The Trim Tab - IPMS

The Trim Tab
October 2013
Volume 42 Issue 11
IPMS Atlanta / Scale Modelers
CLUB OFFICERS & CONTACTS
Pres: Brian Speer
ph: 770-963-6234
email: [email protected]
VP:
Bill Wofford
ph: 404-955-0586
email: [email protected]
Treas: Ray Wheeler
ph: 770-972-6069
email: [email protected]
Editor: Ed Sveum
ph: 770-339-6669
email: [email protected]
Web: Lane Royal
ph:
404-245-2791
email: [email protected]
Coming Events
October Meeting - This month’s meeting will be Wednesday, the 16th at
PDK. Meeting time is 7:00. Bring your “FALL CHALLENGE” models
to the meeting: Completed, In Work, or still in the box. Other show and tell
models are welcome as well. Also, it is time for our quarterly swap of models in the Epps Display case, so come prepared to add or swap a model.
November Build Session - Our build session will be on Saturday, Nov 2.
We meet at 12:00 at On The Border on Pleasant Hill for lunch and then
meet at Hobby Town on Satellite at 1:00.
ACME Model Car Show - on Saturday 11/9 at Smyrna Community Center. For details visit their website; http://new.acme-ipms.com/content.
Hobby Town Adult Model Clinic
FALL PICNIC
The club will be conducting an adult oriented Model Building
Clinic at Hobby Town on Satellite on Saturday November 9
from 1:00 to 3:00. We are trying encourage people who show
up to buy a kit at Hobby Town and work on it during the session.
Our fall picnic was held last month. A
good time was had by all who attended.
The weather was great, the food was excellent and the company was outstanding. Thanks to all who participated
and to those who made such wonderful
goodies.
All members are encouraged to join in and be there to help and
to answer questions during the session. Please contact Bill
Johnston if you can help.
1/24 Revell Chevelle 396 by Greg Stegal
1/72 Revell (Monogram) F-82 What If by Ed Sveum
The Trim Tab
October 2013
page 2
1/24 Revell Ferrari 458 Italia WIP by Jim Elmore
1/16 Minicraft Morgan Fantasy car by Don Gustke
1/48 Revell F-101B by Don Gustke
1/72 Italeri X-32 JSF by Bill Wofford
1/24 AMT 50 Chevrolet by Greg Stegal
1/24 Revell 60 Chevrolet by Greg Stegal
The Trim Tab
1/72 Hasegawa F-106 Thunderbirds by Ed Sveum
October 2013
page 3
1/24 Revell Chevelle 396 by Greg Stegal
ITEMS OF INTEREST by Jim Pernikoff
I start off this month with not a book, but a CD-ROM, entitled The Mosquito Explored, which is
#5 in the Aircraft Exploration Series produced by Flyingzone Publications in the U.K. This is a marvelous resource on the Mossie, with thousands of photos, both from wartime and today, highlighting four examples existing in Britain, including the prototype. Lots of cockpit detail, including a slideshow showing
how to start the Merlin engines, selective color schemes, a chronology, pages from technical manuals, and
a feature showing the restoration of one of the aircraft featured. About the only real omission I could think
of is the lack of a mark-by-mark rundown, and there is no real video. But along with the Mosquito books
from Aero Details and SAM Publications, here is everything needed to super-detail a Mosquito, which
would be particularly useful if you have one of the 1/24 or 1/32 kits. The previous four discs in the series
cover the best known British fighters and heavy bombers of WW II, and undoubtedly, more are on the way.
If you order direct at www.flyingzonedirect.com, they are promising additional content which will be available online.
This month’s most interesting book from Osprey Publishing is #113 in Aircraft of the Aces, and is
on V1 Flying Bomb Aces. One might wonder if pilots who shoot down defenseless aerial vehicles which
would take no evasive action should be called “aces”, but the speed of the V1 made it difficult to shoot
down without blowing oneself up in the process, and there are some interesting stories here. It might be
expected to see a lot of Meteors like the one on the cover, but in fact most of the color profiles are of Spitfires, Tempests and P-51s, along with a few Mosquitos and single examples of the Beaufighter, P-47 and
even the P-61. The usual list of aces in the back is quite long, and one RAF pilot actually was credited with
59 of the buzz bombs!
Within the last several years, Crecy Publishing reissued two classic books written by famous British test pilot Eric Brown entitled Wings of the Weird and Wonderful and Wings of the Luftwaffe in their Hikoki line. Now they have done the last of the trilogy, Wings of the Navy, which deals with U.S. and British naval aircraft, testing of which was Brown’s primary job. As with the two prior books, this one has
been expanded significantly, as the previous edition only covered WW II aircraft, of which 16 are included.
