Category: Scale Models
-
Standin’ On The Tarmac – Part Two – The Lowdown
How tall are you? If you can smoke cigars, drink whiskey, and join the army, you are likely to be about 1.5-1.8 metres tall, with your eyes some 120 mm lower down than the top of your head. I realise there are people outside the average and I salute them, but let’s take an example…
-
Standin’ On The Tarmac – Part One – The Wrong Stuff
Watchin’ all the birds roll by…dum de dum dum. Should put that to music – might make a good pop song. Standin’ on a scale model tarmac, runway, racetrack, street, or hardstand is the subject of this series of essays. If you are repulsed by mathematics, just look at the pretty pictures. The Little Studio…
-
The Play Set
I just figured out why I like my model airfields so much. They are the best play set I’ve ever had. The Louis Marx company play sets that appeared in so many North American Christmas catalogues in the 50’s were wonderful things. You could get Fort Apache, The Alamo, The Army Camp, Cape Canaveral, Cops and…
-
The New Direction Is Direction-finding
Idly surfing the net recently I noted that the RCAF station that I have taken as my inspiration was, for quite some time, a radar early warning facility as well as a training air base. This continued right through the period of time that my model layout depicts. I couldn’t resist the temptation to use…
-
Piasecki Flying Banana – Part Four – I Love it…
I love it when a plan comes together – and equally when a collection of sub-assemblies can be piled into each other to yield a finished product. The last day building on a project is always a surprise. For some people it slows down – like a video of dogs catching frisbees – and for…
-
Piasecki Flying Banana – Part Three – The Jesus Nut
My friend Warren tells me Air Force facts and trivia gleaned from his years of service. One of the latest bits is the slang term for the nut that finally secures a helicopter’s rotor to the vertical shaft that drives it – the Jesus Nut. If it fails you go to… Well, joking aside, I…
-
Piasecki Flying Banana – Part Two – My Ambition Acheived
I have nursed an ambition for some while – ever since I saw pictures of a number of western helicopters that had red troop seats. The seat backs seemed to be made of red nylon webbing and hung loosely over solid fabric bottoms. I suspect they were a dual purpose thing – the solid cloth…
-
Piasecki Flying Banana – Part One – You Had Me At…
They had me at the name – ” Flying Banana ” is not something that you can pass by in a neutral fashion. You either love it or hate it. I have fond memories of these helicopters as Revell kits in the 1950’s. This one is Italeri – itself a recommendation – and when I turned…
-
A Different Rhythm At The Workbench
What strange creatures we are. When working for a living there were times when I could not get away from my work station fast enough at the end of the day. Now that I’m retired, I can’t wait to get to it. And there are weeks when I seem to work at it as if…
-
The Independent Mind
I spoke to a person who reads this column regularly. It was in his modelling room and he was in the midst of his favourite activity; making models for wargaming. In this he has a mind of his own and is not afraid to use it. He also uses everything else that can possibly come…
The Little World 