Who Wants To See Something Cool...(Part IX) [Archive]

View Full Version : Who Wants To See Something Cool...(Part IX)

SteyrAUG

03-02-17, 01:46

I give you what may be the coolest magazine cover I have ever seen, Flying Aces from May, 1941.

http://i.imgur.com/L5XME9c.jpg

I have had a love affair with the corsair ever since I first saw one, and this pre war illustration changes nothing.

Keep in mind this is a magazine largely devoted to teens and hobbyists. And it will keep you current on what's new in the air.

http://i.imgur.com/jL1zizp.jpg

It talks about what is already flying "Flying Into Focus"

http://i.imgur.com/tu2S8B3.jpg

It talks about what is real and what isn't.

http://i.imgur.com/ppFFFrO.jpg

And then it tells you how to build a scale model, not from a plastic kit from a box, but from wood stock that you cut according to templates and dimensions provided.

http://i.imgur.com/kKoYEtt.jpg

My uncle had a few scale models built from modeling materials from the local hobby store in the 50s and to me it was an amazing Jedi level skill. Sure you built a lightsaber, my uncle build a P-38 lockheed lightning from balsa wood sticks.

Add to that tales of famous aces and arial combat and other features like regular silhouette ID cards and you had one hell of a cutting edge magazine devoted to air combat months before we got hit at Pearl Harbor.

I wonder how many kids growing up reading this stuff in the 30s ended up joining the AAC after 41.

Scrubber3

03-02-17, 05:39

This IS cool. Where did you find this?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G891A using Tapatalk

chuckman

03-02-17, 07:32

I met a former Marine years ago who flew Corsairs in Korea (then A1s in VN). He said the two aircraft were damn near indestructible, said the Corsair could get high and fast with the best of prop AC, and when it went low and slow to loiter for CAS or support, could buzz around forever.

militarymoron

03-02-17, 08:00

Watrdawg

03-02-17, 11:33

SteyrAUG

03-02-17, 14:16

This IS cool. Where did you find this?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G891A using Tapatalk

I collect old pinup magazines from the 40s, 50s and 60s and often buy them in bulk lots. Sometimes there is something like this in with them.

SteyrAUG

03-02-17, 14:21

Very cool magazine! I've also loved the Corsair since I was a kid as I watched the 1970's series 'Baa Baa Black Sheep'. A little over a year ago, someone gave my then 8-year old son a Revell kit of a Corsair for his birthday, and I built it for him. I hadn't built a plastic model since college days, but it was a lot of fun.

LOL, same show for me. Same model kit when I was a kid. Glad to see they still make it. Very few of my model airplanes survived the great front yard air wars of the late 1970s.

Used to watch that show every week when it was on. Love Corsairs also!! I'd love to find Baa Baa Black Sheep on Netflix or something like that

Both seasons are available on DVD.

militarymoron

03-03-17, 08:17

LOL, same show for me. Same model kit when I was a kid. Glad to see they still make it. Very few of my model airplanes survived the great front yard air wars of the late 1970s.

I actually got into trouble because of that show when I was about 9 or 10. I violated the 'no playing with fire in the house when parents aren't home' rule. I wanted to re-enact the scenes from the show, so I lit the tail of my Japanese Zero plastic model on fire and held my Corsair in my other hand, and walked around the house making machine gun and airplane noises. A big glob of still-burning molten plastic fell of the Zero's tail onto the top of my bare foot. I reacted by trying to brush it off with my hand, subsequently burning my hand in the process. I ran into the bathroom, turned on the faucet and just splashed water over my hand and foot. I was able to gingerly peel off the now solidified glob of plastic off my foot, but it took all the skin with it, leaving my raw flesh below, which started to bleed profusely. Band aids didn't work as they were too small and just got saturated with blood in a few seconds, so I found some cotton wool and covered it with kleenex, then put scotch tape over the whole thing. My parents came home from work wondering why I was wearing socks and limping. "I don't know what happened" obviously didn't work as an explanation. You can imagine the rest. The scar on my foot is still faintly visible, 40 years after the fact. Good times. :)

Then there was this other time I blew up my model of the Bismarck in the bathtub with gunpowder carefully collected from plastic gun caps...but that's another story for another time...

