Mid-September, cold and rainy and a young mans thoughts turn to model trains and P-38's

Thanks Levent, I will keep that in mind.

The Provost Mk1, a neat little model

Bob, The trains sound like a good indoor activity for when the weather turns bad…. Lot’s of wires and gears to play with!! ….Lectric stuff!!….. I had a friend that moved down from Illinois when we were in Jr. High….. He had boxes and more boxes of Lionel trains and all the accessories to go with them….. Was their cold weather activity too…..The only thing I’ve done anywhere close to trains, I built a little steam engine a couple of winters ago when we were snowed in a few days….. I’ve got some Lionel size track and may build some kind of steam contraption locomotive for it to push around one of these days …..



The Guillows Cherokee is looking great Levent!…. Very neat and clean work….
I have the 905 Mustang kit….. I’ve thought about making it an electric park flyer or even Cox powered…. But the more I think about it, I may just build it for rubber free flight as designed …..As you mentioned in your build thread, For the experience of building and flying from a kit like when we were kids ….

The Guillows Cherokee is looking great Levent!…. Very neat and clean work….

I agree Robert, you and Levent are on a par for doing fantastic detail work on all your models.  Consider the balancing holes on the flywheel of your steam engine.  

My "Clean and organized"




More like "normal."




Cut out the second "boom" for the P-38 and finally scaled the cockpit pod to the wing.  Keeping it simple........profile. My pictured P-38 was of monocouge construction, hollow wing, boom's, and pod.  



Still raining...thankfully.  We have been so dry.

That is a very nice work space Bob, We are fortunate to have those when weather is not so nice outside…. I admire the organization!….. I stayed in mine a lot this summer when it was extremely hot….I have three of those yellow parts bins/drawers from HF like sitting on your white table…. One for .049’s and parts, One for .020’s, and one for rc electronics….Also have one like the blue one on the wall that’s probably forty years old, I think was from Sears (?) for small tools, Dremel tools and etc….

You are making your P-38 from three view drawings?…. Maybe also some reference to your old ‘38?….Your old P-38 is a very nicely built and detailed model, Something to be proud of

Back to your trains;…. Those old round nose locos (F-5 - F-7?) are classy ….When I was a kid we lived about 1/4 from the main east-west Union Pacific line that runs from El Paso to Fort Worth….Sometimes when we heard the train coming  we would ride our bikes to end of the road just to watch it go by….Those round nose locos were painted dark blue with a little yellow trim, Very pretty….Back then they ran both passenger and freight, but only freight runs  today….. Of course the guy in the caboose would always return a friendly wave to us….

rdw777 wrote:That is a very nice work space Bob, We are fortunate to have those when weather is not so nice outside…. I admire the organization!….. I stayed in mine a lot this summer when it was extremely hot….I have three of those yellow parts bins/drawers from HF like sitting on your white table…. One for .049’s and parts, One for .020’s, and one for rc electronics….Also have one like the blue one on the wall that’s probably forty years old, I think was from Sears (?) for small tools, Dremel tools and etc….

You are making your P-38 from three view drawings?…. Maybe also some reference to your old ‘38?….Your old P-38 is a very nicely built and detailed model, Something to be proud of

Back to your trains;…. Those old round nose locos (F-5 - F-7?) are classy ….When I was a kid we lived about 1/4 from the main east-west Union Pacific line that runs from El Paso to Fort Worth….Sometimes when we heard the train coming  we would ride our bikes to end of the road just to watch it go by….Those round nose locos were painted dark blue with a little yellow trim, Very pretty….Back then they ran both passenger and freight, but only freight runs  today….. Of course the guy in the caboose would always return a friendly wave to us….

Thanks Robert - I love these old Varney F-3 coil spring drive locomotives, bought every one I could get my hands on, most very cheap and inoperatrive.  Coil spring belt drive with three tiered pulleys giving you a choice of three speeds.  Rebuilt most of them added new horns sandblasted and painted.

These pre-date the earliest Cox product by a couple of decades.  Gordon Varney pioneered model trains.  

You are making your P-38 from three view drawings?

Yes, I saved all my drawings from my first P-38 build and added a couple.




I had trouble figuring the thrust angles (angle of incidence) relationship with the wings chord and the horizontal stab on the original so I just selected neutral.  But I never did get it right as the plane seemed uncomfortable in flight always wanting to fly nose high.  Would like to do better on this one.    



