Republic of Texas, 1938 (Crimson Skies)

[Gunbird]

When the Republic of Texas started looking at German aircraft to bolster its ranks, they sent sent over a zeppelin with attachees and their latest state of the art hardware. Included for the protection of the zeppelin it housed an entire Staffel (12 aircraft, Red, White and Yellow flight), something unheard of for a zeppelin of this size. The aircraft was the tried and tested Bf-105, a variant of the Bf-109 specifically designed for Zeppelin duty. Clipped wings, a short tail, but still packing a powerful engine, 2 20mm cannons in the wings and 2 MG's in the nose the Kleiner Messer (or unofficially called the Stiletto or Wespe) wasn't exactly a pilots dream to handle but was more then a match for pirates and militias. Yellow flight was equipped with the 20mm cannon nose submodel for added punch. Mock dogfights were held to show the strengths and weaknesses of the design vs Texas aircraft.

We now show you some of the gun camera footage.






In the end, the Republic of Texas purchased several German designs, including production rights.

This was my back up for my main entry Relic, cause I wasn't too sure yet if I could do distressed and weathered bare metal. The original mode, a old Airfix Me-109 was converted way back in 2008 after an original idea from John Paterson for a parasite fighter for Crimson Skies.

It never progressed beyond this stage before being dumped into the spares bin.


I was actually going to use the hulk as a test for Reals flight stand, to see if I could refit older magnet bases aircraft to the new system. This was rather succesful so I took out the hulk and overhauled it.

Added a adapter for the flight stand


Fixed the problem of the propellor sticking out in fornt of the aircraft by adding some additional plasticcard


And gave it a good cleaning and sanding


And after a nice grey basecoat it was ready to be repainted

.....just rather annoying the basecoat came out all fuzzy, so after some light sanding and a respray she was again ready for paint.

And here she is, Rote 3 (Red 3) in all of its colourful splender. Wingtips and nose are painted red for recognition purposes (in Yellow and White flight these correspond to the group name). The scheme is derived from German aircraft of that particular era.










I gave her a handpainted wooden prop. Quite a bit more surface area then the gunstocks I'm used to painting like this.


Something quite different compared to my recent output, I know, but made it cause I know teher are some Crimson Skies fans outthere and I want to use this as a personal motivator for Modhail to kickstart his Crimson Skies interests again, and show it is possible to game this in 1/72 as well  :beg: Hell, I'm even going to use it for VBCW for all I care.....

[Modhail]

Nice to see that bird finished.  
Excellent painting as usual!

...I want to use this as a personal motivator for Modhail to kickstart his Crimson Skies interests again, and show it is possible to game this in 1/72 as well

You fiend!   (Just as I'm gearing up to do zombie stuff instead. What about my "Ooh! Shiny! problem, eh?)
I know it's possible to game it in 1/72nd, I just don't want to entirely clear out my living room to do so...
It's getting near unavoidable to start discussing how to adapt CS to this scale on a reasonable gaming surface, it seems.

[Weird WWII]

You need some lone stars on that bird before a Texan will fly it.

Great stuff,
Brian

[Gunbird]

As soon as I do one for Texas, I will. Might even convert one of the Texas models before that, but most of them are not exactly easy. I wish John Pattersons page was still online as he had converted a ton of 1/200 and other aircraft, but sadly that page has slipped into the murky sands of time 

[Modhail]

His current (skeleton of a) page is here: http://blackzeroes.webs.com/
No idea if the email from that site still reaches him though.

If you still have the link for the old site(s), you could try if they were archived in the Wayback Machine at Archive.org?

Edit: Had a bit of a faff about on archive.org: Yup, parts of the old site can still be found:
http://wayback.archive.org/web/*/http://uk.geocities.com/john.paterson59@btinternet.com/*

[Gunbird]

Hey Erik,

I emailed him again today as I want to help him get his site up and running again, or restarted in a Blog of sorts.

The Wayback site has parts of the site archived but not the pictures or info from the aircraft, so I hope John replies to us again, it has been ages....

[Modhail]

If you do manage to contact him, tell him I said hi.

Oh, and direct him to the Montana Raiders forum. Those guys are fans of his old site too....

[commissarmoody]

I wouldn't mind seeing that sight brought back to life. I haven't played CS since Fasa went under and would love to get back into it.

[Parriah]

NOT a criticism.

I prefer to stick to the standard CS hardware. There's plenty of new and interesting, (if highly improbable) planes in the aircraft manual, airman's gazetter, and other supps.

That all being said,
Fantabulous Fabtastic work! Superlitave.

(ask a Marine what this means) OUTSTANDING!

[Doomsdave]

Where might one purchase these adaptors and flight stands that you are using?

[Gunbird]

The adaptors are wall plugs, cut down and inserted into the bottom of the aircraft, available at any home depot. The flightstands are standard AIM flightstands with a few layers of lead and milliput for weight.

[richarDISNEY]

Real nice work!

[Galland]

I havent seen this before, but I almost coughed my coffee out when I did... really cool project and something that I really can relate to, since I actually bought a plane model today, something I havent done since I was a kid. I got my self a Arado in 1/48 scale. Well done, and thanks for sharing!

[d phipps]

Astounding work! The gun camera footage is really well done. 

[von Lucky]

This came up beautifully!