Even more flying stuff - a little Curtiss-Wright CW-21B

The aircraft that "our own" Fokker factory made in the late thirties weren't enough to fit the needs of the Dutch armed forces. Especially in the Dutch East Indies they desperately needed more planes to defend the borders of the big colony. Fokker struggled to build enough flying military stuff for the homeland, so the government turned to the US for some help.

The Curtiss-Wright company had this little fragile looking plane for sale called the CW-21 Demonstrator, or Interceptor or even Demon. It was a Radial-engined fighter plane with a slightly swept back wing and a fuselage that ended in an almost wasp-like narrow point where the empennage began. Small, but nevertheless an elegant plane. The newest version also had retractable landing gear and was quite fast in a climb. But it lacked self-sealing fuel tanks, the planes weren't adequately armoured, and all i all quite fragile.
They were no match for the Japanese Imperial air force. So in the end the 24 little planes the Dutch East Indies had contributed close to nothing to the defence of the country.

But elegant they were.

 

The model is designed by Der Kampfflieger, Roman Vasiiyev, and is originally in 1/48.
I rescaled it to about 1/72. The landing gear wheel wells are articulated and the prop spins.

More photos after the jump.

More flying stuff - A chequered MiG 21.

One of the more recent "discoveries" I did was how much fun it is to build the models designed by the members of the TSMC. These Japanese guys create some really well-designed models.

I already made their F-105, the F-16 and their T-38. Now it was time to take on the MiG-21. I chose the Croatian Mig, painted in the design of the red and white chequered weapon shield as seen in their flag.
So that is an extra thing on top of the already meticulous design, to get all the lining up of all these blocks right. As all TSMC builds, this one too is a bit of a challenge, it has a couple of parts that are very hard to get right in one go but the end result is marvellous. More build photos after the jump.

 

Hawker Sea Fury 1/72

Now, I cannot remember for all that is dear to me what kind of fun build I had in mind when I wrote that in my last post, but hey, a Hawker Sea Fury is fun. It is one of the coolest prop fighters ever built and certainly one of the fastest. 

So I had this model in my stash, made by an unknown designer because all I had was the sheet with the parts, no instructions whatsoever... I hope it wasn't illegal, because then I will buy the model in retrospect.

The model was weathered and that is something I see too little on paper models. A nice black streak of soot out of the engine and some dirt on the plane's surface. I decided that with the lack of space in mind i'd build it with the wings folded, since there were some parts indicating that this was one of the possibilities.

I really liked the design and the tight fit. It all went together reasonably quick. I didn't have to reprint it. The cockpit was very rudimentary and because the canopy was paper anyway, I decided to leave the tub out of the plane. The canopy was very well designed. It had the right curvature, a nice fit and it looks great on the plane. I gave it a quick dab of transparent acrylic paint to give it a glassy shine.

I didn't make any photos of the build, by the way, I wasn't really that inspired to do so. Sorry. (Life is a bit hectic nowadays and I needed my time alone just for myself and I wasn't thinking about making it into a blog build.

More photos are after the jump.