ATF models

This time I took the pictures far enough away to hide many of the flaws.

WOW
Great Job.
They are not perfect but any serious ATF fan would die to have such a collection.

How long does it take you to make one? I did a model of a project of mine in the scale of 1/72 for a week perhaps. I am not showing any pics publiclythough.

Are they all in scale?

regards
lantinian

I tried to make them to scale but the MDD and and the FSW models are WAGS. I only know that I recall the MDD model described as the heaviest entry and the Republic model as moderately sized compared to most ATF entries. How long to make them? Weeks. It was all in bits and spurts. Each model done had at least one attempt trashed. I just cannot see things like some modelers can. My most limiting factors are age and lack of patience. Not good for modeling. But, I think they may make some serious modelers aware of how precious their talents are. I, for one, get great pleasure out of seeing professionally done models, art and the kind of posts that Secret Projects members consistently contribute. Thanks to all of you for a great deal of joy for me.

Great models The McD one looks like the drawings I've seen, the GD one looks like a model prior to their final and the FSW "WAG" would probably be Grummans as I'm pretty sure Republic didn't have an entry.

Are you happy when you look at them? Then nothing else matters!

An impressive effort- scratchbuilding is a totally different set of skills that few have! Thanks for sharing.

Awesome collection! What material did you used to build those models ? Styren, plastic ? Cardboard ?

Impressive work
AND
I just agree with Mr Chicken statement

Are you happy when you look at them? Then nothing else matters!

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Excellent models. I'm curious to know if you had 3-views to work off of, or did you "eyeball it"? If it's not too much trouble, I, for one, would appreciate seeing the models from different angles -- there's very little information available about most of these designs, and models like this are the only way to get a better look at them, so to speak.

elider said:

I only know that I recall the MDD model described as the heaviest entry ...

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I have read that its weight was the No. 1 reason for the design being rejected, but MDD insisted that it was just being realistic about what it would take to acheive all of the ATF requirements. It's ironic that Lockheed's winning proposal turned out to be so overweight that the original design had to be scapped, and the Air Force backed off some of the requirements to help both Lockheed and Northrop save weight. Maybe MDD was vindicated.

--Gavin.

Thanks to all for your generous comments. I do indeed enjoy them, since my vision isn't all that good they look even better to me on display than in a pic.
They are made almost entirely from plastic with some balsa wood for a few large pieces. The Grumman and MDD ATFs were eyeballed. The GD ATX had plenty of eyeballing since it is different from their final proposal--which the published 3-views represented. All others were from drawings.

I made several pics from several viewpoints but only posted those I thought were good enough. I have my models in the garage and it got cold in Dayton this winter. The filler putty cracked and the paint went beserk on some. The Boeing TFX paint looks like aspen tree bark in some places. It looks like the paint exploded.

I posted these pics against my better judgment in hopes of encouraging those who have skills much the same as mine might be encouraged to show their models as well. We know you're out there folks, so start posting your models. Please!

Stop being so hard on yourself, if nothing else it is extremely impressive how well you have captured the shape and proportions of the various airframes So many 3D computer artists, who have powerful software to help them, still get these fundamentals wrong.