(moved) WW II ID model plans

[Oceaneer99]

The plans I have are reprints available from the Smithsonian Institution (specifically, the National Air and Space Museum).  Their link is:

http://www.nasm.si.edu/research/arch/collections/techdraw/navyrecog.cfm

These plans were for 1/72 scale aircraft recognition plans and were distributed by the US Navy Bureau of Aeronautics in World War II.  Thousands of school children made these models, to be shipped to Allied forces for training.  I even found an article about the plans being translated to Portuguese and used in Brazil. It would be really neat if someone could turn up one of those plans!

There are a large number of aircraft, though some were based on rough data and may not represent true aircraft.  There are, for instance, two plans for the Mitsubishi Type 98 Light Bomber, one of which was probably the Tachikawa Ki-36 Ida.  And of course, the Heinkel He 113 was really a propaganda ploy.

Comet produced a set of kits based on the plans, with minor changes made to the drawings.  They were also reproduced in a few books at the time.

I've wanted to draw a modern plan in the style of the old ID plans, and have done most of the work for a Yak-1000 this way, but I still haven't finished the drawings.  We termed this a "Neo-ID Plan" back on the MSN forum.

Garet

[Kenny Horne]

One of the finest references to the ID model program can be found at

http://www.commercemarketplace.com/home/CollectAir/Museum.html

This is Steve Remigton's site.  I'm not sure if Steve is part of the new forum or not, but he would pop his head into the old space from time to time, and always with some valuable input.  Anyway, his entire site is worthwhile reading.

Kenny

[Kenny Horne]

Another great part of this program was the instructions that were all part of it.   These models were meant to be built (as opposed to so many of the pre-war kits/plan sets that were simply meant to be sold.  It's a wonder that this hobby survived as long as it did as a commercial enterprise.  All I can say is that depression kids were made of stern stuff!) 



This is the cover of the main manual. This along with the poster tells you all you need to know to build one of these.  Of course it is also a sound foundation for any solid modelling. 

You can check these out at http://www.ualberta.ca/~khorne/solid/solid.html

Kenny

[teddon61]

Ok, now it rings a bell.
Pictures from operations buildings during the war show ID models hanging from the ceiling, I recall seeing some of these models as a child. Recently I was offered an almost complete collection of the bakelite ID models from a man in Tenn, he wanted around five thousand for them, they may be worth that, but that's a lot of scratch. Also, the bakelite models are hard to keep from what I hear, they deteriate in the wrong conditions.
Thanks for the comeback, Ted Billings

[Jim]

Garet:

Can you post the direct links for the larger images of the most recent ID plans? My javascript problem still prevents me from accessing them via the thumbnail. The smaller images come across fine, but the bigger ones are NG. I'm principally interested in the Lancaster, C-46 and FW Kondor patterns. Thanks...

[Kenny Horne]

Hey Mr. Fingers,

We haven't got it all complete or pretty but you can find the Lanc (F-10), the Curtiss C-46 (F-4), and the Kondor (F-6) at
http://www.ualberta.ca/~khorne/solid/spotter/spotter.html
The Kondor isn't a great copy though... some of the templates didn't make onto the copy that I have :-(  You can still make the model, you just have a bit of guessing.

Kenny

[Oceaneer99]

Fingers,

I added a file link to each of the ID plan pages that are on the gallery, so you can right-click to "download link" to your local machine.  Since it was a cut and paste operation, there may be a few that I didn't get quite right.  If anyone finds any of those, please let me know.

I did upload new plans and patterns for B-1 and B-3.  The original files were not exactly 8.5 x 11 inches (2550 by 3300 pixels), so I fixed the margins.  For anyone trying to get the sizes right, I tried to make all of the drawings some multiple of 8.5 inches or 11 inches (at 300 dpi) as are the originals.  The larger drawings might be a 11 x 17 or 8.5 x 22 inches, for example.  This is important for gifs, since these files do not include the resolution (dots per inch, or dpi).  Kenny's PDF versions do have the scaling correct, since PDFs retain that information; for PDFs, you just have to make sure you print full-size instead of "scale to fit".

The gif files here are a little different than Kenny's PDFs, since I made some minor edits, mostly to adjust the margins and do rotations.  Eventually, we plan to have several versions of the same image, which are all essentially identical files.  There will be:

individual GIFs in the SMM gallery
PDF for each airplane containing plan and patterns in Kenny's site
PDF file containing sets of plans in the SMM gallery

But this will take a while 

Garet

[Jim]

Kenny: MISTER Fingers? I started looking around for my father!  But thank you, Kenny. I hadn't checked your sight in a little while and didn't know all those winderful ID plans were there. Many thanks, friend!

And Garet:  Thank you again for the links. You guys are going to help push me into an early retirement!

[Kenny Horne]

Garet,

I see you have all the files now posted!  Awesome work dude, this is really cool.  OK gang, I guess it's time to start picking subjects and start carving.  I've got a whole shwack load in my head right now but I think I'll start easy.  A couple come to mind that seem so in the spirit of young American kids building planes of their heroes in early 1942: The  Curtiss P-40 and the Bell P-39 Airacobra.  Both were flawed aircraft for thier time, but they probably captured the spirit of these kids beter than any other.  I'll probably start there, but I haven't comitted block to saw yet, so...

Kenny,

ps. from my small part I've played in this project, I'm starting to get an idea how much work you and Ray have put into this new forum. I know that Lou has been lurking around too, so thanks to you too buddy.

[Oceaneer99]

Yes, the ID model sets are finally complete!  I decided to make a final push late last night to get the last sets done.  Many thanks to Kenny and Ray for helping me with this.  We still need to add the descriptions and the direct file links (so we have a way around the dreaded "gray gif rectangle" issue), but at least the files are on the gallery.

We are missing two sheets, so if anyone has these, please get in touch with me:

G-9 Yak-4 assembly diagram
F-6 Focke_Wulf_FW-200K templates (right edge missing, and there is a misalignment in the drawing)

Garet

PS Lou was the wonderful individual who moved over all the photos from the old forum.

[Oceaneer99]

The ID plans are complete!  Set G arrived from the Smithsonian today, and so I was able to post the assembly diagram for G-9, the Yak-4.

Kenny and I are preparing PDF versions of the plans for him to post at his web site.  These will have both full-size and "chopped" versions of the larger plan sheets. Stay tuned!

Garet

[Oceaneer99]

I thought you all might be interested in these photos from Life Magazine (available through Google Images):


http://images.google.com/hosted/life/l?q=airplane+model+source:life&imgurl=1442340c6f9b754c



http://images.google.com/hosted/life/l?q=airplane+model+source:life&imgurl=863620d32866d7c4

[spider web]

What a small world.   The pictures of the boys making the recognition models were taken in Pottstown, PA, not twenty miles from my home.  Today however, it's not anywhere close to the Pottstown of those days.  The Great Society made sure of that.
I use to dress like that for school, including knickers !

Going through my files, I came across an aircraft spotter's chart that was to be used by the military and Civilian Observation Corps............the mantra to be used was,......"W E F T O"     Wings-Engine-Fuselage-Tail-Other.....always in this order.

Spotters were suppose to quickly fill in a gridded report sheet that listed all the sub headings.........
WINGS;Ailerones & Flaps, Tip Shape, Dihedral, Outline, Span, Nationality
Engine; Nacelle Shape, location, and so forth.

The NAVY would offer certificates of honorary rank based on the number of models submitted by anyone and accepted by the inspectors.

The Germans and the Japanese were also heavily into reconition models.

So much to do, so little time....................The Spider