Chronic's Research and Aeronautics Project (C.R.A.P.)

[zenrat]

Parts box GB would be good but everyone has to be honest.  It would be very tempting to "just borrow few a parts" from a complete kit.

[Rick Lowe]

True, or to use parts that aren't destined for the version of the kit you 'fully intend' to make...

[TheChronicOne]

I think I'm going to go for it today. I'd like to wrap up the Eurofighter and re-spray the Caravelle first (after sanding) but then I'll grab all me spares, dump them out, and see what I have.

Tune in later for pictures. Hopefully something nice develops. I'm going to use 100% spares for this. The zero money build, too. 

[NARSES2]

The zero money build, too. 

Well I'd argue about your definition of "zero money" but I know what you mean 

To be honest I admire the fact that you have both the imagination and skills to even contemplate this  . I have neither.

[TheChronicOne]

Well, I'm learning and getting better at it so I feel like I can try to attempt it. And what better way to learn? Eventually I might be able to envision and cobble together different kits like Dizzy and make all the fixing and puttying work in a fashion that doesn't look like I simply glued different things together.

On that note, I am currently gathering up all these loose parts. Of course, I can't do one thing without do another... as I do this, I'm cleaning and re-organizing as I go so it's going to be awhile but at some point I'll throw it all onto a blanket and snap a picture of it. Then, I'll start playing with it all to see what kind of airplane I can make. I know I could make a few franken-airliners but I was wanting to make something in 1/72 scale, some sort of military plane. But.. who knows what'll happen...

[TheChronicOne]

Took longer than I thought but I dragged out all the parts and have whittled down the prospects to a more manageable level. I'll get more into it tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I found something that might be the next real world military 1/72 build.

A Phantom!

[NARSES2]

Well, I'm learning and getting better at it so I feel like I can try to attempt it.

Indeed you are sir 

That Phantom is old style MPM. Lots of cleaning up to do, but patience will get you there. I still have one of the old black and white boxings of it in the stash. I find with some of these old limited run kits that it helps to have something that's perhaps "shake and bake" on the go at the same time. So you can take a little break every now and then.

[PR19_Kit]

I've got a very early Czech resin mould of that FH-1 Phantom. The whole thing is in ONE piece, apart from the vacform canopy! 

No, I have NO idea why or where I got it. I don't really like the aeroplane anyway......... 

[TheChronicOne]

     It was probably a tag-along w/ something else you acquired so it never really imprinted in your memory.

I like the plane but I'm not sure why  ... something about the 50's jets....  they're largely underpowered dissapointments ranging from barely adequate to downright deadly (to the operators, not the enemy) to somewhat decent and most of them don't look like much of anything but maybe that's why I like them so much?! Might make a Mauler with it and sit them together with my floating Mustang which all will have the same paint jobs.      But I'm getting off track here.  Hell, I may open the box and look at the plastic, balk, and throw it back in the stash.     

The other project continues today. I'm going to be doing further elimination of stuff I defintely know I won't need so that I can more easily focus on what remains to try to come up with something. I do have some prospects...  Fuselage is most troublesome, for sure, but I've managed to find a couple of the old pods I saved from the B-58 build so I have a small and large one. I also have a couple of old warp nacelles from a 1/1000 Enterprise kit. With the addition of proper nose and rear section I could perhaps make those into something. I've found wings and all that mess, plenty of missiles and landing gear but I think only ONE prop!     

[TheChronicOne]

I've veered off from what I thought I was going to do into a different direction totally. I think it just might work, though. I still need to figure out the gear. I have some stuff that is out of scale and if this is going to be USN (more on that in sec. ) they need to be beefy and in the right scale at least. I have cobbled some things together and I'm thinking of making it a USN ASW and long range patrol aircraft. I guess I'll need to figure out what sort of designation it might have. I guess I need to figure out a manufacturer and name for the aircraft, too. Hell, I need to name the engines as well which are just shrunken down versions of JT3D. JT3E or something? Much like with the USN, I don't know much about the naming structure of these engines.






