kit for an aircraft powered by this would not exist. And, after ordering it and doing some basic research, I did find a few types which were interesting enough to do further research, digging even deeper. I have a number of the Putnam aircraft manufacturer books, one of which is Handley Page Aircraft since 1907. They designed and built an aircraft which carried this engine, the Handley Page G/100, and I knew immediately that that would be perfect. However, a couple items about this gave me a bit of pause. First off, the wheels were exposed(no canvas hub covers), and I couldn't find any manufacturer who would sell wheels that could be used(perhaps I didn't dig deeply enough). Second, as it was pre-WW2, and a biplane, it had one of my bugaboos, rigging. It's bad enough that I have a lot of difficulty rigging biplane wings, but this had rigging to spare, along with exposed control wires. Still, it had something which compensated for those, with plenty to spare. Wings with gracefully curved leading edges. To my eyes, this gossamer little flyer was drop dead gorgeous. And so I've been slowly gathering what I could on it, information, that is, which was basically what is in the book itself, because after doing a very intense internet search, all the sites I found simply reiterated what I had in my hot little hands, which also supplied a nifty three-view. And so, after calculating what the wing span would be in 1/32, and then measuring the three-view, I headed off to the nearest copyshop to have the three-view blown up to scale. And, comparing the resin engine to the resulting blown up three-view, it fit. At this, I had reached the point where I decide whether or not to go ahead(as a mechanic, this is where I get out the go-no go guage to see if a fastener hole is within limits or not). For me, it's a go. In all the time I've been a modeller(almost as long as I've been alive), I've never scratched such a beastie before. Not even a Jenny(yes, I've worked on a full size Jenny, even helped with the wing rigging, and yes, if any of you have ever heard of the story that when you toss a live chicken between the wings of a Jenny after rigging them, and the chicken can't escape, the wings are properly rigged, and I've even worked on a Tommy Morse, and helped overhaul the Le Rhone engine, but that's another tale for the future) model. And this looked worse than a Jenny. In fact, having seen a 1/48 scale model of a Fokker Spin many years ago, looking at that memory, I gained new appreciation of the patience and work that that model took to rig. And then there is the Silver Wings Taube(I have a copy of Col. John A de Vries "Taube, Dove of War", a tome I highly recommend if you don't know much about the Taube), which, besides the price, kind of scared me because of the rigging required. And now, I am about to live that phrase about fools rushing in. And yet, if I want to see that lovely 10 cylinder engine(as an A&P, I'd always thought that a radial engine is supposed to have an odd number of cylinders, 3, 5, 7, or 9, not 10 in one row, and after researching, found the Anzani 10 cylinder engine to be drop dead gorgeous) hanging out in the wind. Already I could see a G/100 clawing for altitude, being a homesick angel headed home. Yes, I suppose that I'm an unrepentant romantic. So, and I realize that I may be setting myself up, I'll be asking you guys for pointers, starting with, what would be the best way to start this, because I'm feeling like I'll have to take myself back to when I was but a wee lad, in the halcyon days of callow youth, building stick and tissue flyers powered with a twisted rubber band, usually peanut scale, and taking them to the local school yard to give sacrifice to the Gods of the Air, hopefully they smile by allowing my little flyer return instead of being carried by errant breeze into the evil and hungry trees, which always hunger for the product of young modellers.
  12. Mike, I am very happy to have been the instigator of happy memory recall.
  13. Yews, the kit is rather good, but it mentions Thrick only lightly, and then only once, and that was that. Ah me, I suppose this is "gift horse" and "mouth" time. Still, I was curious, but then, I've heard what happens to curious felines, so I'll settle down and enjoy the kit. Twould be nice to know a bit more about the company, though.
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