Aircraft hanging mobile-storage solution

McColm · July 04, 2015, 10:30:25 AM

Hi,
There comes a point in any Whiffers'life when the topic of storage rears its ugly head. Display cabinets or shelves are two solutions. Creating scenes or building a railways are other ways.
My idea would be to create a hanging mobile, this would work well if the Whiffer was into aerial dog fights as fighter aircraft could be seen in combat, trying to out manoeuvre each other.
Could even work as a set display.
Most scales would be covered.

My mum wouldn't let me hang my models from the ceiling when I was growing up, but my stepfather let me have a hanging mobile with toy planes. At night I would shine my torch and make patterns on the walls or ceiling.

steelpillow · July 04, 2015, 10:52:33 AM

Revell once made a ball thing about 8-10 cm across with lots of rods you could stick in it and mount your models on or hang them off. They still turn up on ebay and similar, but I can't remember what they were called now.

Or, you could make a large, skeletal whiff and hang them from that.

McColm · July 04, 2015, 10:37:18 PM

Thanks for that.

steelpillow · July 05, 2015, 12:59:13 AM

Aha, Starburst Mobile, that was it:

PR19_Kit · July 05, 2015, 03:27:39 AM

You can tell that was made for their 'Fit The Box' series of models!

Can you imagine the size of one to take a 1/72 Tradewind, B-52 and a Bison???

zenrat · July 05, 2015, 03:36:52 AM

A motorised mobile would be nice. Dust is an issue though.
And spiders.

We have ceiling fans in a couple of the bedrooms and I have often thought how good it would be to hook a model onto each blade and then let rip.

steelpillow · July 05, 2015, 04:14:25 AM

You mean something like this (shown undergoing maintenance when stopped and hanging down):

Hiram Maxim, better known for the Maxim gun which made his fortune, built a fairground-type pleasure ride in the grounds of the Crystal Palace. In 1904 he conceived the idea of adding long arms above the seating and hanging aeroplanes which would whirl outward and upward when it was going round. My favourite hero, J.W. Dunne was employed to build the accompanying monster, although his soon-to-be rival Sam Cody is reputed to have added the tail. Dunne claimed to have been among the few foolhardy souls who actually rode round on it, "clinging to it like a monkey", and to have thus become the first human clocked at over 100 miles per hour.

PR19_Kit · July 05, 2015, 10:13:42 AM

Quote from: zenrat on July 05, 2015, 03:36:52 AM

We have ceiling fans in a couple of the bedrooms and I have often thought how good it would be to hook a model onto each blade and then let rip.

When not working on tilting trains in the 70s, my team of reprobates used to make our own 'Christmas Decorations' to hang in our office, and one year I built a FROG 707 with a motor in the fuselage and a prop on the nose.

We then suspended it by one wing tip from an empty light socket in the ceiling, rigged up some 12V power to the cables and opened up the power when anyone came in. The 707 then accelerated, swung up almost to the horizontal and whistled round in ever faster and faster circles.

Oh, yes, I forgot the flashing lights we installed along the fuselage.

dadlamassu · July 05, 2015, 11:56:18 AM

Quote from: zenrat on July 05, 2015, 03:36:52 AM
Dust is an issue though.
And spiders

Many years ago I asked how a certain national location kept its chandeliers free of spider webs. I was told that they attach egg shells to the hanging chains as the spiders hate the smell. Possible as I know that conkers were used for centuries to repel spiders.

Never tried either though as we have a cat that annihilates them.

McColm · July 05, 2015, 11:13:33 PM

Thanks Guys,
I can remember getting a toy Concorde for Christmas.
That had flashing lights with a motorized undercarriage. The exhaust pipes where red plastic which lit up. The nose moved up and down.I think it used one large square battery for power. Used to keep my little sister amused for hours.
Another toy that I enjoyed playing with was a helicopter fixed to an arm which could take off and land on a different helipad. It could fly in a circle and had a hook dangling down.

A clockwork mobile could also work, not too sure on the 1/72 kits but 1/144 should work. Unless its a bomber or transport aircraft.

Captain Canada · July 06, 2015, 04:44:24 AM

Love the way the Voodoo is rolling over the top !

sandiego89 · July 06, 2015, 09:30:18 AM

Quote from: steelpillow on July 05, 2015, 12:59:13 AM
Aha, Starburst Mobile, that was it:

So did all those revell models have the nifty ball-in-socket stands so you could pose your model in flight? Is that how you would attach them to the Starburst Mobile? I can only imagine the carnage from things dropping from the Starburst. I only have the Revell Tradewind and SeaMaster from that era (potential flashbacks/PTSD about raised rivets and panel lines

) and I think they both came with the tab where you could insert the stand.

PR19_Kit · July 06, 2015, 01:47:19 PM

Yes, they did.

The stand was a section of a globe in transparent styrene with a map moulded into the underside of it. The stem of the stand ended in 2-3 section balljoint held together with a wire cireclip, and the top section of the balljoint was a hooked bit that fitted into the slot in the underside of the model.

I built half a dozen of them back then (and even then the Seamaster was painted in an RAF scheme....

) and my Mum had them posed all along the sideboard.

steelpillow · July 07, 2015, 10:39:35 AM

Quote from: PR19_Kit on July 06, 2015, 01:47:19 PMThe stand was a section of a globe in transparent styrene with a map moulded into the underside of it. The stem of the stand ended in 2-3 section balljoint held together with a wire cireclip, and the top section of the balljoint was a hooked bit that fitted into the slot in the underside of the model.

The Starburst had a rubber socket on the end of each arm, turned at right angles. The idea was that you stuck the ball bit on the model in the usual way and then plopped it into the socket at a suitably rakish angle. Judging by the fit of all the parts and the stability of the whole shebang, Revell's master plan was that everything would crash to the floor in a broken mess and the hapless punter would scream and sulk until Daddy bought a set of replacements.

NARSES2 · July 08, 2015, 06:16:29 AM

Quote from: steelpillow on July 07, 2015, 10:39:35 AM
The Starburst had a rubber socket on the end of each arm, turned at right angles. The idea was that you stuck the ball bit on the model in the usual way and then plopped it into the socket at a suitably rakish angle. Judging by the fit of all the parts and the stability of the whole shebang, Revell's master plan was that everything would crash to the floor in a broken mess and the hapless punter would scream and sulk until Daddy bought a set of replacements.

No that wasn't the plan at all. It was really schemed by a long lost son of the Child catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang bang. Much subtler way of dealing with kids