Building a particular TBM Avenger

Hello Bob!

While I can't help you with those details (I know this stuff is important to you, this is what makes a good model), I'm looking forward to seeing this one and your other builds done!

One idea that I have - I used it on my projects - would be to find a forum where actual firefighters post and trying to ask there. They call this internet 2.0 - not finding the fact itself, but finding people who might know. This really works!

Good luck with your projects and have a nice day

Paweł

KnightTemplar5150

Bob- 

It's pretty clear that this is a deeply personal project for you and I'd like to help you along with a little advise and perhaps a few clues to help you in your research.

When it comes to questions about a highly specific detail on a very specific airframe that is relatively obscure in nature, you're most likely going to have to do your own homework.

Thank you for the link. I may have visited there previously; I've searched many times for information about N6447C. One of my first leads came from a fellow student taking a Simon Fraser University outreach course titled "Novels of Flight,"* based on Beryl Markham's memoire of flying in Africa, West With the Night. That was when I learned that the TBM had been restored and was now a museum exhibit. 

I had some faint hope that some Finescale member with more knowledge about aircraft might be able to offer some suggestions about the purpose of those features, but I can live — easily — never knowing what they are, or rather were. It's been interesting to see the many variant tankers that were based on various TBMs. The aircraft in question, N6447C, apparently went through many "upgrades" before being purchased for restoration as a torpedo bomber. And, apparently, with every upgrade, the paint scheme was changed to lesser or greater degree.

Bob

PS — The SFU class I attended was interesting. For one class, the instructor brought in his flight instructor, who regaled us with stories about lessons he had taught. One time a student was instructed to land the plane himself, and as he approached the runway he froze, and wouldn't relinquish control to the instructor, who had to punch the guy, hard, in the face. He never saw that student again. Flying a tanker sounds safe by comparison!

Bob- 

It's pretty clear that this is a deeply personal project for you and I'd like to help you along with a little advise and perhaps a few clues to help you in your research.

When it comes to questions about a highly specific detail on a very specific airframe that is relatively obscure in nature, you're most likely going to have to do your own homework. 

Every civil aviation registration number comes with a wealth of documentation that will help you along in the research of that specific airframe. In the case of this Avenger, N6447C, there is a veritable treasure trove of information that will give you clues on where you should ask your questions. 

The web address below will provide you with the airframe's history, including a list of past and current owners. The plane currently is housed in a museum in Texas and apparently on public display after having been reverted back to her original configuration as a bird of war, rather than the firefighting appearance. Still, it's a list of contacts that could possibly answer your questions regarding N6447C if you reach out to them.

It takes a lot more effort and patience to research in this manner, but I've found it to be far more effective and informative when it comes to my own projects of this nature. Those who owned and worked on specific airframes usually know a hell of a lot more about the minutia of obscure details than the general thumbnail references I can find online.

Anyhow, I hope this sends you in the right direction with your research -

https://www.aerialvisuals.ca/AirframeDossier.php?Serial=63567

I’m putting the finishing touches on the U.S. Navy TBM torpedo bomber that I’m kit bashing as a U.S. Forest Service slurry bomber, N6447C, but I’d like to know more about a couple of details in the photo of the aircraft that I took in 1962. 

The monochrome photo below is mine, while the colour one, taken in the 1970s, is one I found on the internet. The large yellow circles on both photographs show a small, rounded structure just behind the antenna on top of the fuselage.

The smaller yellow circle on the monochrome photo encloses what seems to be a triangular shadow cast perhaps by a hinged cover for something or other? In the colour photo, the shadow appears to be round. 

The structure on the top of the fuselage isn’t unique to N6447C. It can be  seen, unclearly and circled in yellow, on another TBM that was apparently repurposed by the same company as N6447C; to me, it looks like it might be an air vent of some type. 

I’m thinking of adding those two features to my model, but I would like to know what they are! (Photographs of the TBM-3E Avenger torpedo bomber don't help; converting the Hobby 2000 TBM-3E kit to a TBM tanker required removing the dorsal machine gun turret as well as removing or fairing over most of the canopy.)

I’d like to know if the shadow shown in the photos of the two TBMs would appear on the starboard side the aircraft. How I wish I’d done a walk-around of that TBM way back in 1962, but I’d never heard of a walk-around, and, long before the days of digital photography, I couldn’t afford the necessary film.  

Bob

Thank you for your suggestion, Paweł. I am following through, with good success...so far!

Bob

Hello!

I like the looks of your model a lot! I have noticed a problem on the tail, maybe you could post close-ups of the problematic spots?

I think I would try to lightly sand the spots where white went out of control, then mask one more time and try to re-spray just the problematic places.

