Recently dusted off my 1/18 Pegasus Gee Bee Model Z and decided to make some adjustments. I added the rigging that was left off the original model and added a pilot into the cockpit. Not a professional custom job or anything like that but here is what the plane looks like with the mods, it adds some life to the model for sure.
For the rigging I simply used black thread I had on hand. Instead of drilling out the holes I cut each piece of thread to fit each section and then glued them in place. This was tedious but worked out okay. I never did any type of rigging before. So I had to use a fairly simplistic way of doing this.
The pilot was a bit more challenging. The cockpit had to be pried off first and I quickly realized no full figure would ever fit inside the cockpit unless the whole model was pried apart, which I was unwilling to do. I took an extra Mig-15 pilot and removed the legs and arms. Then I cut most of the torso off leaving only the head and the very top of the shoulders. I then squeezed him into the cockpit and glued him in place. Due to the small cockpit of the Gee Bee...the bottom portion of the figure wouldn't be visible so the way I did it serves the purpose fine.
And just for fun, why not a race with "The Rocketeer". "The Rocketeer" is a Hallmark ornament out this year and is about the size of a 1/18 scale figure. Couldn't resist setting up this shot with the Gee Bee Z.
