I was doing some research for my build and came across this website by the 336 TFW munitions teams. The photo sections have some awesome photos. Chris Walls and Bruce Hills' Galleries had some great aircraft shots, and lots of good munitions close ups.

http://366th-mms.net/photo_album.htm

Hope you find this interesting.

Cheers
Wiz

Nice pictures there, Wizard. Cool munitionsshots and nice "Puff the magic dragon"

Thanks for sharing and happy Easter

Everyone seated? I finally have a bit of time to work on my entry... those who know me may have noticed that I finish about 10% of campaigns that I enter
This is Trumpeter's 1/35 Chinook that I will be scratching the web troop seats into the back. I've assembled most of what I can before painting, including the PE screens that are part of the kit, and have painted the main control panel (camera will not focus on it to prove this, but I did, lol). I have two days to get some paint on it, then I'm away for two weeks but will post pics if I do it. This helicopter is a joy to build, and I'm a big fan of Mr. Trumpy's recent large-scale helos... my wife bought their 1/35 Hind E kit as a birthday present (yay!).
I will try Andy's suggestion of Tamiya's polishing compound for the enormous canopy as I picked this stuff up a few months ago without a reason to. Now I have. Great work from everyone so far, I'm here among a lot of great modellers.

Hello Mike,

She looks great, and what a size !! It looks enormous !!
Keep the updates coming !!

Stevie B

Looks great, Mike. It will be a nice bird when finished.

Looks like you will need a bigger table when you mount the extra rotor. This is one big bird!!

Woo hoo... my tamiya polishing compound in coarse and fine arrived today, and as I am on annual leave have spent the past hour polishing the Cayuse bubble canopy

Wowee

My sincere thanks to Andy ( Intruderbass) for the heads up on this, this stuff is amazing !! What a difference it makes !

Here is the before pic as the canopy comes off the sprue out of the box.. yuk ...



and here is the AFTER pics... after using the coarse compound then the finishing /fine compound, and polishing for around an hour





Needless to say, I am delighted with the improvement, now those etched seat harness details seem so worth doing.. cos I can see em !

Once again, kudos to Andy (Intruderbass) for the heads up.. I can recommend this tamiya polishing compound stuff, for sure

Stevie B

Stevie,

Glad you found my little advice helpfull. Your canopy looks much better!

Keep us updated on your progress!
BTW nice detail! I like all the cables and wires behind the instrument panel!
You planning to equip your Oh-6 with minigun? Or maybe 40mm?

Andy

Mike,

Nice job on Chinook! I am building one myself. That thing is huge indeed! Thanks for posting the progress pics!


Andy

Here's my submission to get my first campaign ribbon. It is an OOB Testors 0-2A Skymaster based at Bien Hoa from the 19th TASS.


This is the first Testors kit I have made and I won't be buying another.

The cockpit detail was rubbish. The kit parts didn't go together very well included most of the side windows being much smaller than the frame. It's not my best build and I think I let myself down a bit but I just couldn't get my head into this one and I wasn't sure about posting it as the other submissions are so good.









Thanks for looking and feel free to comment

Hi Chris,

She looks great , what scale is it ?

Can't say I have seen this model or prototype myself, what an interesting /unusual subject.

Kudos to you for chosing it !

I know what you mean about ill fitting parts.. worn moulds are one thing, but outright wrong / ill fitting parts are just bad news... and inexusable form any manufacturer.

All part of the "modellers challenge" I suppose

Thanks for sharing

Stevie B

This weeks progress on the Cayuse /Loach /Oh 6a.

The rear hatches fitted, the moulded hatches shaved off and photo etch replacements.. gee these are tiny and a real challenge to pick and hold with tweezers.... spent half an hour on the floor looking for one of them that went twang... only to find it had stuck on the table !


Added a seatbelt to the rear seat.. there is a heck of gap between the floor and the side fuselage which needed filling



Weapons system test /dry fitted



prototype M134 six-barrel 7.62mm "Minigun" The kit hasn't quite got this right, but it will do for me.



Overall view of port-side with tail boom now cemented in place



It's not perfect, but I feel its an improvement on the Swiss Rega, and as long as I strive to improve with each model, then I shall be happy

That said this kit is not without its own " issues"..the canopy quality is awful, but have overcome that,the floor leaves a heck of a gap between it and the walls... and then this..

It would appear that the rivet engraving /detail is , well, not quite perfect.. approx 3mm out of alignment... fortunately its only visible from above... and it's nothing I have done, cos the front, back and bottom all line up !



Things will slow down a little now, as I muster the confidence to secure the canopy /windscreen into place.. there are also some small details to add to the internal glass....

The main thing is , I am ENJOYING it

Stevie B

I have the Testors 1/48 Skymaster in my stash but didn't really fancy the challenge as i have two other campaigns to complete so I've opted for the Tamiya 1/48 Skyraider instead

Stevie B

The 0-2A model is 1/48 scale and I remember it best in the classic film BAT 21 when one of these was flown in the film by Danny glover trying to rescue Gene Hackman shot down by the VC and was based on a true story. Great film if you like the plane but hard to come by these days.

Nice work on the Skymaster, you did a good job with this kit, don't be too hard on yourself. I wish a company like hasegawa would issue the the 0-2 Skymaster and the 0-1 birddog in both 1/72 and 1/48 with updated molds. As can be seen by the builds on this thread, they are an interesting subject, and desperately needed for anyone doing a Vietnam campaign. You wouldn't want all those f-4s and other aircrafts dropping ordanance that close to friendlies without them! Not too mention their role in SAR missions.

Anyway, here are some in-progress shots from my build. I painted all the parts that required light gray today. The first shot shows my pre-shading before and after. The rest are after... in case that wasn't obvious to anyone...







Cheers
Wiz

@Chris: Nice entry. Good OOB job you did there on the Skymaster. There is a ribbon coming up for you when the campaign ends.

@Stevie: Your Cayuse is really taking shape. Very nice result on the cockpit clear parts.

@wizard: looks good. This will be a nice bird with some ordnance on it. looking forward to see more.

@Jesper - Thanks! I was pretty happy with the pre-shade. I'm hoping it goes as well with the darker colours (usually where I get it wrong). The second two photo's came out very blue but the colour is better in the first one. The ordnance is going to be interesting for an F-4. For those who don't know the Chico story: SUU-23 Gunpods on the external pylons, 2x Rockeyes on each of the internals.

@Stevie - Great Cayuse! Really good job on getting that canopy polished. Meant to say that before

Cheers
Wiz

That is a really interesting load out. I just checked the net and here is the history behind this interesting weapons combination. I know that Wizard probably know this one already, but others might find it interesting.

Chico story

Cheers Jesper / Wiz,

I am still trying to summon up the courage to fit and glue the canopy in..
then get her painted,,,


Cheers

Stevie B

Hi everybody

Please use the the new "Part two "Vietnam war" campaign official tread for this campaign. This is to ensure that the forum run more smoothly

Thanks to everybody for participating with discussion, progress update etc.

@Jean-Luc: could you please "unstick" this tread and make the new tread "sticky".