The Northward Contrail

The colors, Andy

I'm currently trying to get a couple of model airliners finished.  Both will wear the colors of an airline whose name is rapidly disappearing.  I have a couple of nice decal sets for both aircraft, and I could do like anyone else and just build away without giving it a second thought, but I pay attention to colors.  Sometimes, it's too much attention. 

The first problem came when I got the decal sheets.  They're gorgeous decals, and the pinstripe and globe are printed in metallic gold.  The problem, though, is that I've seen too many of these aircraft in person to know it's not metallic gold, but more of a mustard-gold color, non-metallic.  Not good enough to suit me.  If I had a color laser printer or (better still) an ALPS printer, I could print it myself, but I don't have either.  (I have too little faith in my ink-jet decal skills to try that tack).  I played around with a lot of ideas, and finally stumbled across someone who will print them for me with the non-metallic color. 

In the meantime, I've painted the first airplane, and it's coming right along.  But along comes new problem: that blue color.  The decal has a nice, stately dark blue.  But, depending on your light, it can look like a blue that almost sort of reminds you of the Blue Angels.  The problem: Do I match the blue of the real thing and have the titles too dark, or do I match the decals and have everything on the model too dark?  In the end, I sort of split the difference. 

At the very least, the first airplane (to represent one of these) is, except for a few touch-ups, now out of the paint shop.  It isn't perfect, and there are a few things I have to fix, but something tells me that once the decals start going on, my feelings about the little beast will only climb skyward, and what has me dope-slapping myself right now will be something that, by week's end, I'll probably be proud of as can be.

A Memorial Day prayer

From Norman Corwin's "On a Note of Triumph":

Lord God of trajectory and blast
Whose terrible sword has laid open the serpent
So it withers in the sun for the just to see,
Sheathe now the swift avenging blade with the names of nations writ on it,
And assist in the preparation of the ploughshare.

Lord God of fresh bread and tranquil mornings,
Who walks in the circuit of heaven among the worthy,
Deliver notice to the fallen young men
That tokens of orange juice and a whole egg appear now before the hungry children;
That night again falls cooling on the earth as quietly as when it leaves your hand;
That Freedom has withstood the tyrant like a Malta in a hostile sea,
And that the soul of man is surely a Sevastopol which goes down hard and leaps from ruin quickly.

Lord God of the topcoat and the living wage
Who has furred the fox against the time of winter
And stored provender of bees in summer's brightest places,
Do bring sweet influences to bear upon the assembly line:
Accept the smoke of the milltown among the accredited clouds of the sky:
Fend from the wind with a house and hedge, him whom you made in your image,
And permit him to pick of the tree and the flock
That he may eat today without fear of tomorrow
And clothe himself with dignity in December.

Lord God of test-tube and blueprint
Who jointed molecules of dust and shook them till their name was Adam,
Who taught worms and stars how they could live together,
Appear now among the parliaments of conquerors and give instruction to their schemes:
Measure out new liberties so none shall suffer for his father's color or the credo of his choice:
Post proofs that brotherhood is not so wild a dream as those who profit by postponing it pretend:
Sit at the treaty table and convoy the hopes of the little peoples through expected straits,
And press into the final seal a sign that peace will come for longer than posterities can see ahead,
That man unto his fellow man shall be a friend forever.

(Thanks to Transom.org for the text.)

Buzzed by a Dream(liner)

On Sunday my friend and I were at the Museum of Flight, and happened to see this taxi by:

Pretty nifty.  But later in the afternoon, we were in the public park at the other end of the field, sitting in the car listening to some music and watching various private airplanes come and go.  I heard something coming, and had the camera ready just in time to capture this as it whistled over the treetops:

The camera's lens gives too wide an angle to demonstrate just how close we were.  It was truly breathtaking, and I'm surprised I got those two shots. 

What a great way to spend an afternoon.

Mustang

I like P-51s, but I don't build a lot of them.  At least not anything past the C model, and very few of them in military markings.  To me they're most interesting as the Bendix Trophy contenders from just after World War II.  But a couple years ago, I found a set of decals that was too good to pass up, and it required that I build the Tamiya P-51D in 1:48 scale.  It was almost finished when I left for Seattle last week, and the day after my return, I got it done.

This kit's a pleasure to build.  Almost a perfect modeling experience, except for two glitches.  One is that the prop cuffs are too flared from the box, and if you want to be accurate, you have to file them down some to match references.  The other major glitch is one I'll get to momentarily.  The rest, though, is pure pleasure.

