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

[Rheged]

IMO the main Airliner God would be a Handley Page HP42.

Possibly, but the Empire flying boats were special too.

[TheChronicOne]

Sticking within the bounds of stuff that was actually somewhat successful, (No Spruce Goose, SR Princess, etc.) the Do-X could be a worthy opponent as well.





This 10 engines beast looks like a steam riverboat from the 1880's with wings glued to the top. It's glorious. 

[TheChronicOne]

I need some help again.       So frustrated right now. I'm trying to find some markings for my F-16XL. Since mine will be a front line replacement for late cold war in the 80's in Europe in place of the A-10...  all I need to do is find an A-10 sheet. Well, I have a kit. The markings might work if I could just figure out the damn research! So.... tailcode on my Monogram A-10 is EL. So. I look up "EL." Ellsworth AFB, South Dakota, United States. Simple. Now I need to figure out if any were based in Europe at any point. So, I look up EL and find 28th bomb wing... So I look that up as well as information on Ellsworth AFB and I can't find a single shred of evidence that says A-10s where EVER part of the 28th BW or any other BW stationed at Ellsworth.

So.... what gives?? Are the markings in the kit fictional?!




Throwing my hands in the air. I HATE when this stuff happens. It should be so simple to look up. Either the piles of information on the Internet is wrong, or the kit markings are wrong. I guess now I'll focus a little while on the kit itself to see if I can find a review that mentions the markings.

In the meantime, if anyone knows why I can't find any evidence of A-10s existing at Ellsworth, please enlighten me.



EDIT:  Oh, I forgot. The UPDATE! I've done some more work on this one. Namely in the way of painting the interior stuff. I want to get all that done and get some weight in the bottom half, then I'll paint, mask, and glue the canopy onto the top half and flip it over for the glue can evaporate up and out and not do anything to the glass. It'll be wide open so it won't hurt to use a little bit of my "cold" plastic glue. I need to make sure there are no gaps when it comes time to clear coat things. .. ....      Learned my lesson good on the Navy F-5!

So anyway, since Monogram of the early 80's was generous of enough to actually provide some pretty spectalar detail on a lot of the interior parts, and for the gear wells (although I'm almost certain the nose one isn't deep enough...)  I'm going to take my time and detail paint it.

In fact, a lot of what will make this build is the detail painting. The Euro I camo should be easy and the rest is seeming to be pretty easy. Painting all sorts of little colored rings, fins, sensors, spinny things, etc. on all the ordnance is going to be one of the not "as" fun aspects but will need to be done well in order to have weapons that don't look like toys. That plane itself will be so dark, I won't worry much about it. Hell, even the interior, while it will be nice, won't be overly done anyways because of the smoked canopy. That doesn't leave much for "flair" aside from the weapons.

[TheChronicOne]

Finally solved the mystery. This is where I was getting information from:

http://www.military.cz/usa/air/air_accessories/usaf_tail_cod/usaf_tail_cod.htm

They have incomplete data. Why do I keep running into this? I'm all the time finding things missing or outright wrong in what are supposed to be comprehensive stores of information!  Scalemates, some fancy airliner publication got the 737 hinges wrong on the ADV, Scalemates again....  missing kits on there, I can't recall them, but I've found 5-6 now that aren't on there. Others I can't recall but it's troubling! 

Blah blah blah none of that matters.     Important thing is I now know that "EL" was assigned to two different groups...  Ellsworths in SD and England in Louisiana. The Louisiana "EL" shut down in 1991 and I guess at that point they moved the tailcode to Ellsworth. Sure would be nice if that website I posted a link to knew about it!     I was trying to avoid having to dig the A-10 kit out of the stash but I knew I had to so I could take a look at the instructions sheet and sure enough, it paid off, and that's where I discovered the information about England AFB.

So... uhhh.... well.. I can't afford to buy proper markings for this. Sheets exist for these based in Europe but they cost as much as an entire A-10 kit does and I can't swing it. I guess I'll just make this one in Louisiana.

