The SkyFlash part 3

Getting back to the Skyflash after being a bit ill for a few days, I started by painting the vac form cockpit. Once painted, and glued on, I noticed that I could have sanded the front a little more. It looked cocked backward a bit to me. Oh well, theoretically my next one will be a little better.

Next on the list was to apply the decals. Odd for Anigrand, the decals were a bit thick, and took several applications of Micro Sol onto them to get them to conform to the curved shape of the fuselage.  even after 3 or 4 applications of Micro Sol I still needed to cut the decal where it rode over a panel line. Luckily for me there was just one panel line in the way on each side - 

Having a relapse I left it for a few days, and when I got back to it I wanted to apply a gloss coat over the decals to seal it in before continuing on.
Here's where disaster struck! I sprayed on the gloss and all around the cockpit the paint alligatored!!! WTF! I was so PO'd I just walked away. I really wanted to fling it off the wall. Check back to see if I did fling it, or tried to fix the paint.

Edgar Allen Poe Finale

Since I was so close to finishing last time, this session went pretty quickly. 
I brightened up the scarf, and I also highlighted  the jacket by adding German Gray to the Black Gray base coat. I also brightened up the ivory shirt with a little off white.  I then gave the bust a flat coat.
Turning to the base, I tried my best to highlight Edgar's signature. But being the base was so busy, I don't think I pulled that off too well.
To finish it up I added gloss to the eyes, and called this one done. Thanks for looking. 

Edgar Allen Poe

I have a shelf over my worktable where I store kits in small boxes or kits that have no box. Well poor ol' Edgar Allen has been up there for more than a year staring down at me with those sad unpainted eyes. So today I figured I needed to remedy that. 

The kit is just one piece and sculpted by Brian McGuire. The resin in odorless and I only found a few small bubbles in some of the tips of the hair strands.

Here he is with the skin tone done and the eyes, mustache, and eyebrows base coated - 

Looking online I found out that his eye color has been described as gray, violet, hazel, green and even blue. Finding out that hazel is a combo of brown and green, I decided to go that way.  I also fixed up his hair and scarf. Then base coated his jacket - 

Thanks for looking. More later -

Douglas Skyflash (part 2)

Well, I didn't get it finished, but I am still progressing forward.  
I added the landing gear and then realized the wheels were a little wonky. They had to be broken off and realigned to the jet. 

While the wheels were drying, I turned my attention to masking off the canopy. It was then I noticed I never even touched it. So I dipped the canopy in Future. While *that* was drying I went back and had a look at the wheels. Looked good.  Then it suddenly struck me that I never put any weighs in the nose. Oh boy, I hope it's not a tail sitter. Turning it over while half wincing, I gave it a try. Whew, it rested on its wheels - 

Now I turned back to the canopy. Now in the past 3 planes I did, the vac form canopies gave me fits. So I started my cutting, sanding and fitting with some trepidation. After about a half hour, I gave it it's 3rd fitting and Holy Moley, it looks good!

I was very happy and with that fit and decided to not press my luck and call it a session (BTW that piece of dust is not in the paint and easily wiped off). 
Check back for the finale. Thanks for looking.

The Douglas Skyflash (part 1)

This kit has been on my desk since the before the IPMS Nationals. I started out to be the easiest short run resin kit I ever worked on. Then when I started messing with seams to get them perfect it became a monster. I should have remembered what I was told years ago "Don't ruin a good (fill in the blank), by trying to make it great..."

But first here's a little history: 

In  the early 1950's, high-speed flight research was being done by different agencies, the NACA's hypersonic research, the Air Force's Project 1226, and the Navy's D-558 program. In 1954, a Langley team from NACA gathered those similar researches from military services and aerospace industries, combined with the Air Force and Navy to launch the new "Project 1226" competition. As the Navy liked to keep in the 'space race' and Douglas was interested in building future manned spaceplanes, the D-558-3 Skyflash (Model 684) design was sponsored by Navy to enter the competition. The D-558-3 was designed to be able to  install whatever rocket engine was selected by NACA, and to be air-launch from a Boeing B-50. In 1955, while the Navy decided to save the development cost and no longer participate,  NACA and the Air Force chose the North American proposal as the winner of the competition. This aircraft became the famed X-15 while the D.558-3 disappeared into the dust of the past. 

Here's the kit box art and parts - 

The cockpit and seat have also been painted

While there is an instrument panel, there is no detail to it. There are no decals for it, so I just added a few dots of white to mimic instruments. It looks like there's not a lot of room in there so this should suffice - 

Not a lot of room seems to have been an understatement  ;)  I also added some Tamiya tape seat belts -

Nose cone added. This is going well - 

The fuselage is mostly complete - Time to fill in the seams.

