First Mission - aviation art by Nixon Galloway

[Rob1970]

My next project for the coming weeks/months. And it's going to be fun! (Yeah, keep telling yourself that, Rob...)

The subject of this diorama is my attempt to do justice to this great painting by one of my favourite aviation artists; Nixon Galloway.

From Aviation Art Hangar.com;

This painting portrays the historic first combat mission flown by the U.S. Army Air Force against the Germans, from England during World War II. On July 4, 1942 the 15th Squadron, who had been training in planes borrowed from the RAF's No. 226 Squadron attacked the Luftwaffe airfield at DeKooy. The lead plane dropped its bombs and hightailed it for home. The second plane, a Douglas A-20 "Havoc" flown by Captain Charles C. Kegelman, took a hit in the right engine, knocking its propeller off. Momentarily losing control, Kegelman's right wing tip, then his belly hit the ground, but he bounced back into the air, whereupon he regained sufficient control to get safely back to his base at Swanton Morley with his entire crew unscathed. Captain Kegelman was awarded the DSC and each of his crew, the DFC for this extraordinary mission.In 1944 while leading his group of B-25's on a routine bombing run over the Japanese-held island of Mindinao, in the Philippines, Kegelman's wing man lost control; the two planes collided and plunged into the jungle. At the time of his death, Kegelman was 29 years old.

I found a reasonable image of the painting, had a friend edit out Captain Kegelman's Boston III, stretched the image and had it printed out at the local print shop on some HQ paper.

The Plan
To recreate the painting with the Boston III flying out of it...

The Kit
An old one, ofcourse... the Matchbox Douglas A-20G Havoc/Boston IV...

Which ofcourse is the wrong type of Boston. But I just need to remove a dorsal turret and build up a bit of spine.

Not too bad, right?

Oh, and build a burning engine...

And one running engine...

And some damage to a wingtip...

And my own decals... sure...

Yeah... 'sgonna be fun...

Rob

 

[Albertese]

Fantastic idea! I've seen similar projects that turned out beautifully.

Yeah... 'sgonna be fun...

http://www.4smileys.com/smileys/angry-smileys/angrysmiley18.gif

Rob

Ha! I'm glad I'm not the only one who plans projects that make be beat my smiling head against the bricks before I even begin it!

Good luck, sir.

--Alex

 

[Rob1970]

You know...

Sometimes, the Gods of Scratchbuilding are fickle, and Fate (this time in the shape of a bottle of Tamiya ET) rolls the dice, and says; "Not today..."

I was working on the wing of the Havoc, performing a turbocharger-ectomy... and went downstairs for coffee. Bumped the hobby table on my way out of the cave...

Came back to something that looked like this...

Yeah... this project is on hold until I sort a new Boston... might go for the MPM kit after all, eventho someone offered me the old Airfix kit...

We will see...

If anyone wants me, I'll be in a corner. Crying.

Rob

 

[GF]

At least it happened in the early stage of the build.

 

[Teddz]

been there and it sucks.

something similar happened to me when I was working on the outer engines shells of my MAoS Bus build. Luckily I was right there when it happened and managed to salvage the parts, but not before stabbing myself with the x-acto in the process and getting some blood onto one of the engines. Also found the glue works great on removing the grid lines on a brand new cutting mat.