Oldbaldguy

Is it true that each one of these bazillion lines and ropes and such have a specific name?   Seems like they would have to.  I cannot imagine a bo’sun saying to some sailor, “You, there!  Grab that rope next to that other rope and give it a yank!”  Be more like, “You there!  Seize the leeward aft drubber sheet from the foreword hind tookus block on the larbard main mast and haul  away!”  Or something similar.

Airfix is one of a very few models companies with box art as good as their models.  For as far back as I can remember.  The Sunderland always has been my favorite.  

What with all the recent hubbub about AI taking over the air to air mission, I have a question.  Is the plan to leave all the flying to the black boxes or will, at least initially, there still be a mammalian overseer on board?  I ask this because most pilots worthy of their ticket loath riding shotgun.  Let it be known that I am a pilot but not a zipper-suited sky god like some.  Still, when jinking about on a fine day, I much prefer being the jinker vice a hapless jinkee strapped in nearby because the ride is so much better.  I know what I am going to do so I am already ready when I do it whereas whoever else is riding along is always a tick or so behind both me and the airplane.  This can be both annoying and uncomfortable.  Imagine, if you will, a time when a rated fighter pilot has little more to do in a dog fight than clench his butt cheeks and grunt like he is passing a watermelon because his airplane is doing all the work without his help or permission.  Not only is this morally wrong but who in their right mind would voluntarily do such a thing?  Who would ride shotgun to a clockwork gizmo without complaint?  Certainly not any fighter pilot I know.  And at the end of the day, who gets busted if the fight goes wrong?  Will they ground the computer?  Not likely.  And what happens if Otto gets all full of himself and, in the heat of the moment, pulls enough Gs to turn the onboard minder into so much currant jelly?  Then what?  I am old and fuddly but I see nothing good coming of all this AI stuff.  Airplanes are born with sticks and rudder pedals and throttles and places for a person to sit for a reason - they are there for real people to poke and wiggle in order to maintain controlled flight above the ground and for good folks like us to model and argue about.  Anything else is Armageddon.

You’ve gasted my flabber again!

Very, very sad to hear!
 
I have bought many, many Airfix kits only because the boxart grabbed me so hard.
 
A few examples, the B-17G "A bit O´Lace" fighting against a gang of fighters, The Wellington low down at water level, , one enginge burninig and a pair of 109´s just waiting for the final kill, The Lancaster "G" for George coming home at dawn, shot to pieces and one enginge burning, The Sunderland fighting a Condor over the sea, and many many more.
 
 

 
 
 
Thanks Roy for all the good and happy memories from my younger years!
 
Blue skies, Roy!
 
Stefan 
 
 

I must say that your wee mousie nose art looks very continental European to me.  Remember that this thing was supposed to be flying during a war fought by testosterone infused young American men who’d made certain men’s magazines popular.  I would have thought that nose art on an airplane known to one and all as “The Jug” would evoke something much more feminine and jugified than a mouse.  But that’s just me.

I must say that your wee mousie nose art looks very continental European to me.  Remember that this thing was supposed to be flying during a war fought by testosterone infused young American men who’d made certain men’s magazines popular.  I would have thought that nose art on an airplane known to one and all as “The Jug” would evoke something much more feminine and jugified than a mouse.  But that’s just me.

So.  It appears the motor in a stock Sea Fury turns the wrong way.  If this is so, I assume there is a corresponding offset designed into the vertical stab to help keep it straight from time to time.  If these premises are true, then I wonder if the Unlimited Furies sporting R-4350s and such, which turn the other way, have had their tails surgically altered.

And everybody said it can’t be done.

And everybody said it can’t be done.

And everybody said it can’t be done.

And everybody said it can’t be done.

Talk about a fishbowl.  You were sitting pretty much on top of the airplane in the F-16.  Did you ever get vertigo because of that?  Even when flying my open cockpit planes, I still had structure and airplane parts that edged into my scan to remind me of where I was.  You had nothin’.

You know what?  I’d get in touch with either the folks who own the airplane in your pix or the guys who restored it and ask them how the damn canopy release works ‘cause I don’t think any of us are going to figure it out.  If I understand this whole thing correctly, we ended up in this hole because somebody decided they could improve on a perfectly good airplane by swapping a canopy that employed a couple of piano hinges and a cabinet lock with a fish bowl, two gutted bicycles, the crank from a well and several pounds of water pipes and unspecified hardware; all in order to see better.  Did not the Germans solve the same problem by simply removing the extra frame pieces from their 109 canopies later in the war so that they had three big plexi windows to look through instead of several small ones?

Oh crap!  And Final Coutdown, the time traveling precursor to Top Gun.  The best parts of Top Gun were the shots of the gun firing that was supposed to be Mav or Ice taking hits and that great big round gauge in the aft cockpit that said Empty and Full that Goose keeps tapping while saying, “Mav, we don’t have the gas for this.”  BTW, has anyone seen Kelly Mac Guinness lately?  Oh my.

