elsie item issue 61 - USS Landing Craft Infantry National Association

and fog generator at the stern of the ships. He iscontinuing research to tie these details down.“All 302 ships in the class can be characterizedwith just six variants (they did not have enoughtime to introduce a large amount of changes). Tomy knowledge, all the ships built with the Britishstyle lower navigation bridge were sent directlyto the Royal Navy and Royal Canadian Navy.“I am about 40% complete on the 351-1098 class,but some vital items are still missing from mydocumentation; I can complete about 95% of theships with what I have. Variants abound forthese. Out of 351-402 there are at least 27, andthe rest of them had a whole lot of other changesas well. Some of the differences are small, othersare major. Curiously, the basic shape of the hullremained essentially the same for the whole production,and even for the LCS(L)(3).”“These methods”, he says, “will allow me theleast expensive way to produce the small numbersof accurate model kits I expect to sell to thegeneral public (very far from profit, actually) sothat I can defray the cost of all the replicas Iwant to make at no cost for a number of associationslike your own, museums and other institutionsof learning.”Raigo feels that LCI(L)s have never really beenwell represented in model form and he wants tocorrect that. We all can be most grateful for thisexcellent and detailed work which will do muchto the preservation of the heritage of LCIs.Should you wish to contact him, his address isAlexander Raigo, 1866 Leithsville Road, # 117,Hellertown, PA 18055 His telephone number is(201)560-6632 and his email address is threedeewiz@yahoo.com.Raigo has specialized in electro-mechanical productdevelopment. For a number of years he hasbeen working on contract, moving about frequently.In the last year he has lived in four differentstates.“This year I have been in two so far, andnumber thee may be coming up verysoon,” says Raigo. “and I carry aroundmy two computers and two cats withme wherever I go. It is a strange life”.Raigo plans in time to produce a series ofscale replicas, based on his engineeringmodels. He notes that a considerableadvantage of these electronic models isthat they can be scaled down to anyscale. After adjusting the sizes of thesmaller features to suit the scale, he canthen make prototype parts directly fromhis 3-D files, and they can in turn be usedto make molds for casting additional setsof parts, which then can be used as a kit,together with instruction sheets, decalsand photoetched brass parts (alsoderived from his engineering models).The Windlass22