Finally got my second St. Maarten MID diorama finished at 5:30 this morning! [Y] The aeroplane is a 1/200 Hasegawa Boeing 747-400 with scratchbuilt landing gear, flaps, and deflected horizontal stab… the diorama base is plywood, the water is Testors Windshield Cement, the figures are Preiser, and the fence is from a fine mesh makeup case.
Wow!!! [:D[ [:D[ [:D[ I’ve seen a few videos of landings in Sint Maaren (or St Martin, depending on your viewpoint), and you really captured it well. Photos are really nice; how did you mount the aircraft in flight? And what did you do to hide the mounting in the photos; a PhotoShop erase?
Do they really come in that low? There’s also a video showing a para-sailer being towed by a boat just off shore of this beach as a plane lands. His parachute snags one of the aircraft’s landing gear and he is lifted off the water’s surface and dragged along until touch down. Fortunately, the video doesn’t show landing, but the outcome probably wasn’t very pleasant.
Actually, the mounting isn’t hid or PhotoShopped from the photos; sitting on the shelf it looks exactly as it does here.
Half of the plane and scene are an illusion, generated by the material being affixed to a true first surface mirror which absorbs the brunt of the seam lines and causes the mirror surface to become virtually invisible. This technique allows aircraft/spacecraft/birds/angels… bombs etc, to look like they are in unsupported flight; close up you can tell, but more than 2-3 ft away and the subject is floating, to the point it causes people to stare! [;)]
This is absolutely amazing. At first look i thought it was the real thing because there were no obvious attachment or mounting points. Reading your explanation and taking a closer look you can see the exact opposites, especially in the ground work and people. Your technique is totally deceiving at the first glance. Your first two photos are awesome. It gives a huge impression of size having the beach and the people.
If you have ever stood underneath a landing 747…well let me say, it’s a very exciting moment.
Fantastic work. You should be very much proud of yourself!! I love it!
Frank another wonderful dio. You capture the sense of the videos perfectly. Keep them coming. The undercarriage is beautiful.
Those mirrors are fantastic. Highly recommended and easy to use.
Boomer: I used to see lots of v. low flying 747s around Laverton, Vic. about 20 years ago…might be worth a drive if the pilots still practice around there.
Thank you very much psycho, Narayan, and Pilot… [B]
When I was stationed near Atlanta, '84 - '86, I use to make it my business to be in the parking area at the end of 8L late afternoons on Tuesday & Thursday to watch the Flying Tigers aluminum overcast come over! It was the closest I’ve ever been able to get while one was landing, and something I never got use to seeing!
St. Maarten is just a 3 hour flight from here, and it is my hopes that the wife and I will one day be able to do a vacation there. It would be the ultimate trip for an old airliner nut like myself! [:)]
Here’s another couple pictures of the road between the beach and threshold showing a beachgoer jumping from the wall to avoid being chipped by the Body Landing Gears!
