Tribute to a ...*cough*crap*cough*....movie..

[Capn Wannabe]

On those all too rare occasions I have time to spare, I like to partake in the hobby of sniffing copius amounts of glue and paint fumes, otherwise known as scale modelling.

 

This is the Minicraft 1/48 Cessna 150, modeled as N9828J, as seen in that ultimate of aviation classics, Iron Eagle. The first one. With the F-16s and stuff.

 

First thing I did was to reshape the seats - they look bloody awful out of the box, a bit to big and thick for my liking. I sanded off the raised area around the edge of the seat, which thinned them nicely, cut the middle of the seat back to make them look like two separate seats (they're moulded together in the kit), and cut the backs down to 10mm high - think I took around 2-3mm off them. Finally, I shaped the corners on the top of the seat backs. I reckon they look about 97.6% better now, and probably a bit more to scale.

 

 

All the C150/152s I've flown have had carpeted floors, which is definitely not represented on the kit. After some head-scratching, I found a roll of self-adhesive medical tape in my box of tricks. This stuff is very thin, and very sticky. Laying a piece over the floor, I teased into the nooks and crannies with a toothpick, then cut off the excess. A bit hard to tell from the photos, but there's a definite texture on the floor now, which should come up alright under a coat of paint.

 

 

And the two of them together..

 

 

Painted the cockpit floor and really happy with the result. I think the medical tape worked very well..

 

 

After mucking about with the front seats, I figured ol' Dougie Masters deserved leather upholstery for being forced to be in such a godawful movie (I firmly believe that he had his character killed off on purpose in the sequel..). With that in mind, a google search turned up some nice patterns, so I set about painting the seats to match..

 

 

I got a bit of bleed under the masking on the RH seat, so I'll cover that with a map, or seatbelts, or something..

 

The kit comes with a rear bench seat - something I've never seen in person, but found plenty of pics on the interwebs - so they got the same treatment. Dunno if I'll put them in or not, though..

 

 

Once the paint's properly dry, I'll tone it down with a semi-gloss clear coat..

 

IP with bonus overscale throttle and mixture controls..

 

 

First attempt at seatbelts....a little too big - gonna have to shrink 'em down some..

 

 

 

[Mick]

That's great, I have nothing but respect for you guys who do such good work with things in such a small scale. I find this sort of thing awkward enough in 1/5 or 1/4 scale as I do my RC models, let alone at this size.

 

 

[rankamateur]

I wouldn't be able to see if I had done good or not, I have to work at 1/1 scale!

 

 

[metalman]

Loved building models as a kid , I've got a few in storage for when I have time , nice work on the Cessna

 

Matty

 

 

[Guernsey]

Love that model Cessna however, I have a model which has three wings, twin tail booms with three vertical fins, one on each boom and another mounted mid way between on the adjoining tailplanes, it also has three engines like a DH Drover.

 

I thing your model is superb however a good friend of mine who is a newspaper journalist stated that my Cessna was better. .

 

Alan.

 

 

[seb7701]

Fantastic detail and cool plane choice!

 

Have to admit, just finished subjecting my kids to Iron Eagles 1 thru 4. One was still the best and still love seeing that C150 doing that tail slide-type thingy in the canyon!! Best thing since the Freedom Jet in Octopussy!!!!

 

 

[shags_j]

God that movie brings back memories. We watched that heaps when we were teens training in Tomahawks (Tomahawk doing a barrel roll = cool!).

 

Love the work so far and looking forward to seeing the finished product.