Favourite flight bases/stands? Techniques?

[ShortscaleDave]

What are peoples favourite flight-stands/flight bases?  Do you work with wire or clear plastic? Have you found an ingenious way to achieve the flying effect?   

Looking for some inspiration or possible sources for cool flight bases that less clunky than the usual. I'm putting together some Gates of Antares concord and not super keen on the flight stands for the tiny drones, they look a bit too clunky to my eyes.  Might go with wire, but wondering if there is any suggestions for techniques or products that would be perfect

[OSHIROmodels]

I use two main methods.

One is simple piano wire (it can be a bit wobbly).



The other is a modular acrylic 'system'. Each ship has a small rod coming out the bottom, there is an 8mm bit of acrylic rod with a hole that corresponds to the ship rod the there's the base which has an acrylic tube to fit the 8mm. The 8mm rod is cut to various lengths to allow for height changes.




cheers

James

[Fitz]

I use 3mm acrylic rod, glued into a stack of steel washers with epoxy, and with a 4mm magnet glued to the tip. I use plastic planes, so the magnet is sufficiently strong to hold everything in place.

On this Stuka I've used a bent steel tab to allow it to be shown either in level flight or diving, but for most models I just use a small steel bolt with the head filed flat

This was the first stand I made, and I melted and squished the end of the acrylic rod flat — that turns out to be unnecessary, and I don't do it any more.

You could make a multi-angle stand quite easily by filing the bolt head into five angled facets — one each for dive, climb, and left/right bank, and one for level flight. That's something I might do for aerial gaming, but it's not really necessary for my more usual purposes (WWII ground wargames)

[Mako]

The Topgun "Dogfight" Flight Stands, I designed and produce, which extend from 7" - 22" in height, have a clear, hexagonal, 4" base, and can support even diecast metal, Titanium spacefighters, and plastic aircraft on them.  

They permit virtually any attitude of climbing, diving, and banking flight, including inverted maneuvers, as you can see in the attached photos below, and are sold in matching polarity sets, for convenience.

The spacefighters shown are the larger, diecast metal, Titanium minis, but they also work with the smaller, X-Wing minis too.  WWII aircraft are 1/144th scale.

They're assembled and sold in the USA.

E-mail me at:

topgungrav AT yahoo (d0t) c o m

if you want more info about them.

They run about the same cost as a prepainted, 1/144th scale, WWII fighter aircraft, and can be used for many things, e.g.: supporting WWI - Ultramodern aircraft, spacefighters, spaceships, clouds, dragons, balloons and dirigibles, helicopters, flying grav tanks and VTOLs, etc., etc..  

[madman]

I was doing this for air games 30 years ago! Here is my take. Last post.

https://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1665443/was-wondering

[SteveBurt]

This is what I do (these are 1:600 Tumbling Dice planes).
The base is a chunk of MDF (with a heavy washer stuck to the bottom for weight).
Top surface is painted with section colour and plane number. Back is magnetic so you can stick on things to tell you if the pilot is veteran/green/ace.
There's a bit of piano wire sticking out of the base, and another in the plane. I have aluminium tube cut into various lengths from 1" to 6" which slots over the wires. Works well and gives a nice 3D effect (which is really the whole point of air combat to my mind)

[snitcythedog]

I don't know if it will help but I made springs for my eldar force.  It accepts motion but controls that motion and they do not fall over and I have not had one bend yet.  Painted black they disappear into the background. 


If you decide to go this rout and have any questions pm me and I will go through the process. 
Snitchy sends.

[ShortscaleDave]

Thanks for all the input chaps!  These are fantastic ideas - i can see using them all in different contexts.  Ingenious one and all!