ltdayan

Has any model manufacturer ever issued a 1/72 or 1/48 scale model kit of the North American AJ Savage?

On the planes I flew there were two such hatches, one on the top of each wing inboard of engines two and three, that covered a compartment containing a twenty-one man (person) liferaft. Legend has it that there was a salt water actuator in the compartment that would release the liferaft in the event of a water landing. It never worked. In reality the compartments were used by the flight engineers and others to store and transport booze and other items of contraband to confuse and confound customs officials, dogs, and other officers of the law.

The areas that get the dirtiest are: each side of the fuselage aft of the exhaust stacks and the underside near the nosewheel where the accessory section drains are located. The planes I flew always had some small amount of hydraulic fluid residue in that area. As for the exhaust stains, here is the best picture I could find.

It looks just like the one I pranged onto the deck of the Lexington six times in 1969, except much, much cleaner. A superb rendering of the "C" model in VT-5 livery.

My vote: the Catalina

Also flight boots were brown in the early to middle sixties. The Navy switched to black boots in 1967-68. Flight helmets were required to be at least 40% covered with reflective tape the design of which was left to the discretion of the individual.

Sorry. Here is the image.

I had occasion to visit Yanks Air Museum in Chino, California last weekend. The museum has, to my knowledge, the last airworthy Warning Star in the world. It's an Air Force EC-121T. I snapped this picture of the lower radome to show the placement of the deicer boot. I hope this helps.

A beautiful build. As to your question about the lower radome, the front of it was covered by a black deicer boot. I'll try to dig out a picture of one for you.

my mistake. The Revell kit's scale is 1:128 (so they advertise). The Minicraft is 1:144 and the Heller is 1:72.

I have been collecting Constellation/Warning Star kits since 1970 and they all remain unassembled to this day. My first is a Japanese produced L1049 control line wooden airframe kit that, when built, is designed to be propelled by four gas engines. It would have a wingspan of slightly more than six feet. Second is an old Revell WV-2 which they affectionately called "Radome" and was produced in Brazil. I think it is a 1/144 scale. The scale is so small I think Iain wouldn't even be able to see it. Third is the Minicraft Navy version EC-121 (I suspect K model) in PMR color scheme. I believe it is in 1/72 scale - also unrecognizable to Iain. Fourth is the Heller in 1/48, the subject of this thread. He might just be able to see this one. I also have two handmade solid mahogany EC-121s; one is a WC-121N (TE 12 from VW-1); the other is an EC-121M (PR 25 from VQ-1) that I commissioned from Philippine artisans in the 1970s that are currently in various states of disrepair due to several household moves in forty years. These models are roughly the same scale as the Heller. Off thread, I also have an unassembled Hasegawa EP-3E (PR 31 from VQ-1) which they misnamed "Orion" instead of Aries. I haven't seen many of these in several years. The kit is a standard P-3 with resin addons for the dorsal and ventral canoes and the "seabean" APS 20 radome. I had intended to build this along with a Revell TU-95D Bear that we used to "play" with in the Sea of Japan. We tried to race a Bear out of Vladivostok in PR 31 one cold day. He smoked us badly and , although he was 10,000 feet above us, we could hear the din of his supersonic propellers through our airframe. While I have every good intention to build these kits it will probably not in fact ever happen. I don't have the eyesight nor the steadiness of hand that I did when I built models in my youth and my wife tells me that I can quit working when they carry me out of my cubicle in a body bag. So, to put an end to my rant, I am willing to part with any of the plastic kits to someone who intends to start it promptly (this year) and complete it within twelve months. I have been following Iain's WIP on the 1/32 EC-121K but I'm not convinced he will complete it in my lifetime or this century. I also have some concerns about shipping these things across the pond. I thought the USA and the UK were allies but it almost took an act of God to ship Iain two disks. Think on these things and let me know...

Thanks folks - have just put her on top of the display cabinets - dwarfs her neighbours! Now then - whats next???? Iain How about an Echo-Charlie-One-Two-One-Kilo for starters?

Seriously beautiful work, especially the exhaust staining. This is one aircraft I would love to have flown but arrived a tad too late on the scene. The planes I flew (Willy Victors) were sometimes referred to as,"four spads tied to a dump truck." There is a sad story about a Vietnamese "friendly" student pilot who destroyed a Skyraider in the runup area at NAS Corpus Christi, Texas in the sixties. He apparently forgot his procedures and, instead of setting 30 inches of manifold pressure to check the mags, pushed the throttle full forward. The Spad's tail lifted and the propeller dug into the tarmac. The pilot froze while the aircraft rocked forward onto the propeller, spun one revolution and crashed to the ground inverted. When the crash crew finally reached the pilot he was in a catatonic state with his hands tightly gripping the controls.

Would those be the transparent/invisible wings?

At the risk of boring you all to tears, here's a start. I was a pilot (Nasal Radiator) and mission commander in two Willy Victor squadrons from 1970 through 1972; VW-1 and VQ-1 both based in Agana, Guam. VW-1's mission was two-fold; airborne early warning in the Gulf of Tonkin in support of Seventh Fleet operations (EC-121K) and weather reconnaissance in support of the Naval Weather Service (WC-121N). Remember that this was an era before weather satellites so we penetrated typhoons and tropical storms at low-level (800-1000') at night. Sometimes it was an E-Ticket ride. The WC-121N was modified specifically for the weather mission. It had a three foot diameter blister installed on the port side just aft of the wing where a flight meteorologist sat and observed the surface winds. It was his job to keep the relative wind thirty degrees ahead of the port wing as we penetrated a storm. Crew sizes for these two missions ranged from ten to eighteen people. In the summer of 1971 VW-1 was decommissioned and recombined with VQ-1. VQ-1 moved from Atsugi, Japan to Guam and maintained two permanent detachments; one in Danang, RVN and the other at Atsugi. The VQ mission was and is signals intelligence collection and analysis. Our VQ Willys were EC-121Ms and were specialized variants of the type. They were very heavy aircraft. The fuselage was packed with electronics and the cabin was almost always hot. Crew size was from 28 to 32 people. Distinguishing features of the EC-121M are: no tip tanks and two turbine powered APUs on the starboard side of the empennage. These were necessary to power all of the electronics gear we carried. In Vietnam we flew missions to support Seventh Fleet strike operations. Elsewhere we flew PARPRO (Peacetime Aerial Reconnaissance PROgram) missions in support of National tasking. The PARPRO missions were very interesting because we were able to observe the operations of the Soviet PACAF and Navy real-time. A final note: VQ-1 lost two EC-121s in 1969. One, PR21, was shot down off the coast of North Korea on April 15. All 31 crew were lost. The other, PR22, was lost in a landing accident at Danang, RVN. Six of the crew survived.