Otherwise some touch ups would probably be OK. If you use this route I'd suggest also "touching up" places where the real aircraft would be likely to get worn, too - around the hatches, steps, leading edges and so on. But I think it's important to smooth the surface before you put more paint on.

Good luck with your build and have a nice day

Paweł

Some advice, please:

My two-tone (red and white) 1/72 Grumman TBM model, which I’m kit bashing as a 1950s-60s tanker, is nearing completion, but I hit a problem after painting it. Here’s the model as it is at this time:

When I removed the masking tape, I saw that small bits of white or red paint had leached under the masking tape onto the red or white parts, even though I had painted the edges of the masking tape with clear Tamiya acrylic. 

I decanted some of the red and some of the white spray paint and tried to use it to retouch the model. Bad choice: when I painted over a tiny bit of red paint with decanted white paint, the layers of white below the red as well as the white primer dissolved and made a small but unwelcome mess. Now what?

This is my plan (please comment!):

1. Spray the entire model, except for the canopy, with several thin coats of clear Tamiya spray and let it dry for 24 hours.

2. Use the decanted Tamiya spray to retouch the model.

Am I on the right track?

I assume that white and red Tamiya acrylic paint, brushed over the unwanted paint, would be safer, but the problem with that is that both the white and red Tamiya acrylic paint are slightly different in tone from the spray paint. Since I don’t want the model to look like it just rolled off the factory floor, perhaps I shouldn’t worry about slightly mismatched retouching. Your thoughts about that?

Bob

Thank you for your offers of assistance. After poking around more on the internet, I found a free font called Aileron — How appropos! — that seems nearly identical to the font used for the registration numbers of the TBM slurry bomber. The only difference I noted was that the lower-case “l” has a bit of a curved tail, but I don’t need an “l”. 

I downloaded the font, added it to my word processing program, and have already sent a PDF of the registration numbers to a company in Richmond, BC, a suburb of Vancouver, that prints decals for model railroaders. 

The font is certainly close enough to the original to be used. Besides which, the fonts used on aircraft are often changed when livery is changed. Later photographs of the same aircraft show registration numbers in an italic font. 

I’m basing my model on this photograph of a TBM-3, built in 1945, that I took a few hours before my airplane crash in 1962.

That TBM-3 may not have been the TBM that I tried to photograph as it dropped a load of borate fire retardant on a small fire in the Black Range in Southwestern New Mexico. Nevertheless, that’s the aircraft I’m trying to replicate. (It was built in 1945, continued to fly throughout most of the 20th Century, was refurbished as a torpedo bomber, and now resides in an air museum in Texas.) 

The TBM that I tried to photograph as it dropped borate slurry on a small fire in New Mexico’s Black Range might have been this one, an Avenger 35:

That Avenger 35 was “on duty” the same day as my airplane crash. The gentleman at the left in this photograph, which I took, is Jack Foster, the fire boss for the Gila National Forest who offered me my “crash ride” the Beech T-34B Mentor bird-dog plane.

The Avenger 35, a variant of the Avenger TBM-3S, was almost new, having been built for the Royal Canadian Navy as an anti-submarine aircraft in 1960. According to the Aviation Safety Network database, the aircraft crashed on take-off at Elko Municipal Airport in  on September 6, 1966. The pilot survived, but the aircraft was written off.

Bob

P.S. Unlike some Finescale members, I happen to think that the TBM is a very attractive aircraft! I guess I just have good taste! 

Look at Draw Decals. They make a whole series of fire eaters decals for every type you can imagine, including the DC-10.

I used them to build my PBY from "Always".

They have a number of Avenger sets. I didn't see yours but WTH call them.

That's a block font. Here's a link that seems to have a lot of them.

https://www.1001fonts.com/blocky-fonts.html

That  has to be third runner up for the world's ugliest airplane.

Here's some info.She's back to looking like a torpedo bomber.

https://flightaware.com/resources/registration/N6447C

Bill

Hello Bob!

If you mean exactly those markings:

Then I might trace them for you in Corel DRAW! without using actual font - might just take me a few days, but it's not that big deal. Please drop me a line if I can help you.

Good luck with your projects and have a nice day

Paweł

My Grumman TBM slurry bomber is coming along fairly well — it surew is easy to obliterate panel lines — but I've hit a snag with decals. I need white decals for the registration number of the original aircraft, but my Apple computer doesn't include a sans serif font that's close to replicating the original. The Microsoft San Serif font comes close, but it's not quite heavy enough and the letters need to be a bit taller. Any suggestions about sources of fonts I might be able to use?

Bob 

Flight Line Media

Great project, Bob! I look forward to seeing this build completed.

