Dr. Zooch Lifting Body build thread

[hornet driver]

Yea, I just pulled this pic online--all my stuff is 35mm--never saw this bird, at least not in these colors. Everything we had was subdued>

 

[Daddyisabar]

sorry for the delay up here...but its been a busy week. Over the past week, I broke out the trusty Badger 150 airbrush and tried to paint an Israeli camo scheme using Model Master acrylic paints. Next was to use various decals from multiple sheets to finish her. Hope you guys like it!

View attachment 152026View attachment 152027View attachment 152028View attachment 152029

That is cool. I think the Syrians would run and hide if they could see that one in the air! Should look really cool gliding down and the deltas will make it a lot easier to find if it lands in dry or dormant winter grass.

 

[NJRick]

thanks Daddy! and thanks for the idea of the Israeli Deltas! I like them on there... Good Call!!

That is cool. I think the Syrians would run and hide if they could see that one in the air! Should look really cool gliding down and the deltas will make it a lot easier to find if it lands in dry or dormant winter grass.

 

[Daddyisabar]

Yep. you are a burnin' through a lot of cool historical paint schemes. Just an AVG Flying Tiger and maybe a Flying Circus with lozenge will finish off the fleet.

 

[NJRick]

its endless Daddy! the AVG is cool too!!
I picked up some extra sheets of balsa and when I wrap this one up (and I am getting close to finishing her) I am going to build a couple of orbiters just for the heck of it....going to go with an ol F-105 scheme from the Nam and and Navy bird from the same era as well....I think they will look good on my Airforce Titan II booster and my Navy Polaris booster....

Yep. you are a burnin' through a lot of cool historical paint schemes. Just an AVG Flying Tiger and maybe a Flying Circus with lozenge will finish off the fleet.

 

[NJRick]

OK....starting to pull this one together up here....Flame Fins are painted and SRB struts are attached.

 

[Owen Eldridge]

Good job painting those flame fins!

OK....starting to pull this one together up here....Flame Fins are painted and SRB struts are attached.
View attachment 153563View attachment 153564

 

[NJRick]

thanks Owen....I used rattle cans to paint them. I paint them overall white first, then once dry, I shoot the lower half yellow, then when that dries, I shoot the tips day glo orange.

I did some work last night on her but I wasn't able to post any pictures and tonight I have a seminar I have to go to, but the lugs are in place on the Orbiter. Basically, I have to hang the chute, paint the attach pad and put a coat of gloss on her and this one is done.

Good job painting those flame fins!

 

[Owen Eldridge]

Do you have any plans of launching her?

thanks Owen....I used rattle cans to paint them. I paint them overall white first, then once dry, I shoot the lower half yellow, then when that dries, I shoot the tips day glo orange.

I did some work last night on her but I wasn't able to post any pictures and tonight I have a seminar I have to go to, but the lugs are in place on the Orbiter. Basically, I have to hang the chute, paint the attach pad and put a coat of gloss on her and this one is done.

 

[NJRick]

she will definitley fly....but is getting cold up here now. These like to fly in low wind conditions so its gets a little tougher to get the weather to cooperate. They really are fun to fly!

Do you have any plans of launching her?

 

[NJRick]

sorry for the delay up here...its been a busy week. I have been doing some work on the LB throughout the week when I could so I want to post some pictures to bring everyone up to current.

the remaining steps are pretty straight forward. The directions ask you to take one of the launch lugs provided and cut a 1/4 inch segment off. This will become the forward launch lug for the orbiter. The remainder is then cut exactly in half and these become the rear lugs for the Orbiter.



the instructions ask you to take some scrap balsa and trim some 1/8 inch wide strips of balsa (there is a template provided to follow) and glue them together, this becomes an attachment extension for the 1/4 inch lug, and then is glued to the nose of the Orbiter. I also made the front attach pad for the booster.


the remaining lugs are then glued in place. I used my handy little 15/16th of an inch template to make sure that these lugs are the proper width so as to fit to the attach pad on the booster.


you will note I tend to paint the front lug a bright orange. I have found this little guy can break when the orbiter lands...the orange helps spot it in the grass.

 

[NJRick]

I think I will end this thread at this point. All I have to do is hang the chute and install the launch lugs for the booster. Here are some shots of my completed Dr. Zooch Mig Killer Lifting Body. I hope you guys like it!


This a really fun little kit! Its one of my favorite Dr. Zooch kits!

 

[Owen Eldridge]

Congrats. Great thread!

I think I will end this thread at this point. All I have to do is hang the chute and install the launch lugs for the booster. Here are some shots of my completed Dr. Zooch Mig Killer Lifting Body. I hope you guys like it!
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This a really fun little kit! Its one of my favorite Dr. Zooch kits!

