Nice work so far on the neptune Andy

It must be quite frustrating that your cat didn't give up the missing engine cowl

I've made a little more progress on my C-119 , there's been three sessions of puttying and sanding a lot of the joins and I think most of the hard work is behind me now ;

The upper wing fits nicely in place over the fuselage

Is there a slight dihedral to the wings or a they horizontal to the ground ?

Dry fitting them , they appear to want to angle up just a little but I'm not sure .

I'm going to have to better on the second C-119 build especially the fuselage join , I have spent way too long sanding on the first build , so I'm thinking of adding some little tabs along the bottom and top on the inside of the fuselage seam .

More progress pic's tomorrow .

caribou johnny .

Heres a three view of the C-119. Hopefully it will answer your questions.

Thank you kindly Stik , that's just what I needed .

I came across this pic a while back in the USAF in Korea book of a C-119 being loaded ;

So I started looking around ebay for 1/72 scale forklifts to add the aircraft dio . There's not a lot in 1/72 but plenty in 1/87 (HO scale) and I picked up these two forklifts ;

The one at the front is a GHQ models white metal forklift which require's assembly ,

It's a nice little forklift , I'm hoping it won't look to small against my 1/72 scale cargo aircraft .

The other Forklift is supposed to be close to 1/72 scale ;

I glued some plastic strips together to make a pallet with some '44 gal drums sitting in place with a Hasegawa loading crew figure .

I guess forklifts can come in different sizes in real life , it will be interesting to see how they look with the finished aircraft .

I haven't given up on my sabre, yet.  I've had to sand and repaint the stripes twice because I was having trouble getting the lines right.  I think I've got it now, I'm just waiting for some decent painting weather to retouch some of the alcad around the stripes.

Good on ya for sticking with the Sabre , Ghostrider . I know it's not fun when you have to mask and repaint things several times .

I just glued the wings to the fuselage ;

I did my best to eyeball the fuselage and tailbooms to make sure things looked right , I needed a full jar of hobby paint to act as a little counter weight to keep the fuselage sitting correctly . I just hope I got everything lined up correctly .

caribou johnny .

John and Draken: Nice looking builds guys! Love those forklifts John and yeah I'd think since they do come in different sizes the 1/87 shouldn't be off that much.

Gene & SP: Great stories guys, I have to admire anyone with the guts to jump out of an airplane. Only plane I ever jumped out of was sitting on the tarmac

Helo, I am sure with the forklift that it is a case of "close enough will do" I don't know when they changed though, but the pallets used by the Air Forcer for air cargo are usually of a solid aluminum construction, not slatted like the ones used in most of the civilian world. I presume this is to work with the roller systems on the floor of the cargo aircraft.

And here is another classic Korean War era color photo that I just stumbled upon and thought I would share here.

As you can see from the photo, the pallets are placed on 4"x4"s prior to being loaded, so that the forklift prongs are able to get under the pallet.

I found this link to a page on C-119s with some great pics and first person stories. There is a great tale on there about a load master mistaking some highway flares from a disabled vehicle for drop zone flares on a night time heavy drop....

http://www.ruudleeuw.com/c119-info.htm

stikpusher

Helo, I am sure with the forklift that it is a case of "close enough will do" I don't know when they changed though, but the pallets used by the Air Forcer for air cargo are usually of a solid aluminum construction, not slatted like the ones used in most of the civilian world. I presume this is to work with the roller systems on the floor of the cargo aircraft.

I'm pretty sure they didn't have RO/RO floors in the cargo holds on planes in the 50s, but I can't find any decent pictures of palette cargo being loaded on a C-119, so I can't tell what kind of palettes were used.

Here ya go... somoe sort of roller system for heavy drops

and I just found this shot of riggers prepping pallets for a heavy drop in the '50s

you may find some pics here- the riggers web page

http://www.qmfound.com/aerial_delivery.htm

and the Korean War era photos

http://www.qmfound.com/airphoto_korea.htm

Stik , great reference pic's with the C-119 and the type of pallets used , also that link you posted for the history of the C-119 is awesome 

I'm happy with how the wings fitted to my C-119 build ,

I've dry fitted the canopy in place and it fits really well ,

You can aslo see the error with the way italeri position that table behind the pilots and how it sits above the window sill . It's not all that noticeable but I fixed the error on my second C-119 build .

