I was wondering if anyone here has die cast model airline planes on their layouts?
I do. In fact as a kid my interest in transportation WAS all airplanes. Instead of railfanning (which in Puerto Rico you could not do) I was "plane spotting’ lol.
Now I want to fit my hundreds of die cast planes into my town that I am making lol…and these planes do deserve to be in it, I mean Ive had some that have served my imagination honorably for almost 30 years! Specially Schabak and Matchbox ones, but also Dyna Flites.
what I am looking for is a DC3 in HO scale preferably plastic as I will hang it over my layout with 10 lb test Monofilament fishing line. N scale would probably do as a forced perspective view.
Make yourself a large airport with hangers. You also could make a very clear plastic support at an angle under a plane on the runway suggesting take off. or reverse the angle for landing. Sure wish I had room for a airport but I do not. [:(]
Odds are, your collection consists of model aircraft in a number of different scales. If you model in HO, the ones scaled smaller than 1:87 are useable. If you’re into N scale, the rather smaller that scale out 1:160 or less are your default position.
Either way, you should sort them by scale. Use the larger scale models close to your trains (e.g., 1:96 for HO) and the smaller scale models farther away and raised closer to eye level. This is known as forced perspective.
As a former aircraft maintainer I can understand why you want to incorporate aircraft into your model railroad efforts - but, in truth, the two are a poor fit. In addition to the scale issue I raised, there’s the detail that most facilities that serve aircraft don’t have rail service, or don’t have rail.service in close proximity to the tin birds. The exceptions are major city hubs served by rapid transit (NOT freight or Amtrak) lines. Also, a credible model of even a small commercial airport is BIG! That’s a lot of space to devote to non-rail activity.
Of course, if you’re building in a supermarket, or a 1:1 scale hangar, you would have the space…
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - sans airports)
Sounds interesting, but how will you go about installing DCC and Sound in them? Who makes a sound chip for an airplane? And just think of all of the decoders you will need to purchase!!!
Sounds as though you have your work cut out for yourself…;-]
Not only DCC and sound, but what about track? Its going to HAVE to be handlaid, but thats not NEAR as hard as making it invisible. The best way to achieve that I have found is forced perspective.
A DC-3 is 64 feet long and has a wingspan of 95 feet. A Boeing 737-400 is almost 120 feet long with a wingspan of 95 feet.
That’s going to be an awfully big model if it’s HO scale. Die cast in metal, it would be quite heavy as well. Even in N-scale, a few commercial aircraft are going to dominate your scenery if they are close to scale.
Remember when we were kids? We could make every kind of sound imaginable. Instead of “woooooooo woooo”, he’ll be making that "raaaaooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwww (for prop planes), and “kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwww” (for jets). Or he COULD go by the airport and record some sounds.
In addition to the military C-47, Walthers made an HO DC-3 in a few commercial paint schemes (decals). These kits came with an extra body side so you could convert it to a C-47 if you wanted to.
Unfortunately these DC-3s can be hard to come by. The C-47 is not as difficult to find as the commercial DC-3 models, but they are not readily available either. eBay is your best bet.
I got a DC-3 when they came out several years ago. Pacific Southwest.
It hung over our layout until an earthquake shook it too much and broke a string. It crashed onto the layout suffering some damage.
I’ve been looking to find another Pacific Southwest version for a while now. Have seen others (Delta, American, etc…) but Pacific Southwest is hard to find.
Here’s what it looks like (you can see some of the damage she suffered):
The UP (former C&NW) New LIne skirts O’Hare Airport, and what can be seen from the tracks includes an entry gate, and maybe a few light towers, but the hangers and loading areas are way, way, off in the distance. Most of what you see is flat, dull green prairie.
An airport costs too much in space for the amount of scenic or operational interest it generates. And I can’t even see how you can make the not-to-scale aircraft hanging from the ceiling look realistic, particularly in the limited spaces we have available for backdrops and airspace above the layout.
As a airliner enthusist also, I would like to point out that Revel re-released an old Monogarm kit of the DC-3 just a few years ago in PSA colors. It’s listed as 1/90th but scales very close to the Walters kit. It also is consided to be one of best proportioned models of 3 ever produced.
If you have a group of older aircraft of similar scale, you could have an air museum. As long as it was near an edge of the layout, only the parking area for the planes need be modeled. Choose a distance from the front to properly place the size.
Some folks use rr museums to display out of date locos. Antique auto shows are a good place to show off shiney classic vehicles.
One module at a nearby club has a runway and hangers behind the double track mainline with a few airplanes and a hanger. IIRC it is a 2 module corner section. The kids at the train shows don’t mind at all that the runway is not to length.
I can think of 4 towns along the Wasatch Front that have industrial zones adjoining the hangers of an airport with some rail service in each. I’ve landed over the top of trains many a time. Selective compression can be your friend in this case. And what about the recent thread of the Beech Bonanza on a flat car?
Remember that it is your layout and airplanes are your passion. [Y] [Y] Go for it and enjoy your hobby.
Just for info - Miniatur Wunderland will be opening their newest addition to the layout - an airport - in early May this year.
Here you can find a video about the finishing touches being done right now. It is in German, but you will get a good estimate of the sheer size of the planes!
One member of our HO module club has an Aviation Museum on his layout with mostly WWII planes on display. The scales seem somewhat smaller than HO, but they look fine. I have a DC-3 that is very close to HO scale, it was an inexpensive “shake the box” type of kit I found at a hobby shop. It is on loan to the aviation museum, I’ll get some pictures later.
As for prototype, there is a rail line that runs past the Norfolk (Virginia) International airport. This is an ex-PRR line that ran from the carfloat at Little Creek to junctions with the VGN and N&W. It runs just across the street from the control tower and the private hangers. One of these hangers holds Norfolk Southern’s executive jets, and the NS logo is on it!
Of course all of this talk of aircraft has dredged up the “real” holy grail of Trains/AC. Lakehurst NAS, New Jersey. Anyone feel like scaling out a Naval Airship?
