Hey, i need some ideas for a dio. But there are some things that i would really like to have in it. 1. i would like to an aircraft in the dio. 2. i would like to have some sort of building in the background. So if any one can put these to combinations together and come up with some good ideas, let me know.
Thanks

Well that would depend on what era you want to depict.....what scale you want to build, etc.

If it was me......as I am a modern fan.......I would have to go with this.....this could be done in either 1/48 or 1/72 scales.....just depends on how much room you have to put it once its finished......

This premise would be based on a future, inevitable conflict with Iraq. Either a F-16C or an F-15E, loaded for some serious mud moving, going through a final check prior to taxiing out onto the runway for take off. You could have the face of a hardened, or underground AC shelter, (the US must be using these somewhere in the Gulf), behind the AC, with the plane boss, and maybe another ground personal making final checks, (such as pulling the wheel chocks out), as the pilot is ready to throttle up to taxi. I guess you could do this with a F-117 as well...as they would be more apt to be in the hardened AC shelters, than the F-16's and F-15s would be.

Just my 1 1/2 cents worth!!!

How about putting the aircraft in a hanger? This depends on the scale and how much room you have.
Hope this helped

Ok SuperSniper

picture this.......

England during the battle of britain (yep we`re goin` for ye ol` warbirds laddy)
We imagine that we are at Biggin` Hill it`s just 1300 hours. The pilots had a quiet morning. And are preparing themselfes for the hell to break loose. Next to a barack on a side of the strip is a group of pilots sitting. They are talking about the flight of last night. on the background is a guy playing a sad tune on his harmonica.
some further of the group are two pilots that returned later then the rest and they are using this period of rest to get some sleep.
in the doorway of the barrack stands a pilot with a newspaper. he`s not reading it but his concentration is at the desk where a couple of guys have an argument about the game of poker they are playing while an officer tries to calm them down.
while the pilots are using their time to rest are the crew and repair men working as horses to get the planes ready for the next take off.
just a couple of meters away from the barrack are three repair men working on some bullet holes in the right wing of a spitfire while another crew is busy with refuelling and load it up with ammo again so it`s ready for the next round

Suddenly the alarm goes off and all the pilots run as struck by lightning over the field......
well fill the rest in yourself

I hope this is a inspirative story for you

I think you could do something like this in 1:48 if you do so please show me the result

my two cents

During WWII, captured or shot aircraft were sometimes shown to the civilians to boost up morale.
So here comes a possibility :
a 1/32 nd Me 109 E, with it's bright yellow nose, having suffered minor damage, is shown to some civilians, under the guard of 2 british soldiers. behind, there's a wall with propaganda posters. The plane maybe has the wings removed for easy transportation.

Another possibility :
during WWII, a fighter pilot has crash landed his plane in a field right in front of a pub / bar / café... it could be called : gone to have a pint !

SuperSniper

If you want really a stunning scene where you combine an aircraft and buildings or similar structures. And I`m talking about a major challenge here

You could make a WW2 fighterplane (yes again ye ol` warbird) that is hit by AA guns above the Ruhr area (german industrial zone) Heavily damaged and with a dead pilot inside the plane is totally out of control and is smashing through a tall factory chimney. or watertower
imagine to built that with wing shattered to smitherines and the tower that gets ripped apart by the impact of the plane

another two cent`s

and also in this case, If you are finished show it to me

Here's a twist I just thought of (don't know if its ever been done).
Build a shodow box of a plane in a hanger being loaded or repaired. The spin is that the box is divided into two parts (top and bottom). The middle is the floor of the hanger. So the top 1/2 is the dio, plane, hanger, guys, gear etc. Here's where it gets cool, the floor is glass and you position a mirror in the bottom 1/2 of the box so you can look in and the reflection shows you the bottom view of the dio. Might be pretty cool with a bomb bay open and bombs being racked. You could even do a segment of a BUFF in a bigger scale. Cut the bay out and model just the middle.
This is kind of a spin of of Shep's bomber assembly line dio where he used mirrors on the walls to give the appearance of a huge warehouse/factory.


