End of summer

Summer is drawing to a close here in the northwest. It has been a very nice one – in fact, the highest recorded temperature in Auburn in all of summer 2011 that I can find on weather.com was 85. That works for me. I am not constitutionally built for heat, which is one reason I moved away from Southern California in 1985. Any city whose highest temperature was 100 even, and can have a summer perpetually under 85, gets my vote.

We went out to the 2011 version of Harbor Hounds, a dog event in Gig Harbor. This year it was Harbor Drowned, since the weather chose today to reintroduce we mossheads to the glories of Seattle rain.

Since the model room and the garage were cooling down, I was able to get some construction and painting done. There are actually a couple of painting sessions combined into the following photos. The Valiant has gotten all of its detail painting done, was masked, and is now getting its first coat of white. One roadblock – I appear to have run out of white paint! Sounds like it is time for an order of Xtracolour.

The trio of Cold War Brit fighters – Swift, Attacker, and Seahawk – have gotten their wheel wells painted Alclad White Aluminum and the Sky has gone on the Attacker and Seahawk. While I had the Sky paint out, I did the fuselage band on a Hurricane. The Swift is a little farther along, and already has the lower surfaces done in PRU Blue. I was able to paint the Dark Sea Grey uppers and the Dark Green camo.

The Sukhoi T-50 is in queue for its camo area of Gloss Sea Blue. Not a color that Soviet aircraft are necessarily known for, but that is a Zvezda interpretation. They do use a number of unusual blues on their Su-27s.

A bit more wheel bay detailing in Zinc Chromate Yellow has been done on the B-47, along with the wheel wells of a P-47. I’ve been trying to group models that need the same colors, since painting is not something I’m terribly good at.

Lurking on the horizon is a B-1, and stalled efforts on a B-50, SM-84, and F-22. And you can see that the 707 has gotten the fuselage blue (for a Braniff jellybean). It still needs some detailing in Aluminum and the underside of the wings done in Boeing grey.

I kind of shake my head when I see all these large models that I start, given my upcoming storage crunch. I'll have to build up another temporary display box to accomodate the Big Iron.

As an aside, condolences to those related to anyone involved in the tragic crash at the Reno Air Races.