Douglas Aircraft Company built over 10,000 of the C-47 Skytrain, a military version of the Douglas DC-3. They were employed extensively in North Africa, Europe, Asia and the Pacific. The plane played a crucial role in the D-Day invasion of Normandy during World War II. Specifically, on June 6, 1944, over 1,000 C-47s were used to transport and drop about 13,000 paratroopers of the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions behind enemy lines. These aircraft were vital for delivering troops and supplies, and they also towed gliders carrying more soldiers and equipment to protect the American troops landing on the Normandy beaches from German reinforcements.
Tom's Blender Models
I've been learning to use Blender to build 3D computer graphics models since August 2013 and I decided to create this blog as a progress report and a portfolio.
Sunday, 3 August 2025
Tuesday, 29 July 2025
Douglas DC-3
In 1951, at the age of 10, I had my first airplane flight. My father worked for Studebaker, the car and truck manufacturer. The company plane, a DC-3, was being sent from South Bend, the company’s H.Q., to pick up my dad at Pittsburgh. As a courtesy, the pilots arranged for me to ride along. What a thrill! Unfortunately, there was a serious thunderstorm, and we couldn’t land in Pittsburgh. So, we went somewhere else to refuel (and grab a few sandwiches) for the return home without my dad. I guess he got back some other way.
The first Douglas DC-3, initially built for American airlines, was delivered in 1935. It had 21 passenger seats in two rows of two seats each. The plane was an incredible success; over 90% of commercial flight in the world were made by DC-3s by 1939. By the end of civilian production in 1943, Douglas had built 607 DC-3s. In its military version, the C-47 Skytrain (see following posts), over 16,000 of the planes were produced by Douglas in California and contractors in Japan and the Soviet Union. In 2023 an estimated 150 of the planes were still flying.
I could only find two black-and-white photos of the Studebaker corporate plane and they had different liveries. So, I made the model with a paint-job that might have been like the real plane. The tail number was copied from one of the photos and the company logo on the tail was the official Studebaker logo in 1951.
#DC-3 #Douglas #plane #Stdebaker #Blender #Cycles
Monday, 21 April 2025
B-25B Mitchell
Following the order from the US Army Air Forces in September, 1939, North American Aviation built 9,889 B-25 medium bombers at two plants in Inglewood, California and Fairfax, Kansas. The plane was first used in combat in April, 1942, in the Doolittle Raid to bomb Tokyo and two other cities in Japan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doolittle_Raid. The B-25 saw combat in the Pacific, Middle East and Europe during WWII.
Monday, 3 March 2025
Locomotion No. 1
In 1825, the steam engine Locomotion
became the first engine to haul passenger carriages on a public railway. The engine
was built by the Robert Stephenson Company under a contact with the Stockton
& Darlington Railway to be run on the S&DR’s 25-mile track in
North-East England. It weighed 7.5 tons (about 6.6 metric tons) and
could manage a top speed, downhill, of 15 mph (24 kph.) Unfortunately, in 1828
the boiler exploded killing the driver.
#Locomotion_No_1 #S&DR #steam_engine #railway #history #Blender 4.1 #Cycles
Sunday, 26 January 2025
B-24D Liberator Bomber
In 1939, under a contract from the U, S, Army Air Forces, Consolidated Aircraft Corp. of San Diago designed a new heavy, long-range bomber, the B24. Its first flight was made in December of that year. Over the next six years, over 18,000 B-24s were built by Consolidated and under licence by Ford, making it the most produced military airplane in history. In addition to the USAAF the plane was in service with the U. S. Navy, the Royal Air Force and the Australian R.A.F..
With a wingspan of 33.5m (110ft) the B-24 had a range of
4,600km (2,800 miles), making it ideal for antisubmarine bombing in the mid-Atlantic. It had a bomb capacity of 3,630 kg (8,000
lbs) and was armed with 11 .50 calibre machine guns. The plane was manned by a
crew of 10: Pilot, co-pilot, navigator/bombardier, radio/radar operator, flight
engineer/top turret gunner, ball turret gunner, two side gunners and tail
turret gunner.
I chose to model the B-24D Strawberry Bitch, Serial Number 42-72843 mainly because the name was intriguing, but I was not able to find anything about the origin of the name. The plane flew over 50 combat missions between September 1943 and June 1944 with the 512th Bomb Squadron of the 376th Heavy bomber Group based at Cairo, Egypt.
#B-24 #bomber #WWII #USAAF #Strawberry_Bitch #Blender-4.1 #Cycles
Monday, 23 December 2024
Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star
In the spring of 1943, the U. S. Army Air Force (USAAF) realized that both the Germans and the British were seriously ahead developing jet-powered fighter aircraft. The USAAF gave the contract to quickly develop an American jet fighter to Lockheed’s Skunk Works (a super-secret, internal development group) in Pasadena. 150 days later the P-80 shooting Star, powered by a donated British Halford H1 engine was ready for testing. The final version of the plane was adapted to accommodate a wider Allison J33 American built engine.
The P-80 had a maximum speed of pf 933 kph (580mph), a cruising speed of 703 kph (437 mph) and a range of 1,754 km (1090 miles.) The plane was 105 m (34 ft 6 in) long with a wingspan of 11.85 m (38 ft 10 in). A couple of the prototypes saw some recognisance missions in the late months of the war in Italy. In all, 1,715 P-80s were built. In addition to the USAF and the US Navy the plane was used by several countries in South America.
This model and its livery are based on the F-80C version of the Shooting Star as it was in Korea in 1950 while assigned to the USAF 8th Fighter-Bomber group, now displayed at the Museum of the USAF in Dayton, Ohio, USA.
#WWII #jet #fighter #plane
#Lockheed #P-80 #Shooting_Star #Blender #Cycles
Saturday, 16 November 2024
Messerschmitt Me 262A Schwalbe (Swallow)
The Luftwaffe ME 262A 1a was the first jet fighter to be used in combat in WWII. It attacked a British photo-recognisance plane over Munich in July 1944. (Both the Americans and British were also developing jet fighters, but they were only used in combat during the last months of the war.) While the plane was effective against allied bomber squadrons in the air, hundreds of them were destroyed on the ground by US Army Air Corps bombers. Of the more than 1,400 ME 262s produced, only about 300 saw combat.
The ME 262 was powered by two Junkers Jumo 004s turbojet engines with a cursing speed: 740 kph (460 mph) and an effective range of 1,046 km (650 miles.) It was armed with four 30mm MK-108 cannons and some versions carried two 500 lbs. bombs under the wings. The planes were 10.6 m (34’ 9”) long with a wingspan of 12.5 m (41’) and weighed 7,076 kg (15,600 lbs.)
#jet #fighter #plane
#ME262 #Blender #Cycles