AIRCRAFT - Civil Aviation Group Build, 8/21/2004 to 12/21/2004

I didn't know this either. Could this possibly be an old RoG kit?

Yeah, hahaha, it sure would! I was thinking one had slipped past me somehow!

In the past, I modified one of the Hobbycraft V-35's into a B-55, using spare parts and a LOT of putty, for an old Army T-42 pilot friend. Promised myself I'd never do that again, but it sure would be nice to see a Baron kit!

Hey, look what I found (and tried my best to get) on E-Bay! I didn't know Revell produced a GA series?


Take care,
Frank

QUOTE: Originally posted by roadkill_275 Also I can probably get some detail shots of a Beechcraft Baron V tail.

A Baron V-Tail? [:0] Say it ain't so!!

Frank

Just an FYI. If anyone has any requests for detail shots of Cessna 150/152, 172 and 182 let me know and I will try to oblige. Also I can probably get some detail shots of a Beechcraft Bonanza V tail. I can't promise all aircraft, but I will try to help where I can.

Sorry oldhooker, was watching a Baron in the pattern when I typed that!! That would definately be a sight to see!!

cheers for that, adding it now.
Greg

Go ahead and use it. It makes people more aware that there IS a Civil Build fixing to start. Free advertising if you will.

thanks for the badge dwight, out of curiosity, can we use it now or when we have built our kits?. i am asking this because some of the builds stipulate that to have the badge you have to have earned it by completing you kit.
Greg

Cool!

Thanks a million, Dwight!

Take care,
Frank

Sorry, the correct link is:


http://www.info.com.ph/~tdwight/CaBadge.jpg

Okay, courtesy of Dwight (Thanks once again, Dwight) we now have a group badge. Wear it with pride!




http://www.info.com.ph/~tdwight/CaBadge.jpg

Welcome aboard Aaronw. Do as many as you want, the more the merrier!

Ok, well since the DC-6 is ok, and I was lucky enough to find one today (I understand it is out of production at the moment), you can put me down for a 1/72 Heller DC-6B done up as a TBM Aviation Air Tanker, since I have several builds going I should be able to keep my fingers out of the box until the start date. Depending on how things go I might add in a helicopter or two before the build is done, I'm planning to build a CDF Bell 205, Erickson Skycrane and a Columbia CH46 or CH47 so I might squeeze one or two in, the Skymaster is still floating around as an option too but at this point I'll just commit to the DC-6.

Aaronw, welcome aboard. I'll try to answer your questions the best I can.

Q1: Nothing wrong with another O-2.

Q2: A warbird is one that had a military purpose to begin with, ie, fighters, bombers, refuelers, etc. In my book a military plane can be civilian ONLY if it was a civilian first, ie, the L-birds, MOST cargo planes, (C-47, C-54) if their primary focus is cargo hauling, There were a lot of civilian warbirds. They would count for this if they are done as a civilian, not the military version.

Q3: Yes helicopters are acceptable, except for the dedicated gunships like the AH-1 and AH-64. There are a lot of UH-1s' and Sikorsky S-76 (UH-60) out there. Look at the oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico for good examples of these.

Q4: The only way these would be disqualified would be if they were done as airliners; to give this a broader appeal I didn't rule out the freighters.

Q5: Yes, the Ford Tri-Motor is acceptable in this application.

Q6: As far as I'm aware of, there have been NO kits of the AG AC. Which is a shame as I'm a fan of the Grumman AG-Cat and the Piper Pawnee.

No problem whatsoever with you doing firefighting AC in this build. If you want you could do a CDF Huey or LAPD Huey. Let me know what you decide.

Couple of questions for a subject, I'm interested but most of my choices are on the fringe I think (I might do a CDF O-2 but I see that is already being done, not that we can't have 2 but I'd like to do something original )

To qualify a warbird would have to be something that was used from the factory in a civilian and military use, not a conversion after military use, correct? So that is why the DC3 / C47 is acceptable while the P-51 mustang is not.

