I have an image in my head of a dio I'd like to try, it would be my first attempt at a forced perspective. I'll lay it out for you and tell me if it's worth pursuing or not.

I was thinking about an HO sized base with an HO SAM site in the small jungle mountainous area with a SAM lifting off, the plume would grow larger as it went up for the perspective to be right and would suspend a 1/72? A-6 (maybe) that would be hit by the missile, the a/c is beginning to come apart and the crew is mostly up the ejection rails.

In my head it is more detailed than it sounds, but that's just the basic idea, would the perspective look right with those two scales? Or is the whole project a sham? Any opinion is appreciated.

#:-)

Sounds quite original actually. I did a diorama mixing 1/76 and 1/72. It had a Jagdpanther in 1/76 concealed in some woods in winter, with 72nd scale officers in the foreground checking a map and it looks pretty cool to me.
On the subject of the SAM hitting the A6, a few problems occurred to me.
First, at such a relatively low altitude would the SAM be armed yet? I dunno the answer to that one. Would it actually have started guiding at that stage of the flight, dunno the answer to that one either.
If that creates a fly in the ointment, how about if you modelled it coming though the cloud ceiling? That might be cool and you wouldn't have to build the launcher either LOL! Not sure how you'd do the clouds though, cotton wool maybe? Sculptured and painted clay cumulus clouds perhaps? A bit of research would yield the answers to the arming and guidance facts, don't be put off, I could well be wrong about them!
Second, not really a problem, more information really, but SAMs and Sidewinders and such are usually proximity-effect weapons, certainly the SA-6 is, they rarely actually 'hit' the plane, how they destroy it is by detonating as they near the target and throwing out steel rods which sever fuel and hydraulic lines and other important bits to cripple the aircraft or set it on fire. You could model that by having one of the 'fingers' of the explosive eruption touching the aircraft (to support it). If an A6 took a direct hit, I doubt the guys would have time to eject.
One more thing, a cliche SA6 SAM site was actually fairly widespread, usually with a control vehicle in the middle and launchers radiating out around it like spokes, which might mean having to build a fair few launchers....
Reference-wise, you've probably already seen it, but in case you haven't, check out the movie of 'The Flight of the Intruder'. It's pretty cool and should give you some ideas if you haven't seen it. Also check out the book 'Thud Ridge' by Colonel Jack Broughton (I think). That's got loads of first-hand info about engaging SAMs and stuff.
Come to think of it, in The Flight of the Intruder, Willem Defoe mentions that the SAMs are 'Going into high PRF' when they start heading towards him and Brad Johnson's Intruder. In case you don't know, that stands for Pulse Repitition Frequency, which, if it's an accurate portrayal of the real thing (which it probably is cause the guy that wrote it flew A6s in Nam), would indicate that Guideline missiles have to change the type of radar lock to acquire the target for sure. Which kind of messes up the low altitude hit idea. Of course, they could get hit by a Strella, which I know can hit stuff at low altitude.
Anyway, I think it sounds like a cool idea for a diorama so, sod the facts and build it!!!

A lot of good and accurate points, I had originally thought about the cloud idea and would like to give it a try but it seems to be a difficult problem to solve unless someone knows of a great way to do it?

I know the far-fetched SAM scenario, and I wanted the crew to bail out because of general small-arms damage, engine fire, loss of flight control, etc... but I needed the smoke plume to suspend the a/c. I also thought of an air-to-air engagement but it would have to be a shadow box.

Thanks for your feedback, it all helps in refining my idea into a workable and realistic project. Any other ideas and suggestions?

If you're going for forced perspective and want to give more illusion of altitude, why not HO SAM and 1/48 Intruder? Or larger scale SAM and 1/144 or 1/350 Intruder, changing the perspective? HO (1/87) and 1/72 aren't that far apart in size to get the feel for forced perspective. Or for that matter, a scratchbuilt SAM laluncer in 1/144 and 1/48 A-6.

I like the idea, the biggest drawback is smoke and fire. I have (in my opinion) not seen any good representation of fire/explosions. I have seen only a couple of decent looking representations of smoke. They used steel wool as thier smoke medium.
I don't want to discourage you from you dio. I like the idea and I have never taken on the challenge of forced perspective. I admire you for doing that. I just wanted to throw the smoke fire challenge out ahead on your planning curve. Get creative (as you already have) and I'm sure you can come up with a good dio.

A few years ago, a guy showed up at a contest with several dioramas featuring aircraft in flight and combat. He used lint from the dryer as a medium for smoke and this looked quite convincing. He alos used forced perspective with 1/144 aircraft and 1/700 ships.

