The Birth of Air Power

by Douglas Conrady

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Hello folks!  This is my third offering to you all.  A diorama of the moment that I believe air power came into being.

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Ok, here's the story.  While reading the book Flyboys by James Bradley, I came up with this idea for  a dio.  For all of those who haven't read the book, here's a few summarized pages out of the book. 

After WW1, there were a small few military persons who thought air power was the next best thing.  One of those being Billy Mitchell.  He fought for years trying to get the military, congress, the public to see and hear his idea of how the new airplane would revolutionize warfare.  The Army and Navy, being the military might of the time tried to stop Billy at every turn.  They, of course, wanted all the military spending money for themselves.  Besides, how could a small, feeble looking thing like a Jenny do any damage to anything but itself.  Army wanted lots of these new fangled tank things, because that was the best thing a nation could have for war.  Who or what could knock out a tank.  Navy wanted lots of battleships, because there was nothing that could sink them.  They were the largest and most heavily armored items in inventory.  Therefore, the one with the most battleships, wins.  They both wanted to keep the airplane relegated to nothing more that artillery support and observation.  Billy kept telling them his air force could stop them all.  He finally got the military to let him conduct a test.  The Navy lent him several old US battleships and 1 confiscated German battleship, the SMS Ostfriesland.  With the military watching, he conducted "raids" on the battleships.  First, there were flares dropped on the US ships.  Didn't want to damage our own equipment, ya know.  The last "raid" was to be on the Ostfriesland on July 21, 1921.  With 6 planes, each loaded out with a 2000 pound bomb, Billy set off for history.  Billy had received some training in the art of sinking ships earlier and put it to good use.  On that day, the Ostfriesland was sunk by only six lowly bi-plane bombers each carrying only 1 bomb.  I believe the Navy Admirals' words went something like this.  #$%^#%^))^(*&(&^*$%^&#%^##!!!$^%  They had just been forced to realize that they were not the most lethal thing in the world, and could indeed be sunk by this feeble, flying contraption.  They contested the results, saying Billy cheated by using bigger bombs and such, but congress decided to start investing in these airplane things and the rest is history.  One major downside to all this was, Billy Mitchell was thrown out of the military......... 

Now, with the flare of trumpets, on to the dio.......

The plane is an old 1/72 Glencoe Models Martin MB-2.  I found it on eBay, and later discovered that its been reboxed several times.  I think the only reason this model plane exists is to tell this story in plastic form.  The MB-2 was only in service for a few years before it was eclipsed by technology.  They were the best bombers at the time of Mitchell's tests.  Being an old model, I was expecting the worst.  I was surprised in some areas, and not in others.  The fuselage fit was excellent, the wings however were a different story.  There is a nice chasm between the wing halves on both the top and bottom wing.  Being a diorama, I didn't bother filling either, nobody should be looking under there.  Everything else was par for course.  I was pleasantly surprised by the rivets along the body of the plane.  The wing struts were kind of nasty, but they at least fit about right.  This is my first bi-plane, and probably my last.  About the time I started this, a bi-plane showed up on ARC with rigging between the struts and I thought to my self, "that might be kinda cool".  Well, it is cool, but getting there was not.  First I CA'ed some fishing line to the bottom wing after I glued the struts in place.  then i drilled though the top wing holes the struts were to align in.  Then as i glued the struts in, I pulled the fishing line tight and put a drop of CA on to set them in place.  What I should have done was to do everything flipped.  I should have drilled the holes in the bottom wing.  Filling in the holes on the top, where everyone could see, was not an easy task.  Its still not perfect, but I had had enough.  I painted the plane before I glued the top wing on so the inner structures would get a good coat. The color was nothing more than model masters olive drab.  Then after the upper wing and rigging were attached I repainted the whole thing to make sure it was all the right color.  I guess I must have had the mix wrong, because I didn't cover the putty filling in the holes.  I had to do those with straight paint from the bottle.  After a good gloss coating or 2 from future, I set out on the decals.  Since this model exists to tell the tale, it includes a set for marking for one of the planes that made the raid.  You get a total of 3 squadron options, that may be all we had at that time.  This is where some swearing comes in.  Apparently, my future and micro sol don't mix.  On a few decals I ended up with a white cloudy film covering the decals.  ARGH!!!!!!!!  Fortunately I had started on the bottom, for just such an emergency.  I used micro set after that and didn't have quite the problems.  After the decal debacle and another couple of coats of future, it was on to the details.  bomb, props, guns, etc.......  For some reason, the last coats of future kind of cleared the cloudiness, don't know why, but I was pleased.  The only after market product on this dio is the props.  After remembering seeing some brass in-flight props here on ARC, I went digging though the archives.  (boy, were they dusty)  I found the company and got in touch with them.  They are out of California and are called Prop-Blur.  All I have to say is BRILLIANT!!!!!!!!  Talk about perfect.  Little brass etched blades that are "moving".  Those little gems are the cherries on the top of this dio.  Look-em up, you wont regret it.  Instead of cutting off the blades from the hubs like the instructions said, I just made new hubs out of plastic rod.  I cut slits in them for the props and used plastic shavings and putty to fill in the hole.  I glued the bomb on in such a way as to look like it had just been released.  Dont know if its right or not, but it looks good to me. 

