nother pic

Before going off to war,I am sure that one of the last things that our young airman would do would be to secure down his airplane.I have gone over this in my mind and thought what would he have done to accomplish this task.Would he have put the whole thing under tarps to protect it from the elements or would he leave it open and hope for the best?
Ideally he would have stored the whole thing in the garage but then we wouldn't have nothing to look at would we.The other option would be that they knew that he was on his way home and as a surprise his family took the tarps off.I could show the tarps rolled up and put off to one side to suggest this scenario.
The ropes as shown in the pic are home made linen line from my shipbuilding days and is a little fuzzy.A little wax run over the surface should cure that problem.This fuzz could also be removed prior to installation by lightly running a flame over it.

I have decided to put the cart in the background,out of the way.
Whenever I look at the airplane sitting there it seems to have a surprising amount of movement built into it already.I don't want to spoil the illusion by tying it to the ground in any physical way.I want to just suggest that it has been sitting there for awhile by the subtle use of tie downs and ropes.Saw horses and other supports can be shown inconspicuously off to the side.

This is the cart with the tarps after having been taken off the airplane.

Now the fun part ,a little weathering !

I think that I have found the easiest solution to the landscaping problem.
I will simply put a few tufts of long grass around the wheels and a small bare earth area under the engine/radiator area.
My reasoning is as follows,if the wings, tail and nose areas were covered with envelope type tarps then grass would grow and could still be maintained (cut) under the aircraft.Only the wheels would be difficult to cut around . That solves two problems ,one how to maintain the illusion of movement and two how to make it look like the aircraft has not been moved for some time.Even one blade of tall grass hitting a wing would spoil it.
An old type push lawnmower could be maneuvered in such a way as to keep the grass trim while our hero was away or it could have been cut in anticipation of his arrival home.There will be a "welcome home" sign somewhere that will indicate that he was already expected to arrive that day but they just didn't know when.

Pilots eye view !

nother pic

This is close to the final composition.The aircraft wings are inside the outer modules for easy access.The aircraft is slightly off any 45 deg angle and the pilot figure is also off to one side.
Thank you to whoever it was that suggested this arrangement to me a long time ago, of using this backyard for the airplane instead of the other.Sometimes when you look at something for a long time you can't see the forest for the trees.