A friend emailed this article to me and I thought it would be of interest to the membership.

Bob

  

Below you will see several small aircraft ingeniously built in detail by Mr. Y. Park.

One is a P51 Mustang and the other is a Corsair.  You will be amazed at the 

attention to detail and to the extent that many of the airplanes components actually work!

 

 

 

P51 Mustang

 

 

  Corsair

 

 

 

Using a tweezers, the controls can be moved. All cables and linkages are in place to work the wing control surfaces as well. Young Park has since carved a pilot's face and hands from solid aluminum and built an articulated pilot to sit in the cockpit. (Photo: George F. Lee, Honolulu Star-Bulletin)

This picture with his fingers and tweezers gives you an idea of the scale......... Sooooo small!!!

Remember this as you look at the pictures........... All the controls work as designed, by cables, chains, linkages and levers.

 

 

 

All these controls WORK!!!!!........ And that means they work the parts of the aircraft via rods and chains as in the original aircraft!!!!

Every single part hand made and fitted.   It blows you away, doesn't it??? 

 

 

 

Don't forget the tiny scale......... go up again and look at the picture of the fingers and tweezers!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Machine guns and bullets.........

Detail of three .50 Cal. machine guns and ammo cans. Ammo cans are loaded outside the aircraft and then simply set into place in the wing. Their doors become the top surface of the wing. This allowed for rapid reloading by the ground crew.

 

 

 

 

 

Mr. Park generously donated the first (cutaway) Corsair model to the Joe Martin Foundation. It can be seen in person in its display at the Foundation's museum in the Sherline building in Vista, California. A collection of photos showing how the model was built and all the historical data on the Corsair Mr. Park collected to build it has also been donated and is available for viewing. 

 

In 2005, Mr. Park also donated the second corsair and it is also now on display in the Foundation's museum.

 

 

Showing the extent of his carving skills, Mr. Park sculpted a pilot's head and hands out of solid aluminum. The articulated figure is dressed in a custom made uniform and can be placed in any position to give a good sense of scale to the model.

 

 

 

 

P51 MUSTANG

 

 

 

 

 

 

Inside the left wing you can see the .50 cal ammunition threaded into the three wing guns. Each round is machined in 3 parts—brass cartridge with copper bullet and primer and is held together with a small copper feed jacket.

 

 

 

Engine exhaust ports....... picture taken during assembly.

 

Control wires are being threaded around their pulleys underneath the cockpit during construction. (Y. Park photo)

 

The radiator air intake sits under the fuselage ready for installation. Much of the detail of some of the parts is hidden once it is assembled. (Y. Park photo)

 

The wing being made.............. LOOK how SMALL it is

 

Each panel is hand formed over a wooden shape. The metal is annealed to the proper softness and then pounded and bent into shape. The plane is made up of many individual panels, and the fits between panels are just about perfect. 

(Y. Park photo)

 

Here we see the panel above in it's final position. Looks easy now, doesn't it? (Y. Park photo)

 

The form for the air intake and the final part. As is often the case in machining and model making, fixtures, moulds, formers and jigs to make the final parts can take a long time to make and are never seen by the public viewing the finished model. (Y. Park photo)