1/48 Naval Aviator Factory

Gallery Article by Paul S Teixeira on Oct 27 2009

 

I have always been fascinated with Naval Aviation, and, as a result I have an obsession with the training aircraft utilized to make a Naval Aviator.  For a modeler the pickings have been slim regarding what was available related to Naval Training Aircraft in 1/48th scale.  As a result I had my work cut out for me and this is the result.  I started with modifying a very venerable kit.  The 1/48th Lindberg Stearman kit.  I modified it using some scratch building, spare-box supplies, and old decals to make a N3N yellow Peril.  I then followed up with another venerable kit; the 1/48th Monogram T-28 Trojan purchased on E-Bay prior to it's recent re-issue.  Finally I completed the only modern kit to meet my needs; the Czech Models T-34C Turbo Mentor in 1/48th scale.  This was mostly built out of the box and builds up to a very nice model with minimal complexity.

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The T-28 was a very expensive, and time consuming, endeavor and the most complicated project of the 3 aircraft.  It included a hard-to-find "Black Box" resin cockpit, long out of production.  Lone-Star Resin parts such as wheels, and wheel wells, and a black-box tail conversion to make it the "C" variant with the tail hook for it's "CarQual" role.  The addition of these parts required extensive modification to the venerable kit, as well as, the wheel wheels and cockpit tub required extensive sanding and grinding so it all fit in the fuselarge and wings.  Finally, a "Quickboost" engine and cowling replaced the old, inaccurate kit engine and cowling.  Lone-Star also makes a nice "flaps down" kit but my budget could not support this nice addition.  Two-Bobs Decals furnish some nice options to decorate these birds in traditional naval trainer style.

The N3N was a fun kit.  Even though old, I was very pleased with the basic foundation the Lindberg kit provided.  I did some simple scratch building w/ spare styrene strips and tubing to build up the engine area, cockpit tub, seats, and instrument panels.  I also added the wheels from an old T-33 Kit.  These wheels were not stock on the N3Ns but a lot of modified stearmans have these wheels installed and I love the look.  The basic kit even included rigging wire; a nice touch Lindberg.  It was a really fun build.  The most difficult part was finding decals that replicated a Yellow Peril from this era.  I needed to kit bash several old kit decals to make this happen.  Finally, the Czech Models T-34C Turbo Mentor in 1/48th scale was completed.  I had always wanted to build this model, but when it originally came out I shyed away from limited run kits, but once I gained some significant experience with these types of kits I jumped right in.  It builds up w/ limited problems for someone with moderate experience.  This kit was built OOB completely.  My journey with completing a full-line of pilot makers has only just begun.  With the recent releases of the the 1/48th Hasegawa  and Classic Airframes TA-4J, currently on my workbench, and the upcoming release of the "Two-Bobs" T-2C Buckeye I can now enter into the Basic and Advanced Jet Pipeline. Look Out!!!

Drop by my website at  https://texmodelmaker.jimdo.com/

Paul S Teixeira

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Photos and text © by Paul S Teixeira