Egilman

I hear that a lot of #%@$$#^^**#%@$ type language helps....

Yep, wing tip floats first showed up on the PBY Catalina I believe in '35, they had been licensed from Saunders-Roe...... A very innovative clean design.... Consolidated kept it when they designed the Coronado...

I missed this one? glory beeee.... Brother you pull this one off there is nothing you cannot build..... My eyes are just too done for that scale... I've done quite a few 1/700 before and actually had a 1-700 Kido Butai display, (was only missing the tankers) but I sold it cause it was just too large for my space.... (6 aircraft carriers & two battleships in dual column formation will do that to a display) My hat's off to those who can do PE in this scale and make it look good.... I respectfully doff my hat to you sir.... You are braver than I...

Another small update.... Prepping the surface for detailing..... This is where the Modeling Paste comes in, eliminating any defects in the foam forming heat process... Using an artists knife to spread the paste over the deep ripply bubbles formed by the heat gun.... First application was a bit thick around 1/8th inch.... This paste dries hard, very hard and shrinks a bit so the expected cracks appeared, a second thin skin coat took care of those..... Overall it the 1/8th thick coat took about 6 hrs to dry completely, the skim coat took about 2 hrs.... I left it overnight to make sure it fully dried.... Next comes the TP and glue application... TP & white glue has been used for eons as a modeling material, from this type of application to making tarps for armor, it is very versatile.. You first start by gluing down a layer of TP.... 1st sheet.... 2nd sheet and so on and so forth till the surface is completely covered... Then you come back over it with a second layer and as you can see it is really unavoidable to create a texture... This will now sit overnight to dry as well before I add the wavelet texture layer which will be two more layers of TP... I will not be looking for coverage on the next two layers, but trying to create the small waves being blown up across the swell.... Onward.....

Thank you very much my friends, Mike I like showing the process, how I get from image to finished model... The research is part of that.... Ed, what I'm doing is kinda an amalgam of the various techniques out there, my first was an ugly board painted blue with some melted styrene foam to represent waves..... I've learned a lot more since then.... My problem was starting always worried if will come out right for what I'm modeling. For the most part I'm beyond that stage now, but I wouldn't be here if I didn't try..... I hope you all like it when it's done and it doesn't look like a rock thrown in a pool.... {chuckle}

Probably I would presume, would need more power than a rubber band as well....

Yep, Inspirational genius's..... Took them ten years to prove in court that Curtis's ailerons were just a different mechanical interpretation of their patented inspiration on how birds controlled their flight.... The unfortunate thing is it cost them their company and world wide leadership in aeronautical design..... By the time they got back into designing airplanes they were so behind the curve they could never make up the lost time.... The list of their contributions to flight is very long, starting with the creation, (out of thin air so to speak) of the whole science of Aeronautics...... They were the first to understand what was happening with wind flowing over a wing and how to adapt it for control.... Most of the terms used to describe it were coined by them, they established aspect ratio as a measure of lifting capacity for a given airfoil shape and with their invention of the constant velocity wind tunnel, what that capacity was in real world terms.... The proper form of a propeller was a rotating wing which would actually provide thrust rather than just move air.... The list is almost endless.... They hand carved the most efficient propellers ever made... (78% efficient even modern engineering hasn't come close to matching that even today) Hundreds of books have been written on what they accomplished, but most do not know, the public sees them as the first to fly, the more educated understand they were the first to build a truly three axes controllable airplane.... (they designed the Wright Flyer deliberately to the absolute edge of controllability to prove it, as unstable as possible and still be able to fly) And that is only 1% of what they accomplished...

Absolutely Ken, that was a natural outgrowth of getting the control surfaces out of the compressed airstream.... One thing Dan brought up was counter balancing control surfaces to prevent dynamic coupling.... Adding counter balances to elevators on aircraft was first done to control flutter... The mechanical effect was to increase the mass of the surface so it would be less effected by turbulence.. when they realized that there is just so far they can increase mass before they affect controllability, so they went to mounting the extra mass ahead of the control surfaces pivot point, (counterbalances) This had the effect of increasing mass without increasing the required force to move them... It also had the effect of taking less pilot input effort to move the control surfaces making the aircraft super responsive.... In essence it increased the mechanical advantage of the controls, which of course made the aircraft able to fly faster..... (greater stability in the control surfaces allow faster airflow over the surface, hence the airplane can fly faster) But like everything else it had it's limits and the mass of pressurized air would also increase as the plane flies faster until the point that no amount of mechanical advantage could overcome it's effect... This is what happened to both the P-38 and the Corsair as originally designed..... The counterweights and widening of the elevator on the Lightning overcame most of the compressibility effects except at the most extreme edge of the speed envelope... Moving the elevator pivot point forward and adding hydraulics on the Corsair overcame the flutter problems associated with it's prototypes.... It was all a learning process, the advancement of engineering and the understanding of dynamic the processes involved.... These aircraft were designed to fly right out to the edge of the flight envelope.... And one of the most amazing things to me, is all of it, engineering and advancement of science, can be directly related all the way back to the Wright Brothers....

