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

[Rick Lowe]

Cessna looks great, Brad - keep 'em coming!

Be interesting to see what you do with the Fw.

WRT the box, I understand there is a sub-group of collectors that go just for the boxes, so you may still be in the money...

I may still have bits and pieces of one of those kits kicking around, but I'd hate to calculate how old they are and how long I've had them... 

[frank2056]

Those old 50's and 60s Lindberg kits were pretty good, for the era. Their Ar234 is very nice and so is the He 162 (it does have some visible rivets).

Many if not most model collectors want pristine boxes and that's how I was able to score some old Aurora WWI planes for pocket change. I wouldn't feel bad about opening this old sealed kit; even sealed, it's selling for around $15-$20 on ebay

[Rick Lowe]

The 335 is also good - and rivets? Nothing a bit of sandpaper and elbow grease can't rectify. 

[NARSES2]

I can remember seeing some of those old Lindberg and Aurora kits in Newsagents (cornershops) here in the UK back in the 60's. Built a fair few of them and sometimes when I look back on them I do ponder on how so much simpler/easier life was 

[TheChronicOne]

I was just joking about that box. I figured even in perfect condition it wouldn't even be worth the price of shipping it somewhere.     I'm just going to cut it up and make it flat anyway...  I try to keep the box tops and backs of kits (if there's anything interesting on them) and sometimes the sides, too, just to have it all to look at again in the future... kind of neat and you can stack hundreds before the pile starts to get big.   

But man... yeah.... this thing is pretty sharp, I'd say!! I see people talking crap on Lindberg quite frequently out on the ol' social media and it's like.... I swear people are just spoiled or something. Maybe they're talking about the newer re-pop stuff though. But sure enough, I've seen some dogs of kits and I know things can be rough, but can they be THAT bad? I've built stuff before that people swore up and down were shithouse kits and terrible but it just turns out you had to use model building skills instead of just snapping it together like LEGO. And this ancient thing is really damn nice, in my opinion!! The parts all look really nice and zero flash.... everything went together just fine with the exception bottom side of the wing roots but that's on the bottom and I won't even bother fixing it but were I to... it would be simple enough with some putty. Minor join lines where the fuselage went together but that stuff sanded away in about 10 minutes and the whole model was clean at that point. It's all primered up and ready for paint. I planned to start on it yesterday but got all out of sorts and depressed and didn't get anything done. Going to try again today. BUT MY POINT is... this thing is flying together rapidly and quite well. Hell, even the canopy looks quite nice in my opinion. A little thick perhaps but nice and clear. Good lines for the frame so hand painting it with a brush and without masking should be easy. It's just a lovely little kit in my opinion.

[frank2056]

Lindberg designed kits from the late 50s/early 60s (like this one) are excellent kits. They were the Tamiya/Hasegawas of their day. They also bought molds from other companies that weren't so great. That's probably where the poor reputation came from.

Here's a great video on their history: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVahHjxZ2mM

Here's an example of a kit, originally made by Palmer but re-released by Lindberg (and you can still buy it) - the Owens Deluxe Cruiser. The hull is in 5 parts and getting the parts even close to each other requires some plastic torture.

[TheChronicOne]

Oooohh! Very nice, that! Thank you!


A quick update on mine. I guess I decided to go ahead with the Hellenic AF idea so... well... here it is for now.



I have the two gear and tires, struts, and gear doors left to paint along with the cowling, props, and canopy frame work but it's largely done I suppose. Detail painting needs to be done but there seems to be very little of it. I weathered it by dumping a bunch of used coffee grounds on it and rubbin' 'em around then scribble on it with a mechanical pencil and rubbed it around. I haven't thought about the markings.... the Hellenic roundels are a given but I should probably put some letters and numbers or something on it, too.

[Flyer]

Nice camo

Coffee grounds hmmm... I'll have to remember to try that out.

[frank2056]

That's a good looking camo - it should turn some heads in Greek markings.

[TheChronicOne]

Thank's y'all!    I have about 9 hours to get the thing done.... I think I can do it but if any problems happen it could spell disaster. I don't think anything will go wrong, though. This is a really simple ordeal here. If anything I'm complicating matters with a 5 color paint scheme but... unless I ... like... drop it and crush it or something I should be alright. 