SteyrAUG

03-03-17, 14:38

I actually got into trouble because of that show when I was about 9 or 10. I violated the 'no playing with fire in the house when parents aren't home' rule. I wanted to re-enact the scenes from the show, so I lit the tail of my Japanese Zero plastic model on fire and held my Corsair in my other hand, and walked around the house making machine gun and airplane noises. A big glob of still-burning molten plastic fell of the Zero's tail onto the top of my bare foot. I reacted by trying to brush it off with my hand, subsequently burning my hand in the process. I ran into the bathroom, turned on the faucet and just splashed water over my hand and foot. I was able to gingerly peel off the now solidified glob of plastic off my foot, but it took all the skin with it, leaving my raw flesh below, which started to bleed profusely. Band aids didn't work as they were too small and just got saturated with blood in a few seconds, so I found some cotton wool and covered it with kleenex, then put scotch tape over the whole thing. My parents came home from work wondering why I was wearing socks and limping. "I don't know what happened" obviously didn't work as an explanation. You can imagine the rest. The scar on my foot is still faintly visible, 40 years after the fact. Good times. :)

Then there was this other time I blew up my model of the Bismarck in the bathtub with gunpowder carefully collected from plastic gun caps...but that's another story for another time...

We might be more closely related than previously believed. Thankfully I conducted all of my exploding, fire and pellet gun experiments in the front yard.

We had a large AC outdoor air handler with several rows of blower fans. I quickly discovered that any model airplane held in the high pressure wind stream will run the propeller at a very realistic speed that was quite visually satisfying. So when the day came to "flame a zeke" (having filled the engine cover with WD40) I quickly remembered the AC fan and flew my pursuit over there. No sooner than I held the zero in front of the AC the flaming mitsubishi became a asteroid entering the atmosphere and the tail flame extended past my elbow.

Fortunately it was a very short duration event that quickly exhausted the fuel and I suffered no more than a hairless arm, a slight burning sensation and the smell of burnt hair that remained for a couple hours.

Honu

03-03-17, 14:46

we used to put our army men on light bulbs :)

also did the burning models to old ones :) hahahahahaha

oh so many times I had melted plastic stick to me from burning toys :)

my brother did a good job with models I remember him heating a pin and making bullet holes I must have been about 7 :) when I did it never worked out !

growing up in the 60s and 70s times were so different for sure :)

Doc Safari

03-03-17, 14:51

SteyrAUG

03-03-17, 16:58

I grew up in the late '60's/early '70's. There were still some old-timers who built model planes with balsa wood and whatever kind of paper they used. They painted their models with some really toxic stuff. I made the mistake of trying to paint a plastic model with that paint and it ate into the plastic and wrinkled it visibly. What a mess.

I saw some really skillfully-built balsa wood and paper models on display at the local hobby shot, but mostly they had already become a dinosaur of the hobby world by the time I started building models. I learned just recently that Sheperd Paine had died in 2015. To a modeler that's like a Trekkie learning that Leonard Nimoy died.

Honestly, I think the balsa wood planes would have been beyond my skill set. When I was a kid and I looked at the planes my uncle made as a kid, I felt like I was looking at a factory produced item. Of course they were also making flat board transistor radios and things like that. My dad and uncle explained how it was done as if they were trying to tell somebody how to fold a paper airplane.

Doc Safari

03-03-17, 17:10

I'm amazed at how building models has changed over the years. I started out with those old-school Tamiya and Monogram armor models that were little more than unassembled toys. The Tamiya kits were all oriented around some sort of motorization and the US versions of the kits never included the motorizing parts. Later on models became more and more detailed, even to the point of photo-etched detail parts being available. I followed Sheperd Paine's techniques and got pretty good at it. Of course, over time the bane of plastic models is that most of them end up falling to the floor and then the trash can. I have one diorama left that has survived. The few ribbons I won were something of a hollow victory. An award is irrelevant if it's in a podunk town in the middle of nowhere. It's like being declared the finest hockey player in Globe, Arizona. Who cares?

On top of that, I found modelers get into the esoterica just like AK owners: it's got to be the 100% accurate tow hooks on an armor model just like it's got to be the 100% accurate handguards on a 1955 replica AK. As in, who else but you and five other people will ever know?

Two things caused me to give it up: 1) it's a lonely hobby. You don't meet new people sitting in your room painting models. 2) I cut the living shit out of my finger with an X-acto knife. While it healed I met up with some guys who were into AK's and stuff....and I never felt like building another model.

militarymoron

03-03-17, 17:32

We might be more closely related than previously believed.

