HAWK U.S. Navy TV-2

I remember buying the Hawk Lockheed TV-2 at Peterson's Hobbies & Crafts because the picture of the assembled model on the box looked very colorful and detailed. Upon opening the box at home however, I discovered a pretty basic kit molded in translucent white plastic! The decals were not the ones shown on the box cover, and the instructions also showed a different version. I built and painted the thing any way, and it looked horrible. I didn't paint the translucent white parts, and the red I hand-brushed using Testors flat insignia red - awful! But, I remember having lots of fun building it because the instructions had Captain Hawk, an illustrated character yelling out commands such as, "You're getting sloppy with that paint!"
In rebuilding this kit, I discovered why the kit shown on the box top differs from the kit inside. Apparently Hawk's original TV-2 kit from 1959 (shown left) had the correct early Navy version illustrated on the box, which jived with the decals and instructions. Hawk reissued the kit in 1965, but chose to show a TV-2 built by a professional modeler on the box top. This pro apparently decided to model a TV-2 in a later Navy scheme, and used his own decals from the scrap box. It's a nice looking model, but unfortunately deceives the buyer into thinking he can build the same thing.

I chose to build the kit in the original 1950s scheme. To my delight the parts were molded in a thick, semi-gloss white styrene, which meant I didn't have to paint them white. The red panel I painted using Tamiya gloss red. I stuck to Captain Hawk's painting suggestions in the plans, which results in a pretty decent looking model. The original decals had yellowed a bit, but went on nicely. This is one of Hawk's semi-action kits, with removable tail section and engine ala-Lindberg. The canopy also moves up and down; other than that there are no moving parts.

Airfix Britten-Norman Islander

To the best of my recollection the Airfix 1/72 scale B.N. 2 Islander is the last model airplane kit I built before I moved from our first Lancaster home on East Avenue J-5, to a new mobile home on 20th Street East. I remember picking it out from the shelf at Peterson Hobbies and my Dad saying, "Looks like an Aero Commander." That made me want to get it because I liked the Aero Commander. I would see the Rockwell company Commander fly over our house every now and then, and my Dad had great stories of being shuttled around in it during trips between Downey and Palmdale. I would have bought a model of the Commander if there were one available at the time. Comet's little Aero Commander 680 kit along with Aurora's reissue were long since out of production by the time I started building models; and I had no knowledge they even existed until years later when I started trolling through kit auctions on EBay. Nevertheless, Airfix's Islander was the next best thing, and I liked it. I still do.
The kit is molded in bright yellow, so overall painting is not necessary unless you want the model to look more like the real orangish-yellow of Aurigny's old paint scheme. Once the thing is all put together and the decals applied though, the original yellow doesn't look all that bad. Some dark red needs to be applied though on the tops of the engine nacelles, along with flat black de-icer boots. I painted the seats blue as per the instructions, but went a step further and painted the control panel and dash board flat black. Airfix instructions can be rather lacking in painting suggestions.
Build-wise the model is very detailed and accurate in scale, but suffers from poor fit, especially the fuselage halves and wing mount. Airfix decals over thirty years old can be hit or miss as far as usefulness, but the ones of this Islander rebuild were acceptable.
This is a fun little model to have again on the shelf, and reminds me of a time where I transitioned not only to a new home, but to mostly 1/72 scale aircraft.

AMT 1/48 Corsair, P-36, Vega, Temptest, and F9F

My Mom bought me the complete set of AMT's 1/48 scale plastic aircraft kits from the JCP Penny mail order catalog for Christmas, 1976. We were getting close to moving from our first home in Lancaster to a new double-wide mobile home further east of town. I already had the MiG-15, but the set came with another one. I didn't finish building the set before we moved, but I think I finished the F9F Panther because it was the MiG-15's nemesis.

I was very excited to get these models for Christmas, but I wouldn't have bought them on my own. I wasn't very keen on the Tempest, or the Lockheed Vega. For this reason, I'm going to skip over building them again so I can get on to projects that I was more interested in as a kid, and still am today.

