NEWSFLASH April 2021 Hello Swamp Foxes, welcome to the April 2021 Newsletter Into April we go....... another month has come and gone...... It is hard to figure just what 2021 has in store for Us, One Model at a Time I guess........... 9th April 2021 saw another Royal Navy Veteran Pass away, Prince Philip, The Duke of Edinburgh who had a very active service, passed away peacefully in his sleep aged 99, Fair Winds and Following Seas Sir..... Some great builds and works in progress by our members can be seen in members models, Stay Safe, Hang in there and .............. Keep on Building From the Front Office… Howdy, all! The April Zoom meeting will be held on 21 April: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81633790135?pwd=S1UwTVlaaU9tejEzZmNOZElza2FSdz09 Mike Roof will present a demonstration on rigging for us this month. Speaking with the library, they still have not opened up meeting rooms or re-started programs. I will continue to keep checking in with them from month to month to see when we might actually begin to meet in person again. I will also ask them if we might be able to hold a “tailgate meeting” in the front corner of their parking lot—as long as we do not cause traffic issues, I think it might be an alternative to the meeting room. I will let you know how that goes. Granted, with the famously hot Columbia summers getting big in the window, we won’t be able to do this every month, but it is a possibility. **** **** **** **** **** **** As far as the June show goes, everything is still progressing towards that date. With the increased tempo of vaccinations in South Carolina, we’re waiting to see how the armory revises their occupancy restrictions. All other explorations into alternate venues have yielded little results (for this year, at least), but we are still working that angle, too. At the very least, I foresee that we will be requiring face coverings and will have hand sanitizer throughout the venue. I don’t see the armory dropping those requirements. If we have to limit occupancy, we’re working out a method to do so. There will be a Registrar’s Training session at Mike Roof’s house on 24 April starting at 1 PM. For those of you that want to work registration, we recommend that you attend. If you don’t know how to get to Mike’s, let us know and we’ll get you driving directions. With the change in contest format, there are some new features that need to be rehearsed before the show, and we will need several people at the registration tables who know the system. We have also requested the use of one of the rooms at The Flight Deck to hold a Judges Training Session on Saturday, 22 May between 2 and 5 PM. We will simulcast the training session via Zoom, so people out of the area can also join in. This is recommended for all of you who will assist with the judging. If you have any questions on anything I just covered, let me know. I hope all of you can join us on Zoom on 21 April. Keep sending in your model photos. Stay safe and healthy. If you are eligible for the vaccine and haven’t at least made an appointment, what are you waiting for? Please, get your shots. Do it for your family, do it for your friends, do it for your neighbors… Cheers! Ralph SUPPORT THE LOCAL HOBBY STORES https://www.fireflytoysandgames.com SUPPORT THE LOCAL HOBBY STORES Seeing Double In 1943, the Army Air Forces were contemplating a long-range escort fighter that could fly 2,000 miles round trip to escort bombers from the Solomon Islands or the Philippines to targets in Japan. North American Aviation, still developing the P-51D into newer lightweight versions, began a design study using two XP-51F fuselages attached to a common, constant- chord wing center section with modified Mustang outboard wing panels. In the initial plans, both cockpits would be fully functional, and the two pilots would “change off” flying duties during the long range flights. As the design progressed, NAA used two of the new P-51H fuselages (based on the XP-51F), each lengthened by 57 inches aft of the cockpit. Armament was to be the same 6 X .50 caliber Browning M3 machine guns as the P-51D, although the guns were all located in a common bay in the center section, concentrating their fire. Provisions were made for additional guns in a center section pod, but these plans were scrapped. The outer wings had provisions for 1,000 pounds of ordnance. The powerplant chosen was the Packard/Rolls- Royce V-1650 Merlin engines, the left-hand engine being a -23 version that would turn the propeller via additional gearing in the prop reduction gearbox in the opposite direction of the standard right-hand -25 engine, thus creating counter-rotating props. The war ended before the new aircraft, designated P-82, was ready. The first production model, the P-82B, would retain two complete cockpits and the Merlins. However, after the war ended, Rolls-Royce increased the licensing fees that Packard would be charged, so the search for an alternate powerplant resulted in the P-82C, featuring Allison V-1710 engines (- 143 on the left, -145 on the right). The F-82E would be an escort fighter, while the P-82F and P-82G subtypes would become interceptors and night fighters, respectively. The P-82F carried an AN/APG 28 radar in a pod under the center section; the P-82G night fighters carried an SCR-720 radar in a similar pod. When the war ended, the Far East Air Force had been using Northrop P-61 Black Widows as their all-weather and night fighters, but lack of spares meant that they would be withdrawn in favor of the new P-82 (re-designated F-82 after 1947). The F-82F and G aircraft would see service in the Korean Conflict, dealing with the nocturnal raiders used by the North Koreans. An updated version, the F-82H, was a “winterized” version of the F-82G, used by the Alaskan Air Command between 1948 and 1952. They would fly missions out of Ladd Field near Fairbanks, and would patrol the area around the Bering Straits to intercept any Soviet aircraft out of Siberia and monitor the Chukchi Peninsula and Barter Island while escorting B-36’s of the Strategic Air Command. Attrition and wear would see the type retired or replaced. The F-82E was replaced by the Republic F-84 Thunderjet in 1950, and the F-82Fs, G’s, and H’s were replaced by the new generation of jet-powered all-weather/night fighters such as the F-89 Scorpion and F-94 Starfire. The Kit Photo 1: The venerable Monogram kit, in all her guises Modelers who build in 1/72nd scale have had a kit of the Twin Mustang since 1973, when Monogram issued their interpretation of the F-82F/G. It was a fairly simple kit, featuring raised panel lines, props that could spin, a removable gun bay cover, and canopies that would slide open. Cockpit detail was simple and rather basic, as was most of the rest of the kit— remember, these were the Mattel years (yes, kiddies, Mattel—the toy company—once owned Monogram Models) when kit development was in a state of hibernation in Morton Grove, so the fact that the kit was even produced was a bit of a minor miracle. The kit includes bombs and a “Christmas Tree” rack for rockets. (Styrene Trivia Time—the only new “serious” aircraft model kit Mattel/Monogram released between 1969 and 1973 was a 1/72nd scale F-14A Tomcat in 1972, based on photos of the prototype. Mattel had bought Monogram with the thought that it could push toys to a larger audience, and they would eventually furlough the entire Monogram Marketing team. Mattel had success with a line of Snoopy-themed kits and kid-friendly Snap-Tite kits, but serious aircraft and auto modelers had to look to Revell, AMT, and MPC for new kits to suit their tastes. The F-14A was a poor model by any standards—it was greatly simplified and only bore a passing resemblance to the Tomcat and was not even in the same galaxy as previous Monogram airplane kits. But, the model could be used with a new product called “Skystick”, a joystick-like controller upon which you perched your model and “flew” it. It, too, was a failure —the high-impact styrene initially used would break easily, and they had to scrap an entire run until they found a softer, more resilient plastic. The “Skystick” failure finally led Mattel to allow Monogram to re-hire their marketing and R&D department. The F-82 was the first product of that event, and would be hailed as Monogram’s return to serious scale modeling, and indeed, it ushered in the massive wave of new aircraft kits that Monogram produced from the mid-1970’s through the early 1990’s. Within a few years, Mattel would divest themselves of Monogram in the midst of an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission into their business practices. While the Mattel problems did not include Monogram’s business, new management would be brought in to Monogram. Jack Besser, one of the founders of Monogram, was dismissed and replaced by Thomas A. Gannon, Jr., a former President of AMT.