Mach Turtle

Some more thoughts on this GB: There are pilots who capitalised on their fame as aviators by writing books. The Lindberghs, Chesley Sullenberger, and Chuck Yeager are among these. There are people who served as pilots in wartime, then went on to work as writers, recounting their wartime experiences in some cases. Roald Dahl, Joseph Heller, and Robert Mason are examples. Some people, such as Geoffrey Wellum and Bert Stiles, wrote just a single memoir, with no eye toward personal gain or a writing career. People like Nevil Shute, J.G Ballard, and Ernest Gann were truly double-gifted, having had full careers in both aviation and writing. Of course, I am considering only aviation here.

Thanks, guys. My modelling skills are still developing and resin presents its own special challenges, but I am glad to have modelled this unusual subject. Thanks to the hosts for leading this group build.

Okay, all done. I ended up rebuilding the canopy because of some glue fogging that occurred. Aerotech was nice enough to include two canopies. Thanks for watching my build. Gallery entry here.

This is the former G-ACSP "Black Magic," later purchased by the Portuguese government and renamed "Salazar." The build thread is here.

Sign me up. I'd do either an Ernest Gann DC-2 or a Robert Mason Huey.

Almost done here.

Here's a further update.

Just a few days to go. Here's a progress pic. I believe I will finish in time.

I'm obviously still cleaning up here, but the engine nacelles can be improved with the addition of a couple of pieces of tubing:

Sydney came through with damp and cool weather today, so I wasn't tempted to do anything outdoors. I made some progress on Salazar! Please forgive the purple. I'm at the point of spraying, filling, and sanding, and I thought I'd use up some of my obscure paints in the process, as it's going to be black anyway. The props are just Blu-Tacked in place, and the gear isn't glued yet: The landing gear were scaring me, but they went together pretty well once I got going. I used blobs of clay to position everything for gluing, and just took my time. I hope to have the first black coat on tomorrow, and also to give some attention to the vac-form canopy, which looks like a weak point in this kit.

Sorry guys! We have had some unusually good weather here in Sydney, and I took the opportunity to put some miles on my bicycle. The weather may be getting back to the chilly damp that is typical of this time of year, so I plan to get some bench time in this weekend!

Here's a quick update. I've started to form the four quarters of the envelope: These quarters aren't done. I'm still closing those gaps and getting the curves right. To close the interior parts of the seams (where I can't reach with a clamp), I am using neodymium magnets and large hex nuts, sandwiching the paper between them. It's an effective clamp that can be positioned anywhere. As for the scale, I don't really know. That's a 15 cm ruler there, so the whole thing will be maybe 45 cm tall when finished. Looking at the illustration in the first post of this thread, the balloon appears to be roughly 10 times the height of the guys. So, figure 20 meters or so. That would make this roughly 1/45 scale.

Thanks for all the advice. I've made a little progress: That's the bottom of the balloon and the gallery, where the aviation pioneers stood.

Colin, thanks. What kind of glue is the proper card glue?

On 21 November, 1783, two men flew above the earth, untethered in sustained flight, for the first time. They were Pilâtre de Rozier and the Marquis d'Arlandes, aboard a balloon designed and built by the brothers Joseph-Michel Montgolfier and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier. Here's a contemporary image: I'm going to build a model of that. After checking the Tamiya and Airfix catalogs and coming up short, I cast about for other sources of a kit. And I found one! A company called Fiddler's Green makes lots of interesting card model kits, including one of the Montgolfier balloon. So, I bought the kit (being eight or so A4 PDF pages), printed them on my ordinary inkjet printer, and used contact cement to attach them to manila folder stock: Note the Tricolor flags, which wouldn't have been in use until after the Revolution. Aside from that, the kit looks perfectly suited for my purposes here. Let the cutting begin!

Thanks, guys. I did the wood by painting a base of Tamiya Deck Tan, then streaking burnt umber oil paint on with a very cheap brush (from a kids' watercolor set) trimmed very short. It's worked for me on WWI aircraft before. The dramas weren't particularly bad, just time-consuming. On with the show! I finished the cockpit (except for the shoulder belts and instrument panels, which go in from the top, and got it roughly assembled: It looks like an aeroplane now: There are plenty of gaps to fill and shaping to do: Does anyone know what these are? Are they flaps? Can surfaces act as flaps when they're under the fuselage, not the wing? Are they speed brakes? Thanks for looking in.

I'm back onto this one -- had some business and family dramas there. Some internal detail and woodgrain attempt: The empennage, initially assembled: Thanks for looking.

Okay, off to a careful start here. I've taken everything out and done an initial cleanup. There was very little flash on any of the pieces, and mostly I just wanted to start to think about the assembly process. The main components: The photoetch and white metal pieces: The smaller resin pieces: There are also a vac-formed canopy and landing light lens. Thanks for watching.

Sorry guys, I guess I missed the Camel and it's good to see they're still going. I knew they were started by a Hollywood guy, but I don't really follow popular culture and so wasn't aware that Weta Workshop was another of the founder's companies. Happy to have started a pun thread in any case.

Still, they seem to be slowing down.

Ah. Missed the Camel. It's not under News, as new releases used to be.

Autocorrect, sorry.

Hi. Wingnut Wings hasn't released any new kits in a couple of years, hasn't updated their website in at least as long, and seems to have handed off their distribution to Weta Workshop, whoever they are. Is Wingnut Wings a going concern, or was it its owner's tribute to the hundredth anniversary of the Great War, now concluded?

I thought you were going to build in 1/6 scale! Looks great.

Thanks everyone. I hope my skills are up to the quality of the kit. Yes, I think the DH.88 is one of the best-looking aircraft ever (the Lockheed Constellation is another one). Like a lot of us, I think, I built the 1/72 Airfix kit (the bagged one with about 12 parts total) some time ago, as G-ACSS (the red one, Grosvenor House). While that kit is primitive and my skills at the time weren't much better, I decided I don't need another Grosvenor House and that the Salazar scheme looks the best of all. (Black Magic, by the way, didn't complete the race to Melbourne. Her crew retired in Baghdad due to problems related to bad fuel.) I also have the 1/72 SBS kit on hand, so if I have time, I might do that as the Green One later in this GB. Cheers.