One thing I did on this model was to fill certain panel lines on the wings to simulate how P-51s had their wing seams filled.  (Again, look up "P-51 laminar flow" on Ye Olde Google if you want to know more.)  This paint job doesn't exactly match the color demarcation on the actual aircraft that bore this name, but it's too late to change it now.  Besides, the way this looks has grown on me.

That thing over the windscreen is a rear-view mirror.  There wasn't one in the kit; I scratchbuilt that from a little half-dome of plastic I found in a box of plastic scraps.  It's mounted on a little piece of stretched plastic.  Maybe it's not completely accurate, but it's there, and my little pilot can keep an eye on what's behind him now.  One other fix I made was to install a little piece of plastic to get rid of that little indented step Tamiya molds in the upper inboard surface of the flaps.  It's there so the flaps will sit flush with the fuselage if you put the flaps up, but it becomes a problem if you deploy the flaps.

The only other disappointment in the Tamiya P-51 is the main gear well, which doesn't have the depth of the real thing, and is instead molded as a box that follows the opening of the gear well.  When, in reality, you saw so much more.  That's why I installed an aftermarket resin gear well.  It required a lot (and I do mean a lot) of grinding away with the motor tool, but the result was very much worth it.  It's one of those things that after I was made aware of it, my eyes go straight to it on any P-51 model I see.

By the way, the color's all grainy and goofy on that picture; that's because I intentionally blew the levels all out of whack in Photoshop so you could see the wheel well depth a little better.

And this picture's here for no other reason than it's my favorite angle for photos of P-51s.  It just looks "rite" from this angle.  There have been few machines that combined muscle and grace quite like the Mustang.  It's an airplane that's so written about and so revered that it's almost a cliche, but it honestly earned every single plaudit it ever received.  And if I ever had the financial wherewithal to own full-scale warbirds, a P-51 would definitely be on my short list.

Aside from the new wheelwell and having to file down the prop cuffs, this kit was a lot of fun to build.  I tackle so many obscure and complicated projects, and sometimes it's great to have a kit that eliminates most of the guesswork.  If you didn't care about the wheelwell depth, this would be a perfect slump-buster kit.  Try one sometime.

Morning departure

While walking through Concourse E at IAH during my long layover Monday, I saw an airplane I remembered.  The gate area was empty.  The plane was about to leave.  I had a camera, and time to kill.

Ship 859.  I flew on this airplane last year.  It didn't have that word over the forward fuselage windows back then, though.  Instead it had that name that's rapidly disappearing, and that I miss very much.

Dig that evil-looking face and that long, stalky nose gear.  I love the 757.  Among the many reasons: It looks like it has attitude, and attitude is everything.

Captain's up front, getting things ready.  For a $150 point-and-shoot, my camera don't do half bad.  In the full-size version, you can almost read the stenciling on the S1 door.

The big push.  I'm so accustomed to seeing these airplanes with winglets that when I see one without them, it doesn't look right. 

All fired up and just waiting for clearance to taxi.  Note they've set the flaps.  In one taken a few seconds before, they hadn't yet.  That's what's nice about a 4GB memory card; plenty of chances to capture things.

And that's how Nerd Girl kills time at an airport.

That'll happen

I finally got home yesterday afternoon.  It had only taken forever.  Just when I thought I'd successfully killed the layover in Houston, I get to the regional airline concourse to learn there's a delay.  And it involved a mechanical.  We finally shoved off close to an hour late.  It was an agonizing hour, too.  Don't get me wrong; I don't want to fly on an airplane that doesn't work properly.  But spend enough time with the swarm of humanity in Concourse B and you'll be tempted to take your chances.

The flight itself wasn't bad.  After being unable to sleep on the flight from Seattle, I finally gave in to the overwhelming symptoms and caught a brief catnap somewhere over Louisiana or Mississippi.  We came on into the home field, and I did my usual routine of pit stop, pay parking pass at the machine, claim my checked box, and get out of Dodge. 

As with most smaller markets, 90% of the flights into this airport are not mainline flights, but they're done by regional affiliates.  I'm not really flying Continental into this airport; it's an airline that operates a contract service for Continental and paints its airplanes like Continental, but it's really ExpressJet.  It's not the worst, believe me, but it does mean you can forget about some of the perks you'd have if you were flying the big airline.  For instance, if you hold elite status, you're probably not going to have your bags be the first ones into baggage claim there.  In my case, the little blue-and-orange tag has meant nothing there, and in fact mine has often been the last one on the belt.  Yeah, it sucks, especially with all you go through to earn elite status. But the guys who work the ramp are the guys who work the ramp for all the airlines that serve this airport.  To them, it's all the same.  It's part of the monumental efficiency-expert-driven suck that is the modern air travel experience, and I hate it, but it's the world I have and I must deal with it, and as long as my checked item shows up and it doesn't look like this guy got hold of it, I'm okay.

