mickoo
Western Thunderer
I have many anoraks, nay, many closets full of many anoraks and occasionally one breaks ranks and demands attention, this one has been dormant for years, maybe ten or more and just before Xmas I fell into a rabbit hole that was in no way linked to military modelling but ended up there.
Suffice to say, old book marks were opened, back up drives explored and plastic crates from the very depths of castle Mickoo recovered and browsed.
The up shot was the procurement of a 1/96 RC warship, it's not here yet, it takes a while to get all the castings together and the hull made up, but hopefully in a few weeks it will be here. It's a semi kit in as much that you get a fibreglass hull, most of the fittings but no decks or superstructure, you're on your own scratch building there I'm afraid.
Further digging on the web source suitable drawings, plus many others for potential future projects, that packet arrived today. You can't always get the drawings in the scale of your model, luckily for the RC model you can but I opted for two scales, 1/96 for the RC model and 1/192 for a scratch built static model, I'll round that up to 1/200 at a later date.
So herewith, 1/192 side views of the RC vessel. In this case the US Arleigh Burke class, coded DDG, Destroyer - Guided Missile.
This plan is quite faint but workable (the rest are the same or better) but is more to give you a feel for generic placements and shapes, the RC 1/96 model tips the length at around 63" long, just long enough to be big, but not overly big that it takes more than one person to move it.
My chosen vessel naturally had to be DDG 81, USS Winston S Churchill, a Flight IIa variant, the details are important....
Copyright US Navy
Moving on, my biggest craze back in the day was US carriers, specifically Essex class onward and the original Top Gun movie was and still is a firm favourite, yes it's cheesy, yes it's corny and yes it's Hollywood, but some of the background stuff and flight deck stuff is genuine and pretty good overall.
Anyway, Top Gun was the first movie I took my girlfriend to see, second date I seem to recall, and we couldn't get it, no pre booking back in those days, so we queued the second night for ages to get in, we've since been married for 28 years.
That year we also visited the US for the first time and in the model shops was the biggest warship kit you could buy, hellish expensive in the UK but cheap as chips in the US, it was duly procured with no thought on how to get it home I was reluctant to put in the cargo hold and fortunately the flight home was not full and the aircrew allowed it to go on with me. Thus is sat in the seat next to me for most of the time (they did insist it was in a secure crew area during take off and landing), much to the amusement of other passengers and flight crew, even the Captain came back for a laugh.
That model came and went but 34 years later I chanced on one on Ebay, an original one with said same box art and all parts still in sealed bags. The exact same model can be had more recently from other manufacturers, but it was the original Tamiya one that I wanted for nostalgia.
It's a big plastic kit, you can get bigger these days and the choices offered is massive compared to handful that were on the market 34 years ago. The kit models the carrier in later years, after her corn cob mast and antennas were updated to newer versions.
Copyright US Navy.
I'm no fan of the modern stealth grey the USN currently wears, so it'll get done back in the 80's and the kit has some glaring errors that will need changing and uplifting.
The original kit was motorised and had simple 2 channel RC fitted and made a few voyages but after a while it just kind of disappeared, I still cannot recall when or where it met it's demise.
The 1/350 kit will serve a double purpose as I'd like a 1/200 version as well, a chance to add some etches and push the 3D printer to make up parts will be a welcome distraction for railway stuff. Most of the aircraft for most of her career are available in 1/200 as well.
I'll update when the 1/96 DDG arrives or as things progress. It's nice to open old anorak closets
Suffice to say, old book marks were opened, back up drives explored and plastic crates from the very depths of castle Mickoo recovered and browsed.
The up shot was the procurement of a 1/96 RC warship, it's not here yet, it takes a while to get all the castings together and the hull made up, but hopefully in a few weeks it will be here. It's a semi kit in as much that you get a fibreglass hull, most of the fittings but no decks or superstructure, you're on your own scratch building there I'm afraid.
Further digging on the web source suitable drawings, plus many others for potential future projects, that packet arrived today. You can't always get the drawings in the scale of your model, luckily for the RC model you can but I opted for two scales, 1/96 for the RC model and 1/192 for a scratch built static model, I'll round that up to 1/200 at a later date.
So herewith, 1/192 side views of the RC vessel. In this case the US Arleigh Burke class, coded DDG, Destroyer - Guided Missile.
This plan is quite faint but workable (the rest are the same or better) but is more to give you a feel for generic placements and shapes, the RC 1/96 model tips the length at around 63" long, just long enough to be big, but not overly big that it takes more than one person to move it.
My chosen vessel naturally had to be DDG 81, USS Winston S Churchill, a Flight IIa variant, the details are important....
Copyright US Navy
Moving on, my biggest craze back in the day was US carriers, specifically Essex class onward and the original Top Gun movie was and still is a firm favourite, yes it's cheesy, yes it's corny and yes it's Hollywood, but some of the background stuff and flight deck stuff is genuine and pretty good overall.
Anyway, Top Gun was the first movie I took my girlfriend to see, second date I seem to recall, and we couldn't get it, no pre booking back in those days, so we queued the second night for ages to get in, we've since been married for 28 years.
That year we also visited the US for the first time and in the model shops was the biggest warship kit you could buy, hellish expensive in the UK but cheap as chips in the US, it was duly procured with no thought on how to get it home I was reluctant to put in the cargo hold and fortunately the flight home was not full and the aircrew allowed it to go on with me. Thus is sat in the seat next to me for most of the time (they did insist it was in a secure crew area during take off and landing), much to the amusement of other passengers and flight crew, even the Captain came back for a laugh.
That model came and went but 34 years later I chanced on one on Ebay, an original one with said same box art and all parts still in sealed bags. The exact same model can be had more recently from other manufacturers, but it was the original Tamiya one that I wanted for nostalgia.
It's a big plastic kit, you can get bigger these days and the choices offered is massive compared to handful that were on the market 34 years ago. The kit models the carrier in later years, after her corn cob mast and antennas were updated to newer versions.
Copyright US Navy.
I'm no fan of the modern stealth grey the USN currently wears, so it'll get done back in the 80's and the kit has some glaring errors that will need changing and uplifting.
The original kit was motorised and had simple 2 channel RC fitted and made a few voyages but after a while it just kind of disappeared, I still cannot recall when or where it met it's demise.
The 1/350 kit will serve a double purpose as I'd like a 1/200 version as well, a chance to add some etches and push the 3D printer to make up parts will be a welcome distraction for railway stuff. Most of the aircraft for most of her career are available in 1/200 as well.
I'll update when the 1/96 DDG arrives or as things progress. It's nice to open old anorak closets