On another note , I'm in two minds as what to do with my C-54 build . I have those really nice MATS decals for a Korean War Skymaster but when I built the kit initially I chickened out on cutting open the cargo door on the rear fuselage . I did do it on a recent second C-54 build as a Thunderbirds Support Aircraft and it worked out okay . So now I'm thinking either do I cut the cargo door open on the first build and try and slide in segmented pieces of flooring as it would be impossible to get a single piece in or do I just swap builds around and leave the cargo door closed for the Thunderbirds support C-54 aircraft ?

It's awefully tempting to cut open the cargo door but there will be lots of dust to clean out from the inside .......Mmmm

SP: I didn't even know about the aluminum pallets - interesting you learn something new every day.

John: Nice looking job on the C-119.

BTW: DB Cooper says open the cargo door....

THE NEPTUNE IS DONE!!! 

Here's some pre-decal photos and the finished product.  Hey Stik, don't put these pics up, I'll have better ones from the class room next week.

And now on to the finished product.  I had to combine decals from various sources and still had to come up with something that's not really close to what I wanted.  I really needed some more white number threes.  It should have some large #3's on the wing tanks.  The nose art is actually from the Williams Bros. C-46, but I thought the kit looked really boring and needed some color.  In retrospect, I should've gone with a dark green for her swim suit and done it as a bikini.  Either way, it needed a swim suit, I mean, this IS going into an elementary school room!  I also touched up her lipstick and hair.  Looks better as a ginger, even without having a soul...  I also didn't know if they used the walkway stripes or not, but thought it looked better with just that much ore colour.  I did tint the upper panels of the cockpit.  This is a really easy thing to do:  Use Testors' metallic green (or whatever you want) and DO NOT MIX IT!  Just use the colored carrier agent and paint it on the clear plastic.  It takes four or more layers, but looks AWESOME!

Nicely done Andy

And extra points for puting a suitable bathing suit on the young lady as well .

looking forward to the finish pic's and the nose guns look okay too .

Great stuff buddy .

John .

I you liked the Neptune, you'll like this one, too!  I decided to do a QUICK BUIILD!  In less than 24 hours I started and completed my Airfix PBY-5 Catalina as a USAF OA-5.  I decided that the Catalina would be really easy since you can to it in two sections; the fuselage and the wing, then mate and finish.  So, while I was waiting for the decals to set on the Neptune, I pulled this baby off!  Another issue which helped me finish in such a short time is lack of interior detail.  First off, I buttoned up the 'hip' guns, negating the painting and installation of the figures and guns.  Second, I was missing a seat and both control columns for the cockpit.  Yep, those got left out, too.  BTW, there's nearly a pound of lead in the nose of this thing.  SERIOUSLY tail heavy!  I did at least add the ladder as a secondary support.  The gun turret up front does rotate and the gun does elevate.  The decals are cobbled together from spares left over after the Connie and some spare decals from an old HU-16 kit and extras from my new sheet for my future HU-16 kit.

Once I get it into the classroom I'll have better pics of it.  So don't bother to post any of these, Stik.  Just look at them and wonder where I get all the methampheta...  ENERGY! to do all of this.  Just kidding, no drugs were used by me during any of this group build. 

OMG , Andy !!!

That's incredible , I'm just blown away with you efforts on the Catalina .

These next progress of mine are quite embarrassing compared to what you have just posted ;

I cut open the side cargo door on the first C-54 build ,

I'm only able to get a small floor section in ,

It should work okay but I have decided to swap C-54 builds around and use the second build with the full length cabin floor for the Korean War and the short floor C-54 for the Thunderbirds .

I also blew the cob-webs and dust of the C-46 Commando and started trimming the Squadron vacform canopy to size

The canopy is really flexible and a little difficult to file with a sanding stick , hopefully it will work out okay .

Sorry for the lame progress pic's , especially after Andy's awesome Catalina build . I better pull my socks up .

John .

So, I'm going for a smaller kit this time around, something colourful.  I pulled the Special Hobby Fairey Firefly out of the stash.  LOTS of cool resin and stuff.  I immediately found one problem, somewhere along the way I wound up with two resin blocks of gun port blanks.  And only three of four rocket launchers and three of four bomb shackles.  Considering it doesn't have any weapons, I decided to scrounge in the spares box and found four rockets and launchers from something else that are gonna work just fine.

