AMAZING! I really like the red.
Gentlemen, thanks for all the kind remarks. I thoroughly enjoy model building, as we all do, and this was truely a “Labor of Love” since I was married to the SR-71 program for 12 years. My wife comments that I spent more time with my “mistress” than I did with her and it was true.
The landing gear struts were brush painted with Model Masters Titanium Metalizer. This is a very accurate color for the largest titanium casting ever made. The oleo strut was done with chrome silver, the tires with aluminum for the sidewalls and magnesium metalizer for the worn tread area.
I have built SR-71’s and YF-12A’s from the old, original Revell kits, from the Monogram (now Revell) kits, from the Academy kits and from the Testors Italeri kits. The Testors is the most accurate by quite a margin. The only two issues I have with this kit are that the camera windows are in the middle of the bays instead of the aft end and the nose landing gear wheels are too far apart. A minor issue is that the main landing gear tires are flat on the surface and should be more rounded. I need to go sniff some more glue.
Darwin, O.F. [alien]
Excellent work Darwin!
Ray
Hey Darwin,
Very nice job! Is that straight blacK? You’ve managed somehow to not make it look toy-like; nor is it monotonous. Your very subtle panel lines are apropriate for this plane.
Thanks for posting. Take care,
Mark
Stunning,amazing,georgeous,great!!!
You did the work,a Blackbird wants!
These are your 12 years of life and memories on a model…
You have to be proud my friend!
Just curious, did this hybrid still have the fold-down fin under the rear fuselage ala YF-12A ?
markworthi The base color is straight Model Master flat black. The chine bay panels, nose cone and wing leading & trailing edges were made of composite material on the full scale bird and the paint on these panels faded faster than that on the titanium panels for some reason. I wanted to have these panels a little lighter on the model. I rubbed the wet tip of the Prisma Color pencil on my finger tip and rubbed this on the panels cross wise of the fuselage to get a streaking effect. It was easy to wipe off any excess with water so as to get the light shading I was after. The same with the panel lines. I wanted just a slight difference, so put the silver pencil/paste on and wipe it off until it was the density I wanted. The clear gloss and clear flat ahead of and after the decals washed out this silver effect quite a bit.
seevee One of the YF-12A interceptors lost that fold over fin during a flight about half way through the program and it did not adversely affect the handling of the aircraft. The USAF and NASA soon removed the fin from the other two also, so by the time 934 morphed into an SR-71, it did not have the fin anymore. The A-12 trainer, all three YF-12’s and the two SR-71B models all had the smaller, non-moveable fin under the engine nacelles and these remained on the C model.
Darwin, O.F. [alien]
Great looking bird… one of the coolest planes ever!!
Great job!!!
Very impressive build, Darwin, and thanks for the history lesson. I did not realize so few Blackbirds were built.
Mark
Very impressive!!!
Really nice build.
And what a flashy red!!
Cheers,
Jürgen
She’s a beauty yardbird…I didn’t realize the blackbird had so many red details…
Nice effort,
Tank
Darwin,
Sweet !
Chris
A very nice job on the sleek bird…
Simply outstanding work Darwin, I really like the gear d\etail.
dragonfly
Very nice job, Darwin! The red really makes it stand out!