 

[NJRick]

thought I would post a family portrait of Zooch Lifting Bodies...the sky is the limit with paint schemes. This is my Titan II US Air Force X plane LB, My V-2 Luftwaffe LB, my US NAVY Polaris/Grumman Hellcat LB and my Israeli Shavit/ advanced Kfir Mig Killer

 

[NJRick]

and a family shot of my Zooch Lifting Body boosters


I was going to post a flight line picture of my Lifting Bodies...but a hot shot F-105 pilot parked his Thud in the middle of the flight line....test pilots..

 

[NJRick]

Thanks Owen! This is one of may favorite Dr. Zooch kits!

Congrats. Great thread!

 

[NJRick]

Hi guys...sorry for the bump, but I finally had the chance this past weekend to fly the Zooch Lifting Body. This is one of my favorite kits that Dr. Zooch offers. This is my Israeli Mig Killer version. The winds up here were about 10 mph, which was a little higher than I would have liked, but she flew great!

we have ignition and Liftoff!


climbing out


Lifting Body sep

the LB is the black triangular shape parting from the lower side of the booster

clean sep and the Lifting Body is in flight arcing away from the Booster



its hard to get good in flight shots of this little rascal because it is small and it really scoots through the air. On this flight, the LB turned into the wind, almost hovered, then turned again with her back to the wind, and then took off down the range at high speed! Flew straight as an arrow at that point and landed I would guess about 75 yards down the field. This kit is fun to build and even more fun to fly! I am already getting the itch to buy another one!

 

[Astro-Baby]

Totally amazing build quality, i am greeeeeeen with envy at your skills. All of your lifting body kits are amazing.....my fave though is your Titan II version.

I am off to bang my head on a counter top and work harder at my own skills

 

[NJRick]

Astro...Thank you!! but I am not even close to your skill level! I really enjoy your builds....and your videos!! I would love to see you take a shot at one of these LB's...maybe a Spitfire! (I love the Mk. IX Normandy scheme with the invasion stripes...damn that plane was just sexy!!)(and lethal!!!) But Astro...the Zooch LB is like eating cookies...you can't have just one!

the best part about those pics posted was that I was with my 4 year old nephew when we were flying them. Every launch was like Christmas morning for him...what a fun day! Maybe sometimes we take for granted how fast these rockets fly and how they arc thru the skies...little Bobby was just amazed. You just can't help but get swept up with him and his enthusiasm.

Totally amazing build quality, i am greeeeeeen with envy at your skills. All of your lifting body kits are amazing.....my fave though is your Titan II version.

I am off to bang my head on a counter top and work harder at my own skills

 

[Astro-Baby]

Well its going to sound like false modesty but honestly NJ there is now ay I would get the finish you get on such a teeny bird. Most of mine if you saw them up close would disappoint. I just cant ever seem to get that really smooth finish no matter how hard I try and I just no way would ever get the level of detail you get on these very tiny kits. I would be hard pressed to do as well on something three times as big.

I can really see how that LB kit could be addictive - theres the Nazi one to build, the Sovietski one of course, Japanese Imperial Navy, US 1960s in gleaming alluminium, a version from 'Marooned' in orange (Damn I wish someone would do a kit of that for sure), a British Blue Steel styled one - the list is endless and I can well understand the addictive nature of it for sure

 

[luke strawwalker]

Hey Rick,
Neat flight pics! Hope you don't mind, but I couldn't resist playing with them a little bit and seeing what I could do with them... just learning to play around with the picture editor on my computer...

I'll repost them here just for kicks and giggles...

Later and KUTGW!!!

OL JR

PS... astrobaby I've seen your stuff on your TLP build... looks great and you should give yourself more credit! I try to give a lot of finishing tips in my Zooch build threads-- just follow along and try it out, and try other folk's suggestions, see what works best for you, and practice, practice, practice... all there really is to it... it ain't magic ya know... Just takes a little extra time and effort...

Believe me, If *I* can do it, ANYBODY can do it! Best of luck!

 

[NJRick]

Astro...your builds are awesome! I am loving the Natter you are working on right now. I have the same struggle with paint and finish....there are times I use the rattle can paint and it come out and coats beautifully...there other times I paint and I get a pebbled surface....and the frustrating part is its the same can of paint! On most of my LB's, the paint schemes are done using my old airbrush which puts down a much thinner coat of paint.

I do agree with Luke's suggestion and have found his threads to be extremely helpful!