Are Helicopters permitted or is this strictly a fixed wing thing.

On the no airliners would this cut out the DC4-7 series even if not done under an airlines colors?

Would the Ford Tri-motor done as a smoke jumpers transport work?

Does anyone know where I might find an AG plane like a Thrush or Air Tractor and would these be acceptable?

Not trying to bend the rules since I understand that you are trying to focus on less popular subjects but for me most civilian aircraft would fall into that catagory so I'm trying to find something I'd like to build that meets your requirements. I'm on a Firefighting aircraft kick right now and trying to pervert as many group builds to my purposes as I can since I am typically more productive under the time frame of a group build.

I agree with you on the Mooney, I actually built one of those as a kid, my Grandfather used to fly he had several Cessna high wings which I don't remember (I was a baby) but I do remember flying in his Mooney and V tail Bonanza (the last plane he owned before he quit flying).

Wish they would rerelease the Mooney. It's one of my favorites.

gregers, 10-4 on the Mustang! One of my "in-progress" builds is a Testors Bearcat, that I'm modifying into the unlimited racer; "Rare Bear".
The kit's together and all the hard painting complete, just waiting now to be motivated into scratching some decals for it.

roadkill, thanks for the link on the resin kits! Haven't seen any of them before, but they sure do look like they'd be fun.

I came across another GA kit on EBay that is rare, and old Bandia Mooney Mark 20/21E in 1/48 scale!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=1189&item=5907711705&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

The Mooney was the fourth in the originally released GA series, which included the 1/48 Cessna 150, Beech V-35, and Super Cub, but the later three were the only ones that evolved to Hasegawa/Minicraft.

Hope all are well, talk to you later,
Frank

Take a look on this site, They are listing several Cessna twins in resin and in 1/72

www.jbarhobbies.com

The prices are a little steep for me and I've never done resin before, but it caught my eye!

thought that would be the case on the unlimited racers, still gonna do something crazy with the stang though. not sure exactly what tho.
thats one sweet looking C172 Frank, brings back memories of spannering on them. thanks for sharing.
Greg

Greetings,

Thought I'd post an "in-progress" collage of the 1/48 Modelcraft C-172 I'm working on. I finally gave up on trying to modify the kit supplied wheel pants, and just carved new ones from balsa wood. Nine Zero Hotel was without wheel pants most of her adult life, but she had them initially (until Benny Messick done that unsheduled rough-field landing near Axton, Va in 1976!).


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Here's one of the real plane...


Should be finishing this thing up in the next week or so, as I must finish a 1/570 "Titanic" for my Daughter's Birthday at the end of this month.... then it will be on to the Staggerwing & J-3!

I agree, roadkill; Warbirds painted in civilian colars are still Warbirds. There's more warbird group builds than one can shake a stick at, lets keep this one "General Aviation". Anyway, most Warbird pilots first experienced that Inability to Breath (solo) in a GA aircraft!

Take care,
Frank

Technically speaking, most of the air racers are warbirds. The only ones that aren't are the flying death traps, I mean homebuilts that fly the Formula heats.

Hi Roadkill, there was a Saab Safir in 1/72nd, it was by Heller and was the later version. its getting a bit hard to find now though. the wing fuse joint needs some filler and the fit of the canopy is a little suspect but these are not insurmountable. it does look very nice when built too, especially in the all yellow scheme.
just out of curiosity, does no warbirds mean no air racers?. i got a spare P51 that i want to do something a bit mental with and my razor saw is looking like it needs using .
Greg

Yes, A group Build Badge. Dwight said he would do one when he got caught up on a few projects.

QUOTE: Roadkill wrote: If I can talk Dwight into it would anyone else want a badge for this?

Are you referring to a Group-Build badge?
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On a side note; here's another kit I'd love to get my hands on... the "Rice-Rocket"!! I had one many moons ago that was unopened, but it got lost during one of my Army moves. (bet that's never happened before!)



