Styrene

Styrene

Saturday, October 31, 2015

Gordon Stevens (Rareplane vacuformed models) passed away

Dearest Gordon
Can't say much at the moment, although a lot could be said.
Others surely will, and deservedly so, for your outstanding contributions to this hobby of ours and the fantastic lad you are. 
Yes: are.
Have a peaceful journey to everland.
You are loved and will be missed
Thanks for your friendship, kindness and camaraderie.  And all those wonderful kits.

Gordon passed away on Wednesday, October 28th
A year ago or so I added a link to his "History of it All", hosted by Aeroscale.com.uk; you will find it at the side bar to the right if you scroll down a bit.

Janet and Gordon in their 60th wedding anniversary:
Some of the many wonderful kits Gordon produced and I had the pleasure to build:




Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Scratchbuilt Albatros L.72a (newspaper delivery plane) in 1/72nd. scale



Here is finally the completed Albatros, after a sort of longer than usual construction, which the complexity of this project demanded.
Just one of the many iterations of the type, all with colorful liveries.
The step-by-step construction article is here:

I reiterate my gratitude to Günter Frost und Günther Ott for their thorough article on this type posted at the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Deutsche Luftfahrthistorik site:
 http://adl-luftfahrthistorik.de/deutsch/adl_start.htm
My thanks once more to Alain Bourret and Sönke Schulz.
Regarding the plan that the above-mentioned article has, a few things to tidy-up:
The servo tabs for the lower ailerons are missing from the plan
The triangular door has in reality sharp, not rounded corners
There is a Venturi on one of the wing struts
The wing center tank seems in photos to be not as prominent (thick) as displayed in the plan.
Otherwise, I found that plan very useful, but you must always check with photos when possible.
(Some of the following images of the model show the plane with German buses for scale and dramatic effect, but those two buses were actually circulating a few years later than this Albatros).