Well, we'll have to wait a while! I got started on the build, to the point of assembling and painting the cockpit interior and the pilot, and then moved to the fuselage to figure out a way to remove the turrets and reconfigure it as a slurry bomber. That's when I realized that half of the fuselage and one of the lower wing panels were badly warped. In desperation, somewhat mitigated by the realization that it might not be the model I wanted,* I tried "de-warping" with hot water and went too far, ending up with even worse warping. OK, not warping. The plastic melted beyond hope! But there's a happy ending in sight.

I went searching for reviews of other TBM models, and found a glowing one about the Sword version of a TBM-3E, the exact model that I had been trying to photograph when my plane crashed. Even better, it's in 1/72 scale, which suits my small apartment much better. And I soon found an affordable kit from a company in Poland. But in the meantime, I've started on another kit, the Pegasus Nautilus, based loosely on the Walt Disney version of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

Bob

* The Revell model TBM is actually a reboxing of a Monogram model, or so I assume. The word "Monogram" is molded into some of the larger parts. But I was put off by the "toy-like" aspects of the model — moving propeller, tail hook, wheels, turret, etc., all of which impacted its realism and added to the problems of attempting to kitbash it. It offered little detail, and I lost nothing, since it was a gift. 

In looking at the box art, looks like it has the fillet for the vertical tail, so that much would help.

Good eye... I do wonder if he didn't realize that's a 1/48 scale kit.  If he gets the 1/72 scale kit, it's very doable.

Hello!

When you remove the big bubble in front of the center of stability or whatever the correct term for "center" is here, then those fins aft not only become something of a dead weight but might also actually spoil the directional characteristics of the plane - I imagine it could tend to turn into the wind more strongly, that could be a problem in presence of those fire drafts.

There's still the enlarged fillet between the fuselage ant the tail - absent in the regular variants of the Avenger.

Thanks for reading and have a nice day

Paweł

It's interesting that the firefighter versions lack the mini-fins on the stabs that the AEW and utility versions for the military had.

I can understand not having to do combat maneuvering...but you would think that with the air turbulence surrounding fire areas, a little extra directional stability might be useful.

I guess not having to do low-speed carrier landings might make the difference.

Won't work, that's 1/72, his is 1/48.  No idea if it was produced in that scale or not.  Might be hard to come by

Yup - swap the canopy from that kit.

Hello!

I looked stuff up and thought maybe the firefighter was converted from this:

Good luck with your project Bob and have a nice day

Paweł

There's a number of fire eater forums about, where you'll get all the answers you need.

Memory fails but a couple of members here, like Randy; might help.

Bill

I may be " talking out of my hat" here but, 

I seem to recall that several tbf/tbms were converted to air ambulances. 

( used during Korean/Vietnam wars? )

The bomb bay was modified to hold 2  wounded, and the gun placement was faired over.

Your fire plane looks like it was converted from one of the air ambulances.

I say all this because, I could swear somebody did a kit of one of these. It would save you a lot of scratchbuilding if you could find on of those kits.

keavdog

Great project.  I really like the fire bombers.  Lonestar did a conversion for a Hemet fire bomber.  Not sure if the tank is the same or not AND if you can order one Lonestar anyhow.  Looking forward to this build

https://www.scalemates.com/kits/lone-star-models-lsm70573-hemet-valley-type-tbm-firebomber--1011825

 

 

That 

gregbale

Don't mean to be a buzzkill...and maybe it was just a typo...but that kit is 1/48, not 1/72. Is it the old Mono kit, or a rebox of something like the Accurate Miniatures release?

 

DooeyPyle67

Looks to me to be the same exact aircraft except they converted the torpedo bay into a fire retardant tank.

Based on the color phot you provided, I think Insignia Red is a close match. 

The changes to the canopy look to follow pretty much the same contour, can sand down the frames behind the pilot and just paint it

  Will have to make the plug to replace the turret and fair it in.

I'd just close up the bombbay doors.

Your B/W pic looks to be a solid red tail rather than the later scheme in the color shot

gregbale

Don't mean to be a buzzkill...and maybe it was just a typo...but that kit is 1/48, not 1/72. Is it the old Mono kit, or a rebox of something like the Accurate Miniatures release?

 

That is the latest rebox of the old Monogram 60's vintage TBF-1

Don't mean to be a buzzkill...and maybe it was just a typo...but that kit is 1/48, not 1/72. Is it the old Mono kit, or a rebox of something like the Accurate Miniatures release?

Great project.  I really like the fire bombers.  Lonestar did a conversion for a Hemet fire bomber.  Not sure if the tank is the same or not AND if you can order one Lonestar anyhow.  Looking forward to this build

https://www.scalemates.com/kits/lone-star-models-lsm70573-hemet-valley-type-tbm-firebomber--1011825