My 1/24 scale Thunderbolt.

[Tage]

Looking Good !

[hot ford coupe]

I'm still looking for my cockpit photos. I think it's on another disc somewhere. One thing I forgot to mention about this kit, and it was also mentioned on Large Scale Planes, some of the parts especially in the engine do not line up like they should. I learned the hard way and had to separate some of the parts, cut off the locating blocks and resetting everything to the correct orientation. As it is, the cylinders are turned a bit too clockwise. The lower cylinder should be pointing directly down. If I do that, nothing else will line up like they should. The key to this kit is dry fit, dry fit, dry fit, and then dry fit again. The finish on this big bird will be natural metal. I'll be using a combination of BMF and kitchen foil. Wish me luck on that.

[modelmaker]

looking good jeff it's amazing the difference a bit of fine wire makes to a radial engine.

Sean

[Ton]

Looking very good!

Ton

[hot ford coupe]

Thanks guys. The wire is copper colored beading wire I got in Hobby Lobby. For large scale building, (and even some smaller scale work) the beading aisles in WalMart, K-Mart, Micheal's, Hobby Lobby and wherever else are the best sources of detailing wire. You get yards of wire for a small price compared to some of the automotive aftermarket stuff. The spark plugs are very easy to do. A 3/64 inch hole was drilled into the cylinder head, a short piece of 3/64 inch brass tubing was inserted into the hole and a piece of 1/32 tubing was cemented into the 3/64 inch piece. The wire was cemented into the 1/32 inch piece.

[Shel]

Hi HFC,

I like very much what you have done with that big radial. Nice to see an aircraft engine in that scale. There really isn't very much out there. After seeing your original post I was inspired to send in my post of the Allison.

I like what you did for plug wires. That has always been a gray area for me, finding something that looked scale correct. I will definately look into bead wire, thanks for the tip. And for the tip about spark plugs too.

I know what you mean about parts not lining up. One of the first things I've found that I usually have do after dry fitting pieces is trim off the alignment pins and tabs in order to establish a proper fit. It does gets frustrating to have to reengineer something and/or decide how far you want to go with the reengineering before you can assemble it. I think you have done an excellent job working with what you have. That's usually the bottom line with me - working within the parameters of what you have with a store bought kit.

Shel

[hot ford coupe]

You're definitely right about locator pins. I usually sand them off when I'm building something I'm totally familiar with but with this radial, I went and trusted them. Man, was I wrong. Luckily, when the engine is installed, you can't see further than the front bank of cylinders. The areas where I pried the glued pieces apart are completely hidden. I'm not going to leave any cowl panels off so it doesn't matter what those areas look like.

[hot ford coupe]

Aha!! I found the cockpit photos on another memory stick. I sanded off all of the wiring details and added all the wores back myself using beading wire and thin guitar strings. The O2 hose is a thicker round wound guitar string bent and painted o.d. the instrument panel is a sandwich of background, clear acrylic and outer part of the panel. The throttle quadrant is scratchbuilt because the one from the kit is no good. Other parts were scratchbuilt and the rest was painted. The seat cushion and headrest are covered with real leather skived really thin. The shoulder straps are also thinnly skived leather with scratchbuilt buckels. The buckles are just bent wires. BTW, the cushion and belts are not in the pics There's alot going on but if you take each separate detail piece one step at a time, it's actually very simple to do, just fiddly and time consuming.

[hot ford coupe]

I decided to see how much of the remaining engine will be seen once the cowl is put on. I don't intend to have any panels removed for this particular model so all the detail behind the cylinder banks will never be seen. I decided to use the unseen parts for structural reasons so everything can be oriented in the right places. The photos below are at two different angles to check for how much engine will be visible. I have another one of these kits but I'm not sure how I'll build it. I do know that one will have a natural finish and the other will be painted OD and gray. They'll both have the checkerboard cowling and the codes for the 78th FG. The two planes will look great side by side and on a concrete surface but at present, I don't think I'll have enough space for the display. These kits are huge. The third pic shows the approximate size of this monster. That's a 25 cent piece folks.

[Shel]

Looks good, HFC. I really like the look of the big radials when viewed from the front through the cowling. Yours has that look. When it has the prop and spinner on it'll look just right. By the way what is the wingspan measurement of that model? I haven't built any planes in 1/24 scale before. My only model plane experience has been with the Hobby Craft DCH-2 Beaver on floats in 1/72 and 1/48 scale.

Regarding looking at the big radials: Last summer I had a couple of neat experiences. The small southwestern Montana town that I live in has a correspondingly small airport that is about two miles from my house. Early each summer they have an open house/airshow and try to have a unique airplane or two (warbirds if possible) fly in as an attraction and display. Last summer the visitor was a beautiful blue Vought F4U-5NL Corsair owned by a fellow in a town about 160 miles north. It has the P&W 2800 engine. After he had taxied in and parked I went up and peered in at that big radial through the cowling trying to see as much as I could. As I stood there looking in I could hear the gentle pop and snap of the hot engine as it cooled and could smell that unique hot engine odor. Great stuff to a gearhead. I also spent an hour or so listening to and talking with the pilot.

Then a month or so later a Hawker Sea Fury MK II flew in on its way home to Minnesota after competing in the Reno air races. It had a Curtiss-Wright R-3350 radial and once again I was able to spend a pleasurable hour looking it all over, taking in the sounds and smells and talking a little with the crew chief. What I really enjoy, besides the whole experience of these great planes flying in and out, is being present when those big radials start-up. They can really put on a show as shown in the picture of the Hawker on start-up. Great stuff.

I've attached a couple of pictures of those planes and of our small airport. If you look closely at the airport shot you can just see the red cowling and four bladed prop of the Hawker parked on the tarmac about mid way between the tall white sign and the yellow hanger. Those big warbirds really make an audible!! and visual impact when they drop in at our little airfield. I'm hoping that a P-40 or Mustang will drop in someday so that I can experience the sights and sounds of an Allison and/or a RR Merlin V-12.

Shel

[hot ford coupe]

Hey Shel, now I'm going ot make you drool. In 1986, I went to a convention in Florida. It was a meeting of the 8th AF Historical society. The aircraft the society managed to have come in was the Collings Foundation B17 909. A friend of mine who was in WWII as a ball turret gunner with the 100th Bomb Group managed to get me, himself and 2 other WWII B 17 crewmen a ride in that
B 17 for the paltry sum of 75 bucks. If you like the sound of radials starting up, I was able to listen to 4 Wright Cyclones start up from inside the B 17's radio room. If that wasn't good enough, we heard and felt those 4 cyclones rev up and pick that bird up off the ground. What a sound and what a feeling. You could smell the oil, gasoline and exhaust as those engines hit full throttle. If you've ever seen the movie Memphis Belle (which all the old vets saw and hated,) it was just like the scene inside the Belle when it took off.

[Shel]

Yes, drool indeed. 7,920 cu in, 4,800 hp, wow. An 'E' ticket ride for just $75! What a great story. Wonder what it would cost today?

[modelmaker]

Jeff I hope this build is over on LSP mate ?

Sean

[hot ford coupe]

Hey Sean. No, I forgot to post it over there. I'll correct that quick enough.

Hey Shel. It's all 100% true and I still can't believe I did that. When I got back home from the convention, I got out my repro A-2 and painted a big yellow bomb on it for my only mission. I didn't shoot anything down though.

I heard at some point last year that with gas prices the way they were at $4.00 + a gallon, the cost of a ride was about $400 Semolians. If I did that now, my wife wouldn't kill me but I would wish I were expired.