Hi, from N. Carolina

[JimF]

Hello all. New to aircraft modelling, (I say new, though I did build several, back in the 60's). Been into armor, then railway modelling, since the 70's, but have found a renewed interest in aircraft modelling. Primary interest is UK WWI and WWII aircraft. Am going to explore the different popular scales, though 1/32 seems to have the strongest appeal.

Jim F

[lcarroll]

Welcome to the best aircraft model forum on the net Jim! You'll find all the resources and knowledge  you'll need to transition to aircraft here, and 1:32 Scale is certainly not lacking in variety and quality of the subjects that appeal to you. Enjoy!
Cheers,
Lance

[RAGIII]

Welcome to the Forum from Beautiful Fleetwood North Carolina  I know you will find all you need to know here. WNW has helped to make 1/32nd popular but there are still many kits available in trusty 1/48th and Good Old 1/72nd. It is up to the Modeler as to preference. Looking forward to your participation.
RAGIII

[coyotemagic]

Welcome aboard, Jim!  I look forward to seeing your work.
Cheers,
Bud

[Manni]

Hello Jim, welcome on this great forum. Have fun here!
Bye,
Manni

[bobs_buckles]

Welcome to the forum, Jim.
Good luck with your first project and please make sure you share your progress with us.

Cheers,
Bob 

[GazzaS]

Welcome, Jim!

[Jeff K]

Welcome aboard Jim. What part of NC? I went to school initially at State, then transferred to Chapel Hill when I quit engineering school.

I prefer constant scale wherever possible to jumping from scale to scale, mainly because I like to see how large one plane is compared to another. If this is not important to you, then enjoy jumping around!

Basically i put everything i thought i might ever want to build in a big spreadsheet that shows how big it would be at any given scale. From this, taking into consideration availability of kits etc, I determined the best scales for me.

1/32 is, in my opinion, the best scale for WWI aircraft. It's only an opinion, of course, but I *did* put a lot of thought into deciding what scales to commit to. Main attraction of 1/32, besides the existence of Wingnut Wings, is that figures are large enough where you can recognize a likeness with the naked eye. 1/48 is too small for this IMO. also there's a long tradition of 54mm figures, so there are lots of aces available in 1/32. I also like 1/32 for select WWII subjects... ones that involve figures of aces.

For everything else I choose 1/72. Almost every aircraft that ever existed is available in both 1/48 and 1/72... but I chose 1/72 because I'm also interested in water-going R/C stuff. Particularly submarines. Yeah you can do an RC sub in 1/48, but anything bigger than a destroyer would be too big for even a boat trailer!

I may add a larger scale, as I get into R/C things that fly. It's possible these days to build tiny flying models from Depron... I've seen a 1/72 MiG-15 on Youtube that actually flies (!)... but a bigger plane will be less likely to be knocked around by wind.

[gbrivio]

Welcome to the forum, it's a great place.
Giuseppe

[JimF]

Thanks for all the welcome, folks.

Jeff K, I'm in Salisbury, about midway between Charlotte and Greensboro. I'm what's called a "da**ed yankee", though. Those are the ones who came to visit, and stayed Originally from Boston MA.

For all my other modelling, in the past, I tended to stay in one scale. But my primary interest, at least right now (always subject to change) is doing the 3 WWII aircraft I like most, in the different scales.

As of this moment, they are:

AIRCRAFT                          1/72                      1/48                          1/32             

Spitfire IXc                        Eduard 70122        Eduard 8282             Tamiya 60319

Typhoon Mk.1b                 Airfix A50079          Hasegawa 09311*

Mosquito FB V1                 Tamiya 60747        Tamiya 61062            Tamiya 60326

To stay with the WWI focus of this forum, however, I want to do the same with the Felixstowe F.2. It will be just 2 scales, the Roden 1/72 models and the WnW 1/32 model.

Eventually, I'll go for almost any and all UK aircraft I can get, from Wingnuts Wings.

Ambitious plans, I know, so we'll see what I accomplish

Oh, and speaking of R/C, that's my latest rail model thing, putting it in 009 (1/76 scale narrow gauge) locos!

Thanks again.

Jim F

[Dave W]

Welcome Jim

I hope you get lots of enjoyment from the wonderful people on this forum  - the best WWI modelling site on the internet!

cheers

Dave Wilson
Gold Coast
Australia

[Jeff K]

Jim,

I was a damn yankee for a while, now I'm just a yankee.

If you really wanted to collect the whole set of Felixstowes there's a 1/48 resin kit:

http://www.lonestarmodels.com/store/bsk/lsm-480606-felixstowe-f2a-flying-boat

[pepperman42]

Welcome Jim. Enjoy the forum in all three scales!!

Steve

[JimF]

Thanks again, all.

Upon reflection, I've decided I'd rather start in 1/32, both for the detail, possibility of easier painting, and it's a size where I think learning rigging would be easier (never done it before). So I'll spend some time (impatiently LOL) reading reviews of 1/32 kits, with a lean towards aircraft of the RNAS.

Jim F

[lcarroll]

     Does my take on your progression of logic see a Felixstowe Build Log in the near future Jim?? Now that's a transition from Armour and Rail Stock! Looking forward to whatever you start with ........
Cheers,
Lance