Fred, I don't care HOW long the kit has been "languishing". It is still guaranteed. Send me a pic when it is done, I would love to see it.

Mace Gill
The Aeroplane Works
http://www.theaeroplaneworks.com

Mace, maybe we'll play guitar again this year at WOD.. BobH.

You'r right. If I see one more P-51, I think I'll get sick. Don't get me wrong, I think the mustang is a beautiful plane, but it seems like everybody and his brother has had a P51 at one time or another. I'm guilty, I have one too. It was when I showed up at the field one day with my Mustang and someone had one there already, I decided to do something different.

My dad used to own a full size Stinson 108-3 Flying Station Wagon. So I modeled it. Shown here is a 1/5 scale and I also have a 1/10 scale.

Warbirds? I have an Ilushyn IL-2 Stormovik.

The only problem I have is finding good 3-views to start with. I used some 3 views from a Squadron/Signal publication for the Stormovik. The're pretty close, but I don't think you could use them in competition.

I've alwaysa been surprised at how few of the "post-war" models are done these days. In real life, most of them failed because the power promised was never available. Well, in our models, we don't have that problem - overpowering is normally easy and quite typical.

How about a XP-54 Swoose Goose or an XP-56 interceptor. I'm currently gathering information to build an electric version of the V-173 flying pancake. Probably something in the 60-80" size with lipoly packs.


Lots of these post-war designs still exist at the Smithsonian and other facilities. Showing up with one of them would certainly cure you of the "me too" blues!

--
Mark Lanterman
Airborne Media
NASA webmaster

Be glad to. I'll also have it on the web site during construction.

Hey YAT-28E

Is that that same kit that was featured in the Aug 1983 R/C Scale modeler ?

Roby

Bob, if I can take time away from the shop to be there, you KNOW I'll have a guitar. We'll definately try to make some noise....er....music.

Mace

you have stolen my thunder. my next to plane was to be the Pancake. guess i will either get on it super quick or look for something else. I am Not a scale builder, just alook like of something no one else has done, like the attached 61" 1919 Fokker Cll, 2 passenger, modified D7. all from a one of a kind photo. some of my other one of a kind models in the photo, some 18 of them hanging from the wifes living, dinning, bedrooms and more out in my shops. I have been fortunate that God gave me this talent. at 80 years young and still going strong. dick

here is the photo. another old age OOPs. dick

Well, don't worry - I'm still a ways from it. I've been trying my hand at scale competition and am trying to work my way up the ladder. 2 years ago was Fun Scale Novice (placed 5th a the NATS), last year was Fun Scale Advanced (4th at the NATS) and this year I'll try my hand at Sportsman with a Top Flite Stinson SR-9. After that comes Expert with an Embraier Tucano, then Designer with the Pancake.

Now providing I actually do everything I just stated :-), I'm a couple years away at best.

When you do your Pancake, shoot me a picture or two. I'd be very interested in how it comes out, and what you use.

do no know what class my look-like planes would fit in. one thing I do know is that the judges would have a ball picking them apart. thats why they all hang in my own museum--of course with Nadine's permission. I am satisfied that most are one of a kind. that was till I found this and other forums on RCU. am still proud of what I do. will do what I can to help yaall. if your ever on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, Bay St. Louis, give a call and stop in. here is my 81" Stout Sky Car. which I had the privelage of sitting in the original at the Air/Space Museum in DC. dick ps- want more planes? just ask, have a few more to go.

Dick, I think these officially fall into the "having-a-whale-of-a-good-time" class! If radio gear was free I'd have a hundred models in the hanger!

For me, I suppose the approach I take toward having a "one of a kind" model is to model features that most other people don't bother with. For example I am enjoying my recent explorations into making my own spoked wheels. I'll never look at a pair of WB wheels the same way again!

The only P51 models that make me sick are the ones with skinny noses and pointy spinners! I make no apology for building Mustangs, I like them. Models of the earlier turtledeck "B" and "C" Mustangs are a lot less common than the bubble canopied "D", "K" and "H" jobs and they are the ones I prefer. I have had a couple of D's in my life but don't plan to do any more of them.

But there is another class of Mustangs that practically nobody models: the Allison engined versions, the NA-73 prototype, the XP51, the "just plain" P51 (no suffix), the P51A, and the A36. These make beautiful model subjects and it is puzzling that modelers continue to ignore them while they complain about "too many Mustangs".

Well, I built one. The XP51, 41-039, was the second of two taken out of the first production batch built for the British and delivered to the U. S. Army at Wright field in 1941. I will try to post a picture below.

This model has 14 flights but has an annoying tendency to dig its nose in the grass on landing, even tho the main wheels are very far forward. It is pretty good in the air, tho, and sure looks pretty in a nice sky.