Found the first mistake so far.     They put a little too much leg room in the cockpit "tub." It won't matter, as it won't be seen, but it makes my pilot look weird in his seat. Speaking of, this is a really nice pilot figure!! I like how they molded the stick in his hand.




In other news... I finished up Mass Effect 1 the other day and started Mass Effect 2. What do you know! I go to check out some of the shops on a space station and they sell.....   model kits!  Ha!! I started snapping them up. This is cool.... you can buy up model kits from shops around the galaxy and put them in your captain's quarters on the ship to make your own stash. 




Not sure what's next. I think I'll get the weapons out of the Heller Nato set and put them in the XL kit so I can start figuring out pylon placement. 

[TheChronicOne]

Wellllll.....  it fits. BARELY. Having the pylons on and them properly positioned will help clearance a fair amount but it's still pretty close!   



I wonder if I could put a couple pylons out on the cranked wings?  I can make this load work just inside this space but if I can gain a little more on those outer wings it would be nice. 


That's all for today. Research has eaten up my alotted time and I also ran into an issue on my Heller weapons illustrations. The drawings didn't match up very well for the nuke so I spent more time than I should have trying to figure out what was going on. The picture has this thing with a smooth shell and it tapers wider and narrower at points whereas the actual plastic has a tube that is the same diameter across its length and also has a couple of rings on it.

Tomorrow I'll work more on getting the loadout properly placed. I need to figure out if I can use the outer wings first. After that, I'll wrap up painting the interior and start painting the pilot. I'd also like to get the canopy dipped and masked so I can glue it on then I'll throw in a little weight into the front and I can let both situations dry up for a day or two then I can finally put the halves together and have a real airplane!   

[DogfighterZen]

That XL's gonna be one loaded bird... 
Re the outer wing area, you could put the Aim-120s on there and you'd have space for something else on that space. The Aim-120's on the XL birds weren't wired cause they didn't install ejector rams inside the fuselage and the test pilots reported that the air brakes were less than efficient with the aft missiles in place as they were so close to the brakes and disrupted the airflow so, you'd be following some real facts there.
No matter what you go with, i'm anxious to see this one come out. 

[TheChronicOne]

That should work nicely! Brilliant. 

Cheers!

[zenrat]

...incomplete data. Why do I keep running into this? I'm all the time finding things missing or outright wrong in what are supposed to be comprehensive stores of information!  Scalemates, some fancy airliner publication got the 737 hinges wrong on the ADV, Scalemates again....  missing kits on there, I can't recall them, but I've found 5-6 now that aren't on there. Others I can't recall but it's troubling!  ...

And that, my friend is the trouble with the interweb.  Anyone can create a website or add to existing ones like Scalemates or Wikipedia.  If information is downright wrong then someone might spot the error and point it out or correct it.  Missing information on the other hand is likely to remain missing unless has a reason to add it.

[PR19_Kit]

And that, my friend is the trouble with the interweb.  Anyone can create a website or add to existing ones like Scalemates or Wikipedia.  If information is downright wrong then someone might spot the error and point it out or correct it.  Missing information on the other hand is likely to remain missing unless has a reason to add it.

Or try to anyway..........

I've tried to correct some downright rubbish on various tilting train Wiki entries, but the clowns who run it say I have to '.....provide documentary references............' before they'll allow it.

I was THERE, damn it, and I actually DID the things I'm trying to correct, but that's not good enough apparently. Worse, the people who wrote the original garbage obviously didn't supply the references as they don't exist! 

[TheChronicOne]

...incomplete data. Why do I keep running into this? I'm all the time finding things missing or outright wrong in what are supposed to be comprehensive stores of information!  Scalemates, some fancy airliner publication got the 737 hinges wrong on the ADV, Scalemates again....  missing kits on there, I can't recall them, but I've found 5-6 now that aren't on there. Others I can't recall but it's troubling!  ...

