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Models Crash and Burn


ewahl

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Ladyfingers, cherry bombs, M80's, cap gun powder strips, BB guns, and higher calibre rounds have all been used to finish off a model at the end of its service/entertainment life. I did my share of this mayhem in my youth. Here are some pictures from my high school years the late 1950's; the best of many more that I never liked after seeing the prints. Oddly enough, all five of these shots were taken at night with my plastic Kodak Brownie Bulls-Eye fixed focus camera.

 

The fire scenes were taken on a sand pile with gasoline from the lawnmower can as the accelerant. The camera had a slow shutter speed, so small flames actually look huge and raging in a mini-time exposure. All light was provided by the fires.

 

The snow scenes were taken in my back yard after a fresh, deep snowfall. The snow was still in powder state. I used a flashbulb for these two shots. I reached out as far as I could to create sliding trails behind the aircraft and then made certain I did not get a footprint or handprint in the pictures.

 

You have to love Jimmy Stewart's crash landing in the arctic snow in a B-36 in Strategic Air Command, which was the inspiration for this picture. Looking at the picture differently, the snow trails could be taken for high altitude vapor trails (if the props were turning, that is). This is the box scale Revell Convair B-36 Peacemaker; the swivel mount ball is still under the fuselage.

OldPhoto21.jpg

 

This is the Revell Consolidated B-24J Liberator in box scale having buried its nose in the snow after a belly landing on the snow.

OldPhoto22.jpg

 

Here's the same model of the Revell Consolidated B-24J Liberator in a fiery crash in the desert somewhere in Africa. It must have been salvaged after the snow crash and sent to Libya.

OldPhoto20.jpg

 

I got a lot of photo mileage out of this Revell Consolidated B-24J Liberator model.

OldPhoto23.jpg

 

This Lockheed vertical takeoff and landing aircraft was tragically lost in the making of this photo. The gasoline got out of control and the fire became too hot. With the model starting to melt, I took the picture rather than reach my hand in there to salvage a model that was beyond repair anyway. It turned out to be an interesting picture.

OldPhoto24.jpg

 

Footnote: The B-24J and the B-36 are still in my showcase undamaged by all this abuse.

 

Coming soon: Models Go to War

 

Ed

 

 

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Wow, these are awesome! I always hate to hear about models destroyed by all those previously mentioned WMDs ('Weapons of Model Destruction': i.e. Ladyfingers, cherry bombs, M80's, cap gun powder strips, BB guns, etc.) and none of my models ever suffered that fate. I'm glad to hear that the two bombers are still in 'service' and I am anxiously awaiting the next series of pics!

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OH THE HUMANITY! :smiley19: All that's missing is the smell of burning plastic an the wispy remains of that burnt styrene floating into the air on the flames!

 

Lot's of us have done the above, but none of us were brave enough to record it on film. Our dad's would've beaten our butts for palying with fire....... :smiley12: Thanks for the memories!

 

GIL :smiley16:

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  • 10 months later...

I had a Lindberg LST that sat in my garage for years. It met the fate of the large firecrackers and sunk in our little pond. I did salvage the small motor out of it first, though.

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Ahh the memories of those days. Looking back it was one of the best times in my life. I would not even think about it now, but back then it was great fun. :blush:

 

Chris

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While none of my old kits suffered fire or explosives, I did destroy my 72nd armor with a BB gun back in my early teens and graduated to a .22 for several other models later on (only one I remember is a modern carrier (probably Revell or Monogram but not the Big E) that I actually floated just off the Missouri River and sank with my first shot. OK, not sure if I actually hit it or just swamped it with a close in shot but it was gone.

 

Still, I lost more kits to the Movers than to weapons fire. Had a whole box of build ups that didn't show up at one of the new bases (don't remember which move, there were a few). Most of the kits were the Monogram Tom Daniel's cars which I did in the early 70's. Was so happy to see some of them being rereleased recently.

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  • 3 years later...

I set afire an Iowa class battleship in a 'crick' one day (in my rock & dribbled sand harbor.) A Revell kit as I recall. It burned rather realistically (at least in my memory) down to the waterline and then "ploop!", sank & extinguished in an instant. Wonderfully thick black smoke, styrene makes, hmmm! Better even than the balsa flyer, one wing alight flying along under rubber power until it careened into the ground. Fortunately, my firebug tendencies proved weak & faded away... kids today don't know what they're missing!

 

R/

Robert

Edited by rbeach84
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  • 8 years later...

Ahh, those great days!  When I was around ten years old, I’d stab with a red hot fork my damaged and/or out-of-favor airplane models with it to simulate bullet holes gotten during imaginary fire fights!  I would then light them on fire and tragically crashed them to the ground!  Gosh styrene plastic made a nice fire. 🔥

Edited by JCARO
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