But yesterday I went to claim the box of stuff I'd shipped home as checked baggage -- some books, some souvenirs, some clothes I didn't need on the return voyage, etc.  I waited and waited.  Nothing ever showed up.  One of the contract guys who helps older and injured passengers saw me waiting and asked if I was waiting on something.   I told him.  He suggested I go talk to the Continental desk agent.  So I did. 

To make a long story short, my box did not make the flight I was on.  I'm not sure why; there was very little baggage on that flight.  (My guess is that my box was forgotten in the rush to get us going after the delay, and someone realized it too late and shipped it on the next plane in.)  The young lady at the Continental counter couldn't have been nicer or more helpful (and will probably have a letter written on her behalf to the folks in downtown Houston for her efforts), and together we filed the delayed baggage paperwork and what all.  She told me it would be in at 5 p.m., and I could wait for it, or they could ship it. 

The temptation was there to wait for it.  But I'd been up for, oh, 36 consecutive hours.  I'd just flown all the way across the continent.  I knew that waiting for that box to show up would mean not only killing another couple hours, but it would also mean dealing with rush hour, and with the way I felt I didn't have the editing equipment left to deal with rush hour.  Plus, you know that feeling you get when you've been wearing the same clothes a little too long, and you've been sitting in dried-out air in close proximity to other people?  You don't exactly feel your freshest, do you?  Of course not.  You really start daydreaming about being slowly lowered into a vat of Febreze and left to marinate for a while.  I told her I really wanted to get home, and that I'd prefer to have the box delivered. So I verified those details with her, and we were good to go.

So that's what we're dealing with today.  I don't know when the courier will be here or anything, but I need to be here when the box arrives.  Some things inside are a little fragile and a litte precious and way irreplaceable, and it would be a shame to have anything ruin it.  And as much as it's a pain to deal with this (and as miffed I am that my loyalty was rewarded with this happening), at least the box was found, and at least it was sent at the next opportunity.  It's annoying, and a little of me wondered how they could screw it up like that, but then I remembered countless episodes of life happening in my own existence, and just sort of let it go.  It's not going to matter next month, and it's not going to matter next year.  No permanent damage was done to you or anyone else, so let it go.

As for the rest of it, it was a good trip, and the typical Seattle experience: too much fun, but not enough time to really do it justice.  More on that later.

:: UPDATE: The box was sitting on the porch this morning when I woke up.  A quick glance at the stickers on the top told the real story, and brought much laughter: It seems when the TSA was done inspecting the box (for its bottom was strapped with duct tape and there was the TSA "inspected by" tape across the bottom and a little card inside, and exactly one bundle of books had its bubble wrap disturbed and then taped back), the box was sent off with the other baggage...for the flight to Anchorage.  So while I wasn't able to go to Anchorage, my box did.

I got the apologetic form e-mail from Continental this morning.  But all thoughts of writing a nastygram are gone, because I'm laughing too much at what happened.  I know they're a big professional company and that sort of thing isn't supposed to happen, but it's too eerily hilarious to get upset about.

An elaborate maze

As you read this, I'm an hour into a very long layover at Houston's big airport (I love how it's billed as an "Intercontinental Airport," by the way -- very '60s!).  I'm probably debating whether to spring for the Presidents Club day pass right now.  At any rate, I'm doing anything and everything I can to stay as far away from the B Concourse as I can until I absolutely have to be there.  (Remember last year?)

That's part of the blessing and curse of airports.  I'm glad they provide so much for you to do at them; some of them are like big shopping malls.  But, after a while, there's only so much you can do or buy.  And making it worse is how difficult it is to find quiet space, especially as the day wakes up and more flights come in.  Or, just when you think you've found a quiet space, something happens or someone sits down near you and starts talking on a cell phone or something like that. 