Don't forget these...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v483/militarymoron/ninja.jpg

...back to plastic models...I loved looking at Verlinden magazines as a kid, with all those WWII dioramas. While the Guillows balsa wood models were around, they looked too complex to me at the time. I started out with Airfix models since I was in England, then later on after moving I usually stuck to Tamiya and Hasegawa models. Revell and Monogram parts didn't fit as well. I really wanted one of those Cox control line Corsairs when I was into Baa Baa Black Sheep, but we couldn't afford one.

Sorry to derail the thread, Steyr, but you know how strolls down memory lane go...

SteyrAUG

03-03-17, 21:01

On top of that, I found modelers get into the esoterica just like AK owners: it's got to be the 100% accurate tow hooks on an armor model just like it's got to be the 100% accurate handguards on a 1955 replica AK. As in, who else but you and five other people will ever know?

Two things caused me to give it up: 1) it's a lonely hobby. You don't meet new people sitting in your room painting models. 2) I cut the living shit out of my finger with an X-acto knife. While it healed I met up with some guys who were into AK's and stuff....and I never felt like building another model.

Actually I rather enjoyed sitting at the paint stained fold out card table in my bedroom working on models with nobody bothering me. A dozen or so tiny bottle of testors model paint, that really put your painting skills to the test, especially if you were going to try and mix custom colors and I was having a good time. The only thing I lacked was patience, I always moved to the next step before the glue was completely cured...the paint was always a little bit tacky still.

When I learned to use electrical tape to paint perfectly straight lines my skills improved immensely. I was mostly into the Revell and Monogram stuff, but I had a large scale corsair (seemed to be something like 18" in length) so that's all I needed.

Don't forget these...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v483/militarymoron/ninja.jpg

...back to plastic models...I loved looking at Verlinden magazines as a kid, with all those WWII dioramas. While the Guillows balsa wood models were around, they looked too complex to me at the time. I started out with Airfix models since I was in England, then later on after moving I usually stuck to Tamiya and Hasegawa models. Revell and Monogram parts didn't fit as well. I really wanted one of those Cox control line Corsairs when I was into Baa Baa Black Sheep, but we couldn't afford one.

Sorry to derail the thread, Steyr, but you know how strolls down memory lane go...

Threads go where threads go. Probably my absolute favorite, even though they were snap togethers, were the Prehistoric scenes models from Aurora. The T rex with glow in the dark teeth, claws and eyes was freaking awesome. I think I had every model ever offered including the cave and all three cavemen.

I remember it took up a lot of real estate in my bedroom at the time. There were also the universal monster models like Dracula, The Tarantula and The Wolf Man.

sgtrock82

03-04-17, 10:15

Thanks for sharing steyr, these are always cool threads! I enjoy some of these old magazines and reading the older perspectives and occasional "old myths" from when they werent old and not thought to be myths. Somewhere I have an Air Power or Air Progress magazine from 1943 with articles on the flying fortress, structural airframe testing, the latest "nazi" fighter the FW 190 and plenty of propaganda lol

I built tons of models as a kid, I was probably a generation or two behind the times, most other kids I knew built one or two if any at all. I got back into it in 2008 when I needed a less expensive hobby to ease my economic burdens. Im not very prolific but I enjoy having something to tinker with and occasionally finish. Here is a 1/72 hasegawa P-51B one of the latest ones Ive done. http://i855.photobucket.com/albums/ab112/xabntroop/20150815_022914_zpswhqj7gno.jpg
Glockster aint kidding about esoterica. I (hypocritically)find the AK correctness thing dweeby, mostly because they just will never be in the same statosphere of coolness or quality as perhaps a real east german MPiKM. On the other hand I shutter to think how much time Ive wasted reading 50-100 page discussions on various minutia. With airplanes its usually color from the proper shade of red for the Barons triplane to what colors the Brits used on their Malta based spitfires or even proper Ordnance configurations for an OEF F-15E.

I personally try to strike a balance. Im fairly capable so its down to effort vs my satisfaction. Its generally meaningless to anyone but myself weather the landing gear struts are properly compressed or at full extension like the taxidermied example the kit maker measured in a museum.

