again, another one
For a long time I was having this kit of a Lockheed Orion from Special Hobby in my stash. But one thing was missing: the decals. I knew of this aircraft as an early Swissair type. During xmas time I found that it was time to draw the decals as I had the sketches already. So I started my Adobe Illustrator program. Then I sent the file to Joseph Osborne from Fireball Modelworks to get them printed.

I already ordered many decals from Fireball Modelworks and I know that his decals are always first class. This one, a custom made decal-set, was no exception.

inspired by the visit of the IWM at Duxford I was looking for a model kit of a Fairey Swordfish that I saw in the hall „Air and Space“. Revell is selling such a kit and it even allows for building it as a night fighter providing the radar dome as an alternative to the torpedo.

Of course I added a few extra parts to get „my“ model of this famous biplane, like the wires and the instrument of the radar operator. And all this in scale 1:72. Maybe I will build another one in 1:48 sometimes.

a long-term project is nearing its end this model was sitting on my bench for almost eight years now awaiting its painting. During the xmas vacation I tackled this tricky job.

I did this model already at the age of 14 but it ended in a mess. When Tamiya showed the Heinkel He-219 in the scale 1:48 my decision was clear: building the „Uhu“ again but in 1:72 and as close as possible to the Tamiya kit. I bought the best possible kit around, the DML Dragon ‚Golden Wing Series’ He219A-7 along with all the various aftermarket sets that make sense. In 2003 I finished the cockpit part with additional details.

For me the most critical part was the painting of the mottles at the top of the model. During the last years I could improve my airbrush equipment and skills a little bit. And so the model gets its painting last week. Now it needs only a little weathering and some kind of diorama around it but this shouldn’t take another eight years. Stay tuned ..

as you know I am building all kind of flying models. There are various stories around the „Jug’s“ and one that interests me most is that of „Zemke’s Wolfpack“.

Now I have built the Pengie V flown by Captain Mike Gladych (HV-M). It is basically a Revell kit with PE parts added from Eduard and a decal set from AeroMaster. To get the best possible result for the natural metal belly I have used Alclad bare metal lacquers (photo gallery).

that weekend I stopped by one of my favorite hobby shops. They were selling the E-flite Balde 400 package at a special price. I couldn’t resist.

Now I own a model with features I have defined about 25 years ago: electric powered (brushless btw), gyro, radio with electronic mixers built in. So it is my turn to master this thing and learn to fly

it was about time to finish this plastic modelkit. This Lockheed Vega airplane became famous in 1933 by the pilot Wiley Post who flew around the world with her in 7 days and 19 hours. Two years before he did it in 8 days and 16 hours together with his navigator Harold Gatty.

This kit in scale 1:72 is from Special Hobby. The Winnie Mae fits well to my collection of famous airplanes like the Spirit of St Louis from Charles Lindberg.

I have posted that last year already. After getting an old Dragon kit of a Cayuse I wasn't satisfied with the result. In november last year I red in the news of Scale Rotors that there is a Fujimi kit in 1:48 available and I decide to build that model again. But this time in a smaller scale.

The Fujimi kit is for a Huges 500D type and there is a conversion kit available to get an OH-6A (V-tail, four blade rotor). But everything else you have to build on your own. There are almost no aftermarket products around. Thanks to the nice folks on the Scale Rotors forum I not only get valuable informations about painting and markings but I also get in contact with Fireball Modelworks who made dedicated decal set just for me. I have posted that model to the gallery there.

It is kind of a tradition that thurgorienta produces a new orienteering map every year. And this year again we don't break it. So starting late in the autumn - we had to find a date first to
explain the rules for this map to all the mappers - with my part in the very east of the Immenberg I had to fight against the weather too. Most of the time I did my fieldwork I was working in the snow. Not to say that the temperatures are around 0° celsius (brrr) . But this is no reason not to do the fieldwork. I had to stop only if there was also fog because it prevents my laser from working. And as you can see I always was carrying a thermos flask with hot tea with me. That helped me a lot.
After finishing my fieldwork in a reasonable time I start drawing my part of the map. Just a few days before Christmas I could finish the first version. As soon as the weather allows I will do a check of the map to see if I got everthing right. If you come to Thundorf on easter monday (13. April 2009) you can go for a competition on this new map Immenberg-Nord. Maybe you will pass this particular part, you never know .
Don't miss it. The details will be provided on the swiss orienteering website as soon as possible.

Coaxial e-helis are easier to fly than their cousins with main and tail rotors. Currently there are two of them in my hangar. When surfing the E-flite website recently I came across a new even smaller coax e-heli the Blade mCX.

Side by side to the Blade CX this is a realy tiny one but the flight characteristics are great I wouldn't have expected such a good performance. And because everything is so small there are only small forces e.g. if you do a 'hard' landing. You hardly can break something on it.
But this e-heli really just for indoor flying due to its size and weight.

just in time - today it starts snowing here in Winterthur - I have finished another heli model. It is a Bell AH-1G cobra with an outstanding scheme.