Actually Dynamic Coupling is a compressibility issue on an aerodynamic basis... Compressibility first shows up in control surface flutter... This is where the air pressure building up along the leading edge creates turbulence along the surface, when the turbulence reaches the control surface, they start to flutter.... (flap like a flag in the breeze) As airflow (speed) increases, the center of pressure bleeds back along the surface and pushes the turbulence past the end of the control surface, flutter stops and what is called dynamic coupling takes over, the pressure of the flow of highly compressed air overcomes the control moments mechanical leverage and they seem to lock up, the pilot doesn't have the strength to force the controls to move against the pressure stream.... Another obscure name for this is control surface weathervaning..... the control surfaces follow the flow of air...... So yes Dynamic coupling is a compressibility issue.... The faster the airplane goes thru the air, the stiffer the controls become, until the pressure is built up enough that the controls seem to lock up to the pilot... Hydraulics alleviated this problem for a few years, (hydraulics can easily apply ten times the force a man can to the control surfaces) But, as airplanes kept getting faster and faster, compressibility rears it's ugly head again and again... Eventually NACA developed the Area Rule, (a revolution in aerodynamics) which ended the problems of compressibility by creating space along the surfaces of an aircraft in airflow to allow the airflow to decompress before passing over the control surfaces....

Practice, (eventually) makes perfect.... Looks good from here my friend, Desert Yellow, good color for a Panther....

Absolutely Ken, all else fails, check the pictures....

One more little detail... For aircraft designed after 1940 your correct...... Prior to that Aircraft hadn't hit the compressibility wall..... Balanced control surfaces, (at least for US aircraft) came out of Lockheed when they were working out the problems of compression stall and elevator lockup at high speeds with the P-38... They found that counterbalanced control surfaces counteracted most of the bad effects of compressibility.... (not all of them though) The F4F, FM2's and the like were designed well before that, The Hellcat had hydraulically compensated control surfaces but the wildcat did not have such... It was the last of the seat of the pants, fully manually controlled fighter planes.... Besides it wasn't fast enough to reach compressibility in any flight regime..... Ever....

The hand crank for the flaps was purely mechanical in operation, and as you look at your pics and Lou's pic, all the flaps are completely closed when the wings are folded...... If you notice in the pic of the Wildcat being parked on the deck, (and the video I posted earlier in the thread) the pilot is still in the aircraft and the engine is running while they fold the wings, all the control surfaces are in neutral position cause the pilot is holding them there.... After the wings are folded and the aircraft is pushed into position on the deck the pilot leaves the aircraft and the crew chief installs the control surface lock which is a device that consists of a ring that goes over the control stick and has four elastic, (think bungee cord) straps with hooks on the ends that are hooked to spots in the cockpit to prevent rapid and violent movement of the control surfaces... Without it yes the elevator would hang down at the limit of it's travel...... What your seeing on the parked 'cats is the slight droop the the elastic cord allowed them to hang..... Probably from well used control lock devices with a bit of slack.... As far as the ailerons go looks to me that you got it right, that's not a detail I even noticed before, probably stems from them being mechanically linked and when the wings are folded the pivot point for the Aileron linkage is in a different location than the pivot point of the wing panel itself essentially causing the ailerons to move in the same upward direction when the wings are folded, it is clear from the pics (and video) that while the pilot is in the aircraft the surfaces are in neutral position.... The Grumman sto-wing folding system Grumman developed three different ways to do it, but the one first used was used on the Wildcat and subsequently used an other aircraft.... And yes the aileron connection was mechanical and had a different pivot point (and method of pivoting) than the wing panels hinge point.... Not all wildcats had the same system and some Ailerons did deflect like the FM-2 other earlier versions did not.... Thanks for bringing up the point and giving me the desire to research it... You are correct, they took that upward and outward slant when completely folded.....