Tom

Then you can take what some would call a "Me Too" plane and change the scheme to one seldom used.
Case in point, I bought this Flair Dr.1 that was done up in the usual "Richthofen Red", so I got out
my trusty Fokker Dr.1 Aces of WW1 book and picked one that I hadn't see done before.
I have gotten a whole lot more possitive comments from the Ernst Udet scheme that I ever did
with the Baron's Red, plus it's a whole lot easier to see in the air.
So, it's my opinion that it's not so much the plane that you pick, it's what you do with it.
............That's my story and I'm stick'n to it.............

Del

Dick,
Love that stretch D7, neat plane.

Del

Roby,
it could be, i don't recall. If it was it was produced under GM Plastics.
She is a beauty ain't she?
getting ready to glass. I have been scaling up a lot of details so its been slo goin.
Did you ever see one finished?

Dick and Mark,

Just to show there there really isn't anything new under the sun, check out the link before for an RC version on the Pancake:

http://www.donskiff.com/annarborfalc...f_aircraft.htm

Of course you could be the first to do with glow power or totally scale!!!

--Don

Hi Don,

I don't think I mentioned that I wanted to be the "first" at this. I simply want something different from the average model.

I was aware of Keith's pancake and saw it at Toledo. A neat little machine. Actually, Keith wasn't the first either. I have two sets of plans of the V-173 - one for C/L and one for R/C. The R/C version is available from Jack Bates Plans and was done a few decades ago.

My intention is to create a first class designer-scale model for competition. If what's in my head ever makes it to real-life, it will be somewhere around 4 times the size of Keith's.

- Now for something completely different... -

There was another post about taking a more popular model and doing it in a different color scheme to make it stand out. I agree that there is something to that as well. This is not to toot my own horn, but I do have some first-hand experience with this very thing.

My first model I entered in competition (at the 2003 NATS) was a Sig 1/5th scale J-3 Cub. Hardly a unique model! However, I found a simple, unique color scheme from Bob Banka and used it. I got more than my share of comments on it and hopefully opened a few eyes that all Cubs don't have to be yellow!

I think the same could be said for most any model. Take a P-51 and turn it into a Reno Racer - a warbird and alter it into a less-modeled A or B model - etc. The possibilities are endless!

Airborne,

Yeah.... Now yer talkin
Like this gem.......
looky looky

There you go. Stuff like that goes a long, long way in the scale community.
What's wrong with being a little different? If in doubt, just ask Burt Rutan!

My point is that it's almost impossible to rely solely on doing a never-before modeled aircraft (though which careful research this might still be possible). Yet we all want our models to be special in some way or another. For some it's doing a little known variant of a well loved aircraft (even if it's only the color scheme that's little known) for others it might be challenging yourself to do a well-known subject to a previously unseen level of detail.

I guess I have more modest dreams. I just want my next plane to be better than my last.

Abufletcher,
I was the same way when the group got together to do the [link=http://www.bealmear.com/dawn_patrol/nieuport_17.htm]1/4 scale Nieuport Project[/link]. While we're all doing diferent markings so no two should be the same (as far as I know), I decided to take it one further and do the lesser known[link=http://www.bealmear.com/dawn_patrol/siemens_schuckart.htm]Siemens Schuckert D1 [/link] varient. Gotta have a "bad guy" to shoot at too.
Actually, one is being done as a captured N17, so I'll have at least a wing man.

I'm like you (and probably most of us), striving to make the next one better that the last one. And that usually involves mastering a new technigue of some kind. We must be nuts to think this is fun, but it is.

YAT-28E,
Jacqueline Cochran's racing P-51 "Beguine" would be a very cool subject!

Speaking of off-beat color schemes on common airplanes, I got a kick out of the story of the guy who brought a J3 Cub to a scale contest painted in a pale canary yellow, but otherwise standard with the black lightening bolt, etc. Others were quick to growl at him, pointing out that Cubs were definitely NOT pale yellow, but a much heavier, darker shade. The contestant pulled out his documentation PROVING that the owner of this particular N-Number DELIBERATELY had his Cub painted PALE yellow, and thus HIS model was indeed the correct shade!

BTW, "Cub Yellow" is pretty much a modeler's term. Piper Aircraft referred to that shade as "Lock Haven Yellow". But, then, modelers have "blind nuts" and the rest of the world calls them "tee nuts"; modelers use "ignition" engines, meaning "spark", as if glow engines and diesels did not also have any type of "ignition". If I thought about it long enough I might think of other examples but, in the words of the immortal bard, "A nose by any other name would smell the same" ....

Tom

Lucky Dog,

That may be my next one. My concern if any is how those radiators may effect flight. I dont think it should be a problem.
Let me finish the YAT and we will see....