archybean

Whew! She's off with plenty of runway to spare. Disappeared pretty quick into the clouds but flew right over me

Could be...it has been a low ceiling here since early evening yesterday

I'll tell you what though, having spent half my morning up at Jabara this is quite the local event. I'm sitting in my car on the side of the road waiting for take off. There are so many other cars waiting here too. City police and state troopers are blocking close access, about the closest anyone can get is a mile away to stop and watch. The Dreamlifter is just a beast sitting there on the runway. The Tarmac isn't too far really away from Webb road and it just dwarfs everything. News reports say it's supposed to take off at noon local (which is now) but I'm not holding my breath

My local hobby lobby has Revell's PV-1 Ventura on clearance. Is it possible to convert it to a PV-2 Harpoon? I know it has bigger wings, but I don't know how much of a challenge this would be. David

Continued:

Continued:

I was able to go the event on Sunday. Unfortunately a pretty massive rain storm settled over north east Kansas and only one plane was able to try and fly while I was there; Herpa Wings DC-3. It took off, flew around and landed on its first lap. The pilot did a little showmanship on one wheel. There were two C-17's that came in for some cargo, and also an F-18 came through. The -18 pilot was gracious enough to give somewhat of a show since nearly everyone stay on the ground. Organizers have already announced the event will return next year. Hopefully better weather will let people fly!

Back to the recovery compartment. I've moved to the interior section where the main and reserve chutes lived. I was able to get the sidewall to fit the tight radius (green arrow) but I'm having difficulty getting the radius to follow all the way up; it just flares out at the top (blue arrow). The triangular piece was pretty straight forward to create, with angles underneath. The bolts/rivets were cut from .035" rod and dipped in Tenax and placed to cure; same with the bottom of the chute sections. Rough dry fit: The first pieces of the next level of stringers have been put on. I thin

Got some tedious progress on this. I took a break from the recovery compartment to work on some of the interior. I made the periscope housing and the beginnings of the control panel. Since the original one corroded away they replaced it with plexi to hold the instruments that remained. It was colored to correspond with the original. I'm not entirely pleased with how the cutouts ended up on the main board. It also needs to be bent a little at the top, so I need to find some way to heat it to get the proper bend. I'm thinking about trying to find a small magnifying glass lens, probably p

Title pretty well sums it up. Anyone going to be there? I'm making the trip down from Wichita to go with my brother who lives in Dallas. Hoping for a good time!

Made some decent progress on this guy. Got the basics of the recovery compartment made. The stringers were made from angles and strips. Shorter stringers were made for the pressure vessel. I still need to make the next level of stringers for the recovery compartment. I also made from .010" styrene sheet the remnants of the aluminum panels on the outside of the recovery compartment. These were made from sketches I did looking at the real one. Then I made copies and taped them on the panels and very carefully cut them out. I then taped them on the outside of a 2" coupling PVC and let them sit in

And now for the pictures! Top view showing inner hull and small pressure bulkhead with hatch: Top view showing inner hull and small pressure bulkhead with periscope hatch: Interior view: Periscope hatch: Hatch opening and exterior skin patch:

Still going on this project...made some pretty good progress I think. I'll hopefully get some pictures up tomorrow. I've got the inner pressure vessel pretty well roughed out. Also have the upper bulkhead cut out. Nothing is glued together yet as I'm being as careful as I can making sure it is all going to work. I do have a couple stumbling blocks right now. I need to find something I can make the lower bulkhead from. I'd love to vacuform something, but have neither the equipment nor money to make my own. It is a portion of a hemisphere 5.3 inches in diameter. I think it would be easiest to s

spaceman, the holes are 1/16" diameter. I got the sanding pads out and the inside all cleaned up now. Next is on to the inner pressure vessel!

Well, it has been way too long between updates on this project. I've been doing copious amounts of research and photo documentation of the display at the Cosmosphere. Lots of measuring the kit and referencing the David Weeks drawings told me the thickness of the model is almost as thick as the gap between the inner pressure vessel and outer skin. I'll be using styrene sheets to create the inner vessel. In order for the outer skin to look thin enough I had to use my Dremel to thin it out. Silver parts are areas to thin: Still have clean up work to do with sanding it, but it will look t

Here is an impromptu shot from my driveway in Wichita 2.7.13 of the ISS. I remembered it would be visible at the last minute and had about 3 minutes to get my camera set up on the tripod. The station is slicing right through the head of Taurus, with Jupiter to the right, and Orion on the left. You can see that it is heading into the shadow at the top of the picture as it is dimming a bit.

Today I got to meet with Jim Remar, the president of the Cosmosphere, to talk about the Liberty Bell. We chatted some about what I was doing and he was able to answer a lot of questions regarding the capsule and Mercury capsules in general. Here are some shots I found on the internet of Greg "Buck" Buckingham, the lead restorer on the project, with the capsule showing the pressure vessel without exterior panels. Pretty good shots showing the struts: Jim said prior to the shuttle, NASA didn't have in mind longevity...that craft and suits were made to be used once. They've been having

Well, one kiddo got sick last week, and the baby is sick this week. Not to mention the holidays the scheduling got redone. We're now meeting January 4.

Hello! I'm slowly working on the Atomic City 1/12 kit as the Liberty Bell as it is displayed in its case at the Cosmosphere. I'm a member there and this Friday afternoon I've got a meeting with the COO and at least one person (I don't know who yet) who helped with the restoration. Is there anything specific you guys would like to know about the restoration, Liberty Bell specifically or Mercury capsules in general that I can ask for you? David

Does anybody know anything about the kits mentioned in the title? They're 1:1 scale of old flint lock pistols. I was able to acquire a number of them and am trying to learn more about them. They are 3 different types, a French wheellock, Arab moorish, and Dutch flintlock. Thanks David

The timing was honestly the worst part. I was going to resign later this year so I could stay at home with the kids so my wife can go back to work. We're also trying to get my photography business going, so hopefully I can get that going too. Things are still more or less going with the plan, just not the right time. We were just peeved about losing insurance weeks before Lilly came. It took all of those six weeks to get mom on SRS insurance, in fact the card came a couple hours before we left for the hospital. They could've waited just 3 weeks to lay me off and she would've been born under th

Hello! Lots of big changes here lately in my life. On August 10 i was laid off from my architecture job. Walmart is one of the clients, and they kept cutting fees in an effort to save money (and live better...at least the stock holders) so unfortunately I was one of two on our team to be laid off and one of four in the office to be let go. The timing couldn't have been worse...as we were 33 weeks pregnant at the time, and insurance was cut off four weeks before the due date. One upside for that though was being able to get a model done I'd been working on to donate for an event at the Cosmo

Hi all. Got a long shot here...does anyone have a Monogram 1967 Corvette 1/12 scale? I'm working on a build and I'm missing one part. The oil sump pan. Would anyone have the kit be willing to let me borrow that one piece to make a resin copy? Thanks! David

I venture to guess the engines are very underpowered if they have to drive it on a truck to its destination...

I attached my N ikon D300s to my Celestron C6N 6" reflector telescope for prime focus. Turned the telescope into a 1125mm (750mm focal length x 1.5 crop factor) lens. I used a Baader solar film filter to be able to see the sun. I also used my shutter release to trigger the shutter without shaking the whole setup.