Small Scale Military Headquarters

I suffer from a version of the Avenger Withdrawl Disease.

Yor see, with all this walking around in each store, I now head straight for those little old gimpy morotized wheelchairs next to the door. I zip over to the toy section and not finding the Avenger...the disease sets in and I sit there for a few minutes seething and then I leave. Now, here is the cure part. I am so involved with my disease, on the way back to the door the disease affects my driving that little cart.......blam, I crash into a display, in drugs, then ....blam, I hit another display in housewares.....blam, the cereal aisle with Post Toasties everywhere. Now I'm feeling better. By the time I reach the door, I'm cured. I park the cart as the loundspeaker starts calling for stock help in the sections I was juist visisting.

I hope my Wally's, either stocks the Avenger before they post my picture next to the door.

TTT

Now that was funny!! LMAO. AWD is a SERIOUS condition!

LMAO!!!! I feel your pain... I was going to wait but since I cant get it, I now want one NOW!!!!!!!!!!!

I just dont want to buy one from an E-Shark

There's still 5 Avengers at the Washington IL. WM., 2 German F-104's, both VN Mutts, S1 US halftrack, tan German halftrack, S2 FW-190, and BoB figs.

Something I just figured out - if you wan't the ball to rotate very far into the up position, you have to make the ball gunner a double amputee.

Sabrefan wrote:Well my doctor said I am suffering from AWD, or Avenger Withdrawal Disease. I have all the symptoms:

1. Going to Walmart everyday
2. Going into a rage when reading of all ofther forumn members who have the Avenger model.
3. Making sure you have enough shelf space for the Avenger over and over.
4. And the worst symptom: Go back to symptom # 1

I know of a sure-fire cure for the AWD, Sabrefan: find two (Avengers), take them both, call in the morning if you don't feel better! Hope you did not expect the "turn your head and cough" routine

dV

bigsarge wrote:hello to everyone.i am on the hunt in mississippi.no luck yet,however i did a sku# search at the wm i frequent the most and the toy department manager said they could order it from a supplier and it would be here in 2 weeks. not gonna wait that long.gotta take a trip to fort sill this week.hope to walmart surf on the way and hit avenger paydirt.

Bigsarge:

I have taken your lead; I just called my local WM, having already pestered them for two weeks, and spoke to the Toy Dept Manager.....the SKU that KWR190 supplied (THANKS, AGAIN!!) showed the Avenger to be available, etc., she is now looking into the ordering and what, when, where factors for me. She will give me a call, hopefully tomorrow, Tuesday 08Aug06.........great post, above, glad I read it and worked it.


Thanks,

dV

Thanks DV, I might call Walmart also. That might be a cure for AWD.

Thanks for the warm welcome.Its great to know that I am not the only one in America with the 1/18 fever.Just glad I got someone else to share it with now besides my wife,who could care less.I will let you guys know how my Oklahoma trip turns out.

Excellent tip on the canopy removal. I would of never found that out otherwise!! Thanks....

-Ski

Still nothing in central Missouri: Springfield and Fort Leonard Wood area. I don't think that 1/18 planes have historically done well here anyway, thus the late or nonexistant stocking of the Avengers. I've not been driving around specifically for the Avenger, just checking local ones or 'targets of opportunity'. I don't have AWD (yet!!)

Any intel on Indianapolis or Columbus, Ohio? I'm going to Columbus this weekend and will be going through Indy.

regards,
JimBob


(cool cover on a great book)

Another interesting shot of a 1/48 scale model of the same plane....






-Ski

For those of you who wanted to know what a typical attack by an Avenger on a U-boat might entail, check out this original report by a VC-1 Avenger from the Block Island. Very interesting!

http://www.uboatarchive.net/U-220ASW6.htm

-Ski

One week and 13 pages of posts later, the WM in Virginia Beach at Princess Anne Rd. and Lynnhaven Pkwy is down to ONE Avenger. The ball turret has been dislodged from its position, but is still in the sealed box! That is seven gone in a week!

I can not believe the milage this plane is getting on this board! But it is unique! Thanks to all that have posted tips and pitfalls! Especially to Ski for the pic of the location of the antenna! "Pitot tube", whatever that is?

Now maybe I can get it mounted before I lose it!

here is a progress report on those holes i plugged with pencil erasers...


what do ya think?