Oh, the heresy.

You know what?  I’d get in touch with either the folks who own the airplane in your pix or the guys who restored it and ask them how the damn canopy release works ‘cause I don’t think any of us are going to figure it out.  If I understand this whole thing correctly, we ended up in this hole because somebody decided they could improve on a perfectly good airplane by swapping a canopy that employed a couple of piano hinges and a cabinet lock with a fish bowl, two gutted bicycles, the crank from a well and several pounds of water pipes and unspecified hardware; all in order to see better.  Did not the Germans solve the same problem by simply removing the extra frame pieces from their 109 canopies later in the war so that they had three big plexi windows to look through instead of several small ones?

You’d think directors would be wise enough to let the airplanes do the acting in these movies, but noooooooo.  They gotta put overpaid and often talentless people in ‘em and have them act out some absurd story line that, sadly, the great unwashed often think is true.  No matter what you may think of TG1, the movie was not good enough to cost Art Scholl and his dog their lives.  But it did.  (Aileron always flew with him.)  And all he got was the tiniest one line mention at the very end of the credits.  The on-set caterer got more screen time than that.  I’ll bet the perpetual man child Tom Cruise doesn’t even remember the guy.  I’m a bit surprised nobody mentioned Catch 22.  That movie saved a lot of B-25s, but I still don’t know what it was about. And then there was the one about the two guys and some chick who befriended an AI wingman that becomes sentient and goes rogue and shoots up half the planet including a giant flying gas station floating over bad guy territory.  That one sucked and not even the flying was any good.  But I digress.  Tea and scones, anyone?  I’ll be mother.

Fully agreed on the B-25 flying sequences in Catch-22: the mass take-off was fantastic Here. No music, no dialogue and a full squadron take off.
 
Most people who’ve read the book don’t know what it’s about either… 
 
Kind regards,
Paul

Oh crap!  And Final Coutdown, the time traveling precursor to Top Gun.  The best parts of Top Gun were the shots of the gun firing that was supposed to be Mav or Ice taking hits and that great big round gauge in the aft cockpit that said Empty and Full that Goose keeps tapping while saying, “Mav, we don’t have the gas for this.”  BTW, has anyone seen Kelly Mac Guinness lately?  Oh my.

633 Squadron was pretty crappy, all in all.  And I didn’t much like Dunkirk, either.  Had it not been for Jimmy Stewart, B-36s and B-47s, Strategic Air Command would have been pretty bad.  And then there’s Into the Unknown and maybe even that movie about sinking the Bismarck.  Oh!  And Jet Pilot with John Wayne and some gal!  That one was pretty crappy.

You’d think directors would be wise enough to let the airplanes do the acting in these movies, but noooooooo.  They gotta put overpaid and often talentless people in ‘em and have them act out some absurd story line that, sadly, the great unwashed often think is true.  No matter what you may think of TG1, the movie was not good enough to cost Art Scholl and his dog their lives.  But it did.  (Aileron always flew with him.)  And all he got was the tiniest one line mention at the very end of the credits.  The on-set caterer got more screen time than that.  I’ll bet the perpetual man child Tom Cruise doesn’t even remember the guy.  I’m a bit surprised nobody mentioned Catch 22.  That movie saved a lot of B-25s, but I still don’t know what it was about. And then there was the one about the two guys and some chick who befriended an AI wingman that becomes sentient and goes rogue and shoots up half the planet including a giant flying gas station floating over bad guy territory.  That one sucked and not even the flying was any good.  But I digress.  Tea and scones, anyone?  I’ll be mother.

Most likely from a RAG (Replacement Air Group) or a Naval Reserve unit.  Both sported international orange markings on their tails and sometimes outer wing panels.  It was not at all unusual for a while to see a LOT of orange on Reserve airplanes, especially when they were flying mostly hand me down airplanes.  After a while the Navy stopped doing that when Congress required Guard and Reserve forces to be trained and equipped equally with the active duty.

Most likely from a RAG (Replacement Air Group) or a Naval Reserve unit.  Both sported international orange markings on their tails and sometimes outer wing panels.  It was not at all unusual for a while to see a LOT of orange on Reserve airplanes, especially when they were flying mostly hand me down airplanes.  After a while the Navy stopped doing that when Congress required Guard and Reserve forces to be trained and equipped equally with the active duty.

Looks pretty much like their aftermarket sheet in a new box then... unless the white/grey schemes are new, but I would not be surprised if they are the same VA-176 as the base boxing. (Like the A-1J)
 
A loooong time ago I backdated an Hasegawa 1/72 model to an AD-4... had to scratch-build the inner pylons. Chose an AD-4 as they were the most common seen with the AERO pylons and some still appeared to have only the 2 guns, and the lower rudder is the same. I did sand off all the armour as well (a rotten job as I remember on that hard Hasegawa plastic!)

 
Jeroen