So anyway... I didn't get anything else done last night so I better get busy. I hope to get the thing glossed up pretty soon so I can solve the markings problem. I haven't even STARTED.. 4 or so days ago when I started this all I did was quickly grab a few sheets of transfers and set them aside.. I haven't actually done any real planning though...       WHO KNOWS?! This could even switch nationalities all of a sudden. I have some African and South American stuff set aside as well so... if I NEED to I'll have an alternate.

[TheChronicOne]

Kind of/sort of getting caught up a little around here with regards to checking people and their projects out. Cool stuff! I'm looking forward to a bit more free time coming up..... I hope. It keeps raining around here and I've been working non stop for weeks now, but supposedly the rain lets up this time of year and I'll catch a break....... although we just got 7 inches last night and we have rain forecast every day for the entire week. It's been like this for 2 months or even more! Wow! Running me ragged. Good for business, though!  Ironically, this very rain that causes me to be so busy has been so prevalent the last couple of days it's forced me to stop working for a while so I can relax a tiny bit and catch up. 

I barely managed to finish the Greasy FW-190. Mere minutes left in the GB.... AGAIN.. but I got it done.







Not bad! About 5 hours over two days. I had their Corsairs in mind so tried to make the paint look worn and "exposed" and tried to dirty it up some. I'm really pleased with it.

Now, what next? OK.... Recce GB is coming so I figure I'll take..... SOMETHING.....   and put really long wings on it. THEN.... come up with a cool paint scheme for something other than the normal.......  in other words, not likely to be USAF or anything "mainstream". 

Other than that... I've had the 727-100 USPS build on my mind... I said I wanted to start this and I will.... but this also gets me to thinking about my PSA L-1011 that is mostly done but still waiting on finalization and how I should stop procrastinating on it... 

That's about all I have on my mind right now. 

[TheChronicOne]

Throwing around nutty ideas for the recce GB:    What if the powers that be wanted a quickly launchable carrier based high altitude recon plane that was cheap and also recoverable on the same carrier? Perhaps Vietnam War era? ("Oh crap, we just got word that movement is happening on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, we need to verify ASAP and we have nothing else near or ready!" )

For some reason the F-4 Phantom II has been in my mind ever since I started considering this GB and I was wondering what it would be like with really long wings so I'm just trying to come up with a way to make it halfway plausible.  For added interest I got to thinking "Navy" then "carriers."  Imagine a Naval equivalent of the U2 but in true USN Naval Aviation fashion, completely differen. Maybe it won't have the range, etc.... but perhaps the whole point is to simply get high really fast for emergency short missions or something.

So, maybe the Pentagon or whatever wound up developing not a whole aircraft...... but rather something that could be shipped to carriers to be applied to the Phantoms as they were. One thing leads to another and they decide that with a certain modification the aircraft can withstand having light-weight (relatively, of course) extended wings bolted to the existing wings (somehow) that can be fitted onto any ready Phantom and launched from the carrier then after it's completed it's emergency (or hastily planned) mission and returns it can jettison the temp wings just prior to landing so it can trap on the carrier without smashing things. Launching is fine with the catapults at the nose of the ship but definitely don't want those long wings upon return.

I could even be a whif in the vein of just being one of the dozens of wacky failed experiments that went on in military aviation history.

Probably utterly stupid and a dumb idea but I'm just trying to think creatively I guess.

[zenrat]

So what you are saying is it starts off as a whiff but then undergoes a dewhiffing (whiffectomy?) before landing.  Good idea.


One of my planned aircraft builds for this GB is a Vietnam era USN aircraft with longer wings from another, larger USN aircraft.  My thinking is that the finished aircraft will fit in a carrier because it's wing span will be the same as that of the original, larger aircraft with folds in the same places.

[Flyer]

Just how you would place long removable wing's on the Phantom with the polyhedral layout it has I'd be interested too see, looking forward to finding out what you come up with. 

It's a good idea but personally I'd be looking at something without a polyhedral wing like the A-4, A-6 or even a Vigilante...

[NARSES2]

How about taking the Phantom, or possibly an A-4, and given it a rocket motor which could be used to achieve altitude over the target area before descending back down to base ? Similar idea to the Brits absolute fixation with rocket motors in the 50's but for interceptors.

So the take off and most of the flight would be on the normal turbo jets but then it would use the rocket over the target zone ?