Much better photos. :)

Modeling Subjects Aircraft
1

I finally got some decent shots (with a good camera and macro lens) of my old Tamiya F-117A project showing some of the cockpit detail and lighting I had done. The cockpit includes a PE/resin kit upgrade from Verlinden as well as fiber optic panel lights and LED illuminated screens. The intent was to get the screens to have that ‘greyed out’ look that a normal CRT tube (ie: television etc.) has when the tube is off. When on, the grey disappears and the bright green of the monochrome tubes shines through.

The nav lights in the wingtips were extremely thin so I used lightsheet to get the illumination there (shines through top and bottom). The rotating beacons are assembled from two LEDs and a short bit of red acrylic rod. One LED is a soft steady on, and the second a brighter blinking to try and simulate the flash of the reflector each time is spins around. The LED blink is a little too quickand doesn’t have the slight fade in/fade out you see in a true rotating beacon, but it gets the job done for the most part.

Anyway, this was the old kit, and my inspiration for the new project I’ve been researching here:

CRT screens (illumination off) and front panel:

Radio stack and switch detail on stick:

Seat detail:

Right side panel detail:

Left panel and my gimpy attempt at a scratch built throttle!:

Top down, side panels and seat:

Top down, illumination turned on:

Illuminated CRTs showing screen detail:

CRT detail 1:

CRT detail 2:

Fully lit cockpit tub:

Fuselage with external APU cart used to supply power to model:

Full fuselage with rotating beacon and nav lights:

Rotating beacon detail (acrylic rod):

Nav light (wingtip) detail:

Brian~

2

Wow. What scale?

These fiber optic lit models are so cool. Deffinately influencing me to consider doing the same when I get back to the bombers or maybe the night fighters in my stash. A lit B-24 Liberator, B-25 Mitchell, B-26 Maruader, P-61Black Widow, and A-26 Invader will look really cool on a shelf in the display case. That’s at least a year away though. Too many blue planes to do between now and then.

Where can one learn more about fiber optics in modeling?

3

Wow, that is pretty awesome. I’m impressed… that really is a super cool effect. I can’t wait to see the pictures of the new one in progress, and finished. Good luck getting all of the information that you need.

4

That is an incredible amount of detail for one cockpit. I admire your work very much. I have neither the patience nor the talent.

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It’s in 1:48. Quag, if you have any questions, I’d be happy to answer what I could. My introduction to FO lighting came when I worked at out local planetarium. We had a couple of guys do two AMAZING models from Star Trek. One was the Enterprise and another a Romulan Warbird (both from the Next Generation TV show). Anyway, these guys went so far as to drill out literally thousands of slots and holes etc., put in mini flurecent tubes for the engine nacelles and even a full size strobe light for the super bright blinking nav lights! All the light sources (except for the flurecent tubes) were housed in a large wooden base for each model, and then the fibers were run down to it through a hollow aluminum tube and then routed to their respective lights.

I’ve done about four models with lighting in them, from a Space Shuttle, to the F-117 you see here, and a couple other planes. It’s not too hard to get them in and secured, but I’d also like to know others techniques regarding FOs.

Brian~

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I may take you up on that offer for helping with FO at a later date Brian. Thinking with enough FO cable I could run the lighting off of one light source. But I’m getting waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay ahead of myself. Back to the Bearcat (no lights).

7

I had (and still have) two big issues I hope(d) to overcome.

First, I wanted ALL the lighing and cabeling to be self contained.

Second, I wanted the lighting to last as loooooong as possible.

To accomplish the first point I needed to find a lighting source that achieved several things at once. First, it had to be small. Obviously you can’t put much into it if everything is taken up by either a large light, or it’s power supply. Second, they needed to burn cool. I didn’t want to be melting holes inside my fuselage when it was all glued together. Lastly, they needed to be shock proof - or at least as close to it as they could be.

LED’s fit the bill perfectly on all counts.

The second issue was solved by the choice of lights in the first place. LEDs can last for years even being on continually. I never wanted to have to open up a perfectly sealed and painted kit to replace one stinking lightbulb so that was great.

But there was one caveat that I couldn’t get around. I could not figure out a means to provide power and still have the entire apparatus self-contained. So I came up with (what I though was anyway!!!) a brilliant idea. Most modern military aircraft are set up to use an APU or ground auxilliary power unit at some point. So I found a grownd crew kit (By Hasegawa I think) that had just this very piece of equipment. I was able to use the actual cables from this little guy and attached their ends to a miniature phono plug - much like the type on the end of your walkman’s headphones.

From here I still had to get power into the APU so it could be transferred to the plane as well. This was solved by drilling a small hole in the side of the APU and inserting a plug for a 110v power supply that gives 9v DC at 100mA. Perfect for what I needed.

The lightsheet uses a miniature transformer to step up the voltave to the several thousand volts needed to start the fluorecence in the sheet itself. This transformer is REALLY tiny, probably less than 3/4 of an inch square. It fit beautifully behind the cockpit just in fromnt of the forward wall of the bomb bay and also served a double purpose of nose weight for this model.

The LEDs were all selected (red, yellow, green, and blue) and soldered to a small blank circut board. Then, each was covered with a tiny bit of heat shrink tubing to a height about 1/2 inch above each bulb. the fibers from the cockpit were then directed to each corresponding light and held in place with a small but of CA (superglue).

