Like most of us I usually build my aircraft with the wheels down. Wheel wells can be a little model within a model and then the finished effort can sit on its wheels on the shelf. I have just finished a Spitfire with wheels up sitting on a clear acrylic rod (which is virtually invisible) and with no propeller blades (I filled the spinner) and it is an entirely different animal. The beautiful lines of the machine,despite a tropical filter, leap out and beat you about the face. I think I might be doing a few more this way!!!
Just wondered if anyone else does it "wheels up"?
Cheers
Steve

Nope. Not so far anyway, but I'm considering building a PRXIX in swedish livery at take off. Just because the assymetric folding of the wheels is so cool on the Spitfire. As you say, the lines become cleaner in flight, and the model is also less likely to die when moving .

Tony

Aah,the old assymetric wheel fold - certainly a really cool thing to feature. I remember someone showing us a Spitfire taking off some time a go. A very nice job that was.
I'd never really thought about doing any aircraft "flying" before and am surprised how different it looks.
Steve

my young toddler son broke the blades off a mk1 spit I was making
so I just smoothed them off and it is flying over his bed now. Works
great with a spitfire I've got to admit.

Problem with wheels up is you never get pilots or crew with
modern kits. Very rarely anyway.

Hmmm, a wheels up group build would be fun. in flight with
crew for those kits with fixed u/c.

I've got a collection of historic/record setting aircraft hanging in timeline fashion down the center of my classroom, starting with the Wright Flier and ending witht he Berkut. All are in 1/72 scale.
Whenever possible I build wheels up, actually this is somewhat of a hassle at times as the gear doors ofter do not fit well at all. Many times wheel wells are filled with scrap sprue, puttied, left to dry, and then sealed with super glue and sanded flat.

Besides some planes just look better wheels up. Sr71, U2 and Me 262 for example.

Mike

A few years ago here on Armorama we did a campaign for the BoB anniversary. I finished a Tamiya Spitfire and Hasagawa BF109E-3 inflight, with the spit trying to shake the 109. I mounted them throught the side with brass rod and used pulled cotton for clouds over my "base." My ex-wife even made a frame for the chunk of plywood. Aside frome the minor arguement that a foot wide board put the birds too close, everyone liked how they popped out of the scene. Sadly, the dio did not survive our move back to the states, and I think the photos were lost when we lost the armorama group with MSN. Maybe Mal or Rowan will have the photos from the campaign saved somewhere. It was probably the most fun I had in a while modeling, and i still want to do my orignally dio of a spit taking done a HE111 or JU88. maybe for Mals sake i'll leave the pesky 109 off in the clouds and not have harassing the spit...

The last time I made a kit with the wheels up it was a Victor, refuelling a Buccaneer. I only did it because I went through every Victor in the shop and they all had one mainwheel missing. Well, it was that kind of shop ... The effect was OK, I suppose, though I was very young and stupid (it was a Matchbox Buccaneer too, how stupid is that?). But one great advantage of doing jets wheels-up is that you don't have to worry about the propeller.

Since then, though, it's been wheels-down all the way, simply for lack of anywhere to display them in flight. I will not hang them from the ceiling, I'm a grown-up now...

You are right about that. For my Spitfire (which has wheels partly visible when up) I had to thin the relevant HALF of each wheel to make them fit in the wells and "adjust" the gear doors somewhat. At least the V didn't have a retractable tail wheel!
The lack of pilots/crew is more of a problem. I've got a few from various kits stashed. Nige (Lampie) also kindly donated a Biggles like pilot which I then left in my work toolbox which is in storage - sorry Nige ,I'll put him in the next one!!!!
It's nice to know I'm not alone.
Cheers
Steve

To save shelf space I do every third or fourth kit wheels up on a stand so it "flies" over the wheels down kits and the stands fit in the sapce between the wings of the other planes. Means I can have my Sterling, Wellington and Lancaster fit on the shelf with my gaggle of fighters.

I pretty much always prefer to do wheels up and in flight since that's kind of a plane's "natural habitat". Also Wheels down just ruins the lines of the plane in my opinion. Although I usually don't depict spinning props in flight for some reason.
The lack of pilots in kits is also very frustrating. It even seems that very few aftermarket figure makers do seated pilots. Mostly they are posed outside the plane somehow. Sometimes I just do a ghost flier. Plane in the air with an empty cockpit.
My main quirk though is kits pretty much never have an option for folded up landing gear so you have to mod it yourself and on some planes it's a nightmare.

I live in a one bedroom condo with little shelf space, and most of that is filled with books and 1/35 armor, so I hang most of my models, especially the biggest ones. Most are built with the landing gear up.

Exactly! I really hate it when manufacturers just assume you'll be building the kit with the wheels down, and mold it accordingly, so in order to raise the landing gear you have to do major surgery. This was even the case with the Monogram 1/48th AC-47 I just did, as if anybody would have enough shelf space for that behemoth. They should let us, the builders, decide for ourselves if we want to build the kits gear up or gear down. Also, I believe hanging aircraft from the ceiling is often done because of a lack of shelf space, not because the builder is a child.