Interesting video

I was emailed this video a week or so back by a friend. I think viewers of this blog will find it interesting.

From Berny

The following is an interesting post from Finescale.com forum from Berny (former USAF) on the subject of air to air missile smoke trails.

The early AIM-7's and AIM-9's left a large smoke trail behind them. After the rocket motor burned out the missile would go into a coast mode but still tracking the target. Depending on how far the target was from the shooter would depend on the coast mode. At twenty miles the last five miles would be coast mode for the AIM-7. At six miles the last mile would be the coast mode for the AIM-9. These heavy smoke missiles are no longer being used except for live fire until the rocket motors are used up.

Later versions of the AIM-7 and AIM-9's and the new AIM-120 use low smoke rocket motors and the range was improved. The rocket motors would fire longer thus giving the missile longer range. The actual range is still classified so I can't give you an example. They still left a smoke trail but not as heavy as the early versions.

Russian missiles leave a large smoke trail. They are just begining to build missiles with low smoke rocket motors.

When you see a live fire at a target aircraft (drone), the target is "making smoke" so it can be tracked by the camera aircraft. You can see the heavy smoke from the drone and missile as they impact. It is really something to see from the air.

From Mel Sharkskin

I recieved this interesting post from Mel Sharkskin on the Finescale.com aeroplane forum where I advertised my recent missile launch photos found on this blog. So interesting was the post that I thought it would be good value to repeat it here - Mel I do hope y ou don't mind :0

Tonant, I am extremely impressed with your photos. You asked for input, so this is mine, and take it for what it's worth. I've not, as much as I'd liked to, ever been in a tactical aircraft while it fired a missile. The closest I ever came was while being "chauffered" about in a 98th TFTS F-15B out of Tyndall AFB
-- we crept up on an unsuspecting Cessna puttering along at about 2,500 ft. and locked onto him with the F/A-18B's IR seaker. There was the unmistakable "rattlesnake" sound of a solid lock. I subsequantly heard the same from the back of an F/A-18B and a couple of Air Guard F-4s, and one of these had locked onto a Delta 727 over the Gulf of Mexico! I was so disappointed in those pre-9/11 days that the passengers couldn't see us "attacking their airplane, running up on its
six from a full 20,000 feet below it.

Forgive the memory-lane digression: Having been to William Tell a couple of time as a reporter, I remember there was a screening room on the base, and it was there that they showed the live-fire competitions in real time from the various photo ships, cutting from time to time to a HUD's eye view from the shooter's a/c. They were still firing AIM-7 Sparrows then (late '80s and early '90s), and when the missile, both the Sparrows and the Sidewinders left the rails, there was a very bright flash accompanied by some smoke. I can't imagine how you will simulate any smoke, so I'd do as you've done and have the weapon far enough away from the rails to have left the smoke behind.

(And I winced with pain every time a poor F-100 got it at Wm. Tell, since by then they'd already shot up all the QF-102's, and at this time were already configuring the remaing F-106 fleet to die this kind of death, and they had some on hand, though at this time were not shooting at them. That would have hurt even worse, because I love that airplane.)

One criticism I might bring is the shock diamonds. I believe those are more an effect of air-breathing engines more than small missles. So if you leave them in for the nice visual effect, tone them way down. Otherwise, what fantastic work you have there!

Now, if you want to do an air-to-air weapon with one mighty launch replete with fire, smoke, thunder and general hell-above-earth, get on the web and find photos of the old Genie nuclear rocket being fired. There's some fine photos of it being shot from the F-106, and some photos of live-fire launches from F-101Bs. The blast of this huge rocket (it wasn't technically a missile since it wasn't guided by anything more than pointing the airplane in the general direction of an enemy bomber formation and letting the 1 k warhead do the rest. They only shot one of those warheads live, from an F-89 in the 1950s, and then some sane people began to question how those folks over whose homes these things would be fired might feel about the whole thing.)

But the blast of the engine lighting was so great, to prevent setting the launch airplane on fire they had to attach the rocket to a 20-some-foot lanyard with a pin at end in the rocket. The 13-foot-long Genie was dropped, and when the pin was yanked from the round it was lit and on its way in a spectacularly fiery launch (this was also the way the earlier. gigantic Tiny Tim air-to-ground rocket was launched). The launch plane then was supposed to immediately split-ess away to avoid the blast, but a friend who fired one from an F-101B (sans the warhead, of course)told me he was so mesmerized by the spectacle of this monstrous weapon roaring from his airplane, he forgot the maneuver altogether.

So you asked a simple question and I gave you a treatise. Please show us some more of your work. It's really the best of this type I have seen.