Well its going to sound like false modesty but honestly NJ there is now ay I would get the finish you get on such a teeny bird. Most of mine if you saw them up close would disappoint. I just cant ever seem to get that really smooth finish no matter how hard I try and I just no way would ever get the level of detail you get on these very tiny kits. I would be hard pressed to do as well on something three times as big.

I can really see how that LB kit could be addictive - theres the Nazi one to build, the Sovietski one of course, Japanese Imperial Navy, US 1960s in gleaming alluminium, a version from 'Marooned' in orange (Damn I wish someone would do a kit of that for sure), a British Blue Steel styled one - the list is endless and I can well understand the addictive nature of it for sure

 

[NJRick]

Luke,
these are great! Hiw did you do that?? You know, catching this little rascal is hard so I thank my nephew for doing a great job with the camera. I wasn't sure how the LB was going to handle 10 mph winds....but she flew great! I certainly recommend low winds for this kit but she handled it better than I thought! Just a cool kit!

Hey Rick,
Neat flight pics! Hope you don't mind, but I couldn't resist playing with them a little bit and seeing what I could do with them... just learning to play around with the picture editor on my computer...

I'll repost them here just for kicks and giggles...
View attachment 178173View attachment 178174View attachment 178175
Later and KUTGW!!!

OL JR

PS... astrobaby I've seen your stuff on your TLP build... looks great and you should give yourself more credit! I try to give a lot of finishing tips in my Zooch build threads-- just follow along and try it out, and try other folk's suggestions, see what works best for you, and practice, practice, practice... all there really is to it... it ain't magic ya know... Just takes a little extra time and effort...

Believe me, If *I* can do it, ANYBODY can do it! Best of luck!

 

[luke strawwalker]

Luke,
these are great! Hiw did you do that?? You know, catching this little rascal is hard so I thank my nephew for doing a great job with the camera. I wasn't sure how the LB was going to handle 10 mph winds....but she flew great! I certainly recommend low winds for this kit but she handled it better than I thought! Just a cool kit!

Hey Rick...

Just opened your pics in a new window (right click and then hit "open in new tab" or "open in new window" on the pics in your post (might have to left click them first to get them to "pop up" in the little pop up box, then right click and "open in new tab" and then went to the full size version in the new tab, right clicked "save picture as" and saved them in "my pictures" on my hard drive... then went to "my pictures" on my computer and clicked the icon for the downloaded photos to open them in picture viewer like any other pic... then clicked "edit, organize, share" at the top of the picture viewer window (this is on my windows 7 machine-- but others should be broadly similar) to open the pic in "windows Live Photo Gallery" (or whatever picture editor software you have on your computer... WLPG is what was installed on mine, but the updated version with windows 7 is crappier than the version that was on my old Windows Vista machine actually-- there's lots of different photo editor software and freeware programs around, many of which can be downloaded for free).

Once they were open in WLPG, I hit "crop" and sized the crop box to get cut off the extraneous blue sky. Then I edited them a bit... I hit "auto adjust" and let that do it's thing-- got it about 75% of the way there IMHO... then I clicked "fine tune" and then clicked the side bar items that popped up one by one and played with them one by one until it looked right... some of them play off each other, for instance, under "adjust exposure" you have sliders for brightness, contrast, shadows, and highlights, plus the "histogram" which shows basically how the camera sees the picture (how it adjusts for color, brightness, wavelength, intensity, and all that-- on some of the pics I narrowed up the histogram by grabbing the "sliders" underneath the "sand chart" of the histogram and pulling or pushing them a bit toward or away from the distinct "peaks" of the photo's analysis... just play with it and see what it does... You can always take a "junk pic" to experiment with, or if you don't like what you've done, click "revert to original" or "undo" at the top of the page to go back step by step). If you click on "adjust color" you get sliders for color temperature, tint (hue), and saturation... temperature will make the blue sky bluer, or sliding it toward the other end makes the photo redder, tint makes it more purple (adds red) or greener (if you want it to look like you launched on Uranus or something I guess LOL) and saturation makes it a deeper color to the point of looking very fake or washed out to black and white going the other way... Under the "straighten photo" sidebar tab you'll get a slider where you can "twist" the photo clockwise or CCW to align it as you want it (I didn't mess with that at all). Under the last sidebar tab, "adjust detail", you have two sliders, the top one being "sharpen" which brings out detail (but makes the photo "noisier") and "adjust noise" with an analyzer button and a manual slider underneath... "noise" is the stray electronic signals in digital photos, caused by individual pixels either picking up light that isn't there, or not representing it completely correctly... it's VERY apparent on night photos, since digital cameras have the MOST difficulty properly displaying black and near-black photos... a high-quality digital chip found in DSLR's and high end cameras will have much lower noise than cheaper point-n-shoots and phone cameras... and of course chip size plays a role too... the more light gathering area, the less each individual light collecting pixel on the chip has to do, and thus the more accurate they are (larger chips have a larger number of pixels, and they're separated more distinctly... smaller chips can pack a TON of pixels into a small space, as evidenced by high megapixel cameras on the market with ridiculously small lenses (like point-n-shoots and our beloved little "pinhole camera" 808 keychain cams everybody's flying on their rockets... but there's still no substitute for good old fashioned "size" when it comes to getting the best QUALITY picture... though of course technology is getting better and narrowing the gap all the time...) Anyway, you can let the analyzer do it's thing (click the "analyze" button) and then you get the slider and can play with it as you wish...