The beauty of the way this all worked out is that you can choose to display the model without lights and the extra ground equipment, or you can add it if you choose. Since the connector between the APU and the aircraft can be separated as desired. You can also unplug the power jack from the backside of the APU and still use it without power.

I still wish I could find a way to get a good solid and super bright light source to the three landing struts for each of their lights. Perhaps surface mount LED technology will allow this now. It was after all over six years ago I started the plane you see above.

Bri~

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Good problem solving there Bri. That was a great idea to route the power supply that way.

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A few photos of the APU unit attached to the main model:

Where the wall adapter plugs into the APU model:

A shot showing the connection in the right main gear well:

Close-up of the connection jack between APU and plane:

10

awesome.

joe

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Very nice work, amazing.

12

That is amazing work, Brian!

Thanks for posting…

Regards, Dan

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Thanks for the kind words guys. I only hope I can finally get the next project to work out closer to what I had in mind. This first attempt was a great learning experience though. I wonder if I could do a brief write up for FSM if I’m able to photo-document the build this next go around. Anyone know what the submission and photo guidelines would be to do this sort of thing?

Anyway, as good as it may (or may not) have been I’m still desperate to find advice from others much more experienced than I am in regards to finishing the new kit off exactly right!

Bri~

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Based on your work on the F-117, I’d love to see a build-up article in FSM on doing that sort of thing.

I especially like how the MFDs look blank when the lights are off and have data on them when the lights are on! You completely achieved the effect you were going for.

Thanks for sharing! Now I wonder if that can be done with a Hornet cockpit in 1/72. [;)]

Regards,

15

Outstanding, Brian!!!

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The screens were pretty fun to get worked out - though they weren’t quite as clean as I would have hoped. Anyway, their basic construction was as follows:

The stock dash from the Tamiya kit is really pretty good and I found I liked it more than the photo etched set from Eduard. The first thing was to open up the screens themselves. This was simple enough with a micro dril and a sharp #11 exacto blade. From there I needed to figure out a means to create the screens and mount them to the kit part.

To mount the screens I figured I’d need a clear, thin surface. Sheet styrene was all too thick (at least what was available athe the LHS). So a trip to the theatre lighting and effects store downtown was called for. I returned home with a small sample book of theatre gels used to color stage lights. The book is small but provides samples (about 3/4 X 3 inches each) of probably hundreds of different colors and effects gels. What I came up with next was using the stock instrument decals from the Tamiya kit and cutting out each screen. Then each screen was cut from a crystal clear gel and the decals were mounted to this. To achieve the look of the greyed out screens when they were switched off, I used a transparent but slightly smoked brownish-grey gel over the decals, then over top of this went a lightly frosted gel. To finish off, each screen got a new “collar” from the PE parts.

With three miniature screens ready to go, I filed down the original buttons on the face of the Tamiya part to give me a smooth surface to glue the screens to. Once the screens were attached, the rest of the part was mounted and the lights were installed behind.

click for larger image

I hope to refine this technique on the future kit. The biggest thing that bothered me about using the decals is that when they are illuminated, the back isn’t really black. Perhapd layering two or three decals on top of each other might accomplish this for me. Does anyone happen to know if you can order extra decal sheets from Tamiya directly? Do any of you happen to have an extra Tamiya F-117A decal sheet laying around and nothing to do with it? :smiley:

I thought I’d also show what I did to try and simulate the rotating beacons. The diagram below shows the basic construct of the system I came up with. Each of the LEDs was glued to the acrylic rod with a bit of clear epoxy. I painted the outside of everything silver to try and capture as much of the light as possible and reflect it up and out the top ‘button’ on the end of the rod. The LEDs were wired together in parallel and together with a resistor are powered by a 9V power source.


Brian~

17

wow, absolutely amazing. I wish I had the patience to do something like that :slight_smile:

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Hi:

What are exactly the “theatre gels” you used for the screens?

I’m already building an 1/72 DC-6 with FO for the cockpit , leds for the landing lights and tail beacon, and four motors for the engines.

Amazing work!!

Jose

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Jose, the “gels” (also sometimes referred to as “Gams”) are the transparent cellulose plastic used to color stage and theatre lights. If you’ve ever been to a highschool play or rock concert, you’ve probably seen those paper-thin squares of plastic held in front of the lights by a thin frame. You should be able to find some at just about any local theatre/lighting shop. You may even want to check with a local rock guitar shop if they also carry lights. What I got was a sample book that has all the colors in one small little package. That way you can pick and choose which colors/effects will work the best for your application.

The books only measure roughly 1X3 inches, so each sample is pretty small - but it still was WAY more than enough for my first project…even with several mistakes.

Bri~

P.S. Wanted to add that there are a LOT of other things one can add to a model besides the standard aftermarked kits which you don’t see everyday - such as lighting. With the way technology is advancing, the light sources are getting smaller, burning cooler, lasting MUCH longer and can be mounted just about anywhere. Add to the list all the effects you can create with things like these theatre gels and you can do some AMAZING things! Give it a shot - you may be supprized just how easy it is to do. [8D]

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'scuse me while I pick my jaw off the floor - wonderful work and highly informative