Here's a photo of
six model kits hanging from the ceiling. They's all 1:144 scale,
or one inch equals 12 feet (144 inches). They tell a partial
history of America's "global" nuclear strike capability.
Here's a photo of
six model kits hanging from the ceiling. They's all 1:144 scale,
or one inch equals 12 feet (144 inches). They tell a partial
history of America's "global" nuclear strike capability.
Naturally, it starts with WW-II and the B-29 "Superfortress", which was the plane used to drop the atomic bombs on Japan at the end of the war ... this was the first long-range bomber to be pressurized, so that it could fly above 25,000 ft. without the crew having to wear oxygen masks all of the time.
I threw this kit together as a "dust-catcher" about ten years ago, and never bothered to paint it or add the decals ... it sat on top of a case with other WW-II bombers, like the B-17 and B-24, to show relative size.
Next to it is a B-36 "Peacemaker" ... it had six rear-facing propellers, and later they added jet engines to the wingtips to aid in takeoff ... it was designed to carry the earliest Hydrogen bombs, which were Really Big.
I paid about thirty bucks for this kit, and it's been sitting in my closet for nearly a decade ... when my sister suggested that I hang some of my larger kits from the ceiling, I cut the fusalage and wings from the trees and held them together with rubber-bands to get a sense of how big it would be when completed.
The B-36 was only in service from 1948 to 1958, but it proved the concept of "aerial refueling" and led to the Air Force being able to send a squadron around the world non-stop, which demonstrated "global strike" capability ... they could fly 36 hour missions with several aerial refuelings.
B-29 |
B-36 |
B-52 |
E-3 |
B-1 |
B-2 |
Next is the venerable B-52 "Stratofortress" ... during the Viet Nam War, they picked up the nickname "BUFF" for "Big Ugly Fat Fellow" ... it was part of a "system" with the KC-135 Tanker, a Boeing 707 that was modified to be a flying tanker ... you can't think of the B-52 without the KC-135 ... the bombers were too heavy with their bomb loads to take off with a full tank of fuel, so the first thing they had to do after takeoff was rendezvous with a tanker and top-off.
The B-52 has been in service for 50 years now, updated with new, more powerful engines and electronic enhancements ... a very sturdy airframe that's being flown by the sons and grandsons of the original pilots.
I started working on this kit while I was living on the lake ... there was a young woman who would drop by and watch videos from my collection with me, and I'd work on a few of my kits while we watched ... it had been untouched since I moved down here in 2001, but I took it out and started working on it again ... I used Crazy Glue to attach BBs to the inside of the fuselage to give weight to the nose so that it would sit correctly on its wheels instead of tipping back onto its tail (I used to use lead fishing line sinkers) ... some kits include the instruction to add weight, but most don't ... some even include a clear plastic "brace" to hold up the tail. :-)
You can see the landing gear on the BUFF, and its painted in the Air Force "Gunship Grey" color ... I have to use some Green Putty to fill in the seams where the wings attach to the fuselage, and clean the seams from the fuselage halves, then I can mask the areas already painted white (the interior of the landing gear bays) and give it a second coat in my spray painting hood.
Instead of an KC-135, I have an E-3 "Sentry" (the same Boeing 707 airframe) which is the AWACS (Airborne Warning And Control System) used to monitor and control the battle space ... the big dish on top houses the radar antenna, and it rotates during flight to see everything in the air for 100 miles in every direction, then the on-board computers can direct which planes should attack which targets.
The E-3 was another kit that had been sitting in the closet for several years, and I threw it together one weekend with the landing gear up ... the kit also came with the refueling boom for a KC-135, but no instructions or decals for it ... I've been thinking about investing $24 in a model of a DC-10, which is what the Air Force is using for tankers now, as the KC-10 Extender ... I can use the boom from the other kit, with the judicious use of a saw and modeling putty.
This brings us to the current "tip of the spear" ... the B-1 "Lancer" and the B-2 "Spirit" ... they have radically different mission profiles.
The B-1, or "Bone", is a supersonic bomber, meant to penetrate enemy airspace quickly and outrun their counter measures ... it has a variable wing configuration, with the wings extended for takeoff and landing, then swept back into a delta-wing configuration for supersonic flight ... it's unpainted in this photo (the kit was a tan plastic), but I have since painted it the same "Gunship Grey" as the BUFF.
The B-2 flying wing is the bleeding-edge of "stealth" technology, designed to be radar invisible ... it can't carry as much ordinance as the BUFF or the BONE, both of which can carry munitions on external wing pylons, but what it does carry is all-weather "smart" precision bombs and Cruise missiles, which can carry nuclear warheads.
B-2s flew a mission from their base in Kansas to attack targets in Iraq, then they continued on to Diego Garcia (an atoll in the Indian Ocean that is a major Air Force base) where they refueled, took on another load of bombs, and struck a second target in Iraq on the way back to their base in Kansas ... B-1s flew similar missions against Kosovo in the 90s. So, that's the story of the six planes hanging from my ceiling ... 50 years of nuclear "Big Stick" ... the third leg of the Nuclear Triad (land, sea, and air based weapons) that was the cornerstone of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), our official defense posture during the Cold War.
