Navy Bird

I built the 1:72 Special Hobby Skua, and it went together well. It's essentially the same as the Roc, so I expect the Roc kit would be OK as well. The whole trick is positioning the interior/cockpit parts, of which Special Hobby give you no indication of any kind where they should go. Think of these parts as the keystone - once you figure it out, it assembles quite well. There are some typical SH gaffes, like forgetting all about the prominent air outlets on top of each side of the cowl, but that's par for the course. Cheers, Bill

Sounds like my modelling! Wifey won't know I've worked on the model, I'll let her believe that it took me the entire time to finish off her list. Unless she reads BM, then I'm in for a shellacking. Cheers, Bill

As you may recall from earlier posts, the F-111B prototypes had a bewildering number of detail differences. As I morph the F-111C kit into one of the F-111B prototypes, I have to be careful to capture the unique features of the aircraft I'm modelling, specifically 151972. One area where she differed from production F-111 models, and from some of the other USN prototypes, were the intake vents. The production birds had the easily distinguishable trapezoidal vents on the top of the fuselage near the wing pivot points. (For those of you who are mathematically-minded, they're right trapezoids, not be confused with acute or obtuse.) These were not present on 151972, as it had a different pattern on top, as well as three vents immediately under the wing glove. To refresh everyone's memory, here are the upper fuselage vents on 151971: Sorry for the small photo, but it's all I've found so far. I'm sure there is a nice big high-resolution photo waiting somewhere on the net for me to purloin reference. The three vents under the wing glove originally looked something like this photo of 151970: I'll be modelling 151972 as she appeared during Phoenix missile testing at Hughes Aircraft, when the front two vents were covered as follows: No choice here but to get out the styrene card stock and the scalpel. I decided to copy those nice fold up photoetch pieces that you see everywhere, and made each vent cover from one piece of card stock, scoring the fold lines for the sides. Unfortunately, the scalpel didn't cut a nice v-shaped groove in the plastic so I had to fold the cover with the score line on the outside. This meant a small application of filler to hide the score line and provide a square edge. I think this will work out OK, and since it's underneath the wing glove nobody will see it anyway! The trapezoidal vents have been filled, but I'm not quite happy with how they blend in with the fuselage. Having a look at a grazing angle of incidence shows me that the shape will still be discernible. Another round of filler methinks. I needed to fill two tiny sinkholes near the vents, too - I think these were right above the tab that the wings slide onto. You can also see that I've also added the vertical tail - she looks a lot more like an F-111 now! Speaking of the tail, during missile testing at Hughes, 151972 had a camera (I think that's what is was) on top as seen in this photo: Some more work lies ahead - I'm thinking I may sculpt the camera out of some resin pour blocks. That's probably easier than using card stock. We'll see. Cheers, Bill PS. It felt good to be back at the bench after all this medical nonsense. Wifey left me as a bachelor over the past weekend as she went on a girls trip to Rhode Island to have a fancy at the Vanderbuilt mansions. Unfortunately, she left me a honey-do list a mile long - but I figured out a way to work on the F-111. Finish the to-do list first and fast. Wifey will be so proud.

Yes indeed, welcome back. You've been absent for almost as long as I have, but you don't have age or innumerable medical conditions to blame. Parenting doesn't count you see, so let's commence with some serious modelling. I'm actually at my bench for the first time in at least a month - it feels good! Although not as good as having young Master Winston ride that robot - has he tried? I'm sure with your skills you'd be an excellent saddler. Cheers, Bill

Exquisite - there's nothing more satisfying than watching a master at his craft. With the bottle of vino, of course. Cheers, Bill

