Ol' Scrapiron

Glad you went with the 447th BG option... Looks fantastic -- watching with much interest!

You already have some great reference pics of the engine, but I'll toss up some pics the I have taken in case something helps out. Westland Lysander IIIA; Udvar-Hazy 2015 Westland Lysander III; RAF Museum London 2008 - Westland Lysander IIIA; Imperial War Museum Duxford 2008 Hope these are of some assistance...

You may be past the point of needing more on the firewall, but I have taken some pics of unrestored Zero carcasses on display. Hopefully these will be of some benefit to you (or someone else's future project) A6M3 (3685, partial); Imperial War Museum Duxford 2008 and 2019 - - A6M3 (partial); Evergreen Aviation Museum 2015 - The other five Zero examples I have photographed are restorations so you would need to bear that in mind before using as a reference. Hope these help.

I love this build and its 447th BG subject, and am always amazed with your progress each time I see updates. I have a suggestion that will make your task fabricating rounds so much simpler. Instead of cutting the wire to length and then laboriously attaching them side by side, use much longer pieces of wire (4+ times longer than you need) and then after they are glued side-to-side trim them to length and get 4 strips of bullets for essentially the effort of one. I do that with stretched spue or wire to make my ammo belts. Can easily make 10 oversized pieces multiply out to 60 or 70 "bullets" depending on how long the pieces are when I start. Also, because I know I will be trimming I don't bother with exact lengths or getting them squared up at the ends before I glue them together. Keep up the good work ... great work... outstanding work!!!

You might get some of those small/powerful magnets and glue to the bottom half and then to the top half at the correct points so that it is easily removable but snaps into the correct place when you put together. The exploded display would be intriguing.

In case it helps, here are a few of my pics of the OH-13E Sioux (Military version of the Model 47 D-1) 51-13934 on display at the Evergreen Aviation Museum in 2015. In the background is some sort of big airplane made out of wood... mostly spruce I think. - - - ----- and the OH-13E Sioux 51-14175 I photographed last year at the Yanks Air Museum in Chino - I also have pics of other variants of the Model 47 but the later versions are a bit different. Let me know if you'd like to see them in case there is some sort of value as reference shots.

You are pretty good at casting. Could you make a mold of the outside of those parts and then make a "plug" the shape of the inside void to cast a fairly thin part of just those back portions as replacements? If you do choose to go the route of dremeling it out like a canoe, probably ought to have a mold of the outer shape as a backup anyway. I'm sure whatever you choose to do will look fantastic. I was looking at my pics from crawling under a couple Tigercats and all the wheel well shots are taken looking slightly forward. I was just trying to ensure that the nacelle is hollow all the way back without some sort of firewall/bulkhead/baffle that would eliminate the need to drill it out. Nothing looking backward... but what I did find was a whole lot of activity in there. Can't wait to see what you do. I know you have your own reference, but in case these could be of some help... F7F-3 80411 “King of the Cats”; Palm Springs 2018 -------------------------------------------------- F7F-3 80483 “Bad Kitty”; Aviation Day at Paine Field 2012

A few more from last month during the Arlington Fly-In (mostly for inspiration) CH-47F 06-08720; Arlington Fly-In 2018 - - - - - - Hope these help.

A little late, but I hope these will come in handy as reference or inspiration CH-47F 09-08073; McChord 2016 - - - - I have more from a recent airshow that I haven't processed yet. Will post soon. -

Cool video. Is this the last flying F-100? I took these during the Detroit show in 2010 (managed to peel my eyes off the B-17s at least part of the time.) -

Nice looking build. I had not heard of the Flitzer but I was immediately struck by its resemblance to the de Havilland Vampire. I like the base being relatively small allowing the booms to project out -- gives a bit of tension to the little vignette that a larger base couldn't.

That must be a result of being opposite the steering box. Your model has the right-side English steering and the exhaust on the left ... the cars that were racing had the driver on left and exhausts on right. Another thing to consider is that the two I photographed were set up for racing and I was only shooting from the outside of that part of the road course -- it is possible that they have a higher performance engine and exhausts exiting both sides of the car. Just out of sheer curiosity, I might go back and see if I snapped any pics of them in the pits that might show the left side of the car.

Here's a couple racing in the Northwest that I photographed during a SCCA event a couple years ago... just for inspiration. Keep up the great work on your build! --

Interesting pics Wolf... I immediately went to my own pics of Tigercats I have photographed and found some of what I think is the same plane taken at Paine Field in Washington. But the times I've seen it at HFF and FHC airshows, F7F-3 80483 carries “Bad Kitty†artwork, and there are not guns near the nose gear. Wait, on closer inspection I see the guns but they are painted to match the body so very discreet compared to the metal fairings in your shots. I was thinking there must have been two airplanes with similar 483 markings, but must simply have been updated between our two shots. Nevermind. No guns visible on 80410 down in Pima though (below) ------- Brian, your project is absolutely fantastic, so I am not even going to pretend you have any need of reference shots by this point. Just another pic for inspiration as you near the finish line (while the rest of us stare with dropped jaws.)

I'm glad this comment was made so that this build could be brought up to the top of the list (I never would have dug back that far to find it otherwise.) I just spent some wonderful hours reading through this thread and have been grinning ear to ear in awe of your build and the greatness that is Mal's Way. How you overcame setbacks and solved 'problems' in a way that made everything better than expected... better BY FAR!!! Please tell me that the Corsair is complete and nicely displayed somewhere even if you weren't pleased with the staining on the deck. Like 1to1scale, I felt a bit of a gut punch when this thread came to an abrupt halt, apparently more than a year ago. Some mighty fine work you put into that build and a real treat to see it throughout all 66 pages. Wow. Just wow!!!