old stuff

[rjccjr]

Hi Don;

The color was a Royal Navy blue. Memory doesn't allow recall of the manufacturer, but the model wasn't the epitome of accuracy. It was just a matter of liking non standard Spitfires.

Regards, rjccjr

[rjccjr]

Hi All;
You don't see a lot of these around. Some years back there was a friend who had a pen pal in Europe. They had a swap arrangement, American kits which were hard to get over there, for European kits and accessories. When he had extras or didn't want a kit, they were passed along to me. This is one of them, a basement produced 1/72 scale Grigorovich M-5 flying boat, circa 1913-1927. It was injection molded with more flash than kit and very difficult to get together. Never the less when it was cleaned up and assembled, it was a rare and handsome example of Russian WWI aviation. It is delicate, but has held up very well since the 1980's.
Regards, rjccjr

[Butelczynski]

Very nice model. There are very few flying boat models from this era in any media. It's their complexity that scares both designers and builders.

[rjccjr]

Hi All;

Under the computer counter are six boxes of models built years ago. Just didn't have the will power to discard them, the time to refurbish them or the space to display them. Here's an old Aurora Lockheed F-90 penetration fighter in 1/48th scale. Actually it's a couple of scales depending on whether you mean the wing span, the length, or the average of both. Still it was a classy looking machine, but it was obvious that the engines might die of exhaustion trying to get up to the speed that was hoped for. The other is a very early FROG Supermarine Scimitar. It was one of the earliest injection molded plastic kits, a very simple one in 1/72nd scale. It flew during the years when designers hadn't quite got the hang of making carrier planes go supersonic. The design history is rather interesting as the machine grew out of a concept based upon a straight wing, v-tailed, landing gear less carrier aircraft. There were 76 production machines. The Scimitar was fast, heavy and very accident prone. Elegant design though.

Regards, rjccjr

[Formerly Styrene]

Absolutely Fantastic;

Wow, so many items impress me, but the Fletcher in Frigid waters painting gives me a shiver, it really conveys the bleakness of the North Atlantic patrols.
I could look at the Flower class corvette for hours and still find something new to gawp at. And, well, I have always been a sucker for seaplanes & flying boats especially if they saw service in WW1 or WW2.

Thank you for sharing your priceless collection
Formerly Styrene
aka Dave

[rjccjr]

Hi All;

Here's another one from the boxes, somewhat battered but still interesting. This one was almost a real aircraft, dating back to 1957. It got to the mock up stage, but cost and technological problems shot it down before it was actually built. It pioneered titanium fabrication and dual-cycle propulsion systems. Predicted speed was close to 2000 MPH, altitude above 47,500 feet. Not particularly maneuverable though. It's a 1/72 scale vacuform model of the republic XF-103.

Regards, rjccjr

[rjccjr]

Hi All;
Here's a Minicraft Y1-B-17 in 1'72 scale from sometime in the 1990s. It was built out of the box with no alterations. What's interesting is the paint job. It was painted with Floquil Railroad Colors Platinum silver. No masking tape was used. I was experimenting with the idea of adding one or two drops of black paint to the original aluminum and bouncing the mixture off a filing card at low pressure. It had a lot of thinner and came out like a mist. The effect was rather pleasing and saved a lot of time messing around with masking tape.
Regards, rjccjr