My Tangerine Dream

[s00ntir]

Well - this is it... 304 Gruppo di Volo, 1970

[kensar]

Great looking model.

My Dad was a student pilot at Bartow AFB in the late 1950's, taking training in T-37 and T-33 jets. He went on to become a B-52 pilot in SAC.
Years later, we moved to Lakeland, where I grew up.

[davenport49]

Hi, Kensar. I'm sorry I missed your post back in July; I've been off the forum for several months, dealing with frustrations in my own project. So, your family was in Lakeland after mine left. I had the "yearbooks" of my dad's graduating classes, and the last one showed him standing before a T-28 Trojan, obviously the last one he checked out in while there. I was quite young then, just starting in elementary school when we left, but have fond memories of Lakeland and airshows at Bartow. You may or may not know, while I was researching, I learned that Bartow was a privately owned airport which contracted with USAF to provide flight training, as did many others at the time. When the contracts ran out, it reverted to private operation and is still operational today. They have a museum documenting the airport's history. I sent them Dad's yearbooks, which are now a part of their collection.

[Vincent Fiore]

Well done, a beautiful job.

[davenport49]

s00ntir, a beautiful job. 1//32nd scale should show off detail beautifully.

[davenport49]

This project started back in July/August from a photo of my dad sitting in the cockpit of a North American T-6G Texan as a flight instructor at Bartow AFB, Lakeland, FL.

20241016_081152.jpg (246.88 KiB) Viewed 98956 times

20241016_081152.jpg (246.88 KiB) Viewed 98956 times

Vince Tassone graciously offered to make me a set of decals replicating the aircraft number and identifiers of the photo. I built up an Ocidental 1/48th Harvard (#0211), but I made a serious mistake in the painting. That meant stripping the Mr. Color lacquer and starting over; bad move! As I went along trying to add all the final details, things started literally falling off and falling apart. Finally, I decided I had to give it up and start all over again.


This is a 1/48th T-6G by Ocidental (#0201). This kit went together fairly well, with no major problems. I’ve supplemented the interior with a set of 3-D decals from Quinta Studios. Primary landing gear were from Scale Aircraft Conversions (SAC48094), though the tailwheel was from the kit. I primed it with Rust-Oleum Ultra Cover Flat White Primer decanted and applied with my airbrush. After painting and masking the flat black of the anti-glare panel and walkways, I applied Mr. Color C58 Orange Yellow as a finish color. I lightened some panels on top very slightly and added some shading on the underside as sitting on a parking ramp. A coat of gloss acrylic was next. Panel lines were highlighted with a greatly thinned brown lacquer. After another coat of gloss, the decals were applied. These were mostly from Caracal Models USAF T-6G Texan (CD48098), but the aircraft IDs and the “Bartow” over the Air Training Command emblem on the cowl were custom printed for me. A special thanks to Vince Tassone of Stormo magazine. Then there was another coat of gloss to seal everything. The underside details were added: flaps, landing gear and doors, rudder control cables, aileron trim tab control rods, rod connecting gear doors to struts. Then I turned attention to the top side. The canopy was masked using Eduard EX202 T-6G Texan, designated for Italeri but also the Ocidental kit. Windscreen and rear section went on fine. But the three main canopy sections were designed to be closed. To make the cockpit visible, I had to do a lot of careful sanding to part 52 so it would slide partway into part 51, and getting part 50 to sit over 51 took a lot of effort and CA glue. The whole process left all three sections much more scuffed than I had hoped. Finally the antennae and prop were put in place. Weathering consisted of colored pencils on the walkways, pastel chalk for the exhaust and oil pastels for spills and streaks. A minimal amount of chipping was applied to the leading edges and prop with a sponge and white aluminum.

The end result is not as great as I had hoped, but it’s as good as I am able to accomplish. And it fulfills my intent; to create a tribute to my dad who was a pilot his entire career and flew TA-103 as an instructor for a time at Bartow AFB.