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steven a weinmann
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SPECIAL HOBBY V-173 Flying Pancake 148th

April 6, 2014 · in Aviation · · 15 · 3.1K

the V-173 was designed to test the charactoristics of short take off and landings (STOL) for the U S Navy there was only one built and it resides in the national air and space museum sorry some the pictures are a little blury, having some camera issue

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4  Awesome

7 additional images. Click to enlarge.


15 responses

  1. said on April 6, 2014

    Nice build Steven! Someday I'll get off my backside and build mine. The V-173 currently resides at the Frontiers of Flight Museum @ Love Field just a hair outside of Dallas, TX. Had the chance to take a look at her earlier this year. Fascinating little "plane."
    Have a great day.
    Mark

    • thanks Mark FYI the cockpit assembly is too large for the disc halves, so some serious sanding and test fitting is required Its really not a bad kit though nice detail interesting subject

      • Yes, it takes a considerable amount of test fitting, sanding, and work with a Dremel tool to make the cockpit assembly fit between the disk halves. The assembly is way out of scale - much too large. This becomes obvious when you compare it with the cockpit in Kitty Hawk's XF5U-1 kit.

  2. One of my all time favorite weird aircraft and someday I'll build one I hope it comes out as nice as you're.

  3. First model of this type I've seen & it looks really good. Nice work! I wonder if anyone does a model of the intended service version in 1/48? I've seen a scratch built model on the web which looked great but no kits in this scale.

    • I thought I saw a 1/48th from planet models, but I cant find it now It may have been 32nd anyway thanks for the comments

    • There have been a couple of resin kits, one the Planet kit Steven mentions, one a German kit, which I made the mistake of buying. Having seen the Planet kit my advice is wait and see if third time is the charm.

  4. Nice clean build of an unusual subject.

  5. I love what you did to the props. I'm currently working on the Sword version. Just about have mine done but I'm in a quandary about the props. Any tips?

    • thanks Josh, mostly luck with the props, but what I did was I used Model master wood for the base coat, let dry than used model master military brown thinned down for airbrushing. With a wide flat brush drag it down and let it almost dry than with the same brush empty from paint drag it down the props with really light pressure until you get the wood grain texture you want. Hope that helps thanks for the comments Looking forward to seeing yours complete

  6. Steven,
    Magnificent job on this wired little beauty. I love it.

  7. I saw this in person out at Chino last Saturday. Give the photos the benefit of the doubt, because it's a really terrific model. One of Steven's best.

  8. Great looking model, Steven, but too weird for me!

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