Fantasy Fliers Group Build

Okay, cardshark, no offence taken.  Thanks for the suggestions.  I will eventually post a build roster, but I'm kinda busy with school, so it may be a while.  I did however put up the start and end dates on the rules post on the first page of the thread.  Glad to have you aboard! 

Is it just me, or does that look like a mosquito on steroids!?  I like the looks of it, but how can those teeny little wings even carry the weight of those massive engines?  Good luck scratchbuilding it! 

Cheers,

-Red

That's true...but still, the thought of a 1/48th Xb-35 is a little overwhelming.  I don't know if you've seen the advertisements for this one, but I believe Andrea (same people who do the figure kits) came out with a 1/32nd scale (no typo!) Type VIIC U-boat!  The thing is like six feet long or something!  That's what comes to mind when I think of a big plane like that in 1/48th.  Kind of ridiculous, eh? 

BTW, the andrea kit retails for over one grand, if you're interested....

Cheers,

-Red

i don't have very many big planes in my collection, the biggest one I have is 1/24 Stuka.  But just remember this thing is all wing, so its has a huge wingspan but only a 6 inch fuselage, so it can sit on the shelf with the other small planes.

  how do you have any space?! 

-Red

Sweet!  Looks killer!  Really....

I like the cockpit, guardsmen.  That is awful big tub....like a suite, for all I know. 

Pilot:  Target on the nose, you guys ready?

Crew:  Yep! 

Pilot:  Hey, joe, outta the jacuzzi, we need you at the bomb sight!  Simpson, get off the couch and to the weapons station!  Jeeze, guys....

Cheers,

-Red

Love the cockpit, Guardsman!
I'm really looking forward to watching your build

Here are some progress pics of the P-51H.  Allies are on the move, baby!

Guardsman22 -- majorly impressed, the B-35 was a flying ship! That's not a cockpit, it's a bridge! In fact it resembles the Enterprise to an amazing degree, including the elevated commander's seat...

Here's something also amazing:

http://www.redroomodels.com/models.php?model=551

It's a kit of the Commonwealth Aircraft CA-20, a home-grown Aussie fighter that was like a Mustang on steroids. There's a pick I'll post later. It's expensive but if anyone fancied a shot she'd suit this GB to a T.

I finally got some schwartzgrau, or something I can mix easily to match, so can get to work on my Go 229 interior. Looking forward to it! I actually painted the engine exhaust cones a while back, but I'm so mega-busy with things it's been rated back-burner lately.

Cheers,

Mike/TB379

The directions actually gave two different color schemes for the cockpit, one was the gray and silver that I did(supposed to be bare metal), and the second was flat black w/ gray details(details didn't show up as well as the silver and grey scheme).

The reason why mine is more silver then gray is because I didn't have a small enough brush so it brought in more silver than I would have liked. But when I was test fitting the cockpit into the fuselage, the extra silver made the details slightly more visible through the canopy, so it doesn't bother me too much.

guardsmen,

I am curious. Did the directions really call for a silver cockpit? I would have thought that it would have been interior green or a gray color.

Looks good though.

Okay here's the pics I promised of the XB-35 Cockpit. The lighting was a little harsh, but I hope you guys like it:

PS feel free to criticize, I want to improve(really, I do)

Guardsman, you and I had better get our builds moving along, our else the Luftwaffe is gonna own this whole build! LOL

The cockpit is pretty sparse in this kit, so i've been doing alot of scratch-building.  It's actually much further along than this: I've started painting the cockpit.

bump..

-Red

Anything that flew or during WW2 or Korea is eligbile.  Thus, the TSR-2 (though it is an awesome plane!) isn't.  But, an airplane like the F-86 or B-50 is! 

If there are any other questions, divert to the rules on page one.

Happy building!

-Red

eatthis wrote:

iv just read the op is the tsr even elligable for this gb?

Due to the fact that the TSR-2 didn't fly until 1964, is not eligible. Red is the leader of this GB so he would have the official say I believe. Look up the "Prototype" GB. It would be allowed there.

Thunderbolt379 wrote:

Practical question -- does the weapon fit the bay? TB379

Yes, it does, as the Ar 234 carried it's load on the exterior, in a recess under the fuselage. It looks like the tail of the Little Boy should just clear the runway when it's loaded on the 234.

IIRC, it was originally planned to carry it's load internally, but that was before the Ar 234 acquired landing gear; before that, it was planned to launch the 234 from a jettisonable trolley, then land on skids, but that turned out to be impractical, so it was redesigned with "normal" landing gear.

