DELERS SOCIETY, USA CORSAIR birds markings. …ipms-phoenix.org/newsletter/2008/Corsair_2008_02.pdfSeveral of us got together and looked ... Jim Fry’s 1-48 Revell F-18A Hornet in

FEBRUARY 2008 1 THE CORSAIR

Is it just me, or is this year flying by? It’s March already. Maybe it’s all the stuff going on at work and at home, or maybe it’s all the stuff going on with the club. Probably, it’s a combination of all those taking up a lot of time. We had an enjoyable get-together at Rick Marshall’s home the weekend of the 23rd. Who knew he could cook, too? But the Christmas tree worries me. Anyway, thanks for having us, Rick. Several of us got together and looked at hotels and venues in preparation for our bid for the 2010 Nationals. We have some good places to choose from, as you’ll hear from Dick’s report during the meeting. The club was honored by General Jones’ request that the Planes Of Luke collection be part of the displays at the ice breaker gathering for the Air Education & Training Command’s Commander’s Conference held at Luke AFB this last week. I was told by a major who attended that he had to spend the entire evening answering ques-tions about the display and that General Jones seemed very proud to have it there. The major even had to field a request by one of the visiting generals that he be given one of the models. The major patiently explained that one of the stipulations of the donation was that the collection be kept together. So, participants in the group build, once again the bright light of public acclaim shines upon you. Great job. Having had no major calamities in the model room this month (mostly because I haven’t had much time to be in there, not from an overabundance of skill or cau-

tion), I started thinking in terms of Nationals projects. We’ve got almost ex-actly five months to go before the trip to Virginia Beach. This will actually be an early start for me. If I can make up my mind what to do, that is. This month’s program is Chuck Krause telling us of the history of plastic mod-eling. Should be very interesting. Now, go stretch your modeling muscles.

Steve Collins IPMS Craig Hewitt Chapter President

Presidents Message

Chuck Ludwig brought in his nicely done 1/72 Hasegawa T-38 Talon in painted in Thunder-birds markings.

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Volume 10, Issue 2 FEBRUARY 2008

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IN THIS ISSUE: Feb. Meeting Pictures................................2 News and Notes..........................................6 Want Ads......................................................6 Hobby Boss A-7 Review ...........................7 Tuskegee Airmen Exhibit..........................9 Web Links ..................................................10 Trumpeter Mig-3 Review.........................11 Upcoming Events Calendar ...................13 Support Local Hobby Shops..................14


February was a great meeting. Steve introduced his new meeting format to the club and by all accounts it was received well. A nice collections of completed models was on display as you can see. Lastly, Jim Pearsall showed us how to use facial mask as a paint mask.

See you in March.

February 2008 Meeting

Brian Baker brought in a 1-72 Frog Miles Master III

Charles Swanson treated us to a 1/32 Revell FW-190D-9.

Remember to bring in your models to the next meeting in order to be photographed and put in the next

issue of the Corsair.

This nicely done vignette of 2 1/35 CMK sniper/spotters was brought in by Chris Nadeau.

(Above) Craig Pierce’s 1/100 Paper Model Cargo Ship (Octopus Rex)

(Right) Dale Mickley’s 1/25 Revell Mercedes 430 (Snow

Bird Patrol)


Dave Weitzel’s 1/72 Fujimi AH-1J Sea Cobra.

Don Stewart’s 1/32 Hasegawa F6F-3 Hellcat

Jim Pearsall’s 1/72 Hobby Boss Vought A-7A Corsair II. Read more about it further back. Ethan Dunsford brought in a 1/16 Tamiya M4A1

(76mm) In The Mood Sherman.

Gary Thomas brought in a 1/72 AirFix LTV-4 Buffalo.

(Top) James Hinderliter’s Bandai J9 Griffon Aqua Type

(Left) Jim Fry’s 1-48 Revell F-18A Hornet in Army-Navy markings


February 2008 Meeting Model Photos Cont’d

John Kienitz showed off his nicely done 1/72 Testors Fujimi HH-53C Super Jolly Green Giant

Jordan Ross’ 1/72 Anigrand Lockheed XP-58 Chain Lightning

Keith Peiper’s 1/48 Dragon Ho229B

A rare sight, a car model! Joseph Garcia’s 1/25 AMT-ERTL Davey Allison Thunderbird.

