seiran01

You know me, I love the odd WWI monsters. The wheels should be the same as used on the Gotha, AEG and Friedrichshafen G-type bombers, just more of them to distribute the weight. There were only a few sizes of wheels and tires used throughout the war.

Did you grab the image from the old old thread on britmodeller? That one came back to life this week but not with positive news - if you look to the most recent comments from yesterday, it appears long abandoned unfortunately… shame, i’d quite like the CA-15 on my shelf

LOL! My personal situation has been severe issues with attention span and more time working on resin designs in CAD for Aviattic and Barracuda. Haven’t actually finished a build since 2018, and that needs to change this year. There actually is an update as of this week: I am giving this model to a friend to finish hopefully in time to have on display at the US Nationals this summer. I am eternally grateful to Richard and Jase at Wingnut for giving me the chance to build the HP and ogle it for a few years, but as much as I’d love to keep this beast, if (and that’s a big IF) I ever finished the build it would sit on a shelf at home where no one would see it. It doesn’t seem fair to me to hog such a rarity. This way, large scale WWI modelling will get a visible boost in attention, and if we’re lucky maybe it will even help interest more folks in building things with more than one wing. Ultra stretch goal: a swarm of interest thaws the cold heart of the hobbit lord and this model which was approved for production but never put into production finally sees the light of day. Now… to figure out how to pack the thing up and send it a few states away while protecting the weak biplane tail assembly. Wish me luck. Mike

Great info, Tom!

Please count me in as recipient, thanks.

Love it!!! Looks like it should be a RetroKit minion, he does a huge line of random minions

This looks about right http://zarkovmodels.com/en/?pid=924

I did the same thing for the wing. Only problem is that you still need to scribe the leading edge fuel tank onto the lower wing… darn it Tamiya!

Alrighty, back on track! Look for the resin at SMC in The Netherlands, and following shortly will be the shipment to the UK and more to Christian on the mainland. Richard will have his lot in plenty of time before Telford. Bo, that's a great idea. I'd buy it.

I think it’s safe to say any delay in the release from here on out is my fault, apologies to folks waiting for the combo! I’ve been having a bit of an argument with my CAD software while finishing up the Strutter dashboard, but I’m shooting to have it all finalized in the next few days. Richard and Christian will share further updates through their usual channels. Once this is done, I’m off to relearn Rhino3D, as Fusion360 can take a long walk off a short pier Cheers, Mike

100% I’d be buying one

+1! the Wolfpack conversion is impossible to find and poorly designed - parts don’t fit due to shrinkage. I am happy to share the info and photos from references I have if this is something you want to tackle. Would be a new radome, control panels (including new front coaming with HUD), tail tip, wingtip sensors like later Phantoms had (already present in the revell kits). Maybe one or two other bits as well, but that’s the bulk of it.

Already part way into converting mine into an FR.18e… will post some pix when I get back from my business trip. Maybe by then the conversion will have landed

* and Roy says “thank you for your vigilance!”

Talked with Roy about this to give him a heads up, he’s running around and asked me to comment for him. This sheet is still available and he does sell to vendors in China, so it’s possible this is a legitimate seller. He’s not aware of anyone counterfeiting his decals yet, let’s hope it stays that way. cheers, Mike

Beauty! Thanks so much Dave!

If someone here has the Val kit in hand and also has a good set of calipers, I need your help please. I’m finishing up a detailed prop hub design which will go over to Barracuda for production when completed, this is to replace the crappy kit hub. The design is essentially finished but since I don’t own the kit, what I need help with is one of you confirming the diameter of the prop shaft in millimeters, and also the diameter and depth of the mounting holes for the prop blades. Huge thanks to anyone who can assist, Mike

Short answer from my understanding of things: don't expect another company to do this. The molds are almost certainly still in existence for the HP, but read on. And I will preface this with this: I badly want to be wrong! There is a difference. What you've got to understand about the Dr1s and the Lancaster is that the tooling bills were not fully paid on these, and the toolings were not complete. Meng's factory tooled the 1/32 and 1/24 Dr.1s (the 1/32 in it's not quite finished state as people have seen with part breakages, wing warp, etc), and since since molds weren't paid, they released the kits to recoup the costs. Similar with the Lancaster, the factory sold the molds to Border to cover the tooling costs and Border did their own work to finish the toolings. Regardless how some may feel about the companies doing this, it's understandable from a business perspective not unlike a bank reposessing your car if you don't pay back the loan. The Handley Page O/100 was approved for release but had not gone into production; the O/400 still had some tooling being tweaked. My understanding from sources back in NZ is that WNW has since paid the remaining tooling bills so that they did not lose the Handley intellectual property to the same fate as the lanc and triplanes. That should not be taken as an indicator of a planned release though, rather more of one along the lines of Wingnut not wanting someone else to capitalize on the investment and WNW's years of hard work. The HP is not a release that would make a lot of sense financially for another company to "acquire" with a "normal" business model. WWI is a much smaller market than WWII for model kits, and this is a big expensive model. Realistically it would be selling a lot less than a Lancaster, Spitfire or Sopwith Camel. Compound that with consistent feedback from WWI kit manufacturers and aftermarket companies reporting that WWI sales dropped off significantly after the centennial of the war's end in 2018, and is very difficult for me to see a kit like this coming to market. As I said at the start, I really, really want to be wrong on this. But until there is news from the source, it's probably best to not hold on to any hope and move on to other builds in your stash. Cheers, Mike

Heyyy, I resemble that! Hey Paul... Where did you find those plans? Are they ones that can be shared without violating someones' copyright?

I started working on a basic cad design for a Linke Hoffmann R-2, which is about the same wingspan as the Staaken R’s in the low 50-inch size range. Maybe I’ll revisit that one day but I put it on hold as the contours weren’t cooperating. If I can help with some components or some printing on the Staakens, let me know! It’s a beast I’d love to have on my shelf. Have you guys put any thought yet into how to keep the wings from sagging on a span like that?

Oh hells yes. This is going to be EPIC.

Thanks for the alert in the sprues… I’ll be picking up mine from the post office in the morning

It’s two posts above - click “link”

Strutter has been released! It’s in stock at ua-hobby.com over in Ukraine

+1 to what Pete said! Rigging certainly can be daunting at first, but I found it to be surprisingly easy when I eventually tried it.