Heres a quick little paintbrush scetch of what I mean
[url] http://groups.msn.com/armorama/sloddersstuff.msnw?action=ShowPhoto&PhotoID=2826 /[url]

How about a little bird landing next to a building in mogodishu
I dont know but it wouuld be cool to see that
Brandenus Pimpus

For something unusual, how about a French WW2 fighter (MS 406, Dewoitine etc) trying to shake an Luftwaffe ME-109 by flying under a bridge? You might try concealing the plane's support with a perspex rod from below the bridge, with the ME-109 scraping some bushes on the riverbank to conceal its support, you could model the rounds from the ME hitting the water in front of the fleeing plane. Perhaps you could have a backround of a street printed off blurred at your local printshop (you can do the blur in Photoshop with the motion blur filter I can give you more info/help with this if you wish) to create a feeling of speed.

Or an abandoned Hurricane being checked out by some Luftwaffe pilots near a French Chateau?

What about a plane being towed and accidentally hitting the corner of a building (I actually managed that for real once LOL). You could call it Ooops!

A Mil-8 Hip or a Mil-24 Hind deploying troops in an Afghan village perhaps?

Some troops boarding a DC-3 at the start of D-Day, maybe?

Special Forces troops storming a hijacked airliner with the docking pier attached to it (you can get a few Vac-Form kits of airliners at 1/72 scale)

A Fieseler Storch landing on a rubble strewn street in Berlin 1945? I believe RLM test pilot Hanna Reitsch did that for real, which would let you model a woman pilot in a warbird. (reference can be found in her autobiography 'The Sky My Kingdom')

One last one, how about depicting the camouflage being applied to a plane by a guy with stencils taped to the plane, maybe a USAF plane going from bare metal to camouflage or having its national insignia applied, now that would be a challenge.
All that bare metal foil and airbrushing as well! How much of a glutton for punishment are you?!!

I was thinking along the same lines as Lifestyle, a Blackhawk or Littlebird would be perfect for buildings, you could have a lot of fun with all the destroyed buildings, suspend the helo by it's fastroping ropes, you get to add wrecked cars, all kinds of figures. It's one you could run with. I'm planning on doing a similar one to that with the Blackhawk.

I also like Viper29's ideas of modern a/c with a shelter of hangar.

A forced perspective would be interesting, a 1/48 F-117, airborne, the doors are open and a GBU-12 is dropping out, further ahead is a small-scale office building, HQ looking place, the only structure there, so the bomb is implied to be guided through one of those windows. I think I just inspired myself. :-)

Yeah those are all very good ideas, i especially like Penpens idea and Fausts too. Penpens idea would be very practicle and a little easier. ohhh yeah by the way this is going to be only my second dio. my first one was with a p-40e warhawk with it parked and the pilot is jumping out. i wish i could send a pic but i dont have a digital camera or a scanner. i hope i get one for christmas !!! any way i really like penpens i dea with the moral booster. The setting could be somewhere in London, the allies have taken an enemy airstrip. A couple of planes and pilots got away but one Me 109 (or an Fw-190) had been in the shop for some strange engine noises. When it was captured and then displayed on a street corner with the two british soldiers standing guard. In the background there is a brick wall of a bulding, almost completely covered in propoganda. In the crowd will be some old men talking they usual walk in the park, when they spot the plane and are pearing wonderously at it. Sounds good and all but what scale? And then theres that one thing. Money Im only 16 and dont yet have a job, how much is this going to cost me? Well all the ideas are good and still welcome for suggestions. so fire away.

Well... if you want to work for cheap, then you'll probably have to choose 1/72nd scale. You'll be able to find great planes but you'll have a more difficult time finding the right figures... most figures at that scale are made of bad soft plastic... horrible...