It's part of my funny feelings about travel.  I love travel.  As long as I've flown, I've never been scared of it; to the contrary, it never fails to evoke wonder and excitement.  It's the social aspects of it, the other-people part of it, that give me pause.  If I know I'll have a little personal space, I'll be okay and I'll enjoy it.  But that's not the model the airlines or airports follow; instead, it's about maximizing the number of people on the airplanes, or going through the big airports.  That's how the business works.  But does it make for contented travelers?  Probably not.  But, we keep coming back, don't we?

Anyway.  I'm on the way home.  Once I'm there, a nice shower and a change of clothes will make it all better.  And tonight I plan to sleep like a log.  I love to travel, and after a few days I get sad about having to leave where I am, but there's something to be said for the feeling you get when you come back home, too.

Back in the Emerald City

As you read this (prerecorded message), I'm again in Seattle, and in a few hours my day will begin.  The trip started well enough; when I checked in online Wednesday afternoon, I found out my elite frequent-flyer status was worth the effort, as the system automatically upgraded me to first class. That helped ease the numbness that usually accompanies the four hours between Houston and here, and besides that was just downright cool.  We got in just before midnight Seattle time, so you can imagine how I was feeling by that point, and as you read this I'm probably sound asleep.

Not having traveled in almost half a year, there was the usual pre-departure separation anxiety.  When I'm home for an extended period, I really get attached, and it breaks my heart to leave my boys behind.  But when the transit begins, the adventure starts to kick in, and the closer we get to Seattle the more excited I get about seeing all the old familiar places again, meeting up again with favorite people, the books and trinkets and such that lie in wait, the great food I always enjoy.  Not to mention, just the opportunity to be somewhere else for a few days, to put a few thousand miles between me and the troubles of the last few months. 

There's stuff waiting for me back home.  Before I left I was putting the finishing touches on another project, and I sort of hated leaving it unfinished.  But it gives me something to look forward to. I'll be a little sad when I fly out late Sunday night; between the long flight and the five-hour layover in Houston, I'll need something to keep me from being bored out of my skull at the long hours of sitting and doing nothing, and the little bit of melancholy I'll feel about leaving behind the fun of the Emerald City.  Looking forward to the projects that await will help, as will knowing that I'm only a few hours away from being with my two favorite boys once again.

And then there will be two glorious months to be productive, to have projects springing complete from my workbench, before the next big adventure.  I think I'll take that deal.

The beautiful beast

Each year when I go for my check-up, I reward myself with a visit to a favorite hobby shop.  Last year, the shop had this particular kit.  It intrigued me.  The SB2C interests me as an aircraft, but there aren't a lot of schemes for it that really appeal to me.  This boxing, however, had decals for one of these aircraft.  It also had a lot of fancy extra accessories, too: photoetched dive brakes and a set of canopy masks (which make life so much easier when you have this much greenhouse framing).  I bought it, seeing a quick and fun diversion.

So, what happened?  Life, as usual, and I can't put my finger on why it took so long to finish it. I got sidetracked, maybe a little discouraged at points, but a few weeks ago I dusted it off and decided to finish it.  Sometimes a little distance from the project can improve your perspective.  A few days ago, it was done.

Academy's Helldiver kits are said to mimic the excellent 1:48 ProModeler kits, and I can attest this kit builds very easily.  The only surgery I needed to perform was on the bomb bay doors, which are configured with internal structure to be displayed open.  Some razor saw work and filing were needed to glue them shut, but it worked.  Other than that, it was a breeze. 

The Academy kit instructions don't tell you everything you need to know about the rescue aircraft, notably to delete the weaponry and tailhook.  The wing cannon fairings remained, but appeared to have light-colored covers over the muzzles.  There may have been other modifications, but it's difficult to find documentation on these aircraft; there were so few of them used in this role, and photographs are few and far between.  Some of my model is conjectural, and I reserve the right to modify it on down the road if I find out more.

The nice thing about well-engineered kits is that they let you focus on finish work and painting.  I think part of the reason I waited so long to finish this one was trying to figure out how to get that sun-weathered finish.  Hubby had some suggestions when I sought his counsel, and I went from there.  I started with a white primer coat, then painted the rudder, wingtips, cowls, spinner and forward fuselage stripe yellow.  These were all masked, then I shot the dark blue overall, following it with a coat of Future.  Decals went on.  I didn't install the etched dive flaps, so the red visible through the flap perforations was achieved by a wash of white paint followed by another wash of red. 

Once all this dried, I airbrushed an irregular mist coat of semi-gloss acrylic mixed with a little flat white.  The masks remained on the yellow portions, since the yellow on the actual aircraft was fairly new.  This chalked the finish up a little, and I was able to concentrate on certain areas so there wouldn't be a uniform bleached look to the paint.  I then very carefully airbrushed some dark blue over the areas where the unit markings would have been painted out. 