The new edition adds 14 postwar aircraft, though they are not covered in as great a detail, encompassing
only about 1/3 of the book and lacking, for the most part, the isometric cutaways included for the WW II
types. There is relatively little duplication from the other books, and some types you’d expect to find here
are instead in Weird & Wonderful. I wish the publishers wouldn’t put the cutaways on gray backgrounds,
which make them harder to read, but that is uniform with the earlier volumes. As usual, a great production,
and a needed addition to your library if you already own the prior two volumes. (One small oddity: the
Vought Chesapeake is referred to by its American designation, SB2U, but its American name – Vindicator – is
never mentioned!)
Another revised edition is German Air Projects 1935-1945 Fighters from Mushroom Model Publications. This is a combination of two books previously released in MMP’s red series, but with supposedly
added content, though I admit I haven’t had a chance to check that out yet. Still, the larger page size will help
readability, and the new book is a hardcover. One of the unique features of this series is the inclusion of artworks that show some of these aircraft in hypothetical service. If you have the earlier two books, you can
probably pass this one up, but if you don’t and have an interest in “Luftwaffe 1946”, this is a nice book.
Seen currently on bookstore bargain shelves is Ships of the Civil War 1861-1865 from Metro Books,
which shows some 100 ships of a variety of shapes and sizes in two-page spreads, with text and a specification
table on the left page and a large color artwork on the right. Ships are subdivided into Ironclads, Gunboats,
Raiders, Cruisers, Blockade Runners and Submarines, and in each the subjects are shown chronologically, irrespective of whether they were Union or Confederate vessels. Another dozen or so ships get secondary coverage, with a few paragraphs and a much smaller artwork. A surprise is that Monitor and Virginia are the 13th
and 17th ironclads listed, so they were hardly the first. Most of your favorites are here: Alabama, Brooklyn,
Cairo, Hartford, Housatonic, Hunley, Kearsarge and Tennessee, among others. (I was disappointed that Virginia’s victims, Congress and Cumberland, are not included.) A comprehensive index in the back lists the
ships alphabetically, so finding any one by name is no problem. One complaint is that while most of the artworks are full-hull profile views, some are waterline and some are not profiles, which makes comparisons a
bit difficult. The bookstore edition, though, has a bonus: the artworks are repeated on the inside of the jacket,
which can be unfolded to become a poster. Hardly the last word on Civil War ships, but a good value.
The Owners Workshop Manual series from Haynes continues to explore new ground, and their latest
title is one for which I can truly say that you DO have to be a rocket scientist – or a “space geek” – to get the
most out of it. Their earlier volume on Apollo 11 shows how everything was supposed to work, but the new
book on Apollo 13 shows what can go wrong, and how to overcome it. This is an incredibly detailed and
technical book, so it isn’t for everyone, but if you appreciate knowing the nuts & bolts of everything that went
into a moon mission, this book is for you. (If you’re not sure, don’t buy it sight unseen.)
The last book this month is not really a modelers’ book, but it is an interesting history. Reginald (R.J.)
Mitchell is well-known as the chief designer of the Supermarine Spitfire, and it is equally well-known that he
died in 1937, before his progeny even entered production. The relatively little-know Joe Smith succeeded
Mitchell, and it was under his direction that the Spitfire prospered and developed. Spitfire’s Forgotten Designer by the History Press is more than just a bio of Smith, it is really a bio of Supermarine itself. Smith’s
inheriting the chief designer’s post doesn’t come until 1/3 of the way into the book, and it continues after the
Spitfire right up until Smith’s death in 1956 and the death of the company – as an independent entity – two
years later. A lot of good photos help tell the story of this iconic British manufacturer.
Some other book news: as some of you probably already know, Osprey has started another new series, called Combat, which is a bit like Duel, except that this compares opposing armies or army units. The
first announced books in the series are: British Paratrooper vs Fallschirmjager, Union Infantryman vs Confederate Infantryman, British Infantryman vs Zulu Warrior, French Guardsman vs Russian Jaeger, and British Infantryman vs German Infantryman (WW I).
In addition to the Apollo 13 book mentioned above, upcoming in the Owners Workshop Manual series
from Haynes are: de Havilland Mosquito, Star Wars Imperial Death Star, Churchill Tank, Great War Tommy
(the first in the series about men rather than machines!), RAF Tornado, F-16 Fighting Falcon and RMS Queen
Mary 2. They are also doing a similar book about Heathrow Airport, and one about…..Beer!
And Seaforth Publishing, the publishers of the excellent ShipCraft series for ship modelers, are now
expanding into aircraft with the FlightCraft series. The first two titles, which should be out before year’s end,
are Soviet Spyplanes and Russian Gunship Helicopters, both by the familiar team of Gordon and Komissarov.
It appears that they will be uniform in size and style with the ShipCraft series.