Sea Dart and P6M

Mach 2 of France have a 1/72 Sea Dart.

There's one displayed at the San Diego Aerospace Museum, no?

Sharkskin,
I agree with you about the destruction of unwanted (?) supersceded airframes. Regrettably, there's just so much history and hardware that when it becomes outdated or supersceded, it's more of a liability than an asset.
What about cellular phones? If you've got a phone that's 5 years old, it's a dinosaur!! The only thing to do is upgrade. But will you think ahead about what some collector would think of your phone in prostine condition in 20 or 40 years time? Probably not.
I, as you, lament the loss of some of the most inventive and amazing aircraft ever built - all "supernumary to requirements" - but remember - while it's still on the armed forces books, it's housing, maintenance, spares storage, administrative paperwork costs are all coming oput of the taxpayers pockets - and you know what kind of hell the press would make out of that!! There just ain't enough money to go around to preserve and/or restore every interesting or significant subject out there - more's the pity.

Try www.HistoricAviation.com. They list a model of the Sea Dart in 1/72nd scale. It most likely is the French kit. It lists for $49.95 US. I like the Sea Dart, but not that much!

It never fails to amaze me how many people want the government to do something or provide a service, but very few people are willing to pay for it. They all think the money should come from somewhere or someone else. Eg, Tax corporations, tax the wealthy, tax somebody else, but don't tax me! (rant not aimed at you sharkskin)

I wonder how much of the $50.00 price tag on the French kit is Import Duty (customs tax)? How much more are we paying for imported kits because of customs duties (taxes)? Remember the Boston Tea Party? Should we throw our kits in the Boston Harbor in Protest? And now the States want to tax mail order purchases.
rangerj

Herewith a built up 1/72 Mach 2 F2Y Sea Dart. It's a lot of work, and those aren't the kit decals...



There's also a 1/72 P6M vacuform kit from Airmodel. I've got it, but not the incentive to try to build it, yet...

I'm not suggesting that tax money be spent to restore a bunch of obsolete, as well as common, military equipment under the guise of "history." However, those Seamasters -- all, what?, twelve of them? Or was it eight? -- were known by all involved to be the last of their kind. They were the state of the art taken to its extreme and at least two of them should have been preserved. They possessed, arguably, as much historical value to society as Northrup's Flying Wngs, and to this day we weep and gnash our teeth over their complete destruction. This bureaucratic notion -- as in the case of the flying wings -- that if you destroy all the physical evidence, interest in the idea will vanish as well. As just about any fool knows, and as history continues to exhibit over and over, ideas don't kick the bucket easily.

I agree sharkskin, they should have saved at least one Seamaster. say for the Navy Museum in Pensicolla. It is a unique aircraft. For that matter I do not think any of the Tradewinds were saved either. Do we know of any surviving Tradewind? Other than the old Revell "box scale" Tradewind, is there a good model of the Tradewind?

Note: The Russians thought the idea of a jet powered sea plane was a good one. they produced one.

There are a few Martin Mars' still in service doing firefighting work, the last I heard. I hope one gets saved for history sake.

Well, the Mars, as I understand it, was one of those planes that had already been ordered after the Navy realized it had no use for it any longer, so was obligated to purchased the bare minimum number fo machines. I think there are two doing commerical fire fighting now and I hope both become museum pieces following their very distinguished fire bombing careers.
tp,

Actually all 6 Mars are still around, I saw Mars Hawaii in So. California in 2000 and looked into the aircraft, IIRC all 6 were still around, 2 are being used as parts for the 4 flying ones, I think one of the parts planes had crashed which made its use as a parts plane easy to decide. The Mars are owned by a Canadian firefighting company and are used as air tankers as you said. As long as the aircraft are not destroyed in an accident there seems to be a good record of them getting restored, often a trade is made for a newer aircraft and the historic ones go off to become displays, at least in the US, I don't know about Canada but I would expect it is similar, most of the companies that own these older planes recognize their historic value unlike many governments.

A built example of the 1/72 Airmodel P6M (not mine):

http://www.xs4all.nl/~designer/models/seamaster/seamast1.htm

There is an accurate VF model of the seadart available from the old Execuform Company. Kits from this firm are accurate in outline but are devoid of details. However there is always an excellant saet of 1/72nd scale drawings provided with the model that will provide all the assistance you might need to build a quality replica. Be aware that this companies kits are for esperienced VFbuilders or someone who has done some scratch buiding/conversions.

As for the Seamaster the only kit in town is the Airmodel one in 1/72nd. It is a tough build and will require a lot of effort. I built the model about 15 years ago and was very satisfied with the results. The biggest problem is that to properly display the model one would need to build an elaborate beaching cart for which there is only a limited amount of public information.

Regarding the Martin Mars, I am currently building the only kit available on this A/C in th eform of the 1/72nd VF from Combat Models. This is a tough project and it requires a lot of minor repair work and lots of body putty to correct the rough molded parts. The beaching gear is much simpler than the Seamaster, being similar in form to that used on the Sunderland. Incidently there are still 4 of the 6 planes built in existance with two being used in Canada for water bomber and the other 2 providing spares.

Richard