We have had these two P51's doing a fly over on our layout for a long time. They've been up there for more than decade and I still like looking at them. I think with the MTH beacon and the mountains they look cool. However, given suggestion of some added LED marker lights would add some effect. Now my kids project.
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My model maker offered to add lights. We are thinking about it.
If you light with LEDs, 32 gauge magnet winding wire should work.
Yes, thanks Jack Pearce. I have a Coast Guard helicopter that is hovering over Seasons Bay that lights particularly well with flashing lights and moving rotor. The photo below is not the best, but if you look beyond the water, you will see the orange helicopter.
I have not lit my Corsair but it is attached to the wall so I can run wires from the back side.
Know this guy?
Litegide24 great looking layout. Sorry,I can't help with the lights.
Brad
Len2 beat me to my almost exactly word-for-word reply. Magnet / armature wire. But you'll need LEDs (which will look better, anyway...).
My B-17 with landing lights on
. Wire is not visable, only with flash.
I've got waaay too many planes to even think about lights...but a great idea!
WOW A ZEPLIN!!!!!!!! Choo Choo Kenny
Actually, it is touching. I placed a narrow rod through the wall and into the rear landing gear.
PS: the corsair was made in my hometown by Chance Vought
"How did you get the power to the helicopter?"
I mounted the helicopter on a wood dowel and hid it between some buildings. Once the wires were attached to the dowel, I wrapped it in black tape. Only a small amount of it shows, and only from a limited view.
We have an XB29, a passenger version of a B29 (built by John Pignatelli) mounted above the layout. It's supported by a steel rod through the left wing. Wires run through the wing to light the LED lighting. This is an old photo. We moved the plane closer to the front of the layout and "banked" it to the right.
I had a 1:18 scale P-51 Mustang hanging in my toy room years before I ever decided to build a layout in there. I'm now wondering if I should take it down as people might see it in the context of the layout and not an unrelated 'thing in the room'.
I knew a guy who had a decent layout years ago, who modeled a airplane museum and he had several WW2 fighters and bombers parked along a fence line near the tracks, and several had engines running. It really looked good.
I don't model anything that should be moving but isn't. My figures are all in stationery poses and what few cars are on the layout are all parked. I wouldn't model an airplane frozen in place. That said, I model the WW2 era and I could easily model a barage balloon!
Don't miss this, the best representation of an airport ever done on any model RR layout, in HO, with airplanes actually taking off and landing!
Magnet or armature wire is very very thin. You wanted a method to suspend the planes yet run electricity to them. Use one wire for pos, one for neg, and a third for the tail (unconnected unless you wanted to be able to turn a landing light on or off separate from the nav/position lights).
If you light with LEDs, 32 gauge magnet winding wire should work.
What he's referring to is VERY THIN wire - 32 gauge. Since the only current draw will be a couple of LED's you can use very small wire for this. 32-gauge wire is only .0080 in diameter, which is probably smaller than your fishing line!
In free air, 32 gauge wire can handle 530 milliamps of current (just over half an amp.) Three or four LED's will draw about 1/4 of that.
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