Pitts S-2C

Visit the web site of the Company that builds this thrill ride.

http://www.aviataircraft.com/

The Real Thing

    This is THE airplane if you want the thrill ride of your life. Unless your filthy rich, or fly modern fighter jets, there is little else that compares to the adrenalin rush of flying this airplane. I believe I have read that more stunt pilots win stunt show competitions with this plane than with any other. Sadly this seems to be changing now as monoplanes now seem to be the big winners.

    I decide to model the Pitts S-2C so I could try out different paint schemes as I one day plan to own this aircraft. You still better have a damn good job if you want to buy one of these new. A spanking new Pitts can tip the scales at around $200,000. But, if you are a handy mechanic and understand the risks, you can buy a used one for as low as $18,000. Now at that price it's an older model. Like an S1.

    The Curtis Pits Special was first designed and built by Curtis Pitts in 1945 and began taking the trophies away from the soviets in 1972. There are many variations of the little plane, S-1T, S-1S, the 300hp Super Stinker, S-1-11B, S-2A and the S-2B and apparently the 260hp S-2S is a favorite among pilots. But, the Aviat S-2C is the plane to fly in my humble opinion as it is a much improved version and is meant to compete against the dreaded monoplanes.

The Model

    The model started out as a convert of a Light Wave model I download from www.Turbosquit.com. If you are into 3D animation, you know about this site. Thanks to C-ORiley for posting the original model on TurboSquid. Little remains of the original model. It is on it's way to being a high polygon count model with all the detail. I estimate it to be about 25% finished. You might notice the missing tail wheel.

    The paint scheme is base on the paint job of a United States Navy North American T-2 Buckeye which began service in 1958. The red and white stripes came from a Boeing-Stearman PT-17 Kaydet built in 1940 and widely used as a trainer for WWII. And of course the nose art. This is a picture I found of Ava Gardner. It is either a test shot for her character or a promotional still from the Film Noir picture of 1946 "The Killers" staring Ava and Burt Lancaster. The picture was originally black and white but I colorized it for the plane.