Keenan Chittester’s 1/72 Fujimi A-4C Skyhawk

Mike Mackowski’s Monogram Starship Voyager


Newcomer Ray Laurias brought in one of his 1/8 McFarlane Iraq Dioramas.

Steve Donaldson showed off his HO Citadel Warham-mer 40K

Will Frey brought in his 1/72 Hasegawa F9F-2 and A-1.

Interesting Photos

A rarely seen picture of a Special Forces HUMVEE with a minigun in Iraq.

Actual photo of Super 64 down in Moga-dishu, Somalia on October 20, 1993.


News and Notes

To see all of the models that

were on display at the February meeting, visit our website at

www.ipms-phx.org.

Join the IPMS/USA! $25 annual membership includes a one year

Subscription to the IPMS Journal. Visit www.ipmsusa.org to download a membership form. Or you can write to:

IPMS/USA National Office P.O. Box 2475

N. Canton, OH 44720-0475

Robert Csendes is trying to find an out-of-production vacuform kit of the 1/72 Convair XC-99 formerly made by Rick’s Models. If anyone has one they are willing to part with or knows where he can find one, please contact him at [email protected]. Michael Gossman from Huntington, West Virginia is looking for someone to paint a model of a hydroplane boat. He would like it painted in the same scheme as the one he roots for. The boat is about the same size as a typical model car and it is already assembled. Michael will provide photos of the real thing for reference. If you are interested, contact Michael at [email protected] and name your price.

WANTED

Chris Helgrud is looking for a 1/72 Norden bomb site. If you have one or know of where one is, contact Chris @ 480-664-7994. Or you can email him at [email protected]

FOR SALE: Hobbycraft (Trumpeter) 1/24 Spitfire Vb. All parts still in plastic bags. Includes 3 resin figures. Decals for 3 aircraft. Don't be scared by the Hobbycraft name. It is the Trumpeter kit in a Hobbycraft box. Asking $45. If interested, please contact Keenan Chittester at [email protected]. I can bring it to a meeting if you are interested.

Meteor Productions Closes up Shop and Ceases Operations

Yes, you read that right. About 2 weeks ago, I received an email, (like several of you probably did) which indicated that Meteor Production was ceasing operations about three days later. This doesn’t appear to be financially related, rather it was time to just stop. Another one bites the dust. :( After 15 years in business, the doors are now closed. The website is no longer tak-ing orders. Long a big name in the hobby with product lines such as Teknics, Cutting Edge, Yellowhammer Decals and more, Meteor was well known for broad product lines and good quality. For further information, check out the video that owner Dave Klaus posted on the website at www.meteorprod.com.


HobbyBoss 1/72 A-7A Corsair II

Kit #HY87201 By Jim Pearsall IPMS #2209

Background:

Our chapter (IPMS Craig Hewitt, Phoenix) is helping out the Commemorative Air Force in Mesa, AZ by building display models for their hangar. The idea is that the club will provide built models, the CAF will provide a place to display them, give us some publicity, and we get to have our annual ModelZona contest in a really spiffy location.

Larry Grapentine bought the HobbyBoss A-7 for the pro-ject, then got into the process of moving, trying to sell a house, go to work, and see his family occasionally. So he asked if I would build the kit. I asked Dave Morrissette if he’d like a review. Dave said he’d like to see one, so here we go.

The Kit:

The kit contains 6 grey sprues and 2 clear, plus decals. There are electronics bays and a pretty complete weapons load, but the CAF wants the models kept simple to reduce maintenance, so these weren’t done. The cockpit is nice, with decals for panel and consoles, and the wheel wells have good detail. The intake trunk looks good. The panel lines are clean and recessed, as you would expect from a 21st Century plastic kit.

Accuracy: I did some research for this review, and read a review that said that the Hobby-Boss A-7 has different fuselage shape and length from the Fujimi kit. Yes, it does. It also differs in both from the Hasegawa A-7 and the Italeri A-7. And none of these agree with the other three.