Like I said, some of the things can play off each other, so don't be afraid to go back and make some secondary adjustments to get the combination of tweaks you want to get the pic the way you want it... I didn't play with but for about maybe ten minutes all total before I reposted the pics I tweaked... not like it's an all-day thing... and I'm just an enthusiastic amateur... playing around to see what I could do...

Have fun with it...

If you're scared you'll mess up your pics, create a 'copy' of them (right click then "copy") and do all your tweaks on the copy... there's also the "revert to original" button at the top of the picture editor screen that will undo everything you've done, or usually the "undo" arrow (twisted arrow on the top left corner of the screen usually) will usually undo the last step you did; clicking it repeatedly will "undo" step by step to a point where you want to try again, or all the way back to the beginning if you want to keep clicking it...

Have fun! OL JR

PS... be careful with the "crop" function... it's sort of like "digital zoom" in a camera, which is a cheat (and IMHO a totally worthless feature)... it reduces the overall size of the picture by shaving off the extraneous sides, which makes the picture smaller... if you zoom in on it, you start getting pixellation (photo looks grainy) fairly quick, depending on the "megapixels" of the camera (and the settings of the camera-- mines 10MP but I take 99% of my photos at 5MP to reduce file size), the file size (degree of compression) and format of the photo ("lossless" compression file types like raw or tiff or whatever versus "lossy" compression filetypes like .jpeg, which most of our internet pics are... it's all tradeoffs in what you're trying to do... Main thing to remember is, you can shave off the unwanted edges to "zoom in" on the rocket in the pic and make it more interesting (rather than have a "mile wide swath of empty sky" in the photo, you can crop it down to just the rocket itself and the smoke trail, but you cannot really "zoom in" and get the detail that simply isn't there, because you're only working with the small part of the picture that you're not cropping away... hence when you blow it up, the more you blow it up the more grainy, noisy, and blurry it appears to be... so it's definitely a tradeoff... play with it some and see what you like... KUTGW!

 

[NJRick]

thanks Luke! I will have to play around with them...this is such a fun kit....a while back you had asked me how long this little guy is in flight...on the way over I was telling myself to time the flight...but...with the winds we were dealing with I just forgot to do it...once this baby launched and I got a clean separation she just took off! fluttered a bit in the wind, then turned, caught the wind, and flew straight as an arrow across the field...seriously like a bullet....just a blast!

Hey Rick...

Just opened your pics in a new window (right click and then hit "open in new tab" or "open in new window" on the pics in your post (might have to left click them first to get them to "pop up" in the little pop up box, then right click and "open in new tab" and then went to the full size version in the new tab, right clicked "save picture as" and saved them in "my pictures" on my hard drive... then went to "my pictures" on my computer and clicked the icon for the downloaded photos to open them in picture viewer like any other pic... then clicked "edit, organize, share" at the top of the picture viewer window (this is on my windows 7 machine-- but others should be broadly similar) to open the pic in "windows Live Photo Gallery" (or whatever picture editor software you have on your computer... WLPG is what was installed on mine, but the updated version with windows 7 is crappier than the version that was on my old Windows Vista machine actually-- there's lots of different photo editor software and freeware programs around, many of which can be downloaded for free).

