Been watching this god awful movie with Errol Flynn and Fred McMurray about a Naval flight surgeon. They wre flying Vindicators. IN COLOR. Was the underside light gray or the silver on the wings?

I'll have to go back and check. I suspect the answer is that it depends on the time frame, but I'll go look it up and get you an answer.

Tom

from what I picked up, it is probably aluminum. As i stated, the movie was typical late 40-41 pre-US involvement. It was good to see the Vindicators with their markings as this will help out when I get around to painting mine. I ordered the Pre-war Lex backdate kit. It is expected to ship by the end of the week. Kit costs $30 and only provides guns and some photo-etch. Still will need to get a PE set. Both Yankee and Gold Medal should be releasing their sets within the next two weeks, so I'll have to check reviews and photo'son which is best for my needs. Pesently working on my Nimitz. Have the hanger deck in, now have to finish up work on airwing pieces so I can put several aircraft in the hanger prior to finishing up and putting flight deck on. It's a real nice kit. Usng the GMM PE with it.

Didn't I just see that there's also an aftermarket wood replacement deck available for the Lexington from Nautilus Models?

TC

There is. I think it is around $40 to 50, but I could have mixed it up with the one they did for the U-boat. If it were one piece it would be an advantage. That and with a mahogany stain on it...problem might be the wood grain scale. It's real wood, not scaled down real wood. Besides, the wood grain scribing goes left to right (on the kit pieces)so the seam lines when you put the deck on will go the same way. Think I'll stick to just getting PE to replace neeting, add rails and ladders.

Steve,

If the wings were yellow, the underside should have been aluminum. In early '41 the Navy went over to an overall light gray.

My understanding is that Nautilus will do a wooden deck for the Lex, and I would guess a price of about $50. This is based on the costs of the Hornet and Yorktown/Enterprise decks for the Trumpy Hornet.

I received the planes from Langley kit from ISW. Since they came without the photoetch, I need to make wing struts and landing gear. This won't be a problem as I will be adapting them from either the Trumpy F4F, SBD and TBD planes or the photoetch for them made by WEM. The Langley planes are F6Cs, F3Bs and O3Us. They are quite nice.

I'm looking for more modern aircraft. Got the Devastaors, hopefully by the time I get around to building her, they'll have the Buffaloes and Vindicators out. As I don't have to put aircraft in the hanger deck, I can get by with a small contingent of those if they prove to be expensive. Or i can play around and try to convert wildcats and dauntlas to fit my needs. Got the late 30's backdate set from Yankee on order. Get it thru Trident) to quote a line from one of my favorite scenes in that all time classic Animal House

"Oh boy is this going to be fun!"

Got a better look at the SBCs, F2As and SB2Us that are coming out. They are made by - oops! can't say who!

They are quite nice. I think you will be pleased. Part of me wants to recreate the Lex in the Late-41 photo with the F2As, SBDs and TBDs on deck, but part of me wants to go earlier.

Now you can do both!

I'm sure you are quite aware you have to modify the front deck and that Yankee MW has that piece coming out. So double your pleasure..... get another Lady Lex, another Yankee mini-backdate.. Hey what's another $125? Right :-)

I can see your view. I've seen someone take the Hornet kit and backdate it to an early Enterprise. He got in and had some of the rigging wires on the biplanes. It really really looked great. The one thing he didn't do though was backdate/modify the kit (specif the island)to Enterprise configuration. His modeling was unbelievble though, no visible seam lines on the deck etc etc. Another guy threw a litteral tantrum about it saying it should be eliminated from competition. Luckily the judges allowed it pointing out the model was to be judged on modeling skills (as per IPMS rules) I anticipate with eagar anticipation to see photo's of yours when it is done. I'll probably hold off on mine until January and do it for the "Beebe Flattop Campaign" Hopefully the aircraft won't be included as part of the time frame and I can get started on building those before January kickoff. I spent two weeks on the Nimitz airwing so far. I got the main bodies of all aircraft built and the light grey color on. I've flipped the planes and will do the underside white probably tomorrow. Still have to add wheels and canopy, then decals. Then I can go back paint hanger deck walls add some PE place a bunch of aircraft on hanger deck. At that point I'l probably start work on flight deck and simultaneously paint the upper hull section and still separate lower hull (red part)

Time of your life hunh kid ?
Risky Business.

I did a total of 86 aircraft when I did my CV 65 Enterprise. Every aircraft in CVW 11 in low vis. I used only the kit decals and hand painted markings and numbers. I didn't use the aftermarket decals, and the Trumpy aircraft weren't available at the time.

And that alone took months to finish! I wound up having to make things like the fuel tanks and jamming pods, refueling probes etc, and because of the tendency of three wheel aircraft models to sit back, made a "hook" for every one so that it functioned as a stand.

