Meeting Summary April 8, 2014

In the house tonight was Tracie, Rodney, Andy, Les, Dave, Keith, Tony, Steve F

Nice sized crowd and lots of variety on the table.

Rodney and Tracie are participating in a group build on ISM. It is an Easter theme, and of course, the subject is Egg Planes. A fun build with the Easter Bunny as a pilot, and some shag carpet as a cockpit floor.

Rodney also finished his German UBoat. Nice job!

Andy brought his friend and fellow RAF veteran Les with him. Les was looking to thin his stash and he brought some kits in for anyone who was interested. Andy surprised me with his 25 scale Formula 1 car. I didn't know he built that type, and as you can see , did an amazing job.

Tony showed us some airliners that he had finished a while back.

It was great to see Keith after a long absence. Keith is still building, and as I recall, WWII German armor was and still is his favorite. This is an in progress shot of his E25 Paper Panzer. It is a tank that was in development but never actually built by the Germans in WWII.

Steve F. has an interesting display of the Westland Whirlwind. The one on the left is a model of the actual aircraft built for production, which was developed in the mid 1930s and actually saw service with three squadrons until 1943 when they were withdrawn.

The model on the right is a what-if, from the mind of Steve F. Taking into account the radical airframe design for the mid 1930’s, and the emerging development of the jet engine, Steve surmises that if the RAF were to mate the two developments, the could have flown the first practical jet fighter maybe as early as 1940, well ahead of the Me 262 and the Gloster Meteor. Steve F.’s scratch building skills took a conventional Whirlwind and converted it to a long nose, tricycle gear aircraft with what I think are Me 262 engines, with modified square nacelles. Impressive job!

Steve also included is the Grumman F7F Tigercat twin engine fighter for comparison along with a Vindicator Torpedo Bomber from the beginning of WWII. The Tigercat was developed and delivered to Okinawa in June 1945, but never saw combat. Another twin engine fighter, this one developed for the US Navy and Marine Corps, however it was too large to operate from the Essex Class carriers, instead, designed for the new and larger Midway class. Later in life, they actually did operate from carriers and were withdrawn from service in the mid 50’s as jet fighters took over the role. In fact the F8 Crusader had its maiden flight only one year after the F7F was withdrawn. 

The advancement of aircraft in such a short period of time is amazing, check out a comparison. Vindicator in 1940, to Crusader in 1955 - 15 years. Consider that the F-14 Tomcat first flew in 1970 and was retired in 2006, a span of 36 years!

   Photo © by Marv Mays

See more photos on the Facebook page..
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.502504003206490.1073741845.319507198172839&type=3