This is the venerable Revell (ex-Monogram) kit, still holding up quite well after all these years, and with surprisingly clean moldings for as many times as it has been re-released. This particular version contained kit markings for a USNR SNJ-5 based at NAS Glenview—located in the suburban Chicago area—in 1956. Since I was born that year…and since for many years I lived fewer than 5 miles from Glenview (and had the chance to watch a lot of interesting a/c zipping overhead)…this markings option was the only possible choice.
Kit was built OOB with only tissue harnesses and EZ-Line rigging added. I also added RR lettering decals—sliced to look like stencils—to the seat cushions; oddly, these are shown in the kit instructions, but not provided on the decal sheet…which I seem to recall being the same as in the very first one of these I built back in the '60s or '70s!
Super job. Glenview Navel Air Station is just North of Chicago and has been closed for some time now. There used to be an A-4 Skyhawk that was damaged on a landing sitting at one end of one of the runways as a reminder to pilots. An F-16 had a flameout over Chicago a number of years back and the pilot made a dead stick landing at Glenview. The recording of the radio communications may be on the internet.
Again the T-6 or SNJ is a beauty and that is a great paint scheme.
Cool! A fun old kit, you did it justice! I kinda modified mine like it would be if I actually owned one. LOL. I actually got to fly our Navy model (only silver) as a potential recruit for a Naval Aviator. Fun memories and again, good job. I hate to admit it but yours looks better than mine but only slightly, lol.
I lived in Northbrook in the mid-'60s and went to school with a good number of kids whose fathers were stationed at Glenview. Best of all, my older brother had a best friend whose father was a Lt.Cdr at the NAS; every once and a while we’d get to go over on Saturday mornings and watch the pilots doing touch-and-goes.
I knew the station had been closed down some years back; apparently they were able to preserve the tower as a museum. Would love to see it one of these days.
Thanks. Paints are Tamiya acrylics, my own ‘chrome yellow’ mix of plain flat yellow with a drop or two of red thrown in until it’s just short of actual orange. Mostly use it for ‘between the wars’ a/c; I think this is actually the first trainer I’ve done up in the color.
This is inspirational to me. I think this is the example I will use for my Monogram Dauntless. Just a good, clean, and beautiful build 99% out of the box!
Too kind, Mike. In fact I should probably have ‘scuffed it up’ a bit more—these were post-WW2, post-Korea hand-me-down reserve aircraft, after all—but I told myself the bored reservist groundcrews would have had little to do other than keeping everything in sparkling condition. [;)] (Actually, period photos do show them pretty well cared for.)
Anyway, on a lot of these nostalgic (for me) old Monogram builds—especially the nice kits like this—I enjoy building mostly OOB. It does bring back memories of cruder but more carefree earlier builds, back in the day.
On a side note - sort of - I just can’t figure out how you and others keep the clear parts of the canopy so absolutely devoid of smudges etc. I guess I’m a bull in a china shop when it comes to handling clear parts - I just don’t seem to be able to finish an aircraft kit without some “dirtying” of the canopy lites of glass/plexiglass.
Um, yeah, those clear parts can be a bear. I just keep wiping off my fingerprints with a cotton bud and some clean water. But none of mine are perfect either. Hard to do when half of my builds needed fillers around the glass. I have nver had any luck clear coating them before I work on them either. That always leads to more complications for me.
Like Mike Brindos, I’ve gotten in the habit of Q-Tipping regularly, inside and out. The other thing I’ve started doing just recently is giving the interior a good ‘blow-out’ with the airbrush—just air—to get rid of any loose shavings or sanding dust before sealing the canopy part(s) on for good. Really cuts down on all those tiny annoyances that love to appear out of nowhere to grab onto the static cling of canopy interiors!
