Lone Wolf and Santa Fe:
Thanks for posting. I'm happy that your chopper works for you.
There are obviously two different camps here, those who like aircraft over their layouts like you and me and Mike Lehman, and those who don't think aircraft of any sort look reasonable. This is very much an example of "It's my railroad and I will do what I want...". There are no right or wrong answers.
I like the idea of the chopper being able to swing whichever way it wants, but with my luck it would always be pointing the wrong way. We have a small wooden sculpture of a Chinese dragon hanging in our living room on a single thread and it is forever showing us its backside! Nasty dragon!!
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
I have a news helicopter hovering over my city. It is from a Micromachines set. It is about N scale. My layout is HO. The helicopter is hanging by one thread and is free to rotate so it is not always pointing the same direction. It looks so natural that if I took it down it would leave a hole.
Frank:
Cool tank!
I understood the humour in your post, as I suspect most people did.
tomikawaTTThe M1A1 main gun is NOT an effective AA weapon. Insufficient elevation.
Hi Chuck,
The tank was put in for fun! Rather have a Quad 50 or a ''Duster''.
BTW: It is not a MIA1....it is a German Leopard 2, RC Firing 1/16 scale projectile tank (30m) with sound and Led's,working suspension, main gun recoil. Believe it or not......sounds better than some of the DCC w/sound loco's I've heard...LOL.
Take Care!
Frank
My two cents is, if you plan to have a warbird on or over your layout, make sure it has good-quality nose art!
mlehmanGotta love a RR that has its own air force.Big Smile
A navy as well!
http://www.theshipslist.com/ships/lines/cp.shtml
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
Bear:
Those South Africans were nuts! I guess it's kind of like barefoot water skiing.
You were not off topic at all. You were providing a prototypical example of Wayne's plane flying close to the water.
Matt:
Thanks for the lead on the decal supplier. Unfortunately, as you say, they don't have Canadian Pacific script in 1:250.
I wonder if an N scale CP script decal in black, if there is such a thing, would come close enough? Once I see the model I'll be better able to judge the size needed. The stripes could be fudged with regular decal striping.
Anyhow, this won't be a high priority project and I'm probably nuts for re-painting a $35 Cdn model anyhow.
Southwest ChiefOr this even cooler 1:200 CP DC-6: Canadian Pacific DC-6 DieCast Model
Gotta love a RR that has its own air force.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
hon30critter The 1:250 DC-3 will be a bit of a stretch because it has the CP Pacman livery but that I can live with. I suppose I could repaint it if I could find the right decals.
The 1:250 DC-3 will be a bit of a stretch because it has the CP Pacman livery but that I can live with. I suppose I could repaint it if I could find the right decals.
Vintage Flyer Decals may have what you need. They have lots of great airline decals in multiple scales. They make some great (and authentic) Santa Fe decals I got for my Walthers C-47. Just haven't gotten around to painting and lettering it quite yet.
Hmmm, after a quick check I didn't see any CP decals for a DC-3. However since they already have DC-4 CP decals they might be able to do a run for the DC-3. Contact and find out. They did a custom DC-3 in the later Santa Fe Skyway lettering for me, and now it is offered as a regular set.
Or you could get this awesome 1:200 model...although kinda pricey:
Canadian Pacific DC-3 DieCast Model
Or this even cooler 1:200 CP DC-6:
Canadian Pacific DC-6 DieCast Model
Matt from Anaheim, CA and Bayfield, COClick Here for my model train photo website
"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."
As has been mentioned elsewhere, going off-topic can add needed interest to many threads, and the discussion here is, after all, about planes.
Wayne
Wayne:
Is that called 'bridge storming'? Clearances are a little tight don't ya think - like suicidal tight?!
When I was in Sweden in '72 with the Royal Canadian Air Cadets I won a draw to get taken up in a Saab 105 which is a training jet very similar to the Tudor jets that the Royal Canadian Air Force Areobatics team flies. They look the same except the Saab is high wing. Anyhow, I got the thrill of a lifetime for 45 minutes. We started flying in a formation of two, with us being #2, literally at ground level. We were so low that we had to go up to get over the tree lines and hydro wires. I was scared out of my wits because my pilot wasn't looking where we were going. He was focused on the wing tip of the lead jet which was right over his head. That was only the first couple of minutes. I could go on for hours describing the other stunts that he pulled, but the last one was spectacular. On our landing approach we came in over the runway upside down! Yup! Upside down and close to the deck to boot. My pilot was the Commanding Officer of the Swedish Airforce pilot training operation. He knew his stuff!
Anyhow, Steven is likely going to shut us down if I go any more!
While I don't normally have an aircraft over the layout, I usually attribute aerial photos of my layout (to illustrate track arrangement, structure placement, etc.) to Secord Air Services. A fisherman on the Maitland River managed to snap this shot of Barney Secord (owner and sole pilot of SAS) flying under the Erie Northshore's bridge. (Must've been a pretty fast shutter speed, judging from the look of that prop.)
While one wheel of the landing gear appears to be contacting the water, Barney somehow avoided crashing on this particular occasion, but there have been other "incidents".
Tom:
Maybe if some terrorist cuts the string holding the DC-3 over the layout!
I'm glad you are all taking this so seriously!
I'm kind of curious what threat the CP DC-3 poses, that requires the use of AA in the first place. Is Canada planning to invade? Just curious.
Tom
Still , but on with the thread...
