Firebirds! Forest Fire Fighting Aircraft GB.

Count me in on this build.

Scott

Thanks for the link Aaron! Had a quick peak and its great! Will definately be visiting there frequently. Aaron, how do you plan on doing the bare metal finish? I was planning on using foil. How are the new metal paints, such as Alclad and the like? Still in the planning,part collecting, and research stages.

Cheers

I am not very good with natural metal finishes but there are a couple of options available all with their supporters.

Alclad 2 seems to be accepted as the "best" finish, air brush only but it offers several shades to provide some contrast.

Testor's Model Master Metalizers are another air brush only paint option that seems to work pretty well.

SNJ has a variety of paints and metal buffing powders, again I've seen some good finishes with this. There was a post awhile back in the aircraft section using the powder alone which seemed to get pretty good results. I've used the SNJ aluminum powder over regular aluminum brushed on paint and it really picked up the appearance of the paint job.

Swanny's Complete Future article mentions using SNJ powder mixed with Future as an airbrushable metal finish.

Foil, BMF or thin foil. Seems to work well but having used foil on small parts I can imagine doing an entire airplane with BMF sounds like quite a job. Someone did a great job using a thin kitchen type aluminum foil last year with a brush on adhesive. I think it was Old Hooker that did it and it looked as good as anything I've seen done.   

So do we have a start date or if this is going to be a rolling build does it start just whenever people start building?

Also probably not a bad idea to drop a post into the aircraft and helicopter sections to lure some over that haven't seen this post. I only popped in to this section yesterday because I saw this post at the top so it showed on the main page.

Thanks for the info Aaron. I have used foil before on 1/72 and 1/48 and to me, what can look more real than the real thing, aluminum or aluminium depending where you are. There was an article in an FSM back in the 80's, my brother has the very first issue btw, of making your own foil adhesive. I tried it and it works very well. I did a testors 1/48 PT-20 shiny side out and it was a beautiful restored warbird polished look. I also did a testors 1/72 F-86 dull side out and it looked the part of the military finish. So i might stick to what I know and use some mettalizers aft and around the engine areas maybe.

As far as start date, nobody has mentioned one. I assume its just when evryone starts building.

Shouldda is there a start date, and could you please put a post in Aircraft as Aaron mentioned so we can get more members?

Cheers

Simpilot, how do you make that foil adhesive?

cdclukey wrote:

Simpilot, how do you make that foil adhesive?

3M spray adhesive, and paint thinner. The spray adhesive had a blue label, and I had a can of testors airbrush thinner at the time, so I used that. The foil I used was a generic brand, the cheaper the better because its usually thinner. Tear off a sheet and place it on a flat surface. Pour a puddle of thinner into it. Spray the adhesive into the puddle. Mix it up with a piece of balsa sheet or scrap plastic as a spatula. Spread it out as thin as you can with even coverage. Let thinner evaporate, prolly around an hour or two. Then cut out, burnish with 1/8x1/4 balsa stick or Q-tip, trim and remove excess. It remains tacky for a few days afterwards so no rush to get it done in one evening. If it sets up, just make another batch. Experiment till your satisfied with the results.

Cheers

Awesome, thanks for the tip. I've got a can of that spray adhesive (not 3M, but probably close enough) and I'll experiment with it.

Hi guys,

I like your enthusiasm and it should be rewarded in kind. 

 I will also commit to another.  It may be a DeHav Beaver on floats, Canso ( PBY) in Flying Fireman colours or something else I used to work with, I will decide over the weekend.

 As a note, I've spent the last couple of years teaching my kids how to build and paint.  We even have a Friday night modeling club where the kids from all over come and build.  You should see the glue and paint we use!

 This club put together a show of kits they've built and poster boards explaining the significance of the specific plane, ship or car.  This was displayed in the trophy case at the local school.  Everyone, young and older, went "WOW, that's awesome".  And you know what, it is! 

Thanks again for joining this build.

 Shouldda

Thats great Shouldda! Glad you are teaching the new generation about this great hobby!<3 cheers

Cheers

I'm wondering why Randie Coulter has not been a part of this. "Chopper Fan".

Is he ok? Do you know?

Bondoman, I don't know, it looks like his most recent post was Feb and I didn't see anything about leaving for awhile.

I'm going through and trying to finish up a bunch of my incomplete builds, some go back several years. Since this build is starting up again I thought I'd post the firefighting related ones as I finish them.