Hey, remember me? I'm still here, but completely occupied at the moment. My wife's older brother passed away recently, leaving no will. My wife is next-of-kin and has been appointed administrator of the estate by the court. That means that she and I are are now in the process of settling the estate, selling the assets, etc. First, though, is to review every piece of paper in his house looking for financial records and so on. Her brother did not keep very good records (filing cabinet, who needs a stinking file cabinet - I've got a closet!) We're finding bank statements and the like just about everywhere. What a huge mess - and then we have to try and figure out the status of his investments. I'm afraid we're going to miss something, but I suppose all we can do is go through everything we find and hope for the best. I don't have much time for modelling right now, as I need to help wifey. On the good news side, the sinus surgery seems to have gone well, and I'm starting to actually breathe through my nose again. Ah, it's the little things that give the most pleasure! I hope to get back on the F-111B project soon. Can't let the airbrush get rusty. Cheers, Bill

Good stuff, Tommy. I hadn't even thought of that aspect of the difference between USN and USAF models. Do you know the size of the USAF F-111A main wheels? EDIT: I just found an article by Jim Rotramel where it's stated the size of the F-111A main wheels are 47 x 18 inches. The resin wheels in the Pete's Hangar conversion set scale out to 46 x 17 inches, so reasonably close. The Hasegawa kit wheels are pretty much bang on to 47 x 18, so I'll most likely use them on 151972. Cheers, Bill

Sorry, that was a reference to a series of books written by Edgar Rice Burroughs (the Tarzan guy). Did you see the film "John Carter" a few years ago? That was based on the first book in the series called "A Princess of Mars." The books are all typical pulp fiction sci-fi novels written back in the early 20th century primarily for teenage boys, and take place in this fantastic hypothetical Martian culture. Mars is dying (and drying) and the canals are empty - take one part wild west, another part Ivanhoe, and toss it all onto another planet and you get the idea. Fun stuff. My interest in Homer stems from my armchair archaeology interests. It's fun to try and connect what's in the earth with the ancient writings. And Homer, of course, is an industry all by himself. So this is the book by Caroline Alexander? I've seen some reviews, perhaps it's time to download it for my Kindle. Cheers, Bill

Looks great! I took my FS595 swatch book and compared to the colour my wife chose for the living room, and it really is close to FS36375 Light Ghost Gray. Too bad she didn't pick FS36440 Light Gull Gray, then I would have a scheme to match my nickname, especially since the baseboards and the mouldings around the doors and windows are white. Light Gull Gray and White - what more could your parlor want? Oh yeah, stars and bars. And maybe a BuNo and modex... It's fascinating that the wives are picking aviation related colours for the home. Maybe it's all those air shows that we've dragged them to over the years. Cheers, Bill

42 x 13 inches works out to 14.8 x 4.5 mm in 1:72 scale. Cheers, Bill

Is this the Royal Order of Barsoom, bestowed by Dejah Thoris? That will do the trick! Cheers, Bill

Ah - fill, sand, and polish - my least favourite parts of building a model. Yet somehow I have a huge number of Special Hobby kits in my stash. Go figure. Cheers, Bill

I had that same step at the bottom of the intake/fuselage join line when I built mine: If I remember correctly, this was only on the port side - the other side was fine. I used a combination of sanding the fuselage down and adding some filler to the intake to smooth and blend the two together. It's not difficult to fix. Can't wait for more progress! I really like these resin kits. Cheers, Bill

I just measured the resin main wheels that came with the 1:72 conversion kit from Pete's Hangar (now out of production) - they measure 16.1 mm x 6.1 mm. If I've done the math correctly that works out to 46 x 17 inches. These are quite a bit larger than the 42 x 13 inch wheels on the B, and are almost as large as the wheels included with the Hasegawa F-111C/G kit that I'm using. Is this the approximate size of the USAF wheels used on the A model? I hope so, that way I can get away with using them as they are, since 151972 was occasionally shod with F-111A shoes. Cheers, Bill

Thanks - I'm working on getting well even as I type. The splints come out of the sinuses in a couple of days and then I should be able to breathe through my nose again. Oh sweet mercy that will be wonderful. My right lung is looking good, as the fluid has not returned, but my Immunoglobulin G numbers have not come up, even with the transfusion. They might want me to get another. That's easy though, and much preferred to having a drain tube, pigtail, and stopcock in your side! Cheers, Bill