Scratchbuilding the Douglas Devastator

[mor54]

The Douglas Devastator TBD-1 was a US Navy torpedo bomber, modern when ordered in 1934 by the navy with many firsts:
- First monoplane torpedo bomber
- First all metal construction
- First with powered wing folding from the cockpit
First flown in June 1937, 130 aircraft of this model were built. Five years later at the battle of Midway in June 1942, it was an out of date aircraft that had taken terrible losses, 41 aircraft lunched from 3 carriers, only 5 remained at the end of the battle. The USN crews from 3 squadrons – VF-3 (USS Yorktown), VT-6 (USS Enterprise) and VT-8 (USS Hornet) have demonstrated the highest level of courage and devotion to the mission.

For a 1-33 scale model, I chose to build a VT-6 squadron model from the "golden wings" area. This aircraft was high on my to do list, and I spend a lot of time looking for pictures (walk around for this one does not excised), most of them are old black & white.



And the real aircraft



The cockpit for a crew of 3 take a 1/3 of the fuselage length, so I decided to build first the cockpit and later to add the outer skin made of two parts.









Rest of the cockpit will be build in parallel to the fuselag. The outer skin is made of two parts, and an additional part in grean color bonded to the back of the outer skin.





Shalom Mor

[Isaac]

Nice design


What made you select this airplane to build?


Isaac

[scon10]

Interesting build! How did you decide on the shape of the fuselage skins, and then design that shape in 2D on the paper? Looks to be a difficult task! I look forward to your overview.

[southwestforests]

Ah, will subscribe to this thread. The golden wings, yellow wings, era is a favorite.

[YOAVHOZMI]

good luck Shalom

YOAV

[Rata]

Ok. You're talking US Navy pre-war yellow wing subjects. You're also talking Douglas TBD's . I can't deny it- you have got me totally hooked. I'll be following this project with undivided attention mister. Best of luck!

[Butelczynski]

This can interesting design.Subject is also not "run off the mill" so it can be good combo.

[MacSongLi]

Great start Mor very nice work.


Gary

[Don Boose]

Historic airplane. Eye-catching colors and markings. Excellent beginning to your scratch-built model. I will watch with pleasure and interest as this one takes shape.

Don

[mor54]

Thanks Isaac, scon10, southwestforests, Yoav, Rata, Butelczynski, Gary and Don for the interest in this model and the encoureging comments.

This model is a combination of modeling hobby and interest in history. This type of aircraft participated in one of the most critical battles in the pacific - Midway.

To design the skin fold-out I used half formers taken from drawings and covered each two with a paper. This gave me the base for the skin parts fold out. They were corrected with the design progres.





Shalom Mor