I am often asked how I make the altitude stands I use for our 1/300 scale Mustangs air games. Here is a step-by-step cheat-sheet on how I do it.

There is nothing magical about the gauges of wire and tubing that are mentioned here, but they are what many of us in the Washington, Oregon, and B.C. area are using for our Mustangs games, so all our airplane models are compatible in each other’s games. Regrettably, it’s a tedious process. Plug in a good video or two into the VCR…

1. Cut Anniversary Board (or similar heavy poster board) into about 70 - 2" squares.
2. Use a ruler to mark an “X” at the center of each stand.
3. Saw 3/32nd inch brass tube into lengths as noted below. Suggest 8 – 10 per level.
4. Bend 1/16th inch brass wire lengths, twice (see illustration below). The wire & tubing is available at most hobby shops.
5. Apply super glue to the wire and place on the stand.
6. Apply small pieces of masking tape across the base/wire.
7. Apply super-glue to vertical wire & position the brass tube.
8. Glue 3 pennies or washers on the base as ballast with white glue.
9. For the levels 5 – 6, add a couple more pennies for extra ballast.
10. When dry, spray with primer to seal the copper of the pennies.
11. Cover the base with spackle or plaster. When dry, paint or flock as desired.
12. In one corner of the stand, write the altitude of the base with a marking pen.
13. Let about half an inch of the 1/16th wire extend from the bottom of your planes.

Altitude	Cut tube to this length	Total height of stand
0	1 Ύ”	2”
1	2 Ύ”	3”
2	3 Ύ”	4”
3	4 Ύ”	5”
4	5 Ύ”	6”
5	6 Ύ”	7”
6	7 Ύ”	8”