EDIT: I need help with the naming conventions and stuff..    So, this is going to be the same class as the P-3 Orion. Let's say in this alternate universe that after the Electra II crashes, things went further South for the model than they did in the real world so the USN needed a quick replacement, in steps my P-4 Pluto (or whatever... they were using planet names and other cosmic names for this type of thing so why not).

Next, since I'm using smaller versions of the JT3D engines (TF33) I suppose I could call them TF33C (compact) or maybe just TF34? And the original designation could be JT3D-C1 or some crap. Does this sound ok?  I know this is all make believe anyway but I want things to sort of work with reality enough that this thing MIGHT be plausible.

Lastly, manufacturer... who makes the Pluto?  Most user of the engines by far is Boeing but I saw General Dynamics used them too (and Lockheed, but I dunno about replacing a Lockheed with a Lockheed) so either Boeing or General Dynamics. Which one would be more likely? "General Dynamics" sounds cooler. 

[Rick Lowe]

What era are we talking? It almost seemed at one stage that various manufacturers were preferred for Fighter/Bomber/Patrol aircraft, or even Navy/Air Force, with others trying and failing to break into a particular 'niche market.'
Then you need to decide when it's timed with all the amalgamations/takeovers that happened over the course of events.

It's a pretty cool design though - dare I say it looks almost like something out of a Scrooge McDuck or Donald Duck adventure?

[TheChronicOne]

Early 60's. I've actually managed to get it all worked out, cobbled together a story and made it all plausible even. At least....  I THINK it works. Y'all can be the judge. This type of "fully involved" creation is rather new to me.

The "story" so far:

It's the late 1950's and after two tragic L-188 Electra II crashes, in THIS alternate world, the production not only stopped on the civil version but any plans for military use also went out the window. This creates a gap where the P-3 would have existed but since that plan is now cancelled, we still need a replacement for the Neptune. In steps the General Dynamics P-4 Pluto.

The Pluto utilizes two rear-mounted Pratt and Whitney JT3D-C (C for "compact") engines which are smaller versions of the larger JT3D family of engines. Approximately 2/3 the size of the originals, the new engines were designated "TF33C" for military applications. Rear mounted due to the low wing, naturally, and different. I could have went with an internal engine...but then, being Navy, I would have needed two and that involved serious modification. This is much simpler and is rather novel so I like it.

Let's see... what else....  Role...  It's role is anti-submarine and maritime patrol. It was designed with this in mind therefore has a compartment stretching across the bottom of the aircraft to contain those little sonobouy things. It also has a rather large fuel tank in the fuselage (gotta stick SOMETHING in there  ) and with the addition of wing tanks and external drop-tanks the Pluto has an impressive range.

Probably sounds pretty stupid to the folks more "in the know" about all this but I did what I could.    A lot of this was dictated by what I had available and how the plane itself could be configured. It just wound up being that this stuff fits the bill more than any other things I could think of.


SO, I got a little carried away. I decided it would be nice to have a box to put all these parts in so I found one then decided, "You know what? Why not just MAKE YOUR OWN DAMN KIT."      So, I made a kit! I still need to throw a sheet of decals in there and some "instructions" but I have "sealed" parts in a box with art work even. What fun!   

Here's the parts and then the box. I even color coded the bags... blue one for clear parts and associated such as the cockpit and things by the nose, green for undercarriage because green is the Earth and contact the gear, and yellow for other small parts.












Damn straight I'm posting my new kit in the stash thread! 

[Rick Lowe]

And you even have a Points/Loyalty Scheme! That's a cool touch.

"It's CDO - like OCD, except the Letters are in Alphabetical Order, *as they should be!*"

What do you call the 'mascot'? Mr Hankey is taken, how 'bout 'Mr Stinky'?

Can't wait to read the reaction on the Stash thread. 

[TheChronicOne]

     Well hell, I never thought about what to call the little turd guy. Good point though. 

Frig? Flies Right Into Ground?     "Frig the Poo says never forget glue!"   

[Rick Lowe]