French National Maritime Museum - Paris

While on a visit to Paris I convinced my wife we needed to make a side trip to the French National Maritime Museum.  It's one of the world's oldest and contains ship models from Luis XVI time.  I understand he was an avid ship model collector...really not much different that most of us modelers except his "stash" was built by others.

I'll apologize for the poor photography; no flash was allowed so I had to use some unconventional (for me) settings.

Laundry day...

All models of the same battleship, Jean Bart, at different times in her life.

CV Bearn, circa 1940.  The Wildcats and Buffaloes were to serve on her, had they been delivered in time.

A couple of shots into the conservation shop.

Thanks for looking...

132: Show and Tell/In Progress

The theme for the April meeting was "Double Secret Amnesty", which was any finished build that had been lingering in your build pile for a long time.  There was one theme build, five completed builds, and three in progress builds.  In addition, Scott Samo gave a very informative demonstration on how he airbrushes his models.

Theme build

 Cessna 152
By Joe Hegedus
1:48 Minicraft
Interior detailed with belts, throttle, and control lock.  Exterior was converted from the Cessna 150 Aerobat configuration to a 152 by deleting the overhead windows, moving the landing light from the wing to the nose, modifying the cowl for the new landing light and inlet, changing the exhaust, and adding the drooped wingtips.  The markings were printed on inkjet paper, and represent the airplane that Joe soloed in on 31 Dec 1981.

Completed Builds:

Dracula and Victim
By Mike Colvin
1:8 Moebius
Built OOB

Boeing P-26 Peashooter
By Nate Swift
1:72 Revell of Germany
Nate refurbished an earlier build with Starfighter Decals and invisible thread for rigging. The markings depict a unit based at Selfridge AAF, MI.

Naval Aircraft Factory N3N-3 "Yellow Peril"
By Joe Hegedus
1:72 Esoteric
Scratchbuilt cockpit and landing gear.

Boeing 787 "Simpsons"
By Brent Leidig
1:200 Hasegawa
Decals are from Skyline in 1:144.

Northrop YF-23
By Brent Leidig
1:48 Hobbyboss
Caracal Decals and Aries ACES II ejection seat.










In Progress Builds:

A6M5 Zero
By Mike Colvin
1:32 Minicraft/Hasegawa
OOB

Grumman F-14A Tomcat
By Gerry Whiteside
1:48 Hasegawa
Will be finished in markings for VF-102 Diamondbacks ca. 1992

"Custer's last stand" Diorama
By John Bray
54mm, various manufacturers
Jelly Beans not to scale.

Embarrassed builders:

The Shropshire Model Show 2014 - RAF Museum Cosford

Again this year I went to the RAF Museum at Cosford (not far from Telford) where IPMS UK held another show.  Technically called "The Shropshire Model Show" it's one of the larger (equivalent to an IPMS USA Regional in size) and again this year there both great models to see and more subjects for the aerophile.

"Guilty as charged, sir!" in that I generally photographed aircraft models, but there are a few other subjects in here.  What follows are those that really caught my eye.

I still haven't seen Doc's S-Boat, but there were three here!

72nd scale...

Something to do with that bomber resupply set released last year.

A real world subject is the only existing Do17Z-2, serial number 1160, plucked from the Thames estuary last year.  Photos and more are here.

Okay, the ONLY way to display a Lightning!

144th scale display.

144th...

Another in itty-bitty scale.

A Morris Minor "woody".  Built post-war into the early '70's, you can get these today for about $15k, rebuilt and modernized with recent electrics (for reliability and to pass the MOT standards).

German air-to-air missile from 1943/44.  The caption says they stopped producing it because of guidance issues.  Imagine the 8th AF losses if it had worked...

A German SAM.  Also stopped in 1944 due to reliability.

An air-to-surface missile in front of the V-2.

Thanks for looking...