Anyway, I just finished this up, it is a Sikorsky S58 operated by Aircrane Inc in Atlanta, GA. They are primarily an airlifting outfit but do contract for firefighting services. I found some pics of this one from the 70's at airliners.com. I doubt they still have any of these piston engined helicopters in service but they do operate a fleet of the turbine S58T's in a slightly different paint job.

I used the 1/72 Italeri UH-34J kit basically OOB with decals I made on the computer.

The S-58 looks great Aaron! I saw that kit and thought about buying it. How was the kit? Italeri is usually good quality. Excellent decals as well. i have the decal paper for our printer but haven't tried my hand at custom decals yet. I might have to when I build my Tanker 68. NICE WORK!

Cheers, Richie

I like this kit, really no problems to speak of although the canopy is a bit fussy. Decent interior detail for 1/72 but I think Cobra Company makes a resin interior for those who want more.

Also a mistake in the instructions related to the landing gear. In the instructions they show the earlier style landing gear, not the landing gear in the kit (and the older style landing gear parts are not included). Not really a problem since they are fairly simple, but it leaves you scratching your head when you look at the parts you have and the drawings in the instructions until you figure out what happened. 

Looks like I'll be in on this one after all. I messed up the paint job on my CV-118 so badly that I'm going to strip it and start over, so I figured I'll try to do a firebird. If already started kits are OK, please list my Minicraft 1/144 DC-6B in the build, and if started kits aren't accepted, I'll still share the pics.

cdclukey wrote:

Looks like I'll be in on this one after all. I messed up the paint job on my CV-118 so badly that I'm going to strip it and start over, so I figured I'll try to do a firebird. If already started kits are OK, please list my Minicraft 1/144 DC-6B in the build, and if started kits aren't accepted, I'll still share the pics.

Thats fine CD. AaronW is in the same boat as far as already started kits. 1/144 Tanker? Can't wait to see pics of her!

Cheers, Richie

Thanks, Richie. Actually, this bird won't be a tanker, she'll be for dropping smoke jumpers. She'll be as bright and beautiful as a tanker, though...I have a white, black and orange scheme desgned for it.

S'ok cluke, still can't wait to see pics of her. I picked up a book at a used book store here in Australia. It's called "Fire Bombers in Action". It has pics of tankers of course, helos and jumper planes. If I could find a Shorts 360, would surely do it up as a jump plane. Have a Skyvan in my stash, but have already had the mindset to do it up in Austrian Air Force colors. That might change.

Cheers, Richie

Yeah, when I looked around for pics to check my smoke jumper scheme against reality, I found a lot of pics of Shorts birds being used for that purpose, but few pics overall.

Here's a question you might be able to answer, since you have that book at hand: Do smoke jumper planes ever carry the prominent tanker-style numbers on the tail that tankers do?

Unfortunately most smokejumper aircraft are contracted private aircraft and fairly unremarkable in appearance, however there are a few exceptions.

The USFS has a turbine DC-3 painted in the USFS red/white scheme, I've also seen a Twin Otter painted this way. Helicopters contracted to the Federal agencies also suffer this same blandness, but you do find some companies will paint their aircraft much more colorfully with agency logos etc.

As a what-if its up to you, the DC-6 would be a whopping huge smokejumper plane capable of dropping a couple of full crews. If such a thing were ever to exist it would probably be in Alaska where large crews of smoke jumpers are still a primary means of fighting fires. In the lower 48 it is more common to see 2-6 jumpers dropped on most fires.

Here is the more interesting USFS paint sceme used on a few aircraft

http://www.wildlandfire.com/pics/air7/dc3.jpg

http://www.wildlandfire.com/pics/air17/fsship2.jpg

Here are a couple of websites that might help you out. The US Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management are the only agencies in the US that have smokejumpers.

http://www.smokejumpers.com/

http://www.fs.fed.us/fire/people/smokejumpers/

http://www.fs.fed.us/fire/people/smokejumpers/aircraft.html

http://www.alaskasmokejumpers.com/

cdclukey wrote:

Yeah, when I looked around for pics to check my smoke jumper scheme against reality, I found a lot of pics of Shorts birds being used for that purpose, but few pics overall.   Here's a question you might be able to answer, since you have that book at hand: Do smoke jumper planes ever carry the prominent tanker-style numbers on the tail that tankers do?

No cluke the Shorts in my book doesn't have any numbers whatsoever other than the N#. Which is N175Z btw, if that helps. Also youcan try searching planes by Registration on airliners.net and see if it comes up. Otherwise I'll try and scan the pic from my book and post it. Aero Union also uses a Cherokee Six as a personnel transport that is in there tanker colors and has a big 2 on the vertical. N4096W is the rego.