During my career with the USAF I worked on both the Beaver and the Gooney Bird - in fact, one of the gooney birds was gussied up to carry Lady Bird Johnson around Texas. (She only used it once!) Neither type was designed for ease of maintenance, so neither makes it to my list of favorites.
As for AA weapons, I'm partial to the quad mount M2s on a half track, and to the twin Bofors on a tank chassis. My father commanded the 142 AAAW Bn, which had both at the time (1948-1952.) But, if you want serious bang for the buck, you can't beat twin-mounted 5"/38's. Proximity fuses, you know, and effective anti-ship weapons as well. (Check Battle Damage, IJN Kirishima, and the Battle off Samar.)
The M1A1 main gun is NOT an effective AA weapon. Insufficient elevation.
Chuck (Retired MSgt modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Mike:
How did you make the disc that models the moving propeller?
Thanks
I don't mind when people go off topic, especially when the information is interesting like yours is.
I'm modeling the late 50s so blimps might be a bit of a stretch, not to suggest that I haven't stretched a few other things that aren't exactly right for the time. The 1:250 DC-3 will be a bit of a stretch because it has the CP Pacman livery but that I can live with. I suppose I could repaint it if I could find the right decals.
Bear and Ulrich:
I'm not planning on modeling anti-aircraft guns on the layout, but I do have a great substitute! My son just gave me a sling shot for chasing the blackbirds and squirrels away from our bird feeder. Don't worry, we are using dried chick peas as amunition, and we don't pull it back all the way. The chick peas are a bit hard to shoot straight because of the irregularities in the surface but they get the message across just fine.
There Tom, hows that for ?
Glencoe Models has a U.S. Navy K-class blimp in 1/330 scale. It's about 11" long. I believe K-ships were the most common of the Navy's patrol blimps. Don't know whether the kit is still available. The box says Copyright 2006. I haven't built mine yet, so I can't say anything about the quality of the kit.
I think you know the terminology, but maybe others don't. Lighter-than-air craft that are long and narrow, and can be steered, are referred to as airships or dirigibles, although those terms are not usually applied to blimps as far as I know. Zeppelins were invented by Count Zeppelin, and were large enough to require a metal frame to maintain their shape. That's usually what we mean when we talk about airships or dirigibles. Blimps have no internal frame because they are smaller and don't need one to maintain their shape. During WWI, Britain used unframed small diriigibles and called them "Limps" because of their flexibility. The most common type of British Limp was the B-Limp. Thus the name Blimp.
Modern blimps are usually in the 200-300 foot length range. The really big airships like the Hindenberg, or the US. Navy's Akron and Macon, were in the 800 foot range. The fire-related crash of the hydrogen-filled Hindenberg, and the structural failures of the helium-filled Akron and Macon, meant that the age of the really big airships ended in the 1930's. But the U.S. Navy used blimps throughout WWII and well into the 1950s. The last variant was the ZPG-3-W, which carried a radar screen inside its balloon. It was retired around 1959 or 1960. We used to see blimps flying around Akron a lot when I was growing up in the 1950's. Saw two flying around Akron when I was there about 2 weeks ago, in fact.
Also, there are, or have been, models of the Graf Zeppelin, Hindenberg, Akron, Macon, Goodyear blimp, and possibly others on the market.
I know.
(several edits)
ACY I'm partial to the slow-moving blimp, preferably in U.S. Navy livery, to represent the WWII through the 1950's time period. My dad worked for Goodyear, and was involved in building the control gondolas until he retired in 1973. Or maybe a balloon. Tom
I'm partial to the slow-moving blimp, preferably in U.S. Navy livery, to represent the WWII through the 1950's time period. My dad worked for Goodyear, and was involved in building the control gondolas until he retired in 1973.
Or maybe a balloon.
Tom,
Hmmm, am I remembering right that Walthers or someone else offered a blimp model at one time? They are awesome to see. Always had a soft spot for the blimps (seen the Goodyear a couple of times passing in transit) and their rigid big cousins, the zeppelins. Waaaay too big for most layouts, though.
ROCO makes a 1/87 8.8 cm FlAK 36/37...
Disclaimer: This post may contain humor, sarcasm, and/or flatulence.
Michael Mornard
Bringing the North Woods to South Dakota!
Sir Madog I´d suggest 88mm Sadly a very good suggestion. Cheers, the Bear.
Sir Madog I´d suggest 88mm
Or....this one!!!
Sir MadogI´d suggest 88mm
crhostler61 Depends on the scale of the antiaircraft gun. 20 mm works quite well...oops...scale, BB's maybe. Mark H
Depends on the scale of the antiaircraft gun.
20 mm works quite well...oops...scale, BB's maybe.
Mark H
I´d suggest 88mm (remember the infamous 8-8 FLAK gun?)
On the serious side, I can follow Chucks arguments against hanging anything above the layout. There is something "artificial" about any objects, be it on land, on sea or in the air, which are in a state a a "frozen" motion. I even try to avoid figures with a frozen motion!
Modeling in HO...Reading and Conrail together in an alternate history.
Dave,
There's a discussion of several of your questions and lots more in a thread I did on my aircraft a couple of years ago.
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/228279.aspx?page=1
One of my favorite builds was the little Osborne DHC-2 Beaver, an aircraft I'vge always wanted to own...but I could only afford a layout.
Here's a pic of it towing a glider, also in HO.