Once they were open in WLPG, I hit "crop" and sized the crop box to get cut off the extraneous blue sky. Then I edited them a bit... I hit "auto adjust" and let that do it's thing-- got it about 75% of the way there IMHO... then I clicked "fine tune" and then clicked the side bar items that popped up one by one and played with them one by one until it looked right... some of them play off each other, for instance, under "adjust exposure" you have sliders for brightness, contrast, shadows, and highlights, plus the "histogram" which shows basically how the camera sees the picture (how it adjusts for color, brightness, wavelength, intensity, and all that-- on some of the pics I narrowed up the histogram by grabbing the "sliders" underneath the "sand chart" of the histogram and pulling or pushing them a bit toward or away from the distinct "peaks" of the photo's analysis... just play with it and see what it does... You can always take a "junk pic" to experiment with, or if you don't like what you've done, click "revert to original" or "undo" at the top of the page to go back step by step). If you click on "adjust color" you get sliders for color temperature, tint (hue), and saturation... temperature will make the blue sky bluer, or sliding it toward the other end makes the photo redder, tint makes it more purple (adds red) or greener (if you want it to look like you launched on Uranus or something I guess LOL) and saturation makes it a deeper color to the point of looking very fake or washed out to black and white going the other way... Under the "straighten photo" sidebar tab you'll get a slider where you can "twist" the photo clockwise or CCW to align it as you want it (I didn't mess with that at all). Under the last sidebar tab, "adjust detail", you have two sliders, the top one being "sharpen" which brings out detail (but makes the photo "noisier") and "adjust noise" with an analyzer button and a manual slider underneath... "noise" is the stray electronic signals in digital photos, caused by individual pixels either picking up light that isn't there, or not representing it completely correctly... it's VERY apparent on night photos, since digital cameras have the MOST difficulty properly displaying black and near-black photos... a high-quality digital chip found in DSLR's and high end cameras will have much lower noise than cheaper point-n-shoots and phone cameras... and of course chip size plays a role too... the more light gathering area, the less each individual light collecting pixel on the chip has to do, and thus the more accurate they are (larger chips have a larger number of pixels, and they're separated more distinctly... smaller chips can pack a TON of pixels into a small space, as evidenced by high megapixel cameras on the market with ridiculously small lenses (like point-n-shoots and our beloved little "pinhole camera" 808 keychain cams everybody's flying on their rockets... but there's still no substitute for good old fashioned "size" when it comes to getting the best QUALITY picture... though of course technology is getting better and narrowing the gap all the time...) Anyway, you can let the analyzer do it's thing (click the "analyze" button) and then you get the slider and can play with it as you wish...

Like I said, some of the things can play off each other, so don't be afraid to go back and make some secondary adjustments to get the combination of tweaks you want to get the pic the way you want it... I didn't play with but for about maybe ten minutes all total before I reposted the pics I tweaked... not like it's an all-day thing... and I'm just an enthusiastic amateur... playing around to see what I could do...

Have fun with it...

If you're scared you'll mess up your pics, create a 'copy' of them (right click then "copy") and do all your tweaks on the copy... there's also the "revert to original" button at the top of the picture editor screen that will undo everything you've done, or usually the "undo" arrow (twisted arrow on the top left corner of the screen usually) will usually undo the last step you did; clicking it repeatedly will "undo" step by step to a point where you want to try again, or all the way back to the beginning if you want to keep clicking it...

Have fun! OL JR

PS... be careful with the "crop" function... it's sort of like "digital zoom" in a camera, which is a cheat (and IMHO a totally worthless feature)... it reduces the overall size of the picture by shaving off the extraneous sides, which makes the picture smaller... if you zoom in on it, you start getting pixellation (photo looks grainy) fairly quick, depending on the "megapixels" of the camera (and the settings of the camera-- mines 10MP but I take 99% of my photos at 5MP to reduce file size), the file size (degree of compression) and format of the photo ("lossless" compression file types like raw or tiff or whatever versus "lossy" compression filetypes like .jpeg, which most of our internet pics are... it's all tradeoffs in what you're trying to do... Main thing to remember is, you can shave off the unwanted edges to "zoom in" on the rocket in the pic and make it more interesting (rather than have a "mile wide swath of empty sky" in the photo, you can crop it down to just the rocket itself and the smoke trail, but you cannot really "zoom in" and get the detail that simply isn't there, because you're only working with the small part of the picture that you're not cropping away... hence when you blow it up, the more you blow it up the more grainy, noisy, and blurry it appears to be... so it's definitely a tradeoff... play with it some and see what you like... KUTGW!

 

[luke strawwalker]

thanks Luke! I will have to play around with them...this is such a fun kit....a while back you had asked me how long this little guy is in flight...on the way over I was telling myself to time the flight...but...with the winds we were dealing with I just forgot to do it...once this baby launched and I got a clean separation she just took off! fluttered a bit in the wind, then turned, caught the wind, and flew straight as an arrow across the field...seriously like a bullet....just a blast!

Cool... must've locked onto a MiG pretty quickly...

Later! OL JR

 

[NJRick]

:lol: went after it like it was a Syrian Mig-21!

Cool... must've locked onto a MiG pretty quickly...

Later! OL JR