In a further attempt to figure this out, I scanned drawings from Scale Aircraft

Modeling, Profile 239, the Squadron/Signal A-7 and the Aircam Sharkmouth Special. None of THESE agreed on length or shape either.

At this juncture, I gave up. It looks much more like an A-7A than any other aircraft you care to name, includ-ing the F-8 Crusader. In a display case, no one will get within 2 feet of it anyway.


Build:

The parts were flash-free, and came off the sprues pretty well. I had to use the fine grit sanding stick to get the little nubs off from the sprue connec-tions, but this is to be expected. Parts fit pretty well, with the exception of the wing top and bottom.

The parts fit together well, but when I attached the wings to the fuselage I found that the tight fit of the wing bottom forced the wing top to not mate with the fuselage, leaving a considerable gap. I tried cut-ting the mating surface back on the bottom, but wound up just puttying the joint.

The wheels and landing gear fit well, and the result is a strong joint. Even when I hit the top of the plane during decaling, all I did was knock one of the wheels off, easily fixed.

Painting and Markings:

Painting was greatly simplified by the 4-view drawings. The other side of the sheet shown is the marking

scheme I used. Color callouts were with Mr. Color, but the instructions had an addendum giving Testors Humbrol, and FS 595 callouts.

Decals went on nicely, even with the large tail markings. I did have a problem with the intake warnings, as they didn’t want to fit over the A-7A’s openings for the twin nose guns. Letting them set up some and then slitting the decal with a #11 blade, followed by decal solvent took care of this. I also was a little miffed that I missed the fact that the un-derwing “star & bar” is covered at both ends by the underwing pylons. Again the #11 blade made it good.

Overall Evalua-tion:

A good kit

for the money. There was a fit issue, but you can now bypass this, since you can learn from my problem. Additionally, I wasn’t always in tune with the instructions, which give you 3 steps for the entire build. The detail stuff was better than


anyone else’s, unless you want to pay for an add-on electronics bay.

If there are shape issues, I’m not going there. The only way to really tell is to personally take a photo of a real A-7A, and take a photo of your model from the same angle, and compare them on a light table.

Thanks to Larry for providing the model.

TUSKEGEE/BLACK AVIATOR EXHIBIT OPENS AT CAF

by Keenan Chittester

The new Tuskegee Airmen & Black Aviator Exhibit opened at the Commemorative Air Force Museum on Sat-urday, February 9th. In attendance were 3 of the original Tuskegee Airmen, along with several members of the Archer-Ragsdale Arizona Chapter of the Tuskegee Airmen, Inc. The keynote speaker for the event was Dr. Thurston Gaines, who gave a very entertaining account of his life before, during and after World War II. Dr. Gaines was a Tuskegee Air-man who flew 35 missions over Germany and southern Europe during WWII. On his 35th mission, he was shot down by ground fire while doing a strafing run in a P-51. He spent a little over a month as a POW, and was repatriated due to the end of the war. After the war he continued in the Air Force as an instructor, during which time he also flew B-25s. He returned to school after the war and studied to become a surgeon. He retired as a surgeon almost 20 years ago, and he has recently come out of retirement to teach young teenagers. About his time serving with the Tuskegee Airmen, Dr. Gaines said, “We didn’t think we were doing anything great. We were just doing our job.”

The Craig Hewitt Chapter contributed several models to the exhibit, and they all look great. Larry Turner, the CAFs exhibit coordinator, was very pleased with the models and is grateful for all of our hard work. Many thanks to Bruce Briggs, Steve Collins, Jim Fry, Chuck Ludwig, Rick Marshall, Keith Pieper, Bill Sanborn and Dave Weitzel for the terrific job they did on the models. It is not always enjoyable to build a model when there is a deadline, especially when it is not necessarily something you want to build. But these guys came through in a big way, and the exhibit is something they can be proud of.

The models for the Tuskegee Airmen were 1/48 scale “profile” models. In other words, we only built ½ of a model. The aircraft represented are the P-39, P-40, P-47, P-51C, P-51D and the T-6 trainer. From a distance, the finished models look like they are two dimensional.

