Warbird Information Exchange

Just an FYI--I finished stripping my old Corsair yesterday. This morning I was cleaning up my Easy-Off frying pan/marinade container and realized I'd forgotten to fish the tailwheel doors out of the gunk. They were clean as a whistle and not any worse for wear after spending ten or so hours in the cleaner. An interesting aside to that experience is that the interior green wasn't phased in the least by the oven cleaner. As I recall I used Humbrol for that and the flat black on this kit.

, Can anyone please tell me how to post a pic from photobucket these days? I used to be able to click on the IMG Code, hold the left mouse key down and drag and drop into whatever reply post I had open in the bottom tray. I just tried to do that and couldn't. When I clicked on the left mouse key with the cursor over the IMG Code field and then let it go it told me the IMG Code had been copied. Copied to where and how do I retrieve it? When I tried to drag and drop in to the open reply post nothing happened. I'm trying to pull up pics of the An-72P. It still hangs from the ceiling of my LHS in Newcastle.

Cheers,
Ross.

After it says "copied" you can go back to the message you're typing and hit the "control" and "v" keys simultaneously. Your photo's code should show up.

, Ah, thank you Second Air Force, I'll try that later tonight. I have to go out in a couple of hours for a couple of hours so I try it when I get back home.

Cheers,
Ross.

I've had very good results with two brands of heavy duty degreaser, Castrol Super Clean and Purple Power. Supposedly straight Simple Green works as well, but slower. The purple stuff will attack flat black to some extent, IIRC.

Easy-Off does work, but one big caveat: DON'T use it on acetate plastic (like on old promo car models from the '50s) - it will eat away a layer of the plastic!

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All right, Mister Dorfmann, start pullin'!
Pilot: "Flap switch works hard in down position."
Mechanic: "Flap switch checked OK. Pilot needs more P.T." - Flight report, TB-17G 42-102875 (Hobbs AAF)

, Here are some pics of my An-72P. Sorry about the delay in posting them.




I hope you all like them. It was difficult photographing them hanging from the shop ceiling and I wasn't willing to try to get any closer to it than I already was. Too much like a recipe for a fall to me.

Cheers,
Ross.

Looking good, Ross! With some work one of those models could be converted to a YC-14.

It's going to take a ton of work to turn that F-16 in to a YC-14! Been experimenting with different strippers (not the pole dancing type) I'll take some pics and post some time this weekend. Thanks for all the help!

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" excuse me stewardess I speak jive"

Look @ the YC-14 and the AN-72 and see if you can figure out who the Russians thought was on the right track-but it didn't pass the 'it looks like an airplane' test over the YC-15 in the teeny minds of the Blue Suiters with all the farts and darts and 'I was there' fruit salad.

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Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

, I think it would take a heck of a lot of work to make the An-72 into A YC-14, I think more than I would be prepared to
do.to "Their Airships" always getting it right (The Inspector) I guess they're human too. The An-74 (a derrivative of the -72 with a higher weight carrying capacity) would look good in RAAF colours as a Caribou replacement, although I think it's more likely that we'll buy the C-27 due to its commonality with our C-130Js (common engines and props, common avionics, common flight deck layout). I'm planning to do a squadron of what-if modern Russian and Ukrainian aircraft in RAAF colours. Yak-130 in Roulettes colours? I wonder how that would look. An An-74 in Caribou style camoflage? That could be very interesting. I put enough work njto that An-72P as the kit needed a fair bit of work to build. The result however was well worth the effort.

Cheers,
Ross.

I think what the inspector is saying.... is that the Russians being crafty and smart picked up on a great idea that the U.S. "Blue Suiters" and their small narrow minds passed on....? Just my interpretation.

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" excuse me stewardess I speak jive"

That's it. For years and years the USAF resisted thrust reverser's as 'unreliable' even though commercial airliners made thousands of perfectly normal reverser assisted landings every day, it really wasn't until the C-5 that the USAF finally threw in the towel and quit the 'just put bigger brakes on it' mentality. If it didn't fit in the preconcieved notions notebook, it was all 'too weird for me' until Burt Rutan started slowly changing some progressive folks' minds in aviation.

The C-14 had the wonderful CF-6 on it (I stand in awe of anything with a GE CF-90 on it, they're like standing next to big hydro electric generator @ a power dam you can just feel the immense power), it also used full span blown flaps which is why the engine nacelles look so odd. BUT, it didn't fit into the 'it looks like an airplane' school of thinking, one of the reasons everyone except airlines went GAA GAA over the proposed Boeing Sonic Cruiser, aviation is still a pretty much striped gray suit with a belt and suspenders and burgandy tie group.

The first time I saw a photo of an An-72 the first words that came out of my mouth were 'well, that sure was scared by the YC-14!' Both prototypes still sit in the big sandbox filling up with spider webs and snakes and scorpions.

The Russians are very clever @ adapting other designs, look @ the gear and brakes on an An-124 and tell me the brakes inspiration didn't come from a DC-8. TU-204/757, etc.

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Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

The oven cleaner worked great!

I did a test on a piece of sprue first, using a piece from the Williams Brothers kit and the paints I figured I'd used on this model. I slapped on some primer and a few coats of yellow. The oven cleaner didn't hurt the styrene so I figured I'd be good to go.

I started with the upper wings and fuselage yesterday and did the underside of the wings and fuselage today. Most of you guys are probably familiar with this kit, but if not, it's molded in yellow and blue. In this picture everything forward of the rear gunner is essentially bare except for some that hung on in a few crevices. The longest I left the cleaner on it was almost 11 hours over night and it didn't have any affect on the plastic whatsoever.

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Great news. We wondered how the Williams Bros. styrene formula would react to the cleaner and you've just proven it's pretty tough plastic.

Scott