Yes Mike, All scalpels are knife cut meaning both sides of the blade have an angle.... There are some panel scribers that are square and cut a flat bottom groove.... Those are the ones used for separating panels.... Micro-mark panel scriber

That is just so darn GORGEOUS!!!! Nice job.... Very well done....

Well it all depends on the degree of the closeness, Horseshoes, it's measured in inches... Hand Grenades it's measures in yards, (or metres if your military) With Nuclear Warheads it's measured in miles..... On a Seascape, it's measured in oceans, or in this case part of an ocean.... (and unlike the other three you have to count the season as well) So when I say close, I'm looking at the macro sense of close, you know expansive..... But I will admit to narrowing the scope down to the North Western Pacific in early spring..... And that was intended to be a joke.... So I've acquired my materials..... On the left is the TP a few squares, next to that is the Acrylic Gloss Heavy Gel medium, and then the Acrylic Modeling Paste and finally in the unlabeled bottle, a 50/50 mix of Elmer's and water... Then of course my foam base... I need to find the color of the ocean on that day or more like it in similar conditions.... Now don't really need to do much research to know that the ocean is blue.... and white caps are well, white... But what shade of blue? how intense given the bright sunshine the reflectivity of the water should I use high gloss or semi-gloss.... So I gathered some pictures of the North Pacific Ocean in bright sunlight for the most part showing the conditions in a lot more detail than the B&W subject pic and a range of sea conditions from mild to, well, let's say conditions that would definitely rock any boat your on..... (and there is one sunset pic that crept into the mix) Mild.... Early morning with a good stiff breeze.... And last, lets go rockin'.. Now, the first set of two images probably show that the water was like the days just after they left San Francisco... The second set of three show what it probably was like when they started their dash to the launch point..... And the last three probably show conditions at launch..... The middle three are the closest to what I need to model although they do show as a bit stronger sea conditions than the subject pic.... And the color is blue, no big surprise there, but it's a deep deep blue even under bright sunlight... Pthalo Blue looks good for the water and Titanium White for the little whitecaps and any foam around the ship's hull..... Will be starting texturing the ocean in a bit.... EG

Usually they are just a shaft sticking out the closed gear doors the support structure in contained completely inside the nacelles... the last one I built the revell B-25 B the mains had to be installed when the nacelle halves were glued together.... but the Monogram may be different....

Those on the outboard ends of the wings are known as Ailerons my friend, and even when folded they are still mechanically linked, one would be the opposite of the other as they are control surfaces and move in synch with each other.... Generally they are in neutral (centered) position when the wings are folded.... Flaps are inboard on the wing and would be split between the center section and the inboard part of the folded wing and would be mechanically locked closed when the wing is folded....

Two words Brother, Panel Scriber..... Use it just like you would to scribe panels but continue on through the part for seperation..... with the scriber you can cut the oblong shapes out in one piece as well.... One other thing brother, they wouldn't droop on a carrier deck..... The control surfaces would be mechanically locked to prevent flutter damage from the wind when sitting on the deck....

You got the right idea brother, a better foam base material is rigid insulation panels from the local big box store, about an inch thick can handle most seaways..... and works well in most techniques in creating one.... The foil is good for creating texture especially in a high seaway.... I think overall you did an excellent job for a first time experiment.... (much better than my first try) And you chose one of the most difficult seaway scenes to model.... Learning new things is also one of the fun things about this hobby... You did very well my friend....

You've come to the right place brother, there is more modeling knowledge, (all genres) than the next two forums combined...... And it's family...... Oh, by the way, I have a PDF copy of the official Booklet of General Plans for this ship.... Just in case you want to see what they really were engineering wise....

Actually Dennis, the whole boat is a bit too high in the water... The waterline is right at the break of the hull and superstructure when in flat water and in rough seas the water will be washing over the decks on almost every wave.... The driest part of the boat is the bridge and it been described as being in a washing machine while it's agitating during rough weather..... For a first time creating a seaway, it is excellent though.... not everyone can do a decent choppy sea their first time out.... Here it's not only decent but good job...

That should smooth out beautifully Jack.... Excellent recovery.....

I got to stand next to a Pagani once, About 20 feet away behind the ropes.... Felt like a privledge to be that close ....

Well, it is free form sculpting in a sense... but once you've figured out what your going to do, it's rather easy my friend.... I just have to remember how I made mountains and rivers when I was working on the railroad..... Pretty soon I'll be breaking out the toilet paper.....