C-130 / AC-130 Hercules Redraw/Redesign (by Airdave)

[airdave]

The Herk Werk continues!...

Shaun (Inky) is working away on his Arbitrator build...

and I have been plugging away at my Azrael build.
And, making many tweaks and changes.

I am just about there...getting very close now to the release of this Kit!

Assembled my fuselage on the weekend...
having a bit of trouble with the printer and Fox-It PDF reader.
Lots of bad prints and varying colours.
You can still see the remnants of some miscoloured parts... I had to rebuild
an entire new Forward half, but it allowed me to test a few more things.



Rear Fuselage sorted out too...



and complete, the Herc is starting to show its size!



as I said, there are some varying colour tones in this build
but that one obvious forward section does not look this bad in person.
I think the camera flash really made it stand out.

now, its time to fit the lower Fuselage Blister assembly.
I will not be building the landing gear on this Kit.
I have already built it once, so there wasn't anything I needed to test.
And this plane will hang anyway.

Inky is building the gear on The Arbitrator, so that will be a good backup test.

I have already built the Wing assemblies, so hopefully all will go well
with Azrael's wings...fingers crossed.

And if I'm lucky, we might have some kits to release before the Month is out!

First two Kits will be The Arbitrator and Azrael Gunships.

I'm going to follow that up with a Sharkmouth C-130 (a personal request from Ray (Texman))
...who is hopefully putting together a scaled down (micro?) version.

And, as I mentioned earlier, the 30th Anniversary Royal Thai Air Force C-130.



I sticking with A, E and H models...so if there are any other suggestions for repaint versions please let me know!

[airdave]

Running out of time....

if I want to get a release this month.
I must admit, I am pushing it now. lol
and thats not always a good thing considering my impatient build skills! haha

I convinced myself last week, that no matter how much I wanted to hang this Gunship up,
it was first a "test" build and a platform for all the final tweaks and adjustments,
and just wasn't going to be a very respectable build.

I reminded my self of that again last night when I dry fitted the wing assembly to the fuselage ...with glue.
That just resulted in tearing off sections of the fuselage surface.

After a couple more assembly-disassembly-assembly bouts,
all in the name of making small adjustments to the wing mountings,
I have made a bit of a mess of the plane!

Torn and crumpled wing fairings, glue spots and torn areas on the fuselage
...even some water splashes! (I keep a small container handy to clean my glue brushes).
Add to that the miscolour misprints, and this now looks like a "battle weary" Gunship!



Anyway, heres a couple of shots, just to show you the Armament all in place.
I'm happy with all the guns and cannons...
I thought they might be a little thin and small to construct,
but not too much trouble at all.

So, I am moving on to assembly of the four engines.
I did a test build of some props last night, which went just fine,
but for this build I will most likely just leave off the props (as if in flight).

[cgutzmer]

looking pretty awesome dave! thanks for sharing the great progress

[shawnr5]

Can't wait for this. I have a friend who is a widow. Her husband was AG on Ghost Rider, in Ubon during Viet Nam. She would be beside herself if I brought her a nice sized AC-130.

[airdave]

Ghost Rider eh?

if I can collect a few more pics, I might be able to throw this one together.

In Nam colours like The Arbitrator? or later Gray version?



or...I hope you are not referring to "Ghostrider" 69-6567 AC-130H* in Euro Camouflage?

*shot down in 1991, by SAM, all crew KIA

[airdave]

and , we aren't talking about AC-119G Gunships, right?

71SOS AC-119G Gunships were all designated as "Shadow".
This photo is from Robert Branscomb, crew member of Shadow 77 "Ghost Rider".
In the photo from left to right are:
Major Thomas H. Cougill(P), Maj. Paul Maxwell (C/P), Capt. John McGary (Nav/NOS),
Capt. James Davis (NOS/Nav), SSgt. Bart H. Dye (F/E), SSgt. Robert Branscomb (I/O),
SSgt. Thomas Newbold (A/G), Sgt. Russell Steffensmeier (A/G).

[legion]

Not to disrespect your Herc, Dave, but i don't believe that there is any model out there of the AC-119G gunship! It does look very sleek and deadly, not as 'goofy' as the Herc.

[airdave]

I had no problem with anything you said...up until the word "goofy"!

I think theres a few Spooky guys out there that just might be willing
to laser your house for that comment.

[peter taft]

Originally Posted by airdave

I had no problem with anything you said...up until the word "goofy"!

I think theres a few Spooky guys out there that just might be willing
to laser your house for that comment.

Goooooofy..............Goooooooooooooooofy , no way is she anywhere near goofy - She's AWESOME ! Looking good Dave

[shawnr5]

She would probably be reduced to tears by a Ghost Rider in the Viet Nam colors.