If you want to choose ease of choice and of build, you'd better choose 1/32nd scale for the plane, with 1/35th scale figures. there's plenty of choice for each, but at that scale good planes and good figures are expensive !

Supersniper

I think that most of the ideas that came out of this topic will do very well in 1:72
not only because of the budget.

But for instance you could do the plane chase under the bridge in France quite well in 1:72
also my idea of the plane that rams the factorychimney would work out quite well in that scale. Only thing you have to do is scratchbuilding the chimney out of foam (and making the plane off course) but I think that several Ideas that came up would do it quite good in the 1:72 scale
you may have think about that

Faust i really like your idea too. but one question how would i go about making the chimny, im kinda new to making dios so im kinda lost. but thats a great idea too. i also like the idea of the planes underneath the bridge idea. (:-)

Supersniper

For things as buildings you could use what I use. It`s called Styrofoam and you can get it at the DIY shop or hardwarestore. I know that car repairmen get it in the boxes where carbumpers were shipped in. and last but not least try a carpenter they use it for the isolation of roofs
my Foam comes from the hospital where my father works.
Ok back to the foam. The foam is a foam that has a high density its one piece (not the white stuff with little balls that get`s a real mess if you crumble it) The qualitie are that it`s light but still strong. I dropped almost a whole building from the stairs when I wanted to show it to my parents. I ran after it and when I came down it was still in one piece. Not a single thing crumbled off of it.
Another quality is that you can scribe every detail in with an ordinary pen
you can paint it easily, for plaster you just put wallspackle on it (available in every DIY shop)
I made several buildings with it and I`m really satisfied with it

A have a couple of pictures here from me or other modelers who made great houses with the stuff

hope this is of any help

hey super sniper.....another thing about 1/72nd noone...even the great faust has pointed out you can use ho(1/87th)scale buildings and other items, like BRIDGES. they fit together great just don't use the figures, the best to use is 25mm and try to use ones from andrea of spain, they are as expensive as 1/35th figs but worth every dime...
happy modeling stug

Hey yeah stugiiif, i never thought of that, i even have a preety large railroad in my basment thats not set up anymore os i may use that, great idea. But i dont know if my bridge is 1/87 scale or not. but thats a great idea. Faust i might just have to go and get me some of that, i used the stuff you were talking about and it is very messy. Thanks for the great ideas and keep em coming.

This is something have made with the foam. I still have to finish it but this building will be the big star in my next dio

on the picture you can se that there is still a lot of work to do

in this dio that I made for the dio campaign on Armorama I also used the foam

this is the rought cut of it


I also made the street and the sidewalks with it



and the two pictures above shows the finished structure
Also all the rubble and debries that lay around are made with it (also the loose bricks and the wallparts that have broken off )
If you look at this link there are step by step pictures how I have made the whole dio
http://groups.msn.com/armorama/distractionprogresspictures.msnw?Page=1

If you look around in the features I`m sure that there will be several articles on how to use the foam.
I know there is a topic called styrofoam city or something like that. The guy shows there a house and a bridge made of the foam

hop this is of some help

Thats awsome faust, this really helps alot. do you know the exact name of the styrofome so that i can go find some somewhere. those are very good, so you jsut used a regular pen to scribe the bricks and rubble? (:-)

SuperSniper

Thanks for the good comments
I don t know it better than styrofoam. Its sold in DIY shops as the yellow variant you probably have to seek a little for the blue variant but the yellow one is good also.
You could look in the DIY shop at the isolation departement for it
You will discover that If you experimented a little bit with it that the ideas pop up like mushrooms and that you want more and more of it

if your set-up is ho scale its more than likely close to 1/72nd. but on the not that there is atrain setup in the basement dicuss it with the guys who made it for you, my dad flipped when i started tearing through the one he made for me when i was a kid! pls. keep that in mind when you search for the parts for your dio.

stug