This ship is a Superior 1/1200 cast metal model of the SMS Helgoland, a sister ship.  After finding the ship in one scale and the plane in another, I decided to do a forced perspective diorama.  It's done all the time in model railroading.  Hopefully, it looks like 700 feet separating the ship from its doom.  The ship was simple.  Just the hull, six turrets, 2 cranes, and 2 masts.  That's it.  It took me longer to remove some of the stuff from the hull that wasn't there at the time of its sinking than it did to complete the model.  Not much to say about it, there was a seam running down the middle of the ship that was kinda a pain to remove, but nothing to bad.  I did lighten it up by dry brushing some white all over to try and bring out some details and create shadows.  The paint for the ship was battleship gray, how novel, right?  Just a standard gray.  I finally found some pics of the event and discovered that there were to dots on the ship.  I promptly put those on, in white, as well as paint a black "H" on the ship.  This is what the US called the SMS Ostfriesland. 

The base and wall is a diorama kit put out by Woodland Senics, I think.  They give you the base and a 3 sided, paper covered, styrofoam wall and some ideas on how to make different science projects, shadow boxes, etc.  Six bucks........ Worked like a charm.  I did a lot of test fitting to find the right angle and position of the ship and plane.  I used some pics of the actual raid to aid.  I cut the wall down to allow more light to hit things and give it more of an open feeling.  The base was a different matter.  After reading an article by Frank Ilse on how to make realistic water I thought I'd try it.  (the article is on another website, by the way)  Here's the basics.  I painted the base a sparkly, turquoise blue (from a project long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away).  Then I made an outline of the ship on a sheet of plastic and cut it out.  I then taped the outline to the base where I had planned to glue it.  Then I got some clear silicon.  I then spread the silicon all over the base including on top of the outline and put in the waves, ripples and such.  After I let the silicon set up over night, I took a sharp blade and cut along the outline of the ship.  Then I pealed it out and installed the ship with some 2 part epoxy.  This worked great because I didn't have worry about getting silicon on the ship or trying to work around the ship, making the waves look out of place.  To me, it doesn't look like the water was added after the ship.  And like the ying yang I am, I forgot to take pictures because I was so excited that it was working the way I was thinking it would.  All I did for the wall is paint it a light blue to make it a little more sky like and epoxied it in.  There was just one step left.  Once again, I brought out the epoxy and on went the MB-2.  

Viola!!!  The Birth of Air Power.

Picture 19 and 20 (the black and whites) are of the actual happenings.  Pic 19 is the raid on the Ostfriesland.  Pic 20 is a flare raid on one of the US ships that were loaned out. 

As a side note.  I was thinking about what that day did for the history of war.  What would warfare be without air power.........  And a scary thought for us, if there was no air power, no model airplanes.  What would we do with all our extra money and time......  And a thought for our noble host, Steve Bamford, what would he be doing.......... and Dan's Mon-key............ 

Thanks for looking and don't throw rotten tomatoes!

Douglas

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Photos and text © by Douglas Conrady