I hope to start soon on my next model, a 1/72 Revell Grumman TBF Avenger torpedo bomber, which I hope to build as a particular TBM converted to a tanker and flown in fire-suppression duties by the U.S. Forest Service.
Here’s the model:
These photos show the actual plane I want to build; I took the black-and-white photo in 1962:
This same TBM was still flying until just a few years ago. It was manufactured by General Motors under license from Grumman, which designed and manufactured the same plane under the designation TBF.
My interest in the TBM goes all the way back July 2, 1962. I was flying in the instructor’s seat of a Forest Service T-34B mentor when I attempted to photograph a TBM as it dropped a load of fire retardant (borate slurry) on a small fire in New Mexico’s black range. Moments after the drop, as the T-34B pilot attempted to fly over a ridge, the plane apparently stalled, flipped upside down, and fell into the forest. Both the pilot and I were seriously injured, but survived with the help of two volunteer smokejumpers who parachuted to the crash site with emergency supplies, which included a chain saw. The next morning, they felled several ponderosa pines to create a helipad, and the pilot and I were transported to hospital by helicopter.
I will never know for sure, but I believe that the TBM shown in the photographs is probably the the same plane that I tried to photograph, but I'll never know if I succeeded (my camera was destroyed in the crash). In previous years, there were two TBMs being used in fire suppression in the Gila Forest; just the year before my crash, in 1961 a TBM crashed in the Gila Forest, killing the young pilot. My dad and I saw both planes as they flew over our house on the way to the fire late that day; when it was nearly dark, just one of the TBMs returned, and we knew that something bad had happened.
I have already built a replica of the T-34B that I crashed in; a model of the TBM seems to be an appropriate follow-up.
I’ve taken a look at the kit, and I’ve obviously cut out a big job for myself, especially considering that I’m barely a beginning model builder. If any of you have some thoughts and suggestions to help this project be a success, please let me know.
Right off the bat I know that finding red paint in the right shade is going to be difficult — I use Tamiya rattle can lacquers for the most part, and none of the Tamiya reds seem even close to what’s needed. I don’t own an airbrush because one would be a time-consuming pain to use in my small apartment.
Bob