The final weathering was done with ground-up pastels, and really put the weatherbeaten look on the Beast.  One thing to remember is to not overdo the effect; too many modelers don't realize that subtlety is key.  Just when you think it's starting to look right is a good time to stop before you go overboard.  This model may not look as bleached as the real thing, but I think holding back a bit helps more than hurts.

When all this was done, the masks over the yellow parts came off, the RESCUE lettering went on the nose, and last details painted in.  The only completion hiccup came when I bumped one of the underwing Yagi antennae off its mast and couldn't find it, so I built a new one from stretched plastic rod.  As it turned out, it looked better than the kit item.  The kit antenna has since turned back up, but I'm more inclined to build a mate for the starboard wing than install the kit piece on the port side.

This kit?  Magnificent, and a pure pleasure to build.  Getting it finished helped get my momentum going, and has me looking forward to a productive summer.  In the meantime, it sure stands out on the display shelf.

Revenge

A few years ago we were in one of the chain arts-and-crafts stores.  In the clearance section was a Revell-Germany F6F Hellcat in 1:72.  One endflap was torn off and the decals and instructions were missing, but the parts inside were still sealed up.  The clearance price was $3.00.  My heart went out to it, and I bought the little orphaned kit.  It sat upstairs for a couple years, until I decided last May to build it as a quick project.  Little did I know....

The kit (a rebox of the Italeri kit) comes configured for display with flaps down.  I wanted them up, to match the pictures I had of parked Hellcats with flaps tucked in.  But the problem is the flaps don't fit well closed, plus they're way too thin.  There's not enough depth on the underside to make them match the wing profile, so you have to do a lot of building up and filling.  To make matters worse, about that time the clear parts took missing.  I got frustrated and put it aside.  I bought a replacement canopy to resume the project when I felt a little more hopeful, but soon after the kit parts turned back up.

For whatever reason, I got it to the priming stage, and then lost hope on it.  I just wasn't happy with it; nothing seemed to fit well, and it seemed like a kit that was designed halfway well and halfway out-to-lunch.  But about a couple weeks ago, I decided to power through to completion.  I finally got the rescribing to an acceptable point, got a couple of blemishes taken care of, and was ready to paint.  But the real diabolical stuff was still to come.  During completion, here's a sample of what happened:

• While installing the rocket stubs, I almost had them all installed.  Guess what happened when I had the next-to-last one installed.  And they're tiny, too.  My half-hearted effort at a replacement isn't obscene, but it is noticeable.
• The canopy and windscreen did not fit at all. 
• While removing the masks from the clear parts, part of the painted-on frames lifted off, necessitating careful touch-up.
• The antenna and mast did not want to stay on.  At all.  Rigging the little beast was a chore because that mast is too thin to bear any real tension.  I finally gave up and stretched some sprue for the wire, but the wire is too thick, as you can tell (and you can also see a glue blob on it; let's just call it "a stray insulator," okay?).  But, it worked.
• Worst of all, it was while getting ready to work on this one that the threads in my airbrush stripped, leaving me with an elaborate imported paperweight. 

But I prevailed.  And I finally got to the point where I said "enough," and left it alone.

The replacement markings for this model came from an old Microscale sheet, and were actually a pleasure to use.  In that overall Gloss Sea Blue, it covers up a lot of the more obscene problems I had with it, and actually doesn't look too terribly bad.  Still, the kit has a lot of faults, including the poor fit of the windscreen (I filled the gap with white glue and painted over it when the glue dried), the tippy-toed stance of the main gear, and the too-narrow gear wheels. It's underdetailed in a few key areas; for instance, the cockpit is ill-fitting and is nothing to write home about.  Some accounts say it's also a mix of F6F-3 and F6F-5 features, too, and I didn't bother to sort them out or try to accurize it because, well, this wasn't a kit I felt was worth the effort.  On the other hand, from four feet away, it doesn't look too bad.

Considering I invested all of $3 in this spur-of-the-moment purchase (and another $5 on the decal), I can't let myself be disappointed.  I think it's more the payoff of a frustrating kit.  By the time I was finished, it wasn't so much "I'm looking forward to getting it done" as "I'm not gonna let this kit lick me."  Sometimes, completing a project is an awful lot like exacting revenge.

Tomorrow, a kit that was a complete pleasure.