Nichimo 1/20th Scale Hughes 500 - A Dream Come True!

I'm taking a break in my usual lineup of kits I built as a kid, to show you one I wished I had as a kid. The Nichimo 1/20th scale Hughes 500 helicopter was one of those untouchable model kits displayed behind the counter at Peterson Hobbies. I knew I could never afford it, and that it would probably be too complex for me to build. Thirty-five years later however, the opportunity finally came to procure one of these highly collectible action model kits.
These appear rather frequently on EBay, but for outrageous starting bid prices. In the case of this one shown here, patience payed off when I spotted it complete, but in a tattered box. The seller claimed all the pieces were included, so I took a chance and bid on it. To my surprise I won it for a much lower price than these usually sell for. The box was indeed in bad shape, but I wasn't getting this kit for the box!
This is an awesome model; extremely fun and challenging to build, especially if one chooses the motorized version because there are lots of gear boxes and wires to assemble. There's even a working miniature light bulb for the landing light! The interior is stunningly detailed, with everything from pilot's headsets, magazine pockets in the forward bulkhead, fire extinguisher, first aid kit, vinyl strapping material for the seat belts, and wire tubing for the turbine engine. If you choose to go with the display only version, you can mount the assembled engine into the fuselage and view it through an opening access cover. But the neat thing about going motorized is you can still build the highly detailed engine and display it externally on its transport dolly.
There's a lot of anticipation of the finished working product when assembling this model. There are many steps to completing the motorized workings, and no opportunity to test the thing out until you finally mount the chopper to the control platform. Then, and only then, with a push of a button, the kit comes alive with rotating blades. It's really quite amazing to see the thing work after all the labor involved.
There is a full color painting guide showing five versions, but the decal sheet only includes full body panel markings for one version - the American one. I chose to do the Japanese Kawasaki version, but that meant painting the decorative panels on the fuselage, tail boom, and fins. What a pain that was! I used Tamiya gloss blue, but there was a lot of bleeding through the masking tape that had to be painstakingly corrected afterwards. The original decals were barely usable, not wanting to come off the backing sheet. I had to coat them with clear gloss when they dried to ensure adhesion.

This is a really fun model to have on my office shelf, and goes to show one is never too old to have something dreamed of since childhood.

AMT MiG-15 'fagot'

For Christmas 1976 my Mom bought for me all six AMT 1/48 scale model airplane kits which came out that year. I already had the MiG-15, but it was nice to get the other five (F9F Panther, Hawker Tempest, P-36 Hawk, F4U-1 Corsair, and Lockheed Vega) in the set. She got them from a catalog store, and they came together in a cardboard box. When I tore off the Christmas wrapping and opened the box, I saw all six kits neatly packed together - what eye candy!

At the time these kits came out, AMT was better known for their automobile and "Star Trek" model kits. Perhaps the popularity of their Hindenburg kit in 1975 prompted the company to explore a wider range of subjects. The interesting thing about these early AMT airplane kits is they are very basic and easy to build, yet are very accurate in scale. They have minimum surface and interior detail. For instance, this MiG-15 kit has a 'bathtub' type cockpit you drop into the fuselage once the two halves are glued together. There is no wheel well detail whatsoever. The decals include just the basic national insignia and markings. AMT molded all their kits in white styrene, and their instructions give no painting guidance other than "look at the picture on the box"! The box art doesn't help much either as the illustrations are rather cartoon-ish. AMT packaged these kits in a collapsible 'cereal' type box, with a little schematic of the airplane on one edge, and a short illustration of how great their kits are engineered on the other. Still, with all their simpleness, they make nice looking models if finished well, and go together nicely as a set, especially the MiG-15 and F9F.
The MiG-15 shown here is the third I've built in my lifetime. My first two were hand brushed with Testors silver, and were very streaky looking. This latest one was sprayed with Testors chrome. I painted only a few minimum details such as black gun barrels, tires, and exhaust cone. The interior was painted with Testors Russian interior green, with a brown-suited pilot.