There are 7 models in 1/72 scale that are part of the Black Aviators Exhibit. Eugene Bullard’s Nieuport 17, Bessie Coleman’s Curtiss Jenny, Benjamin Davis’ P-51, Jesse Brown’s F4U Corsair, Fred Cherry’s F-105, Chappie James’ F-4 Phantom, and Lloyd Newton’s T-38 in Thunderbird markings. These models are mounted in a small case which is part of a larger display which tells the story of each aviator.

Overall, the display should attract a lot of attention. There are always visitors looking at the models at the CAF, and the comments that have been overheard are always positive. Our club should be proud of our work, and the CAF is grateful to have high quality models to display. If you are interested in building a 1/72 aircraft model to donate to the CAF, please contact Keenan Chittester at [email protected]. Or you can talk to me at one of the meetings. I always have a list of what models they are looking for.


LinksLinks

Wings Palette

http://wp.scn.ru/en/ww3/f

It can be a little clunky to navigate, though. Basically, you select the era and type of aircraft from the menu at the top. Then you select from the list at the left of the screen. The number in the brackets indicates how many profiles there are of that particular aircraft. After you select the aircraft, another screen comes up which looks just like the previous one. Scroll down a bit and you will see a box in the middle with different countries listed. Once again, the brackets indicate the number of profiles. Select the country and list comes up on the right side of the screen. Click on the page # and you will be taken to the profiles page. I think there are about 9 or 10 profiles on each page. Click the thumbnail to see a larger picture. Timelines Forum

http://www.timelinesforum.com/

A mind blowing site for figure sculptors and painters. This site is loaded with forums covering all manner of how to’s and the builders’ latest works. Topics cover painting, sculpting, scenery & display, in addition to research items and articles. These are the kinds of figures that make you stop, stare and pick your jaw up off of the floor.

Tuskegee/Black Aviator Exhibit Photos

Dr. Thurston Gaines

4 of the original Tuskegee Airmen The Tuskegee exhibit with the “profile” models built by

Craig Hewitt members

Lloyd Newton’s 1/72 Thunderbird T-38 was built by Chuck Ludwig


Trumpeter 1/32 Mig 3 #2230 MSRP – $54.95

By Rick Marshall IPMS 40362

First Impressions:

When I picked up the box I was surprised by how sturdy it was, this is one stout box. Due to the strength of the box, all parts and decals arrived in perfect shape. The clear parts were excel-lent, clear and distortion free. The parts themselves were cleanly molded as one would expect of a new and modern kit; there was no flash and the mold seams were minimal. There were two things that I was not so sure about: one was the way that the moveable control surfaces were to be attached; and the other was the depth of the recessed rivet detail. Looking at the ailerons, there were some slots in the bottom that would be visi-ble when on the model. Before any part was removed from the trees I had decided that the slots would be filled and the control surfaces would be glued into position. Lastly, I looked for ejection pin marks. The only ones that looked like they would be visible were on the inside of the gear doors. There were some marks on the inside of the flaps but I was planning on closing them so I didn’t worry about them. The instructions looked straightforward and well laid out and the decals looked good.

Construction:

As with most aircraft models, construction starts with the cockpit and this one is no different. The detail is not bad and would be excellent for 1/48th scale kit, but as a 1/32nd it looked a bit light and the parts did seem thick. This was easily seen with the seat pan - the way the seat was assembled it was not possible to thin it out, so I just lived with it. I was building this model for our local contest and in accordance with IPMS Out of Box (OOB) rules. So no modifications or detail was going to be added; consequently I focused on paint-ing.

The kits instructions called for the parts to be painted matt light grey. I used a custom mix of RLM02 and Russian Underside blue to paint the interior parts. I use 2/3 thirds RLM02 to 1/3 third blue. I am not sure if that is a perfect match for the paint used for the interior of Russian Aircraft but it looks good to me. Instru-ment detail is very sparse to non existent; this is OK. However, the instrument panel is pretty deep in the cockpit and quite hard to see in the completed model. The fit of all the parts was excellent and the assembly went with no problems at all. The one thing that did leave me puzzled was there was no seatbelts; the two-part seat back left no clues regarding the placement of any shoulder belts. As a result, I used some tape and created some lap belts. After completing the model I received a review copy of Mushroom Models Mig1/3 and all I will say at this point, is I wish I would have had this when building the kit!