Thanks Aaron for those sites! will have a looksie later.

Cheers, Richie

Aaronw wrote:

Bondoman, I don't know, it looks like his most recent post was Feb and I didn't see anything about leaving for awhile.   I'm going through and trying to finish up a bunch of my incomplete builds, some go back several years. Since this build is starting up again I thought I'd post the firefighting related ones as I finish them.   Anyway, I just finished this up, it is a Sikorsky S58 operated by Aircrane Inc in Atlanta, GA. They are primarily an airlifting outfit but do contract for firefighting services. I found some pics of this one from the 70's at airliners.com. I doubt they still have any of these piston engined helicopters in service but they do operate a fleet of the turbine S58T's in a slightly different paint job.           I used the 1/72 Italeri UH-34J kit basically OOB with decals I made on the computer.

OK, Aaron. Count me in. Now that I've got things squared away, I can take care of two GB's at once. I'll be in for a 1/72 Heller CL-215, a 1/72 Academy OV-10 Bronco in C.D.F. livery (these two were sent to me by Bondoman as a part of the 'Secret Santa 2; Rudolf's Revenge GB') and I will be attempting to convert a 1/72 Heller DC-6B to a C-54/DC-4 (thanks to Bondoman, again) in Aero Union livery.

I will also have a couple of others on the bench so I won't have idle hands. One, has not been officially released for sale so, I will be doing a review as I build it. Anyway, I'm gonna have to get busy. I've got a lot of irons in the fire but, I'm at home all day anyway. 

simpilot34 wrote:

S'ok cluke, still can't wait to see pics of her. I picked up a book at a used book store here in Australia. It's called "Fire Bombers in Action". It has pics of tankers of course, helos and jumper planes. If I could find a Shorts 360, would surely do it up as a jump plane. Have a Skyvan in my stash, but have already had the mindset to do it up in Austrian Air Force colors. That might change. Cheers, Richie

Not to bust your bubble, Richie. But, the U.S.F.S. and B.L.M. didn't use the Skyvan. They used the C-23A Sherpa. If you have the Airfix kit you will have to do some modifications to build the Sherpa. If you have the 1/72 Aeroclub Sherpa kit? I'm jealous!! The tail markings for the Sherpa are nothing more than a small, very small, 'U.S.F.S.'. Now the B.L.M. Sherpa's have a larger 'BLM' in white on them. As can be seen in this picture.

back Randie! We were getting worried there for a bit. Nope don't have the Sherpa kit so don't be jealous. lol I have the Airfix Skyvan kit. Since they didn't use them, I prolly will go ahead with the original plan of doing it up in Austrian Air Force colors. You do have alot of irons in the fire, better get those builds finished to put the fire out!lol sorry had to say it.

, Richie

I've been after that Sherpa kit too, thought I had one a couple years ago but after several months of waiting the company I ordred it from cancelled my order since they had not been able to get one.

I hate when places list an item they don't stock.

I woulda been asking for some kind of compensation for that! Thats not right! False advertising if you ask me.

Here is the Sherpa thats in my book. This photo is from airliners.net. The photos in my book show it flying and has views of the upper surfaces.

, Richie

The red one is used by USFS smokejumpers, I got some photos of it at Willows, CA in 2005.

Not particularly relevent to the GB but kind of an interesting trivia bit. The USFS smokejumpers use round canopies with a static line deployment, while BLM smokejumpers freefall and use a rectangular canopy. 

simpilot34 wrote:

I woulda been asking for some kind of compensation for that! Thats not right! False advertising if you ask me. Here is the Sherpa thats in my book. This photo is from airliners.net. The photos in my book show it flying and has views of the upper surfaces. , Richie

Yep! That's a pretty good book. There are a few pictures of some planes that I have been around when they were still flying.  

chopperfan wrote:

Yep! That's a pretty good book. There are a few pictures of some planes that I have been around when they were still flying.

Unfotunately that list is getting pretty short even for me, and I think you've been at it longer.

Aaronw wrote:

chopperfan wrote: Yep! That's a pretty good book. There are a few pictures of some planes that I have been around when they were still flying.     Unfotunately that list is getting pretty short even for me, and I think you've been at it longer.

TBM's, F7F's, B-17's, C-54's, C-119's, C-123 and even an F-15A Reporter. I wish I could go back in time with my digicam and take some pictures. Most all of the pictures I had were destroyed by water damage or stolen during a burglary years ago. 

Better get off of here and get to building!!