Its like looking at what is suppose to be a Colt M4 but you can tell at a glance the hanguards arent quite thick enough to be the double heat shield and the saftey lever looks like its off of an older dpms. Should this vintage of M4 have come with the original pattern collapsing stock or the later waffle sided version?

austinN4

03-04-17, 10:42

You guys make me feel old, which I am but don't like feeling that way. My model airplane and ship building days were in the 50s. Then I started making my own gunpowder and blowing them up in the basement, and thought I would be able to get away with it. Nope! Nuff said. I really wish I had kept some of them, but that all ended for me when I entered Jr High and none of them survived a move around that time.

Doc Safari

03-05-17, 23:14

Actually I rather enjoyed sitting at the paint stained fold out card table in my bedroom working on models with nobody bothering me. A dozen or so tiny bottle of testors model paint, that really put your painting skills to the test, especially if you were going to try and mix custom colors and I was having a good time. The only thing I lacked was patience, I always moved to the next step before the glue was completely cured...the paint was always a little bit tacky still.

When I learned to use electrical tape to paint perfectly straight lines my skills improved immensely. I was mostly into the Revell and Monogram stuff, but I had a large scale corsair (seemed to be something like 18" in length) so that's all I needed.

Threads go where threads go. Probably my absolute favorite, even though they were snap togethers, were the Prehistoric scenes models from Aurora. The T rex with glow in the dark teeth, claws and eyes was freaking awesome. I think I had every model ever offered including the cave and all three cavemen.

I remember it took up a lot of real estate in my bedroom at the time. There were also the universal monster models like Dracula, The Tarantula and The Wolf Man.

I had all of those too. I always marveled at the Phantom of the Opera model where the guy in the dungeon had obviously been eaten on by rats. I thought that was a heckuva image to give a kid painting a model.

Doc Safari

03-05-17, 23:17

Its like looking at what is suppose to be a Colt M4 but you can tell at a glance the hanguards arent quite thick enough to be the double heat shield and the saftey lever looks like its off of an older dpms. Should this vintage of M4 have come with the original pattern collapsing stock or the later waffle sided version?

I'm almost ashamed to admit I still have enough of the old stickler for accuracy demons that when someone shows off an M16A1 replica with an A2 receiver I just want to have a conniption.

Doc Safari

03-05-17, 23:23

One thing that used to frustrate me about armor models was that I never could figure out the proper color for German field grey or dark yellow.

Well, field gray turned out to be easy. I saw a German uniform in person and the guide to mixing paints out at the time was spot on for creating field grey from several colors.

I found out a lot of sources at the time were absolutely wrong about German dark yellow for the tanks, etc.

I finally got my hands on a copy of an old Time-Life series of World War II books and there was a perfect color photo of a burnt Panzer IV in North Africa.

German dark yellow is really a color of pale yellow almost the color of the file folder icon on your computer (almost).

I thought that looked kind of strange, but there was no arguing with that photograph since all the other colors were true.

SteyrAUG

03-06-17, 00:50

I had all of those too. I always marveled at the Phantom of the Opera model where the guy in the dungeon had obviously been eaten on by rats. I thought that was a heckuva image to give a kid painting a model.

Wow, I had forgotten about that one. Did a little research and it seems that was first issued from 1963-1968 which was driven by magazines such as Famous Monsters of Filmland and the showing of these films on TV.

Sometimes it's the small details that really make a difference. Found a page you might enjoy.

http://www.professorplastik.com/monster_site/proscenium/kits/phantom_kit/phantom_kit.htm

Averageman

03-06-17, 08:18

Doc Safari

03-06-17, 09:01

Wow, I had forgotten about that one. Did a little research and it seems that was first issued from 1963-1968 which was driven by magazines such as Famous Monsters of Filmland and the showing of these films on TV.

Sometimes it's the small details that really make a difference. Found a page you might enjoy.

http://www.professorplastik.com/monster_site/proscenium/kits/phantom_kit/phantom_kit.htm

Cool! Another mag was Castle of Frankenstein. True Story: I live in New Mexico and shortly before that mag went out of business, I ordered some back issues. This was back in the day when you could order stuff COD--you pay when the items arrive. The company replied to my order with "you have to pay in US dollars"--like New Mexico was part of Mexico. So instead I sent them a money order to pay in advance and waited, and waited, and waited--didn't get my back issues. My parents had to get the Postmaster General on their ass for me to get my back issues. I think my mom wouldn't let me order anything mail order until I started shaving after that incident.