While I working on the cockpit I filled all the slots in the control sur-faces and the flaps. I was careful to keep the filler off the fabric por-tions by covering them with tape; this was a relatively painless proc-ess and in total added about 2 hours to the build. After completion of the cockpit it was time to put the fuselage together. I have one word of caution: do not forget the tail wheel as it cannot be installed after the fuselage is together! As with the cockpit, everything went to-gether well and only minor sanding was required to remove any rem-nants of the seams.

This model is a bit different than most I have assembled, as the en-


gine section of the fuselage is broken up. There is a piece for the upper cowling, one for the lower cowling and another for the front. I did not put in part A14 - the propeller back plate - at this point, as I wanted to see how the wings and the other parts would all come together. Dry fitting looked OK but we all know that things change when the glue comes out.

The wings were next on the list. While I was working on this build I happened to stumble across DataDe-cals Mig 3 sheet 32001; this has all the markings required for Red 02 and several other Mig 3’s. I wanted to build Red 02, unlike the Trumpeter kit this version had the earlier wings without slats. As a result I installed the slats in the closed position and then filled the seams around the slats. That was the only filler used on the model. The wings also have the supercharger intakes installed in them and Trumpeter has you installing these as separate parts on the leading edge of the wing where it meets the fuselage. This is the only part of the build that needed some extra work. If I installed the intakes so that they aligned with the wing, the upper portion of the fuselage joint stood proud. As a result I decided to thin the tops of parts A11 and A12 until they fit flush of the fuselage. This removed the rivet detail so I had to replace it with some drilling. All in all, not a big deal. After the wings were on, I put the upper and lower cowlings on and installed A14. It all went without major trauma and the fit was good. I was relieved as I was planning on painting the cowling natural metal.

The rest of the building was easy as everything fit and the last part of the assembly before painting was in-stalling the control surfaces and the canopy. The front portion of the canopy includes a portion of the fuse-lage. I really liked this, as there were no seams along the canopy fuselage joint and the lower sections fell onto panel lines - easy stuff! The rear canopy portion was also a good fit. All in all the build was pretty easy. Test fitting of the main gear made me smile; the fit was tight and both legs lined up perfectly, no gear misalignment for the judges!

Painting:

OK if you have looked at the pictures of the completed model you will see that the wings of my model are painted red and the front of the fuselage is natural metal. Those of you who are familiar with controversy around the paint scheme will most likely say I got it wrong, and you would be correct. I did this on purpose; I did mix up a grey for the cowling and had some green on the wings and all I can say was yuck! It was most likely accurate but the green with the white and the grey, looked awful to me. So I put some of the grey on the upper side of the horizontal stabilizers. It is possible that this was correct as I did run across a couple of references that suggested this. I masked off the inner portion of the wings and got out my red - it might not be right, but to me, it just looked better. Next was the Alclad; on the nose I used matt aluminum on the upper portion; the sides were aluminum and the bottom was dull aluminum. To do this I would paint a portion then mask it off with Tamiya Tape, paint the next section and so on. I really like the Alclad line of paints; they work wonderfully and the finish is hard, resistant to scratches and is easily masked. So when I was done, every corner of the model was most likely covered in a colour that was wrong, but I liked the look of the paint. I did get the blue on the bottom right J!

Final Assembly:

This was easy; the gear and landing gear doors were a snap to install and the same could be said for everything else. This was the easiest landing gear alignment job I have ever seen. I should also note that the exhaust stacks were hollowed out which was a nice touch.

Decals:

I used a mix of the DataDecals and the kit decals and they all went on very easily with no problems of any kind.

Conclusion:

Trumpeter has given us a well priced and relatively easy to assemble kit. I would have preferred if they


UPCOMING EVENTS

The club meets at 7:00pm on the first Tuesday of each month at the American Legion Post #1 in Phoe-nix. Check the club calendar on the website - www.ipms-phx.org - for any changes.

