Clunkmeister

Har har har. Quite true, but still funny.

The only reason we don’t have them here is the refusal of the FAA to grant them a Type Certificate. Pressure from Boeing, Sikorsky, and Bell over potential lost sales is the only reason the FAA won’t do it. They say “safety”, but they’re easily as safe and reliable as the best we have. Same with Russian fixed wing. No Type Certificate? No commercial flying. AN-2 would be at home in the Canadian Arctic, but Bombardier, Boeing, Cessna, and others would lose to a better design. An-124 or IL-76? Safe enough to continuously fly about our Country transporting all sorts of oversized and bulky loads, take our Armies to the Middle East and back, transport ICBMs and civilian booster rockets and commercial airliner components, as long as it they’re owned and operated by Ukrainian or Russian Companies, but somehow they’re not safe enough to be certified in North America. As an aviator it bothers me as I always wanted to have the best equipment for the job, regardless of who made it. Sorry for the rant.

Low and slow is not where you want to be in any aircraft during an engine failure.

Mi-17s a proven design over many decades. You’re only as good as the engines. Most widely used helicopter in the world apparently. In every part of the world.

No asoviet T-55s please, unless they have holes in them.

Think out of box. like 1/700 scale Dr.1 for you next tribute, oops, I mean secret box.

Noice. The price being a Rutman P-51 and a 1/48 HPH B-52?

But wait, there’s more. Martin has original La-7 blueprints from his time in the Kremlin, and was able to perform minor miracle on La-7 fuselage specifications. To make perfect La-7.

Mug-25 RBT... with resin nose correction and a pair of resin KM1s.... The ball is now in my court...

My sin is the sin of sloth.....

Yep, so sayers Comrade Hlavić.....lmao! All I did was give your name a little Serbian flavour. For excitement. Especially that now every single package I send is torn open and inspected by electron microscope, phase spectrometer, and state of the art colonoscope. (I dated crazy but beautiful Serb lady for years, so I speak with partial authority). She was moon howling crazy.

My friend Martin is a really decent guy. My friend Martin thinks he is a comedian. My heritage is obviously in play here And a direct frontal assault on my sanity. The box is completely wrapped in several layers of packing tape, under which is three layers of fairy/unicorn colored tissue paper. OK, I laughed like a toddler

NO LIKES FOR YOU!!!

I never borked once. Didn’t do the technicolor yawn either. Nor did I talk to Ralph on the big white telephone. I much prefer contributing to the delinquency of others.

Ain’t that the truth. Everything he builds seems to come out the other end with a Soviet flavor. That’s what makes him so ‘special’. Hehehe

Yup. After Phoenix, you’ll never shake us now!

Just a no pressure reason to build......anything you want.

A “contest bound” GB would be a neat theme. I think most everyone here is an accomplished modeler and competes on some level, so yeah, that would be interesting.

Thanks William, it’s an adventure. Now with Dave Crosby and Martin both on the B/C warpath, hope springs eternal one of them will give us a clear map to a homemade version.

All I can say is that this kit is dead on accurate in profile. It’s stunning how a huge company like Trumpeter could get it so incredibly wrong. Plus, the cockpit interior of this model just blows me away. There’s little I’ll change except add some placards, wiring, and levers and buttons

Jerry Rutman himself mentioned how the seat was one of those things that needed changing that never got done. Understandable.

Insane! I’m going to fold the wings on mine. Other than that, John, I’d be happy if mine turns out half as nice as yours.

Not much bench time this weekend after the Honeydew list got handled, but that’s what being a good husband does: be there for the pretty half of this family. After the stuff gets done, I find myself working away on the fuselage, picking the best way to go. I’d like to make some common sense upgrades to Jerry’s original interior, but not too much. I’m looking at the Eduard and Aires interior offerings, and, to be quite honest, there isn’t much gain to be made other than locations of some interior items. Organized confusion here. The pilot seat has me scratching my head. The kit seat seems way overscale, like it was built for my arese, not a 22 year old kid. Kit seat on left, Aires in the middle, aftermarket D seat on right.

Awesome build. I fought mine the entire way. Congrats!

I remember those being built, Peter. Still stunning and they take my breath away yet today.