The 120th aviation company stationed at Ford Richardson (Alaska) used this scheme for their cobra helicopters during 1973. Joseph Osborn from Fireball Modelworks has released a decal set for the "Artic Knights". However finding the best kit on ebay wasn't that easy. But at the end I had everything together to build this special heli.

This weekend I have finished my work on the Hasegawa kit of an American WWII aircraft. The Grumman F4F Wildcat wasn't very high on my priority list. But kits from Hasegawa belong to the best models you can buy today. So I couldn't resist and bought one last december.

And as mentioned on the hobby page (plastic kits) I have added a few PE parts from Eduarad (cockpit, flaps, ..). The Wildcat was a carrier based aircraft mainly used in the Pacific theatre so I needed also a carrier deck to show the model. Just Plane Stuff is selling various carrier decks build in resin. After more than 50 hours this modell is now ready to display (see more photos on flickr).

In the last year various heli kits in 1:35 came to market. It is amazing to see the details possible in this scale so I decide to start building such a kit myself. Since one of my favourite helis is the Hughes OH-6 I searched for a Dragon kit and I got one on ebay in december last year.

This kit is now finished but I am dissapointed somewhat. Because it is from the 90s there aren't such fine details as today. Luckily I found a detail set from Eduard to get a few details inside (cockpit, harness, ..) and outside. Next were the decals, because they are of age it was almost impossible (for me) to get them from the paper to the model and even if I sprayed it with a gloss primer first there were these ugly silver shadows on a few of them. Maybe there will be a new kit of an OH-6A in 1:35 in the future with all the bells and whistles. Then I'l buy one for sure.

Today I have visited the German Museum in Munich and the exhibition at the Flugwerft Schleissheim some kilometers north of Munich.


here are the "big birds": German rocket fighter Me163 above the Me262

It was Sam's idea quite a while ago to see the real aircrafts in a museum. Since both Hannes and me are building plastic kits and flying radio controlled airplane models it was a really good idea to visit an aviation museum once. Having an idea is one thing but finding a date and the best possible museum was again not so easy since each of us has different hobbies and schedules.
Munich is not far from us - about three hours by car, and Munich has two exhibition to offer. Avionics as a part the public transportation in the German Museum and the one in Oberschleissheim 20km north of the center of Munich.


helicopters at the exhibition hall in Schleissheim

The Flugwerft in Schleissheim is dedicated to avionic and has a visitors gallery to see what is going on in the restauration workshop. Currently they are working on a Heinkel He-111 bomber of the World War II. There are photos of it on the flickr set named Schleissheim.
Sure photography is another hobby of us and there are sets of Sam and me on flickr too.

after finishing fieldwork of the new to be released orienteering map Glarisegg I needed a short break (Xmas time). But now it is time to draw this map. I am doing this on my Mac using Adobe Illustrator together with MapStudio.

After one and a half week I could finish the first and most important part of the map (see picture):


Glarisegg contour lines (brown)

Having the contour lines together with cliffs and rocks watecourses roads and pathes makes more than half of the map. Now only the vegetation (green color) is missing. This gives information about the runnability to the competitors. On the upper right corner you see the already existing part of the o-map Eichhölzli done by Adi Moser last year.
 

today, as some kind of New Year's flight I have been at Nussbaumen where I took the chance to hoover outdoors with my Lama. There was only little wind (almost windless). Thanks to Sam, my younger brother, he took a couple of photos.



Hoovering higher than 3 meters is new to me, I will have to do more such exercises.
 

just another one of these coax-helis. After my electronic box, called 4-in-1, went dead while flying outdoor together with my brother I decided to buy another coax heli. I wasn't sure if I could repair it myself or how long it would take to get it repaired or a replacement.

My decision was for a Lama V3 from E-Sky because for this model I can use my preferred radio. And then there were a lot of recommendations out in the Internet for this brand heli.


of course I need a personal design as with the Bell 47G *g*

This is my Lama repainted after a Swiss Alouette II from BOHAG. First impression is that the Lama reacts more direct to controls than the Bell and therefore makes it more dynamic to flight. On the other side I had to learn the limitations of this rotor system (crash if the flybar touches the rotor head).
Now I own two of these coax-helis. That's because I could successfully repair the 4-in-1 of the Bell 47G. Let's see which one lasts longer.
 

maybe my next rc helicopter will be one with a semiscale body. That's why I have searched the web for interesting heli models. One that pleased me is the one from USNTPS.
However before I go out and buy such an rc heli I will build one (or two) as plastic kits, it costs far less than the "real" thing. There is currently only one kit available from Italeri. I know there are other Hughes types (MD-500D, Little Birds) around but I was searching for a kit with the V-tail.



Next I had to made my own decals. This was new to me, I haven't done that before. Designing and printing them worked seamless. But when applying them to the models they didn't adhere to it. I haven't any idea what went wrong, if you have any suggestions please let me know.
At the end I finished the number 43 and 45 of these helicopters (more photos as usual on my flickr account).