American Legion Post #1 364 N. 7th Ave.

Phoenix, AZ 85003 The post is located South of I-10, just a few blocks North of Van Buren on 7th Ave. Look for the large flagpole.

Club Officers President Steve Collins [email protected] (623) 877-4631 Vice President Kevin Wenker [email protected] (623) 977-0441 Secretary Chuck Ludwig [email protected] (480) 982-0485 Treasurer Mike Ronnau [email protected] (602) 504-2907 Chapter Contact Dick Christ [email protected] (480) 983-7131 Member-At-Large Joseph Garcia [email protected] (602) 682-7319 Webmaster Don Crowe [email protected] (623) 872-6151 Webmaster Jim Pearsall [email protected] (623) 583-2308 Corsair Editor Mike Pabis [email protected] (480) 515-3627

Interested in armor modeling? Why not check out the new AMPS chapter here in the Valley. Meetings are held at Avalon Books & Hobbies, 1510 N. SCOTTS-DALE RD 480-994-2263. Contact Ethan Dunsford @ [email protected] or Keith Pieper @ [email protected] for more details.

March 2008 • Tuesday 4th, 7pm - Craig Hewitt Chapter

meeting at American Legion Post #1. • Saturday 8th, 11am-2pm - HobbyTown USA

Annual Model Contest and Make & Take. Hob-byTown is on the southwest corner of Baseline and Gilbert Roads in Gilbert. Registration is from 11am to 2pm.

• Saturday 15th, 7pm - Cholewa Plastic Model Swap Meet - Saturday, March 15 from 8:30am to 1:30pm. New location and day! Postal Workers Social Club at 3720 W. Greenway Rd. in Phoenix.

April 2008 • Tuesday 1st, 7pm - Craig Hewitt Chapter meet-

ing at American Legion Post #1. • Saturday 5th—Sunday 6th, 9am-4pm - South-

west Military Transport Show at the CAF, • Saturday 26th, 9am-6pm - Cactus Car Mod-

elers Desert Scale Classic VI Postal Workers Social Club at 3720 W. Greenway Rd. in Phoe-nix.

Just a reminder that newsletter submis-sions should be sent 1 week before the next meeting for inclusion in the Cor-

sair.

(Trumpeter Mig-3 Cont’d) had not bothered with the gimmicky moveable control surfaces and instead beefed up the cockpit detail and made some of the parts like the landing gear doors a bit thinner. This would have made for an even better end result. I am pleased with mine and so were the judges at our local contest. It took first in its class and also grabbed an OOB award. If you are at all interested in VVS subjects this model will be enjoyed by most who take it on. The subject of this review is courtesy of my wife who bought this one for me.


www.gofastest.com/cruzin 2018 N. Arizona Ave., Ste. D118-126 Chandler, AZ 85225 (480) 899-6640

www.airline-hobby.com Your One Stop Source for

Scale Model Airliner Kits, Decals, Diecasts and Accessories

Space modeling reference books by Mike Mackowski.

Avalon Books and Hobbies 1510 N. Scottsdale Rd.

Tempe, AZ 85281

(480) 994-2263

RIGHT STUFF, RIGHT PRICE

www.thehobbydepot.com

216 W. Southern Ave. 29 N. Val Vista, Suite 102 Tempe, AZ 85282 Gilbert, AZ 85234 (480) 968-1880 (480) 497-3254

The Corsair 13613 S. 37th St. Phoenix, AZ 85044

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Copper State Models “The Cutting Edge In Military Details”

Eric R. Hight 3245 E. Hillery Dr. Phoenix, AZ 85032 (602) 867-8822

1817 E. Baseline Rd. Gilbert, AZ 85233

(480) 892-0405 Don’t forget to sign up for your HobbyTown Card!

Documents

DELERS SOCIETY, USA CORSAIR birds markings. …ipms-phoenix.org/newsletter/2008/Corsair_2008_02.pdfSeveral of us got together and looked ... Jim Fry’s 1-48 Revell F-18A Hornet in