I've shot 'sky' on the bottom parts, finished painting and building the cockpit, installed the cockpit and tail wheel bay, installed the main gear wells and oil coolers into the wings.  Decide to test fit and realized that I'd never cut off the pour stubs for the gear bays and cockpit...

I have no idea what to do at this point, everything is glued in with CA.  I'm planning to cut cross hatches in the gear well stubs, then use my rotary tool with sanding drums on those and the section of the cockpit stub that interferes.

DANGIT!    Everything was going so well...

Okay, so I've decided to put the Firefly in the box until maybe as far away as getting home in September.  I'm just more disgusted with myself than anything else.  In the meantime, I'm going to be looking at the pair of B-26's (B and C), the PB4Y-2 (with open bomb bay), or the Sunderland.

And here's the finished pics of the Catalina and the Neptune!  Take your pic which pic you want Stic... 

That about does it!

Draken Andy: Great work on those!

Caribou John: Not sure I'd have to guts to try to open the hatch like that, but she's looking good so far.

Here's the one that I'd finished a while back and was waiting until spring to bring to work.  Unfortunately, I now longer have a ride to work, and must take everything with me on a VERY crowded bus.  Nothing's broken yet!  Thank goodness!  I've been smart on the Connie and Neptune (unnecessary on the Cataline) by not installing gear doors or 'fidly teeny bits' that might get broken off on the ride to work.  So today I spent about twenty minutes installing aerials, pitots, and gear doors before I shot these photos of the Connie.

My personal preference for pics would be either #3 or #4, with #5 as a last resort.  The first and second pics just don't look right to me.  But you can take whichever ones you want, Stik!

I'm just blown away with the amount of work you get done Andy .

The Catalina build is awesome as is the P2V-4 Neptune ;

The MATS C-121 Constellation is the iceing on the cake and I admire your courage for attempting the crowded bus ride with the aircraft in one hand and the bus ticket in the other . Great idea about leaving the gear doors and other small pieces off for the trip , if something was to break off I suppose there wouldn't be much chance off finding it .

Three great builds Andy , well done Sir ...

I dont know where you find the time to do all those builds Draken. I really like the Connie of the three latest  projects. All have been added to the front page. What info do you have on Catalina's in Korea? I am suprised that those were not replaced by the Albatross by then.

I'd read about them being used in theater on more than one website.  But the icing on the cake was when someone posted a slew (or a link?) of KW black and white pictures.  I remember mentioning that one of them showed a USAF Catalina in the background. 

Here's a couple of quick google search links that I found...

http://www.korean-war.com/KWAircraft/US/USAF/consolidated_oa10.html

http://www.korean-war.com/KWAircraft/index.html

And I guess that I've been marking it wrong!  It's the OA-10 Catalina.  Gee, I bet that doesn't get half confusing when talking about Warthogs...

I'l  be taking new pictures of the B-29 Superfortress so that you can remove the nasty out of focus cluttered one from the front page.  As you all know, it was completed long ago but the picture's kinda nasty.  I hope to be able to do it justice later today when the sun's at the right angle.

Great job on the Connie Draken Andy

Heya Stik!H

Here's some new pics of the Academy "Korean War" B-29 bomber kit.  If you want to replace the pic that 's on the front page you're welcome to, if not then no big deal!   I had to bring the kit into the classroom and figured that new photos might be useful.  On the way in I only lost three gun barrels and was able to replace one of them.  I have no clue what happened to the 20mm on the tail barbette.

IMHO, if you choose to replace the pic on the front page, then use either pic three or five.  They seem to be the best of the lot.

OK Draken, I took #4 of these much better pics to replace the original one on the roster and posted it on the finished builds. And let me explain my reasons for my choice: 1) full aircraft in view; and 2) no distractions like the clamp in the view. #2 would have been my top choice if the wing tip was not been cut off and the alligator clamp was concealed. I like the lower angle  3/4 view which better shows the lower side night camo and the excellent view of the lady on the nose

Great job on the B-29 Draken Andy! I loaded the nose of mine with lead to get her to sit on her wheels, so much I'm still a little leery of them breaking under the load.

Now that I finally got the painting finished, I've started putting decals on my sabre, starting with the USAF markings on the bottom of the wings.

Ghostrider: Looking good! Are you building the a/c in sections?