Something totally out of my comfort zone, an airplane kit

[Mike C]

It's a nice resin kit of a DeHavalind Comet. I've been working on it on and off for the last few months. Here's the box are at what I've done so far. I just painted the canopy yesterday, it was tedious masking it.

[Ace-Garageguy]

Nice work. One of the coolest planes ever. Looks like a good kit too.   

[slusher]

Sometimes it’s good to get out of our comfort zone!

[LDO]

Such a beautiful plane

[Wickersham Humble]

Very pretty; impressive factory hot-rod!  I first imaged on the Comet 1 of my youth; the cursed airliner that was also beautiful!  I hadn't built an a/c kit since the late 'fifties, and bec the IPMS shows are so a/c loaded, decided to try my hand again.  Two Brewster Bullaloes, one RAF SEAsia (doomed, of course, vs. Zero!) and one an interpretation of the unbuilt Buff racer from 1938.  Then I did the two conversions from prop-pusher to jet: Kyushu Shinden and Curtiss Ascender; both swept-wing fighters evolving in parallel by Japan and US.  I made them into a diorama, just to make things extra-complicated (&/or complex) but I'm almost eighty, and a lot of tech and goodies have passed me by since 1958; the IPMS a/c builders aren't assailable, I find!  But it was fun, and when I get it repaired (accident in packing box coming home in the Camry's trunk -- vibration, I guess) and the landing gear axles repaired, I'll take some pics and post them.  I can't see so well, nor hang on to small parts -- even with a loup and tweezers, man -- and it's not perfect.  However, I put in some historical kinks that made it interesting.  However, I think I'm really done with a/c for the above reasons and more: the tiny, fiddley parts -- especially those cockpits, even with PE stuff! -- defeat me.  And a/c judges look for open cockpits, too.  Kustom Kars and drag machines continue to be my comfort zone; also 'thirties phantom cars like dual Cad V-16 Bonneville racers and Harry Miller street roadsters!  Wick

[Tyreman]

On 1/19/2025 at 11:34 PM, slusher said:

Sometimes it’s good to get out of our comfort zone!

How we learn and not get stuck in a rut.

[Tyreman]

On 1/18/2025 at 5:30 PM, Mike C said:

It's a nice resin kit of a DeHavalind Comet. I've been working on it on and off for the last few months. Here's the box are at what I've done so far. I just painted the canopy yesterday, it was tedious masking it.

Great! and enjoy the build.

[Wickersham Humble]

I'm young enough to recall the tragedies of the early D-H Comet jetliners; very sad, esp for a school kid who had great hopes for jet passenger planes, I remember.  So close to the Neville Shute (Norway) story 'No Highway in the Sky' later made into a flick with Jimmy Stewart and Marlene Dietrich about 1948.  Found out that the nose section of the equally pretty French Sud-Ouest 'Caravelle' jetliner was adapted from the Comet!  

I never flew on either, but did have a 1959 trip from El Paso TX to Denver CO on a Continental Air Lines Vicker's 'Viscount' turbo-prop liner; very nice, smooth flight.  Esp compared to our connecting hop to Reno NV in a United DC-6, which smelled of AvGas, and got me airsick!  Neither were an adventure, but our flight outbound from Reno to Pheonix AZ was on a Bonanza Airlines DC-3, which was memorable just for the 1930's era ambiance!  The altitude changes gave my little bro a bad ear-ache, which he tried to alleviate by chewing all the complementary gum the stewardess would give up!  He wouldn't buy my idea that it was to stuff in his ears -- knew big bro too well by then!  Those were the days... !  Wick