I applied Tamiya filler for the seams. While I'm waiting I painted the landing gear, wheels, and landing gear doors.

 Added primer to see where I am re: the seam lines. Not bad, but I'll give a few spots a second go round. This is where I took my "Going to the Nationals" break.

Upon my return I looked at it and a few spots still need attention. So I added more filler.  Check back for Part 2. Hopefully seam filling will be done. Thanks for looking.

2017 IPMS: Day Trip 3

Today, we got into the car and headed east to Omaha once again. This time it was the Doorly Zoo.  This zoo is supposedly rated even better than the San Diego Zoo.  I also visited the SD Zoo, and that was a tough act to follow.
Since my son started coming to these Nats trips we always looked for something a small kid would be interested in. Now it's become a tradition to hit the local zoo. 
Getting there was no problem and we were soon standing in front of the price board trying to judge what we wanted to do and see. We opted for the big package except for the IMAX. It was a nice day and no real need to be sitting in a darkened theater again (we did hit the local theater days before to see Dunkirk).

There is a hug dome right inside the front entrance that drew our attention so we headed that way - 

The dome was dedicated to plants and animals of the desert, and then as you went on, into an area where the creatures of the night were exhibited. Walking thru the doors you started in the Namib Desert. Lots of room for a few plants -

The whole place is a series of turns where something new is revealed with each turn. Here is where my problem with the idea started - 

These were the first mammal you see. I was surprised at how little room the animals had. This little dear about about  10'X20'. Somehow with herbivores, you see them standing around eating the grass or hay not really doing much else. But in the very next exhibit was an enclosure (I didn't image it) was an ocelot. Or what was supposed to be an ocelot - I never saw it. It's enclosure was a ledge! That's it. Prolly no more than 5 or 6' wide and about 20' long. Now I'm sure it's range in the wild is a lot more and 6'X20'. And that just continued. In my non zoological view, millions of dollars was spent on how it looks and it appeared that no 10¢ was giving to the animals. 
Then around one turn was a huge enclosure made to look like the opening of a mine, complete with tools and one of those carts that ride on rails. It had to be 20' long, 10' wide, but about 30' tall!  What was in it? Seven rattlesnakes!  So a predatory mammal which prolly has the range of many miles, had a ledge, and 7 rattlesnakes who basically stayed in one spot had this giant enclosure...
It got me mad. Mad to the point where I was ready to leave.In the end I basically just walked the path thru the rest of the desert, and did the same with the Creatures of the Night exhibit. No way was this better than the San Diego Zoo.

Getting out and stopping for a drink calmed me down. Then After my wife and son walked thru the aquarium building - I wasn't interested... my wife wanted to go see the butterfly exhibit. Ok, it can't be any worse than the Desert. It was better. I was there mostly to see the plants and I wasn't disappointed with the plants nor the butterflys - 

Very nice bromeliads

This moth was in the hatching area. Cool.

Reflections were impossible to work around

Beautiful Nepenthes

 Next to get a better view of what to see next, we jumped on the "Skyfari", a skilift type ride that took us to the far side of the zoo. Here were a few images from the ride - 

Senses Garden

A pair of cheetah

Bongo

 They even had a sculpture of a Columbian Mammoth - 

 Walking thru the Africa section, there were proper enclosures for the rest of the visit, and before long  it was the end of the day and time to head back to the hotel.

2017 IPMS: Day Trip #2a

I you read the Ash Fall Beds post, I mentioned that in the Hubbell Rhino Barn where were quite a few posters of the fauna that were found before, during, and after the catastrophe.  Liking them so much I imaged a vast majority of them (apologies for the glare, there was no way to avoid it) -

2017 IPMS: Day Trip #2

Today was the day for our long road trip to the Ash Fall Fossil Beds, outside of Royal, NE.  The three hour drive through small towns, corn and soybean fields had us drive down this rural road toward a compound of about 4 or 5 buildings.

Hubbell Rhino Barn

After paying the admission fee and NE State Park Parking fee  you walked into a very nice visitors center. There was naturally a gift shop, a worker, who I guess was a grad student, behind glass and working on fossils, and then some specimens. 
I guess to straighten things out right away that the fossils in this bone bed aren't dinosaurs, the first station informed the visitor that during the Cretaceous time, Nebraska and most of the Plains were under an inland sea - 

New Aquisitions

Checking out my booty from the latest trip to the Nationals. Being my likes are so narrow, I didn't buy any kits myself. But I did pick up a few tools - 

From Top to bottom - red box is a razor saw from UMM, then the next two are a diamond bit file and then a seam scraper from Volks. Below that is a flexible straight edge for scratching seam lines from UMM. Below that is a handle that came with the set of glue applicators (to the right), and some thin CA glue above that. All from Glue Looper. The two items on the left are 2 sable brushes - also from Volks.

