1/144 LS P-3 Orion
In Bermuda in the 80's I was in high school and grew up with P-3 Orions flying overhead. The Atlantic Soviet sub threat had to be monitored, so squadrons rotated through Bermuda regularly. Interesting how there isn't an NAS Bermuda any more, but a detachment of P-8 Poseidon aircraft have been based here recently.
I loved building the LS Orion Kit- had quite a few of them a few years ago. I wish I had kept the Canadian Aurora boxing with this one, but sold that along with a lot of other kits in a major cull of the stash. I have a 1/72 Hasegawa kit in the pipeline in VP-45 markings too! Love that Pelican. For this kit I made use of a spare stand that comes with the 1/200 Hasegawa C-130 kits to build it in flight.
Great build! Congratulations!
Thanks Michel!
Great build, indeed, Dan!
And I love the scheme!
Thanks again Spiros! appreciated!
I live near Lockheed's Donaldson Center in South Carolina, where they do maintenance, repair and modifications, so it's not uncommon to see a P-3 flying around low during post maintenance shake-downs. Mostly what we see is C-130s.
Hey Stephen- I was probably the only one looking up in the school yard when I would hear aircraft overhead! Sounds like I would like living where you do!
Beautiful, Dan.
It is a lovely plane and your build clearly shows that.
We had some of those in the Netherlands, unfortunately the last one was taken out of service in 2006.
Hi John, Thanks. I had collected quite a few, and wish I had kept them all! There was an Iranian boxing and a Canadian boxing amongst them- it is truly a great kit. I used leftover weapons from 1/144 kits I have been building.
A real beauty, Dan!
Thanks very much Jeff!
Nice work!
I remember the fall of 1964, when VP-1, the first squadron to equip with the P-3, lost four airplanes in three weeks during night mining exercises off Subic Bay. Each time, the airplane dropped the first of a string of flares, and then blew up! So the whole fleet got grounded. It took about 6 weeks to figure out that the flares were hanging up in the bomb bay from a faulty release mechanism design. They'd get dropped far enough to set off the fuse, but they didn't get dropped. 1,400 F will catch lots of things on fire, particularly airplanes.
Hey Tom- I appreciate the comment. Thanks for sharing that bit of P-3 history- horrible issue to have, when the plane was redesigned (from the electra) for military maritime work!
Looks great! NAS Bermuda was the victim of all those base closings in the late '80s and early '90s, plus some bad press as it being a vacation place for the military. Had a nice vacation in Bermuda in 2008.
Hey Robert, It was a great place to visit, when we could all visit places! All kidding aside, it has been neat to still see military aircraft transition through even though the base is closed. Our online news site Bernews has a running gallery of military aircraft that come through.
Neat job on this livery, Dan, I liked this one as well.
Thanks very much! I am itching to do that Canadian one now...but need to keep my stash under control- lots of partial builds still on the bench.
Another looker - well done!
Thanks Greg- always nice to hear from you!
Hello Dan,
Amazing job on this small scale.
Regards, Dirk
Thanks very much Dirk!