Oldbaldguy

I just checked mine and apparently I used bits of left over PE to create some of the equipment behind the three lenses and painted the big IR lens transparent red on the inside, I think just to give it some color. May not be 100 % accurate but it looks okay.

If you haven’t already, you might want to check The Ejection Site. They have some good shots of the seat you are using plus some explanations.

Either way, it was pretty witty. Sorry, couldn’t resist. At my house we are all North Georgia or VMI grads, so, you know….

That would be “forearm” would it not, Mr Nitpicker?

I’m trying to figure out the recent rise in popularity of helicopter models. I think it comes from two places: the good kit manufacturers are finally producing kits worthy of our time and, two, modern helicopters often have a lot more personality than their fixed wing peers, making them more challenging and fun to build. I built this same kit three years ago and loved every minute of it. It was only my second helicopter in more than half a century of modeling. Now I have a several helicopter kits hovering in the stash awaiting my attention. I think you are going to be surprised at how much you like this kit and at how good it looks on the shelf. Just remember to add weight in the nose or it won’t sit level on its skids.

DUDE! Palm tree looks better than the airplane!

I don’t know for certain because I was not there, but I suspect that windscreens and canopies from the WW2 era were less clear and flawless than we’d like to think because the material was not space-age polycarbonate stuff. It was much the same as what has been used for decades in general aviation - clear but relatively soft and easily scratched and prone to fog a bit around the edges. While I have no doubt the crew chiefs did their best to keep canopies and windscreens buffed out and clean, there was a war on and these guys had an awful lot to do. Could be that the best you can get from clear resin, once polished out and installed, will be more realistic than some of your other options. It’s at least worth the attempt. On a completely different note, after watching your progress on this totally 3D effort, I wonder how long it will be before someone 3D prints and assembles a scale model exactly the same way as the 1:1 was built and with all the same parts. It’s bound to happen at some point.

Oooo! Double thumbs up for those smoking rivets back by the RIO pit. Rarely see that on a model even thought most airplanes have ‘em.

Wow! This tidbit of information is as interesting as Peter’s build. Thanks for that. What a complicated mess. I honestly don’t know whether to applaud the engineers who came up with all this or to chalk it up to traditional Brit plumbing practices.

Ref your figures: I am much, much happier now than I was. Disregard all previous.

I can’t think of words worthy of these models. Even the photography is exquisite. And all in one year!

But my question had nothing to do with the existence of electricity, did it? Since I’ve never seen this airplane, and likely never will, and know exactly nothing about it, I asked if anyone knew how they moved fuel from the main tank(s) in the floats to the header tank(s) in the fuselage in order to get it to the engine. The airplane is small with little room or weight allowance to spare for something as heavy and bulky as a complete electrical system so I assume - perhaps wrongly - that this airplane does not have one. Airplanes flew for decades without onboard electrical works. My first two airplanes, which I flew into the late 1980s, had no electrical components at all, short of the magnetos necessary to make the engine run. In these airplanes, fuel moved by gravity - simple, easy, cheap, reliable and light weight. But the fuel in the S6B sloshed about in tanks located on the center of gravity way down below the motor in the floats. It had quite a way to go to before it ever got to the header tank and from there back to the carb bowl. Mechanical, engine driven fuel pump? Electric fuel pumps powered by an engine driven generator? I have no idea, which is why I asked. Whatever Supermarine used, it worked. And they likely designed it under the glare of electric lights.

The seat would need a little more brown patina if I were flying that thing. About that header tank: Any idea how it worked? I assume the airplane lacked an electrical system to power pumps to get the gas up from the floats to the tank, so how’d they do that?

Wow. Good questions. To be honest, I don’t remember how the intake trunks were finished. As you say, they are smallish and dark inside and a bit hard to paint. I painted mine white because it was the easiest thing to do and admit they could look better. The most important thing to remember about modeling Navy airplanes is that, while there are rules and specs, they are still Navy airplanes, so anything is possible, meaning you can do pretty much what you want within reason paint-wise and still have a good chance of being more or less right. Without looking it up, I think the red gear door edges came along about the same time as the gray and white paint scheme and was definitely in place by the time they started painting their trainers red and white (Prop trainers were yellow previously, the Lockheed TV-2s were initially silver then red and white, the short-lived Temco jet trainer was yellow, but all the Buckeyes and everything after were red or orange and white.). However, in an example of Navy contrariness, while new Vigilantes rolled out of the factory in the 60s with white gear doors with red edges, it was common to see them on the ramp with solid red gear doors, red wheels and other such things and no one seemed overly concerned. If you haven’t already, you should visit Tommy’s Tailhook Topics site. He covers a wealth of Navy truth, including subjects like these. Paul’s Cougar kit is pretty nice. The only issues I had in building mine were the nosewheel was a little loose in the fork and had to be worked on a bit (I recommend scratching a solid axle if you can) and one main gear strut came out shorter than the other. I honestly don’t know if that was sloppy building on my part or something to do with the kit. The issue required a bit of a creative fix to have the model sit level, but that is why we do this, innit?

I built my TF-9J as a red and white jet from the late 60s. This particular airplane was assigned to RVAH-3 based at NAS Sanford, Florida, and was fairly representative of Navy Cougars of the day. It had white gear bays, white struts, white gear doors outlined in red, although it was not uncommon to see these airplanes with all red doors. The boards were overall red inside but the air brake bay was white. Don’t have any idea how you will display your model, but the brakes on 1:1 jets when they were parked tended to sag partly open but not all the way down when there was no power to the system, so that is how I portrayed mine - open just a bit. This was a common occurrence on other airplanes like the F-8 as well. Since you really can’t see inside the air brake bay, I simply left the hydraulic rams out. If you elect to put the rams in yours, the trend at the time was white, but they could just as easily have been red. The Cougars at Sanford were pretty tired and time worn, but they weren’t overly dirty or heavily weathered. They sat out in the sun a lot, so the paint was pretty flat. I have no idea if any of this applies to the Marine FAC jets used in Vietnam - never saw one of those.

This is a great build so far - obviously, you’ve been there and have real, first hand knowledge of the venerable 172. My only comment is that you seem to have missed the part where Cessna carpet always turns baby shyte yellow- brown with time, no matter what color it was when new.

The Corsair page at kiwiaircraftimages.com has a boatload of detail photos, including the wells ahead of the main spar. Might want to check there.

But I assume we agree that the brakes are always on the strut side of the wheel, no matter which version or which wheels we’re talking about, right?

What is it about BIG helicopter kits that drives us to abnormal behavior?

There is a real danger to being a peerless builder such as yourself because we get used to your magic and a little blasé about it. “Well, of course Peter did this impossible thing,” we think to ourselves. “Why wouldn’t he - he’s Peter.” To steer back to the real airplane for a bit: Something most people would never think about is the unbelievable deluge of noise the pilot had to endure from the short stacks of that massive motor just a couple of feet in front of his face. It had to be excruciating to fly that thing at full throttle. Personally, I don’t know how anyone did it. They must have died deaf.

Brake calipers are usually on the strut side. They have to be attached to a fixed structure.

Somehow, I find refurbishing/overhauling previously built kits very appealing and a worthwhile endeavor. Very glad to see someone else doing it, although in this case I don’t see how you can make it any better.

Shoulda had Tom Cruise do the series. Coulda called it Mission Impossible: The Mighty Eighth Episode. He’d have gotten it right except for the motorcycle and skydiving parts.

Yep. Some serious seamanship and boat handling skills going on there.

I’ve had a wee dram or two. That ain’t a wee dram. Would kill a close relative for that ‘stache, by the way.