Missile Launch No.2

Specifications

1. Model: 1-48 Scale Academy MIG 21 PF
2. Finish: automotive acrylic spray paints, utilizing sludge wash weathering technique and utilized the Chinese Air Force Decals. In this case I have removed the starboard side air to air missle from it's rack
3. Shoot: just after rain in Bangkok out the back window of my apartment in Ekamai, in this case I have increased the resolution to the maximum my digital camera can take 5 megapixels.
4. Retouch: Very similar approach to previous post however with a new missile launch source pic (see below)

Missile launch source pic

Missile Launch No.1

Specifications

1. Model: 1-48 Scale Academy MIG 21 PF
2. Finish: automotive acrylic spray paints, utilizing sludge wash weathering technique and utilized the Chinese Air Force Decals. In this case I have removed the starboard side air to air missle from it's rack
3. Shoot: just after rain in Bangkok out the back window of my apartment in Ekamai, in this case I have increased the resolution to the maximum my digital camera can take 5 megapixels.
4. Retouch: 1st I montaged in a missle launch from a pic I found on the web (see following). I had to resize and rotate it. I then cloned it make one version darken only and rubbbed out the contrail and the other lighten only where I rubbed out the missle and left over content.
   After this I added another layer in which I created a white cone to complete the rest of the smoke trail. To this layer I added blur a wave filter (to make the smoke less regular) , reduced its transperancy and then added noise to make it sink into the pic.
   
   Then I touched out the fishing line.
   
   The tailpipe looked a bit dark so I added a lit tail pipe from an F16 I found on the web (see following). I cut this out, flipped, made larger, rotated, reduced transperancy, blurred and added noise to make it sink in.
   
   I have added the original pic below also so you can see the start position.

Start Position Pic

Lit tail pipe source pic

Missile launch source pic

Afterburner & vapour trails

Specifications

1. Model: 1-48 Scale Academy MIG 21 PF
2. Finish: automotive acrylic spray paints, utilizing sludge wash weathering technique and utilized the Chinese Air Force Decals.
3. Shoot: a relatively sunny day in Bangkok out the back window of my apartment in Ekamai, in this case I have increased the resolution to the maximum my digital camera can take 5 megapixels.
4. Retouch: I have added contrails at the wing tips using a blurred and semitransperant layer, also I've montaged in an afterburner flame I found on the net using the lighten only composite function, masked plane and sharpened and lightened it, added noise, touched out fishing line

Republic Thunderjet

Specifications

1. Model: 1-48 Scale Tamiya Republic Thunderjet
2. Finish: sandpapered aluminium foil with sludge wash and clear coat
3. Shoot: Rainy afternoon outside back window (suspended on stick out of tail pipe) and on balcony
4. Retouch: touched out stick, added differing motion blurs, added vapour trails (to flying pic), desaturated and added a bit of noise.

Comment: These pics are amongst my very first attempts - not so good but interesting enough to set me on this path of photography.

One night in Bangkok!

Specifications

1. Model: 1-48 Scale Academy MIG 21 PF
2. Finish: Same as previous post
3. Shoot: On a clear night out my back and side balaconies, strung up on a pole with fishing line
4. Retouch: added noise, added afterburners and montaged three pics using "darken" composite effect to create wingman, reduced size of jets on sky background to try and make more realistic

1st set of pics

Specifications

1. Model: 1-48 scale Academy MIG 21 PF.
2. Finish: automotive acrylic spray paints, utilizing sludge wash weathering technique and utilized the Chinese Air Force Decals.
3. Shoot: a relatively sunny day in Bangkok out the back window of my apartment in Ekamai
4. Retouch: slighly desaturated, added about 2-3% noise, masked jet from background with feathered edge and applied different motion blurs between model and background.

Welcome to Fine Scale Realistic

Recently I have gone back to my old hobby of making models. I am subscriber of Fine Scale Modeler Magazine and have been learning the techniques of making realistic looking models.

My interest currently is in cold war jets. As such I've built a MIG 15, MIG 17, MIG 21 and Republic Thunderjet to date. After building these models I naturally wanted to take photos of them to show to my friends.

I currently live in Thailand in quite a tall apartment building. When taking my photos my girl friend Sunisa suggested I take a photo with the skyline as the backdrop. One thing led to another and I started looking for ways to make my models look like they are actually flying.

This site is dedicated to shots of models made to look real. If you have a shot like this and would like to share it with other please email me and I'll set you up so you can post your work too.

PS I have never seen any shots like this in Fine Scale Modeler Magazine - but it does seem an obvious thing to do. If you know a site that already exists with shots like this including techniques to make things look more realist please drop me a message.