Hey, thanks for the ideas, and for the steel wool and dryer lint ideas, I'm thinking about changing my era. Maybe Scott O'Grady's F-16 that was shot down by a SAM over Bosnia in 1995. Then it would be a direct hit, I agree there are obstacles to overcome but I'm gonna try and run with this one! :-)

Thanks

Another suggestion for how you might achieve suspension of the aircraft in 'mid air' well three actually...
1. Enclose the entire thing in a glass or perspex case and have a sheet of horizontally mounted non-reflective glass in there so you could mount the aircraft on it without reflections. You can get it from picture framers.
2. Attach the wing farthest away from the viewer to the rear of the display case.
3. Build it pretty much as you originally envisaged, but add a cloud layer to it which forces the viewer to only be able to see the SAM site from a limited angle, thus forcing your forced perspective/scale trick to only be seen from an angle at which it works.

If your doing it as Scott Gradys' plane be sure to read his book which I think is called Basher Five-Two or Five-Six or something like that. It's pretty good actually, another one on your reading list should be No Escape Zone. Can't remember the author's name but it's by the Fleet Air Arm Harrier pilot shot down over Bosnia that ended up fighting with the rebels and the SAS before being rescued. It's a really good book too.

If you are wanting to do a view of the missile going upwards towards the a/c yet want to have the SAM site visible you want a big scale for the SAM site and a smaller scale for the a/c.That gives the perspective of distance.
Another way you could try it is if you do a a/c in like 1/48 and have a smaller SAM.That way you can do a all aerial dio and have the SAM coiming up below the a/c through the clouds.
The only gripe I would have if you had a low-flying a/c being hit by a SAM is that a/c flying at low-altitude wouldnt be popped by a SAM,but by flak.If its Vietnam then it would more than likely be a ZSU-23 radar guided flak gun.
Buuuttt in saying that F-4's flying in the Israeli 1973 Yom-Kippur war were demolished by SAMs at low flying altitudes.These were shot down by SAM's on tracks(cant remember the vehicles name at the moment)
Other than that sounds like a pretty sweet idea hoss.

Thanks for the new ideas, and I did read Scott O'Grady's book, Return With Honor, I just skimmed it this afternoon to double-check it was an SA-6. Does anyone make an SA-6 kit, particularly a small one?

I think the F-16 will be 1/48, and don't know about the SAM. Anyone know of good SA-6 pictures?

One other thing, when creating an impacted a/c, is it best to bulid it completely and then damage it, remove parts, etc... or should I do it during the construction?

Does O'grady say where the missile hit? I'd certainly plan the damage before the build. You mighgt some combat footage videos again to see what happens when a plane is hit, even a direct hit with a missile (training footage). Also, there's a book out of damaged aircraft in flight, though WWII. Your local friendly Barnes and Noble should have that.

I'd be inclined to build it damaged as you go, although it depends how damged is 'damaged' of course! If it's 'coming apart' then you'll have to scratchbuild sub-assemblies of the interior, since they are not normally seen, they're unlikely to be in any kit you buy as a basis for your scene.
It's a while since I read O'Grady's book, but I seem to remember him saying that his aircraft disintegrated around him. Although I could be confusing this with another account. In any case, what you need to get hold of is one of those skeletal cutaway drawings to see where all the ribs and longerons go. I'm pretty sure I've got one, if you need it scanning, let me know. I think I've got some SA6 pics, I'll have a look this evening.
Also bear in mind that the F16 uses a fair bit of composite material in it's construction, so don't put metal panels coming off where they're made of something else!
Sounds like it could be fun to have a go at, though. Personally I quite enjoy the 'research' stage of doing something like that, as it always ends up throwing up something fascinating that you never knew before. Like for example this little known F16 fact: When they were thinking up a name for the F16 'Fighting Falcon', one of the names they were considering was the 'Mustang ll'. I think they should have picked that, don't you?

Take it easy

In the book O'Grady said he was blind-sided, it impacted the belly straight-on. He said the cockpit was disintegrating around him, I've been trying futilely to find similar pictures. Most of the plane's guts will be concealed in the blast, it's the very moment of impact that I'm going for, so smoke, fire, debris, etc... will cloud much of the inner-workings, but doubtlessly some interior will need to be scratchbuilt. I would love to see those SA-6 pics, I haven't had time to search for a kit yet, so I'm still in the "prepare for research" stage. Thanks for your help!

Here are some pics which might interest you, I just put them on a page quickly. Paste that line below into your browser window.

http://www.wonderland59.freeserve.co.uk/messengers%20picture%20upload.html

Thank you for the very helpful pictures, I found a number of decent shots of the launcher from www.FAS.org/ but none of a launch. I appreciate it, I've got quite a bit of thinking to do for this one if I'm gonna pull it off. I just read an article on Missing-Lynx today about an SA-6 model, Cromwell makes an SA-6 conversion for a AAA battery, but I don't know scale, or price or anything. Thanks again!

#:-)