Oldbaldguy

Essex? Sure the first angle deck carrier wasn’t the Antietam? Had an overhead photo of that ship on my wall for ages when I was a kid. I think Midway was the most modded of all the Essex class carriers by the time it was decommissioned.

However (and it seems there is always a however in there somewhere), if you watch the opening minutes of the original Top Gun movie, you’ll see an A-7 sliding at low speed across the deck with his brakes locked - stomping on the brakes but the airplane is still moving at idle thrust on a flat day, non-skid deck be damned. That, of course, was twenty five or so years ago and I expect the stuff has improved since then, but inertia and a mass in motion is a whole other world.

Background: There was once a time when there were no aftermarket parts for anything. If you wanted something for your model that did not come in the box, then you made it yourself out of whatever was handy. For example, I made more bomb racks and tank pylons out of cut-up and shaped popsicle sticks back in the day than I can count. Nowadays, an awful lot of modelers would rather wait until some enterprising person in a far off land to decides to 3D print a specific part, package it and then sell it for nearly the cost of the original kit instead of making something similar themselves. Question: Why do we do that? I am as guilty as anyone of using over-priced but very slick aftermarket parts but I don’t know why. I can fashion from scratch nearly everything I need - even at my advanced age - and often do, but most times I don’t. Expedience would be one answer, I suppose, because I am not getting any younger and have more models in boxes than I can hope to build before crossing over. Another answer is that it is simply because the parts are there, so why not? I think that is not enough. I think we trade some of our craftsmanship for aftermarket parts because we feel like we have to keep up. The truth is, most of us simply do not have the skill set or band width, as my wife says, to build competitive models. High quality aftermarket parts make it easy for anyone to do that; we trade money for parts that make us look better than we are just so we can keep up with those among us who are true, world class, scratch modelers. Just an observation; I make no judgements. Brought to you, by the way, courtesy of the red, white and blue, and a variety of Chilean wine I have never heard of and cannot pronounce but, apparently, like very much.

I have made chocks for nearly all my models but none as spiffy as these. So why the pink base coat? What does that add/do?

Hmmm. Not as heavy as I thought. I was guessing something like 4 or 5 pounds. I assume printed parts do not weigh as much as cast resin?

This is going to be grand. Your improvements will make a world of difference when the model is finished, but I’d ditch the Trumpeter figures and replace them with something better - like some of the new ones from Reskit. They are much, much better.

We all know this is a big model. Were it IM, we’d already have an idea of how much it might weigh when finished. Ditto cast resin, but I have no idea how much a 100% printed model would weigh. Any estimates/guesstimates?

Dang. When I first read the header, I thought you were talking about large scale Beech trainers.

Lots of people involved in moving an airplane on a ship: multiple spotters around the airplane - some carrying chocks and chains, tug driver, the guy riding brakes in the cockpit, at least one guy running the show, so figure six or so. Any one of them has the authority to call a safety stop and would have had, say, the tug driver been doing something dumb. Plus they’ve been at this for a while, so it ain’t like any of them were FNGs. If the ship did indeed roll in a hard turn, then there was nothing any of them could have done to shortstop the laws of physics except get out of the way, especially if the airplane was on or near an elevator. Additionally, flight and hangar decks can be pretty slick from leaked POL, meaning stuff that is not chained down keeps moving even with the brakes locked. Sadly, I don’t know who or what the Houtis are or why they are pissed at us, but they may have scored a kill without trying to.

I assume an elevator was somehow involved. Otherwise it would have been difficult to push the airplane thru the side of the ship. Apparently AI copywriters are as dumb as their human counterparts. Will be interesting to learn the cause.

I’ve read about this technique for painting intakes for years but have yet to get it to work for me. Obviously I am not holding my mouth right while attempting it because yours turned out just fine.

It fits! But I swear it looks like it’s upside down - like it would fit better if the open part was on the other side of the airplane. But maybe that’s just me.

Hmmph. I assume this decidedly untidy solution is for keeping the tailwheel strut out of the muck? Question: As I understand your approach, you will create a reasonably accurate bag shape and then cover it with something that better resembles canvass. Does 3D printing allow for surface texture on a part or is that still a bridge too far?

The common practice for Navy airplanes of this era was light gray paint on the metal parts and aluminized silver dope on fabric. My guess is that is how Curtiss delivered them. Altho I looked at a couple of dubious photos as well, I think you’d be safe going with silver wings. There weren’t that many of these things and they weren’t around for very long so they likely did not evolve much. But they still underwent maintenance and likely had their wings recovered a time or two, so anything is possible. I have one of these kits somewhere and would love to see how yours turns out.

Jeez Loo-eze! If I could finish any kit like this, I’d call it finished too! Your Corsair is wonderful!

Such a big airplane and such a tiny place to sit.

Also note the tail number next to the refueling receptical. Even the Air Force has to keep records of who gets what. Lots of wonderful weathering in the airflow over the wings.

By pure luck I found said video once again while trying to satisfy my curiosity. (Not the best vid, so I wouldn’t waste my time looking for it.). The guys are in orange bags and it looks like it may be the first flight or at least very early. Early seats - no pods. The B/N climbs in on the right side, faces aft, appears to sit down and starts fiddling with a canopy gizmo back at the hinge point. You can’t see the seat very well if at all, but I assume it is where it is supposed to be. If nothing else, it appears there is enough room in the middle cockpit to maneuver a bit, at least on that airframe.

This is going to be nice. Crossed paths with several Cutlasses when I was very young. My dad was in VA-12 when they were equipped with them and when we were transferred to NAS Oceana, there were at least three derelict F7Us sitting around on the base or in the nearby boneyard. Played in all of them until they finally disappeared and not a single one was painted. All were in natural metal finish, just like Vought intended. Glad to see that you plan to uphold the tradition.

That’s a pretty wonky looking canopy in their ad art. I’m not sure even you could fix that.

Absolutely sixth letter of the alphabet-ing gorgeous!!

So what’s a Venow? Nice box art, however.

Looks like you are already committed to a complete repaint, etc. Surface prep, surface prep, surface prep!! Our typical model airplane paint ain’t gonna do it for something this big nor will an airbrush of the kinds we use do the job - you are in the professional painter arena with this thing. If you plan to paint it yourself, I’d recommend you do it one section at a time and not try to hose down the entire model in a single session. It’s just too big. It is gorgeous, however. Would love to see how it turns out.

Very nice. That’s a lot of real estate for an airbrush newbie. Looks like you did very well.

Most of you all already know this but it bears repeating. The American actor Jimmy Stewart was an Air Force pilot with combat experience and a brigadier general in the Air Force Reserve until he finally retired. During one of his Reserve tours he ended up in the front seat of a TB-58 at Carswell (I think) with an experienced command pilot behind him telling him what to do. They cobbed the throttles at the end of the runway and flew a typical maintenance check flight profile - charge down the runway, suck up the gear and haul back on the stick til you go blind, etc. As they rocketed up in a steep climb on four! J-79s in full burner, legend says that at some point just after wheels-up, the normally laconic General Stewart exclaimed (using your best Jimmy Stewart accent) something to the effect of, “Jeezus Christ! This is not an aeroplane. It’s a godammed rocket ship!!!” I’d buy an over priced 1/48 Monogram kit on that endorsement alone. I never had the opportunity to talk with General Stewart but I did speak with his wife. She was most gracious and told me the general, as much as he would like to, was indisposed and could not accept my invitation. Close enough; I’ll take it. Happy to stand in the shadow of greatness.