Monogram came out with their own 1/48 scale MiG-15 the same year, which seemed redundant; but theirs was far superior to AMTs. Monogram's had a fully detailed cockpit with sliding canopy, wheel well detail, and markings for three versions. Interestingly, their North Korean Air Force markings were the same as AMT's, even duplicating the plane's serial number "2057"! Monogram included national insignia for the wings, while AMT did not.
It was right after Christmas 1976 we moved from J-5 to another part of town. I didn't get all six kits finished before we moved, and I may have left the newer MiG-15 from the Christmas set for last since I already had one on the shelf. But seeing as how I had bought one separately for myself before I got the complete set, I decided to build this one first for this blog project.

  

FROG D.H. Vampire FB.5

On the heels of the FROG Gloster Meteor (see previous post) is this 1/72 scale DeHavilland Vampire 5. As I mentioned earlier, Al Letcher gave me one of these along with the Meteor kit, and they made a great pair. Back in the 70s, FROG's FB.5 was the only Vampire model kit available. Heller came out with another FB.5 in the 80s, but I have a hunch they got the molds from FROG when FROG went out of business. The FB.5 differed from Al's Mk. III Vampire in that the MK. III had rounded wing tips. At any rate, FROG's little kit was close enough to Al's Vampire and I liked having it in my collection, especially having seen it fly on several occasions at Mojave Airport.
I have faint memories of my original Vampire assembled. I can't remember if I painted it or not, or whether or not I built it wheels down or up. In rebuilding this kit, I chose to do it wheels up in memory of watching this great airplane in flight. The RAF camouflage scheme was hand painted, while the underside was spray painted with Testors silver metallic. I did not have a pre-mixed bottle of dark sea gray, so I tried mixing different colors to get the right shade. It was rather difficult, and after wasting too much paint, I settled with a shade I think is too blue. Nevertheless, a foot away or more it looks acceptable.

At some point in the future I may wish to model Al's Vampire using the 1/48 scale Hobbycraft Vampire Mk. III. It would go well with the Classic Airframes 1/48 scale Meteor N.F. 11. There is a less expensive option however to do both in 1/72 scale since Amodel from Russia has recently released a Vampire Mk. III, which would go well with the Matchbox Meteor N.F.

Hasegawa A-4E Skyhawk

The 1/72 scale Douglas A-4E/F Skyhawk was either my second or third Hasegawa model. Judging from Squadron Mail Order ads in old SCALE MODELER magazines, this kit appeared in the U.S. around 1973. The one I got originally like the one shown here is the second issue from 1974 (it's hard to tell though because Hasegawa and their U.S. subsidiary Minicraft never dated anything!) The quality of this kit is far superior to the F-104J and the Mig-21. The parts are cleanly molded in light gray, with hardly any flash at all. My original one from '76 looked pretty good; I left the upper body and wings in the natural gray plastic, and hand-painted the underside flat white. I built the Marine Corps "E" version with drop tanks and two Bull Pup missiles.
For this rebuild, I spray-painted the upper surfaces gloss light sea gray, with gloss white under-surfaces. In homage to my original, I did the same Marine Corps version but this time I left the tanks and missiles off. The Skyhawk is a pretty sleek-looking little hot rod; and although it would have been unlikely for a Marine A-4E to go into combat with nothing but the twin 20MM guns, it's not impossible to imagine a slick Skyhawk going up for a test or training flight. That's the look I wanted - a slick underside to accentuate the plane's hot rod-iness.
A test of one of the original decals revealed they were too brittle to use without Micro Decal Film, so I put some on and they went on fine. The gloss surface helped them adhere without much trouble or additional products.
This is a nice little kit to have on display again, and reminds me of my later days of modeling at the house on J-5. There are only several more kits to go before a major transition comes in the history of my boyhood model airplane building.