Meeting Summary July 2, 2013

Hello Folks,

Small crowd this week, as expected for Summer, lots of things on the go I know. We had seven tonight.

Mike, Tony,  Steve F,  Steve R, Chris, and a long time member who has not been with us for a while, and we welcome him back, – Bert.

Let start off with what Bert brought in for us to see...

Anyone who has a few years under their belt will recognize what Bert brought in tonight. He has worked on this for a number of years, and finished it about a year ago.

The venerable PBY-5A, or as the people of Newfoundland and Labrador and the Newfoundland and Labrador Forestry Service know it, the Canso water bomber.

There was a bit of detailing that Bert had to do. The nose had to be revamped, with a bit of help from Steve F. Bert also had to rejig the wings to remove the fabric like surface on the trailing portion of the main section and replace it with something that looked like metal. (he replaced it with real metal, real thin metal J)  The real article had fabric to keep weight down for long distance recon, but as the Newfoundland Forestry Service found out, this fabric had to be replaced on a yearly basis to remain airworthy. At some point in the early 70’s they decided to metalize this portion of the wing cover. Bert also had to remove the side blisters and cover over the openings to conform to the body contour. He says that this was ther biggest challenge. Although much of it can’t be seen from the outside, there was a fair bit of detail on the inside, piping for the water, etc. The scoop on the bottom actually retracts. Nice job Bert, thanks for sharing this fine piece of work with us.

Steve F knew that Bert was bringing in his sea plane and brought some of his examples as well. He has his Kingfisher, Arado Ar 196, and Fairey Seafox. The seafox was deployed at a time whne they were used to track the Admiral Graf Spee early in WWII.

Chris is in the middle of building a few models so he brought in a progress work (JS-2) and a completed German Army Leopard. We hope to see his completed JS-2 at the next meeting.

That’s all for this month folks..

See you on August 13. Regatta Day is the Wednesday just after our regular meeting time, so we are moving the meeting out one week not to conflict with pre Regatta activities.

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