Take care,
Frank

I would kill for that Aurora C310, but I'm not willing to mortgage the house for it. Thanks for the ebay links.

FYI: hobby linc (?) is listing several GA and Golden Age aircraft on their site. This includes a Lockheed Model 10 with markings for Amelia Aerharts (I know I spelled that wrong) plane. Just thought I would pass this along. If I can talk Dwight into it would anyone else want a badge for this?

oldhooker, that diorama sounds good. I've spent the better part of the day trying to decide how I'm going to display my PA-28 and the P-47 for the Monogram GB. Gave serious thought to doing a pre-flight on the Cherokee, but that would mean doing figures and my figures turn out looking really crappy. I'll figure something out though.

QUOTE: aerialresponder wrote: would love to have that commander in 1/48! beautiful.

Hi Kyle,

Yes, a 1/48 example of that plane would be great... maybe someday some company will mold Bob Hoover's "Shrike" in 1/48... (yeah, whatever)

QUOTE: roadkill_275 wrote: That is just awesome. Didn't even know this one existed. There are more out there than I thought. Found out yesterday that Minicraft makes a 1/48 Cessna 172 with floats. I'm gonna need that to go with my 180 on floats!

Besides the Aero Commander, Aurora made several very cool GA models back in the day, including an old
Cessna 310 "Skynight", http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=1189&item=5906524303&rd=1,
Jet Commander, http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=1189&item=5906248637&rd=1,
Piper Apache, http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=1189&item=5906151170&rd=1,
and a Piper Cherokee 180, http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=1189&item=5905899889&rd=1, although the picture of the kit itself look like a "140"..................... all of which are currently listed on E-Bay

I just looked up the Minicraft 172 on Google, and it appears to be the same mold as the Modelcraft kit. The kit has the long Dorsal Fin, which indicates it's a post 1970 version.... however, the wheel pants, aft cabin and side window frames are from a pre-70's version. I'm building mine as a 1976 172M, so if you are too, and the mold's are the same, the Minicraft kit is going to require quite a bit of alteration to make it accurate. I'm going to include a diagram of the modifications when I post my finished product to the GB, but in brief;

(1) Center fuselage wing mounting surface must be lowered (bottom of the wing is too far above the tops of the door windows), which basically removes the solid roof over the back seat, which must be scratched/sanded/filled back in.
(1a) Dropping the wings means the kit supplied windshield is no longer going to fit, so a new winshield must be vacuformed using the kit supplied one as the mold, then the appropriate amount trimmed from the bottom edge.

(2) Back and side window frames must be altered, which requires the use of scratch built window transparencies.
(2a) If the door windows are going to be positioned open, you can use those supplied in the kit.

(3) The wheel pants.... (it is better to not even speak of them) Grrrrrrr The plane I'm modeling it after, however, had the wheel pants removed not too long after it was purchased, so unless I'm re-inspired, the model will be "pant-less" also.



I'm going to display it diorama style, about 1 scale ft. above blurred runway numbers, with blurred prop, as if it is in a "Flare", just about to touch down. Written on the bottom center of the display case will be the words; "On the Numbers"

Take care,
Frank

That is just awesome. Didn't even know this one existed. There are more out there than I thought. Found out yesterday that Minicraft makes a 1/48 Cessna 172 with floats. I'm gonna need that to go with my 180 on floats!

would love to have that commander in 1/48! beautiful. amazing how big a plane and it only seats 6 including crew!

Roadkill,

Yes, good lead time for me! I'm currently working on the Skyhawk, probably have it finished before the August 24th start date, I had it started through step #2, but got serious with it after reading the thread over in the Aircraft Board about the Group Build.

On a related note; I was able to get my grimy little fingers on a real gem through E-Bay today; a 1964 Aurora 1/72 "Aero Commander" ... in a sealed box, no less!


"Niner Zero Hotel, double yellow lines and holding"
Frank