I know that eventually I'm going to want to do a Lex and make it pre war, but the thought of doing all those aircraft, with all the colorful markings is pretty daunting!

TC

Ahh Tom the trick is to bild a few of each and say the others are in the hanger deck... :-)

But wow, Sounds like you really went to town on the airwing you built for the Enterprise, drop tanks, arrestor gear, hand painted markings. Thank god for the aftermarket decals. The Trumpeter aircraft are certainly far superior. Thinking about replacing all those Tomcats and Hornets for my Enterprise when I get around to building her. I did build a hanger deck for the kit(just some sheet styrene around the bay doors), so I'll dump a lot of the kit aircraft there and probably take the Tamiya A-6's and A-7's and dump them into the Nimtz hanger as well.

A sane person would have done exactly that.


A SANE person!!!! :-) :-) :-)

I wish I had give some thought to a hanger deck before I added the flight deck. I had even given thought to cutting out the doors covering the opeing on the port side elevator to show a partial. But without taking off the flight deck (I don't THINK so!) it would be too much like doing a ship in a bottle. Off and on, I worked on that project for a LONG time before I called it done, even adding all the modifications to the hull sponsons and fantail that were done in the yard in the mid '80s after the kit was released, but included in all my reference photos.

There is no doubt that model would be "better" if I replaced the entire wing with the much superior Trumpy aircraft and the (GMM?) decals, but I'm just leaving it the way it is.

TC

Hey, I remember your classmates when I was a Rat! There wasn't a sane man in the bunch!! :-)

Just think, to do a full air group you will have 4 squadrons of 18 aircraft each, and each plane has distinctive markings, including cowls, wings, fuselage, numbers, etc. Its enough to make you mad, mad, mad!

Hmmm, I almost forgot the Air Group utility det. Just thinking, has anyone ever seen anything on the markings of the dets onboard at that time? They were usually utility aircraft like J2Fs, but also included some of the older aircraft used as hacks to for different purposes. About the only thing I've ever seen was the tail colors.

I can tell you Tom that the Nimitz is a dream boat comared to the Enterprise. The aircraft, well that's a bit different. They are incredible, but then there are 15 parts for the F-4 as opposed to 5 for the same thing on the Tamiya brand. The Nimitz has fantastic decals for both the ship and EACH AND EVERY aircraft to include tail markings and intake warnings (those red "V" s). I plan to buy at least 2 sets of Tomcats (12 aircraft for 12 bucks) and maybe some hornets for the enterprise. But she is probably at least a year and probably closer to 2 years away from construction.

Well, I see I STILL haven't mastered the posting of photos using the new system, because all I have is the dreaded red "X". Can't figure it out, because I got another photo from my gallery to post. Oh, well!

I'll have to go through my sources again, because I know that there were "utility" aircraft on board, (during the 30s-40s) but I'm thinking they were actually part of each squadron, and must have had some specific markings. All I've really seen describes the 6 different sections of three planes with individual colors and markings.

I'd almost feel obligated to do ALL of them, which of course is indicative of my low level of sanity!!!

TC

If you have posted pictures there, Chuck and I can simply go to your gallery to view the pics. I think we are the only three playing on this thread

I think has something to do with us being demented VMI men. :-)

I believe that is a redundancy.


TC

Many would say that

are you one of those plaid pants wearers? I remember on alumni day weekends at the parade it seemed that 90 % of them wore plaid. I swore to never wear plaid pants ever. However my nickname at the "I" was "El Destructo" It had something to do with cliff diving at twin falls, monkey jumping at Zolloman's and my crowning achiement.....the aeomba

Hey, don't talk about Jocko Hayes, Class of '36 like that. Or his buddy, the Elephant Man that materialized when I was a First, at the Alumni Association Party just before graduation! :-) :-)

Well, I am working on how to make all those struts for the biplanes I received from ISW. Ought to be fun!

If you have a brass detail set, I would cut small strips from the edges and the connector pieces in btwn the parts They also make great straps for tank tie down replacements

Actually I found some of the sprue, when cut down a bit, worked quite nicely.

By the way, a brainfarting question. Were the pre-war plane's fuselages and under-wings light gray or aluminum. I think we discussed this recently and I spouted off, but am not now sure. I don't have any of my references, so I cannot check.

Oh, and I might have something interesting to post in a few days.

From all resources I hve only gotten that it was always aluminum. The light gray only came about when the entire aircraft was that color.

Somebody must be releasing something good (picture hands rubbing together with glee)

Nah, no plaid, although I gotta admit my late father (TC Hathaway, Jr, '49-C) was known to show up in "alumni dyke" on occasion!

I pretty much stick to khaki pants or jeans. No "Red (nose), White (hair) and Yellow (teeth) for me!!!

:-) :-) :-)

TC '72

Now that was FUNNY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:-) :-) :-) :-)