During the Real Space Modelers Seminar, which doubles as a Meet and Greet of the members of the Yahoo Space Modelers Group, they have a grab bag giveaway at the end of the meeting. My son won the Airfix LEM and astronauts. But since he only builds armor, he gave them to me - 

Then another man sitting next to me won the Revell Apollo Soyuz Link Up in 1:96 scale. He turns to me and says he already has it, and hands the kit to me.  I'm a scale slave, that's not my scale, but as it's a gift I will build it. 

Finally the mailman dropped off two packages. One before I left and 1 after, The before box is the Galaxy Quest Shuttle. It comes complete with Berellium spheres, and a base. I have an idea for base and will create something  different  - 

Finally my good friend Paul Gill, from Gillman Products held the kit for me mailing it the day before I came home, so it wouldn't be sitting around unattended in front of my house. It's Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice!  I comes complete with a resin copy off the Book for the Recently Deceased. Pretty cool!

EDIT:  After I posted, the mail man came with a box from Fantastic Plastic. It's his 1:24th scale Velocipod from the 2004 movie The Incredibles.

Time to get building again! Thanks for looking.







 

2017 IPMS: Day Trip #1

Having investigated a number of day trips before we left for Omaha, the first one is the trip to the Strategic Air Command Museum just outside Ashland, NE.
The Museum is a pretty impressive site upon entering the driveway -

A little closer

The Rocket Garden

L to R: SM-62 Snark, SLV-1 Blue Scout, PGN-17A Thor, SM-65 Atlas

As you get closer to the door, looking through the glass, there's a Blackbird to greet you. Stepping through the door you see it - 

The building has two main hangars. Here's a sampling. Clicking the pic gives you a larger image. Make sure to hit the back button to come back to see the rest  - 

B-17G "Flying Fortress"

Wright R-1820-97 Cyclone, 9-cylinder radial, air-cooled engines, 1,200 horsepower each.*

F101-B Voodoo

A-26B Invader

XF-85 Gremlin

B-36J Peacemaker

Pano of B-52 Stratofortress

A little Closer

B-47E Stratojet

As you may have noticed these aircraft are packed pretty close together. Picture taking was a little difficult. Apologies for the sometime bad angles.

F-4 Phantom

B-58A Hustler

Martin Marietta Titan II model with a full sized nose cone

B-57E. "Parent" of this was the Brit Canberra

RB-45C Tornado (Reconnaissance aircraft)

B-25N Mitchell

B-25 Interiors

F-84 Thunderstreak

F-86 Sabre

U2-C "The Saint"

 This pano from the top deck is an overall of the one hangar, to the left is a FB 111A Aardvark which I missed when on the floor.

On to the second hangar...

The X-38 was a prototype for a new crew return vehicle, based on earlier 1960s “lifting-body” designs that would serve as an emergency crew return vehicle for the International Space Station.*

X-38 Crew Return Vehicle

X-38 Aft view

 Unmanned Apollo test flights were identified by double zeros before their numeric designations. The objectives of the test flights were to evaluate the spacecraft's communication and electronic subsystems, heat shield, and mission support facilities. On February 26, 1966 a Saturn 1B launch vehicle carrying Apollo CSM-009 was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Following a seven minute burn, the second stage instrument unit separated from the spacecraft. The Command Module reached a maximum altitude of 310 miles over the Atlantic Ocean before beginning descent.  It is on loan courtesy of the University of Nebraska - Lincoln, and restoration was completed courtesy of Duncan Aviation and Dale Jensen of Lincoln, Nebraska.*

Apollo Command Module (CSM 009)

 The VELA Satellite program began during the 1950s and was designed to monitor compliance with the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, as well as to provide scientific data on natural sources of space radiation. The various elements were capable of monitoring underground, atmospheric, and exoatmospheric nuclear tests. The last of the advanced VELA satellites was removed from service in 1984.*

KC-95G Stratofreighter

B-29 Super fortress

C-47 Skytrain

Closeup of the cargo door

T-29A "Flying Classroom" Navigational Trainer

F-102A Delta Dagger

A missile (with the one below) hangs over the cafe area.

ALCM-B Missile

 The museum also feature two nicely done model dioramas - 

Looking out front -

B-1A Lancer

 On the visitor's map, they showed a Vulcan out back. So we went for a look. Turns out there was a treasure trove of goodies besides the Vulcan.

Avro Vulcan B. Mk II

I think this was a very nice museum. There are some exhibits that are showing some wear and tear, some of the planes need to be dusted/washed, and some need a new paint job. All in all it was a very nice collection and definitely worth a visit. The SAC Museum website has more info and a few more aircraft that I missed. Thanks for looking.


(* - text from the website)