This is one of
the bookshelves that I use to store cases of finished models and
my "dust catchers" ... the very large ones are 1:48 scale, or one
inch equals four feet (48 inches) ... the smallest are 1:720, or
one inch equals 60 feet (720 inches).
On the top shelf is an F14 "Tomcat" in 1:48, a plane that entered service near the end of the Viet Nam War and was retired just last year ... it's mission was "air superiority" which it accomplished with the Phoenix missile, a Mach-5 "fire-and-forget" weapon with a range of 25 miles ... once it was locked on to you, you were as good as dead ... in front of the 1:48 model is a very small 1:350 model of the same plane ... the case behind them contains some 1:144 American and German WW-II fighters that I completed in the early 1990s, when I first moved to the lake and got back into the hobby.
As an interesting side note, the Shah of Iran bought 80 of them at $25 million each before he was deposed ... when they took the US hostages, all of the technicians were pulled out, and they took all of the spare parts with them ... when Iran and Iraq went to war, they exhausted all of their ordinance in the first week, and after that, they had to cannibalize planes for spare parts, and eventually they ran out of fuel for the half-dozen that could still fly.
The A-6 "Intruder" was the Navy's medium bomber from the 1960s through the last Gulf War, when it was retired and replaced by the F-18 "Hornet", which also replaced the F-14 ... the F-18 and A-6 use the same jet engine, so the carrier crews did not have to learn how to repair a new engine, nor did they have to replace spare parts from inventory ... A-6 squadrons transitioned to F-18s, and F-14 squadrons transitioned as well ... the F-18 is being used in both a fighter and bomber role.
In the case below the Intruder is a P-51 Mustang in 1:48 ... this kit has been around "forever", and in the case are some after-market detail accessories for it, like wheels that are molded with a bulge to simulate the weight of the aircraft, and a canopy made from very thin plastic that is much closer to actual scale thickness, and allows better visibility of all the instruments and gauges (and buckled for the seat belts) that come in one of the accessory packs ... in front of it is a P-51 in 1:144 scale.
The 1:48 F-18 "Hornet" is a kit that I picked up in New Mexico during my 2005 road trip ... it's blue plastic because it's supposed to be a model of what the Navy's Blue Angels are currently flying ... I only painted the landing gear and bays (white) and the tires ... for a while, it was sitting on a mirror so that you could see the underside.
The case below the Hornet contains a 1:48 P-38 "Lightning", which has a 1:144 version in front of it ... the Germans called it the "Forked-tailed Devil" ... this is the kind of plane that was used to assassinate Admiral Yamamoto during WW-II ... we had broken the Japanese codes, and had his itinerary for a tour of Japanese forward positions ... by stripping the planes, they were able to extend their range by 75 miles further than the Japanese thought they could fly ... in a mission that took precision timing (they only had 15 minutes of fuel to find the plane and shoot it down) they managed to ambush his transport ... the mission had to be kept secret until after the war, but later the crash site was located and his remains were found.
F-14 |
A-6 |
F-18 |
The lower
portion of the same bookshelf, showing my "Phantom Mustang" and
some Naval aviation models.
Actually, the P-51 "Mustang" with the transparent body is in 1:32 scale, and I gave it a red tail like the "Tuskegee Aimen" had ... it's really collected a lot of dust over the years ... I have another unassembled kit in the closet (I bought two) ... it comes with a base that holds batteries to operate the propeller and landing gear, but I decided that I wanted one that just sat on its landing gear like my other models ... in front of it is a P-51 in 1:144 scale.
P-51 |
Nimitz |
To the right of the "Phantom Mustang" is a 1:720 model of the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz ... in the plastic bags are 1:700 and 1:720 scale planes (they're so close in scale that they're practically interchangeable) and some of them will be placed on the deck of a 1:700 version of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, "The Big Stick" ... that was the last carrier to launch and trap Tomcats in February of 2006.
Behind the Nimitz is a case of 1:350 aircraft that were flown from the 1960s through today ... they are arranged in the same order as the 1:700 planes sitting on the tail of the carrier ... I ordered after-market decals for the canopies and unit markings for squadrons in Carrier Wing 17 and Carrier Wing 14, both of which served on the USS Enterprise at one time, but also on the Roosevelt ... the point is that they are the markings for two different periods, so I have the "low visibility" markings that became common in the 1990s, as well as the more colorful markings from the 1960s.
The case on which the Nimitz is sitting contains some 1:144 fighters, and at the very bottom (partially concealed by the time/date stamp) is a section of a carrier flight deck with the catapult and a 1:144 Tomcat ... I've had the kit for many years, but just started working on it a few weeks ago.
Last update:
2007-11-11 by Dennette@WiZ-WORX.com
<Who is this "Dennette"
person?>