And that, my friend is the trouble with the interweb.  Anyone can create a website or add to existing ones like Scalemates or Wikipedia.  If information is downright wrong then someone might spot the error and point it out or correct it.  Missing information on the other hand is likely to remain missing unless has a reason to add it.

Good point. Makes a lot of sense! That's why I love Scalemates and Wiki because.... for the most part.... Bad information shouldn't stay long but what you said got me to thinking.... sometimes the very nature of missing information has it difficult to find or whatever and people aren't even aware it's missing. Tough one to nail down. 

[TheChronicOne]

And that, my friend is the trouble with the interweb.  Anyone can create a website or add to existing ones like Scalemates or Wikipedia.  If information is downright wrong then someone might spot the error and point it out or correct it.  Missing information on the other hand is likely to remain missing unless has a reason to add it.

Or try to anyway..........

I've tried to correct some downright rubbish on various tilting train Wiki entries, but the clowns who run it say I have to '.....provide documentary references............' before they'll allow it.

I was THERE, damn it, and I actually DID the things I'm trying to correct, but that's not good enough apparently. Worse, the people who wrote the original garbage obviously didn't supply the references as they don't exist! 

You ARE the reference in this case. I suppose you would have to author a book about it, get it published, then you could reference yourself. That's nonsense, though. I'd be frustrated. It would be like me trying to fix information on a page about my business. It's like... wait... hold on, I'm the actual expert on this.....   


I've always kind of had a problem with sources and references anyway, though. This day and age, you can't repeat information unless you have a source. Then, magically, the information suddenly becomes valid. Well, how come we're not willing to take one person's word for it, but will the second persons? What are THEIR sources and references and then.... what are the references and sources for THOSE references and sources... on and on. At some point we decided that stopping at the first tier was good enough.

[TheChronicOne]

Alright...  I played with this junk repeatedly and I couldn't move the 120s. Everything else I need to place there interefered with control surfaces so I had to come up with a new plan and eventually I found a solution in moving the HARMs. I could have thrown things wildly out of balance or put my sensor equipped weapons behind others (BOZO nono right there) but this was the only way to do it and keep things in balance and also have my TV missile and laser bomb up front where they can receive data.

Cool part is? It'll work! Better than what I had. This way when things release they're sure not to bump into anything else on the way off the aircraft.

Before and after:




Glad I have this solved. Clearance is good for the gear, gear doors, other weapons and stores, flight surfaces, and ...  whatever. No conflicts and it even looks halfway decent.

Close to making a proper thread for this now. I need a name.... A-16.... .  uhhhhhhhh........    The A-16.......    uhhhhhhhhhhhh...........           Dragon?  I was thinking dragon... kind of like a kimono dragon in opposition to "Viper."   We keep the reptile theme and the lizard seems apt for a ground pounder and even the paint job is called "Charcoal Lizard" at times so maybe that will work.  If not, maybe I can find another snake or something. 

[zenrat]

Monitor, Basilisk, Iguana, Goanna, Gojira...

[scooter]

Monitor, Basilisk, Iguana, Goanna, Gojira...

Paint it up in red, blue, white, green, and black and call it "Tiamat"

[TheChronicOne]

Man, that would be BADASS!     You know, in a similar vein, I've had an MTG themed build planned for a couple years using mana symbols as roundels. First one was to be a green A-10 named "stompy" with the tree roundels. 


Not sure what the plan is for today. I guess I can stop being lazy and get a thread together for this F/A-16. Might mask the canopy. I dipped it in future last night and left it to dry. Should be fine now. Probably was fine hours ago, too, but since the masking could be on there for a week or two I played it safe. Other interior work will be done, depending. I've been out of bed less than an hour right now, though, and I'm groggy. None of the medicine has kicked in yet and I'm feeling quite lazy.   I think I stayed up too late last night. Mass Effect 2 is proving to be a fun game and spreading progressive ideals across the galaxy is rather enjoyable.