Rob de Bie

Oohh... Is that the Q-bay hatch for the A-camera?? I have never ever seen a photo of it! I recognise the four antennas from my B-camera Q-bay hatch research, it had exactly the same. From the heart, the circular ones are System VI. Here my current 3D design in 1/72 scale. With my old software it very difficult to 'scribe' the outlines for the four antenna on the hatch. Maybe I will find a way before I have it printed. Rob

The 'straight' ones, like Jim used on his model. The bulged 'Coke bottle' inlets came later AFAIK. Here are my 1/72 U-2C and U-2A inlets under construction, with the remark that the C-inlet should be even wider (~32" in height and ~20" wide). My C-inlets are also of the 'straight' type. Rob

If you've got U-2 references, take a look at Thornborough and Devies 'Lockheed Blackbirds'. Page 32 has photos of two U-2Cs, the upper with bulged inlets ('Coke bottle'), the lower with straight inlets ("interim"). I'm pretty sure they have the same opening, only the exterior shape aft of the actual inlet is different. I think they wanted to reduce 'spillage drag' and made the inlet duct more bulbeous. Rob

I just posted the same on Hyperscale: I have some photos of a NASA U-2C under maintenance, with the seat and instrument panel out. The color scheme is green down to and including the top longeron, and gray below the top longeron. This includes the rear bulkhead. I recon that this is the standard Lockheed paint scheme for the U-2A/C cockpit. I downloaded the photos in 2010, but I did not make notes who made them. I made a zip that you can download here: https://robdebie.home.xs4all.nl/various/u2maintenance.zip Rob

All clear, thanks! Rob

I plan to launch some catapult questions when my research is done. Right now I'm shooting from the hip, it's all very preliminary. One major obstacle is that the usual catapult footage is shot from eye level, and that just doesn't show catapult details. But I'm slowly finding footage from the island, and that helps. More later! Rob

Thanks too for your memories of the kit! I can agree with the 'pig of a kit' part.. It looks so sweet on the box label, but inside.. oh dear. Great idea, bad execution. Do you remember specifically what you did with the tie-dows spokes that were (presumably) mostly absent? I'm comparing the thing with the relatively new Italeri carrier deck, and there are lots of differences. My current understanding is that the Italeri kit has a C13 catapult, whereas the Verlinden it looks more like a C7, as used on older carriers. In that sense the Verlinden kit has something unique to offer. But

Thanks a lot for sharing your experiences! I had not considered warping at all, since mine is relatively flat. I just measured it, and in the middle I measure 1 to 2 mm out of plane warping - i.e. almost nothing. I'm a bit surprised that the resin version has bubble problems too. Maybe it was too big for their vacuum or pressure equipment? From the (few) photos that I saw of the 'Made in the USA' version, I noted the blast shields were cast differently than my 'Made in Belgium' version. Mine looks like six identical pieces, but I haven't cut them from the pouring stubs

I just bought a 20+ year old Verlinden 'Carrier flight deck with blast shield', and I'm looking at its details. The one I have is made in the Belgian era of Verlinden (catalog number 300), and is made of a light-weight foam resin. It has the unfortunate consequence that it also has a ton of air bubbles, since apparantly no vacuum or pressure was employed during the casting process. There's another version, from the US era of Verlinden, and that's cast in solid resin. The catalog number is 'SS VP-003' with SS representing 'Signature Series' 🙂 Is there anyon

You best buy their 'slide fit' sets, like SFT-1 and 2. Fantastic stuff. Rob

When they came out, I had the same problem, and asked Kotey for clarification in this thread. Maybe it helps. Rob

Peter and Sean, thanks for your help! In the mean time someone else suggested this, a 360 degree view of the cockpit of the prototype: https://www.eaa.org/apps/virtualtour/pittss2-cockpit360-eaa.html That answered most of my questions, and I was able to do some more work on the cockpit tonight, the picture is fresh from the camera: Rob

I started work on an LS/ARII 1/72 Pitts S2A a few days ago. To refine the cockpit, I made a representation of the fuselage truss structure, using Albion 0.5 mm tubing: I followed the AP Lloyd drawing from a 1978 Scale Models, but it's not really clear on the fuselage truss. Plus it only shows the side, so I'm kind of stuck. Does anyone know of good photos of the S2 fuselage under construction? I can find loads of photos of single-seat S1 fuselages, but photos of the two-seater S2 are quite rare it seems. Thanks in advance! Rob

Wow, great stories.. I love the TV watching stories, it's really special. I think that the smartness made us connect so strongly with our respective dogs. A few examples. Our boxer would grasp the concept of a new game immediately, she knew tricks to win a game, she was proud to win a game. If we were to cross a street and she was ahead of me (no leash involved), she always stopped and waited at the edge of the sidewalk - traffic or not. If a potential walk became a shopping tour (out of necessity), she refused to go into the second shop, and made a special movement with her head which wo

Rusty, my condolences.. I still love and remember our family dog, a smart and energetic boxer. We realized only years later how much we could 'read' her, having so many facial expressions plus multi-position ears 🙂 We never ever found that in other dogs. And the more I read and learn about dogs, the more special our relationship with them becomes to me. Can you tell us more about Coby watching TV? That's something I've never seen. What did atract his attention? Anything with animals I would guess? I see in the photo that cartoons worked for him 🙂 Could you read his emotional respon