Hmmm, sounds like a one-way mission. Dropping defensive armament and going at jet speeds, she'd need an escort, Me 262s, Ta-183s or even Ta-283s. Could she haul the bomb high enough to give herself time to escape the blast radius? If so, the pilot could eject or make an emergency landing. Dropping from 40, 000 feet, a B-36 at 400mph could reach MSD from a fission device, but not from a fusion device. The Ar-234 was a lot faster.

Practical question -- does the weapon fit the bay?

TB379

PS: I think I've figured out that color reference -- the dark gray Revell provide mixing instructions for is probably RLM 66 Schwartzgrau, used in FW 190 cockpits in '45. I'm pretty sure it's available locally and I can pick some up on Friday.

Thunderbolt379 wrote:

Hi SoDS, IIRC, Little Boy was the plutonium device used on Nagasaki, companion to Fat Man, the tritium bomb used on Hiroshima. Fat Man was a five-ton assembly, so what was Little Boy's mass? My only concern would be whether an Ar-234 could lift it! Remember, it was an He 177 A-5 the Germans had rigged to carry their bomb (found outside Prague), which was a lump bigger airplane than the Ar-234, but the German bomb was probably a tritium device which by default made it a large one. Cheers, TB379

You may be right, I'll have to look into that . . . . actually, I just did . . . . I have an excellent book on the history & development of US nuclear weapons called U.S. Nuclear Weapons: The Secret History, by Chuck Hansen; it gives the weight of the Little Boy as 8,900 lbs. Theoretically, the Ar 234 could carry it, as it's empty weight was 11,460 lb, and it's MTO was 21,720 lb.; however, that doesn't leave much weight leftover for fuel (approx. 1200 lbs.), so I suppose it would be a one-way misson! Maybe if you deleted the 20mm cannons, that would allow you to carry a little more fuel?

Hi SoDS,

IIRC, Little Boy was the plutonium device used on Nagasaki, companion to Fat Man, the tritium bomb used on Hiroshima. Fat Man was a five-ton assembly, so what was Little Boy's mass? My only concern would be whether an Ar-234 could lift it! Remember, it was an He 177 A-5 the Germans had rigged to carry their bomb (found outside Prague), which was a lump bigger airplane than the Ar-234, but the German bomb was probably a tritium device which by default made it a large one.

Cheers,

TB379

Is it too late to join?

I'm almost done with an Ar 234C (the one with the BMW 003's); HOWEVER, my 234 will be packing an atomic bomb, in the shape of a (leftover) Little Boy bomb from my B-29 GB. I put the theoretical timeframe as around late '45/early '46. Will that work?

eatthis wrote:

im a total noob but iv manedged to find and win a tsr 1/72 scale on ebay :) how do the groupbuilds work exactly?

Group Builds are anything but exact!!! I'd reccomend you get into and finish at least a half dozen before you try to host one. But to join is easy- look at the ones out there, go to the very first post and you'll see that there's a host, a description, a start and end date, a set of rules and a list of who's in the GB. Then think of what you'd like to do, and post a request to the host to join including as much information as you can about what you want to build.

I wouldn't worry about being unique, in fact it's a good thing to build along with someone else because you don't have to figure out everything for yourself, esp. if you're slow like me. I do try to finish though, beacuse it's really easy to go "cool, I'm in with a..." but the host does put a whole bunch of effort in, at least on the good ones, so return the favor.

Speaking of which, back to the bench for me!

im a total noob but iv manedged to find and win a tsr 1/72 scale on ebay :)

how do the groupbuilds work exactly?

Hi G22,

I know what you mean about the look of those props and guns -- the B-35 was an amazing plane, one of those great aircraft which didn't get its chance. I'll be watching your build with great interest and looking forward to snagging one myself one day.

Cheers,

Mike/TB379

Hey thunderbolt, yeah I saw the b-49 right next to the -35; but I fell in love with the smooth lines and the counter-rotating props of the -35.  It was just too cool which is why I am doing the original planned version of the 35, including all twenty of the browning .50 cals.

Oh and red the -35 had radar so it could see you a long time before you would even see it plus you would have to attack from the top or from below (because from behind or front ALL of the guns can hit you) and then one of the two gunners would lite up your flitzer with the remote controlled .50s.

Plus you would have had to hit the engines(really small) or the cockpit(even smaller) to bring down this plane. Kind of hard to do at almost 600mph which cuts out the dive, which means almost all your extra speed disappears