I had Mark scale the pilots pod to the rest of the aircraft coming out at 10 inches.  Profile, I'm just going to cut it out on quarter inch balsa and be done with it.  No canopy to deal with.  Soften the edges with sanding.  Will need a lot of detail add ons, air intakes, superchargers, etc etc




Found this Levent while going through some stuff.  

Hi Bob, There is a red scheme for P 38, interesting one. Kelly Johnson aircraft?





Very good Guillows kit

Thanks Levent,

It's featured in Warren Bodie's book. Interesting back-story on it.



Me and mini-me.




Bob

All day rain, heavy at times so I can't get out-doors and have time to catch up on things and pester the forum.

I cut out the pilots pod on the dremel jig saw and had to glue two 16" balsa pieces to get the 1/8th for the horizontal stab and the elevator. Got them sandwiched between two flat hard surfaces with weights. Doing the glassine window for the Cox Army train set at the same time. Used Titebond for the balsa, Elmer's white for the glassine window.





Picked out the engines for the P-38. Exposed not hidden as my other P-38 which can house either Black Widows Or Golden Bees. Went with the 5cc Babe Bees. Borrowing Duane's mounts.

Special engines. Came together as a mess of castor goo and beat up cases and backplates. I sandblasted both as they were so bad and replaced the glow heads. Great runners.

Still much to do, but it's progress.

This one will get flown. I want to experience it again without risking my original.

This one will get flown. I want to experience it again without risking my original.


Rooting for you on this one Bob….Collecting is rewarding and certainly much can be learned and enjoyed from it, But seeing the work of your hands sail thru the air is an awesome experience….I like the concept too of not risking the original by making a not so invested copy…..My Pageboy has a foamy/electric test goat clone to test changes before applied to the original, and just flying practice as well…..I also like the detail you mentioned of rounding the corners of the wood…. Just makes so much nicer the finished model….

Fortunately due to Outerzone, we now have plans for the 24 inch Sterling half-A P-38. I have an unbuilt bigger brother, the 36 inch Sterling P-38 and 2 Enya .09-III with venturi. Maybe once we're settled down MO, can build it.

P-38 in a capable pilot's hands could take on anything the enemy could throw and come back for more. But back then, they had no automatic systems. I was amazed at how much work it was to set the mixture, manifold pressure, prop pitch, trim, along with a few other things.

A pilot's ability to do these instinctively made a difference between being victim or victor. It was a cutting edge high performer when it debuted, and still remained competitive at war end.

Nice Ken, Scientific kit right?  Nice taunt wing and a more scale pilots pod than mine.  Finish looks great.

Rooting for you on this one Bob

Thanks Robert.  Last time I flew C/L I hung one in a tree and face planted the other.  Not risking a 50+ year old scratch build.  I'm no-long coordinated, but I do have a memory.  I remember the first time I flew it.  Original engines were Golden Bees, it was a thrill the get them running and listen to them in Sync..  Lifted it off - no hand-launch and just let it putt around the circle.  I never even tried a wing over.  Scale all the way you know.  Wasn't built for that.  

I have since flown it many times, by myself with a stooge, with a friend at work, and with my son.  Last time I flew it was at the Patuxent River Naval Air Test center at the compass rose where they tested the P-2V lockheed Neptune and the P-3V Orion.  Nice paved circle.  

Charles Lindbergh and Richard Bong.  Lindbergh a vocal anti-war protester went to the Pacific theater and taught P-38 pilots how to set their mixture controls for maxmium performance and range.  He also unoffically shot down a Japanese aircraft.  Bong, WW-2's "Ace of Aces" shot down more enemy airplanes than anyone elso, all with the P-38.  He was killed in 1946 testing the Lockheed P-80 "Shooting Star."  

Ken Cook wrote:                    Mine is a Sterling reproduction by DPC models. I don't expect anything really maneuverable out of it aside from some loops and eights. This seems like it's going to be a problem landing as I assume like it's .15 size brother it will fall out of the sky like a meteor.

 Gas-up the inside engine last as you know Ken.  But many times on mine the inside engine quit first and it didn't seem to make much of a difference other than giving me a fright moment.

Now I remember you saying that it was a repro..

Edit add:

I think I have figured out my Cox Box...............But I still do not know what goes in the empty space. Nothing on the box indicates it as everthing is accounted for.






No happy times today, spent most of it burning off brush. That dirt pile and the one next to it over-flowed. More tomorrow.