I
purchased a Revell re-issue of the Deals Wheels Peace van. I had so much
fun building it that I had to go and get another. There is a video on the
internet of some guys that have modified a real van into an A-10 replica
complete with a pilot in flight gear sitting on top of the van. In the
video they drive around desert throwing bombs at simulated targets. At one
point, they are engaged by a missile and must fire off chaff. In their
case, an old lawn chair and some empty beer cans are kicked out the back door.
This gave me the inspiration for my van. I have a fairly large stash of
decals for models that I plan to build, and amongst that stash are quite a few
F-14 decals. I tell myself that it doesn’t matter that I have only built
one F-14 in the 30+ years that I have been building models, they are there when
I decide to build another.
Click on
images below to see larger images
I decided to
build a van that an F-14 enthusiast would like to have. I
modified the driver by adding a helmet made out of epoxy putty and some
decals left over from past projects. For emergencies, I added an
ejection handle to the dash board. I modified the aircraft paint
scheme to fit the van with VF Decal’s VF-101 Grim Reapers decals.
They seemed to fit perfectly.
Building
these caricatures of vans is a lot of fun. They are a quick and easy
build. I have built 2 and will probably pick up at least one more.
Silly Week is a great chance to push the rivet counting aside and set the
imagination free. Thanks!
Hal Elsberry
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