DC-3 Airliner

DC-3 engines all done.

Side door, the original C-47 kit had a big cargo door.

A little hole to fill.  I just used glue.

Landing gear, I managed to break it and then repair it.

Rubber bands to hold the wings in place while they dry.

I use a lot of rubber bands on my aircraft.

Engine parts waiting for final assembly.

The lower center wing is a separate part, makes for a very sturdy wing.

Finished aircraft, apart from painting and decals.

Airliner

This will be a Swiss Air DC-3 for 1944/45.  They carried neutrality stripes, like red and white D-Day invasion stripes on the wings.  The completed airliner interior.

Stewardess attends to a passenger.

Ready for takeoff.

Movie flight, Triumph of the Will is playing.

Swiss Airliner, WWII

Here is a start on the airplane crew.  Stewardess and pilot and co-pilot.

Passengers still in the process of painting, but laid out to see who fits best where.  The side of the figure next to the window has to have his arms down and in to account for the curvature of the fuselage.  I am also working on the color palette so that I don't have three people wearing purple next to one another. Carpet has the first layer of red paint.

Painting continues and you can see the figures are nearly done.  A second layer of carpet paint has been applied.  I think I ended up with five layers to cover the white, no primer.

I am leaving most of the interior white, I am planning on Swiss markings for the plane, so a red and white motif seems a good idea.  It also means I don't have to paint it all since the plastic is a very nice gloss white.  Also I want the light to reflect around inside and the white will help with that.

Crew is done, cockpit is nearly finished.

DC-3

Using the plastic angle I created seats for the civilian passengers on my DC-3.

I gathered various civilians from the Civilians box.

I am locating the seats next to each window, as previously marked on the model part.

Since the seats have no leg room, the legs have to go from the figures, but they are put in the spares box in case legs are needed for some future project.  Painting begins, starting with some Easter pastels I got at Hobby Lobby.  MRS Bunkermeister found these paints for me.

Rich, red, thick, comfy seats for long range air travel.

DC-3 Airliner

I am building a DC-3 from Revell.  The interior is more the C-47 military interior.  That does not work for an airliner.

I have marked out where the seats go, next to a window.

Early models had two rows of seats, later models had three rows, one on one side of the plane and two on the other side of the plane.  This will be a two row plane.

Here is how it's supposed to fit together.

I will need to add some angle iron plastic to make the civilian seats.

P-51 Mustang Construction

As part of my building 11 P-51 Mustang kits I am using this little cutting pad.  It saves the work surface from getting cut up.  I have several of them, this is one of the oldest and smallest.

Here is one of the planes, it is the 7th of them and almost done, lacking only canopy and landing gear.  I always build landing gear down so I can have my planes on the ground or in the air.

Canopies get glued on using Testors Clear Parts Cement & Window Maker.  It's really good for clear stuff because it dries clear and leave no fogging on the clear parts.

For general plastic glue work, I used Model Master Liquid Cement For Plastic Models.

Here are a few of my basic tools.  An Olfa knife with snap off blade, much sharper than X-Acto or any other I have found; X-Acto knife with #11 blade, a pair of stamp tongs, and a Tamiya sprue cutter.  It was about $25 and worth every penny.

Aircraft

While sorting the collection, I am building P51 Mustangs.

I built one as a captured by the Germans version.

So far I have completed two USAAF versions.

I got these kits at various kit collector shows, at least ten years ago.

There are kits from Hasagawa, Airfix, Matchbox, Academy, Ace, in 1/72nd scale.

By building a group of kits at the same time, I can build them faster, as I can work on one, let it dry while I work on another.  Also I can avoid having to look to carefully at the instructions more than a couple times.

Aircraft Mass Building

As part of my Battle of Berlin plan, I am building Bf-109 aircraft. These are the Heller kit, 1/72nd scale plastic. Did I mention I was going to build ten at a time?

These worthy volunteers have chosen a career in aviation. The Heller kit does not come with a pilot and I like pilots in my planes.

These pilots came from several walks of life, including being Kibri people. Kibri kits sometime have rather mannequin type figures.

Building ten kits at once is it's own skill. First I build one as a training exercise. Then I build another for more training and incorporating shortcuts that I came up with during the construction of the first one. Then I build a third one using all the shortcuts and making annotations to the instructions.

A photo of the practice ones along with a couple others from Matchbox and Hasagawa.

Me 109 Aircraft

When I have money, I buy models. When I have time, I put them together. Here are two old soldiers. These are the Matchbox 1/72nd scale Me 109 fighter plane. A very easy styrene plastic kit.

I got them a while back at a kit collector show. They have been sitting around waiting to be put together for at least five years. I really liked Matchbox kits. They always had at least two colors of plastic, sometimes three for the bigger kits. The instructions were easy and the planes had pilots.

This one was a rather odd yellow plastic, you can see where I painted the inside gray. The yellow was so thin and translucent that you can see the dark spot where the paint is located. As you have guessed, I generally assemble my planes and then paint them afterwards. I often paint them in a large group. I have over two dozen Me 109 airplanes, and I don't think a one of them is finished. Maybe later this year. I am working up to a big building spree of Me 109 aircraft by Heller. I have about ten of them to put together.

Bf 109 T

In World War Two the Germans came close to finishing an aircraft carrier. They did get the airplanes that would fly from it, the Messerschmidt Bf 109 T. This is the decal sheet for a model of one.

The aircraft carrier was not finished, but the planes were used in combat. One of the unique features was the arrestor hook, seen here.

The special wing flaps helped the aircraft to land in very short distance, useful for aircraft carriers and useful on unimproved airfields in Russia.

This 1/72nd scale plastic kit was not very good, and I only got two of them. It is a unique enough plane that I wanted a couple for my Luftwaffe. That's right, not the navy. All aircraft used by the German Navy were Luftwaffe planes with pilots and aircraft on loan to the Navy.