Night Flight

Pathfinder,

Happy to hear you like what we made so far! Thanks!

You are right, the modeling hobby does not generate enough volume of sale to get the costs for injection molds back, including pre- and post preparation. But what works the inverted way (i.e. "negative" molds) of course also works the other way, meaning a Milling machine can also generate a "positive" master. The CAD/Milling Machine and sometimes Stereolithographie combination does have a lot of advantages but will mostly need normal modeling techniques as well. Casted with silicon molds, a broad range of special resins (from rubber-like to clear UV resistant, from soft to very hard) and low de-molding time (between 20 and 120 minutes), and a special casting machine makes it, at least for us, affordable.

And there is one advantage silicon molds have that you just can't beat (compared to metal molds): There are no limitations in detail. We made tests with the manufacturer of the molding machine and you could even see fingerprints left on the master. If metal molds get too detailed and maybe large also, the costs just rocket sky-high.

But the best machines won't help if you don't have something you can produce as a model or don't have enough information. And of course, it can never replace experience. So there is a lot of testing, testing, testing and failure...

The figures look good. It's too bad that the hobby doesn't generate the volume of sales to justify the cost of a 1 to 1 full body scan and then let the computer scale the program and DNC the program to the Micro-Mill to generate the mold. Throw the semi-finished mold into the "Tub" for a ECM (electro-chemical machining) to clean up the tool marks, and away you go!
Still can't wait to get my hands on a "few".

One of the things we have been testing is in how far we can use one Data source for both, 1/48 and 1/35(32) scale.

Here are some pics of the tests we made (Scale is 1/48):

1. CAD Rendering of the figure:


2. Images of the test on our machine



These are the only tests pics we will publish until we have finished testing, designing and have produced the first final figures.

I'm sittin' here staring at 5 Helos needing decent pilots and crew, all 1/35. 2 Cobras, MH-60, UH-60 and an Apache. Fortunately I've got plenty of armor to tide me over till the pilots "get trained". LOL! I can't believe that I missed the posts on Night Flight back in June. I normally read everything related to Armor, Dioramas, and Helos.

Chief_Owl

I'm eagerly waiting for the 1/72 and 1/48 crew figures. I've got a couple projects waiting for them. Hope they come out soon.

Pathfinder,

The '53s may be a while off yet, but there will be other projects released before then. From what I've seen so far, it will be well worth the wait.

We're waiting for something that's a little farther out than we thought project wise. I searched back to around page 6 of the Helicopter Pages and found a string on the Night Flight Topic. Looks like we're just going to have to be patient.

So when is the 1/35 and 1/48 helo figures going to be available?
Paul

Pathfinder,

what exactly is your problem with the website? Maybe you could contact me via e-mail.

There are two reasons why there are no images:

1. We are conserned about protecting our work. Detailed images of our work is not easy to protect.

2. CAD Renderings would be all we would publish up to this point, but we won't because it is not what costumers want to see. They would like to see things in "flesh". CAD Renderings are even strange to some people. They where intended to show our progress on the models, but moste people don't understand that we use the same CAD Data to produce our products.

What's up with the Night-Flight web site? I only get about 1/2 a page on screen and the pics of his upcoming projects are gone.

Night Flight is a new company that's currently working on a few pretty cool projects. Chief Owl is the head of NFM and is a fairly regular poster in the forum. Expect TOP NOTCH stuff from NFM. Some REALLY kick-ass stuff coming from them!