Nice work.........I actually did the "double look" because I didnt even realise the fuselage had been retro fitted with plugs. Looks nice and seemless in the photo. You could almost put the marks left, down to weathered imperfections in the panel work. You guys in the states are killing me here with all the hunting going on. I hope the etailers get their quoters in soon!

bigsarge wrote:Thanks for the warm welcome.Its great to know that I am not the only one in America with the 1/18 fever.Just glad I got someone else to share it with now besides my wife,who could care less.I will let you guys know how my Oklahoma trip turns out.

When are you headed west? I'll be going from NW Arkansas to Little Rock in a couple of days and I'll be looking along I40 (not specifically for Avengers but I'll check for those too just to report back with what I find). My wife limits me to 1 WM stop per trip to look for ????? Usually I don't find what I'm looking for and bit my lip as I pass store after store that I don't get to check.

mediump wrote:here is a progress report on those holes i plugged with pencil erasers...
what do ya think?

Looks great! I went to my hobbytown USA store today, looking for the flat white & dark gull gray paints along with some putty. They were out of all the paints and I didn't want to start they puttying w/o the paint. They say the restock order should arrive by next week...

Well done. I too had to look twice.

as a result of this release, i've actually learned some interesting facts about the avenger that i did not know.

- only 6 avengers participated in the battle of midway (did not know this)...5 of the 6 were shot down on their first mission with the other badly damaged and was a write off.

- as a result of the experience at Midway (with Devastators) the US Navy became very disenchanted with torpedo plane attacks and the Avenger was seldom used in this role for the next two years, being used mostly to bomb and hunt for submarines.

- with the advent of improved US torpedos, the Avenger was very successful in the torpedo bomber role at the Battle of the Philippine Sea in '44. Also, Avengers were responsible for sinking the super battleship Musashi and later played a major role in sinking her sister ship, the Yamato, during it's suicide run. Avengers from the Bunker Hill were involved in all of these actions (hint hint).

- Avengers in the Atlantic were the third most successful Uboat hunting aircraft (i did know this actually) with 35 kills.

I also learned that the real hero of the battle of midway was the dauntless, which were responsible for sinking all 4 Japanese carriers. The dauntless was so successful in its role in fact that it was judged to be superior to its replacement, the helldiver.

So, it looks like we better start squaking for one of those now.

JimBob

p.s., to keep the thread true ...

Checked a few more WMs in Houston today, still no Avengers!!!! Even on my trip to Dayton, OH this past weekend I checked 3 WMs and nothing!!!!! This is freaking driving me nuts!!!!!!!!

My friend, you are showing the signs of AWD. I know it well, yes I know it well.

teeheehee! i laugh at you 'normie' folk!

Here is a fact I found:
The Curtiss SB2C Helldiver was an aircraft carrier-based dive bomber produced for the United States Navy during World War II. It replaced the Douglas SBD Dauntless in US Navy service, and was initially strongly disliked by aircrews because it was much bigger and heavier than the SBD, was underpowered, had a shorter range, had an unreliable electrical system, and was often poorly manufactured.

I had the pleasure to know a Naval Aviator that flew both the Dauntless and Helldiver as an instructor at Penniscola NAS during WWII. He told me that he and his gunner took off on a training missing in a SBSC Helldiver one morning and had been flying for about an hour when the engine began to spudder and die. He told his gunner to stow the rear MG as he fought with the controls to make an emergency landing and they were still pretty far away from the NAS. Things happened quickly and the gunner was too scared or didn't react quickly enough to stow the MG as he was told. My friend, the pilot, tried to find a suitable place to put his aircraft down. As the plane belly landed in a swampy/tree filled area, the MG spun around and struck the gunner with enough force to knock him out and the pilot broke/injured 1 or both of his ankles (can't remember exactly-He told me that a small tree ended up between his legs and if it his plane had skidded any further he would have been in REAL trouble). The plane began to smoke and catch on fire and the last thing the pilot could remember before blacking out with pain was picking up the gunner on his back and moving a good distance away from the plane.

The official report at first said it was: pilot error. But later investigaion revealled that the carborateor had not been correctly replaced and had come loose during the fight. It was amazing they were able to fly as long as they had with this problem. Now reading the above information about the Helldiver, I can see now that shoddy workmanship may have added to the his crash as much as the faulty maintance.

Just thought I would share this with you guys...