The Art of Models

Not that kind of modeling!

I crash-erm, I mean fly, radioed-controlled aircraft and used to be heavily into scale military model building. My current (flying and non-flying) fleet is as follows:







Plus one electric motor trainer that is no longer in production.

Below is what I hope to add to my collection one day:



I have plans to make use of its 30' dive depth and integrated wireless camera port. I'm looking at designs for a floating wire antenna, video streaming to a netbook, high-powered lights, and a second receiver/transmitter pair for a manipulator arm. If I can do that, then the next step is transfering the camera to a plane and streaming the feed into a set of microscreens set into a headset. yep, totally wanting to build my own UAV and UUV.

Other than that I used to (and would love to get back into) build scale models of WW2 aircraft, 18th century ships, and modern naval vessels. My two proudest creations were these:




Over the course of my last year of college, that carrier was painted down to the cockpits in each plane, faces on every deck personnel, and custom printed decals of actual deployed squadrons on the aircraft. What a year that was. But plastic only holds up for so long when moving around a lot. Too bad.

Oh, that's nice. All the pictures show up on the Preview but half are missing after hitting Send. Okay, Internet, I guess it's you vs. me. Again. Have at thee!

Edit: Victory!

You, my good sir, are awesome. I Tried to get into model building when I was in high school but as it turns out, while big long-fingered hands are great for playing piano, they are clumsy as all get out when it comes to very fine movements proably why my writing is so awful too.

Rumors of my awesomeness have been greatly exagerated. While the pictures are of the same models, no photos (that I can recall, though I'd have to sift through my old photos folders) exist of my own personal builds. All the R/C craft look the same because they come either as kits or mostly built already. The models look different depending on the details put into them. For example, my USS Constitution had furled sails and rigging that sagged slightly, as though in a state of repair from having sat pierside for too long. And my USS Nimitz had craft in flight ops positions rather than having them parked. Cotton was used to (poorly) simulate steam from the catapults and exhaust from the jet engines.

It's a very rewarding hobby if one has the time and patience, but therein lies the beauty: it's a slow process that doesn't require constant attention. Even flying R/C craft generally has minimal upkeep once the initial investment of time for assembly is given. And you need not have thin fingers for all the work. I much prefer the larger-scale models because their pieces and far easier to manipulate and my hands shake a little when I concentrate too much.

Though a gift for piano playing is nothing to downplay. It's been a year since I began trying to teach myself guitar and all I can play is "Drunken Sailor" because it's a very simple back and forth between D and E. I'm envious of anyone with musical talents.

I've got some custom wood models of early American steel cruisers from the early 1900s, but sadly do not have any photos to show you... perhaps I can get my parents to take pics and email them to me...

Now there's something I've been wanting to try out. There are several wooden kits I've looked at over the years but I've never been in one place long enough to justify getting one and investing the time and effort into something that I'm fearful of breaking the first time I try to move it around the country. They just look so cool. I'd be really interested in seeing what yours look like.