Leaderboard

This is Kinetic's 1/48th scale Sea Harrier, virtually OOB, all I added was seat belts. The kit was a fairly straight forward build with no major issues. She is painted with Humbrol enamels. image upload no registration image upload no registration image upload no registration image upload no registration image upload no registration image upload no registration image upload no registration image upload no registration I also added Skunk Model Works deck tractor and crew: image upload no registration image upload no registration image upload no registration image upload no registration image upload no registration image upload no registration image upload no registration image upload no registration image upload no registration Thanks for looking

Completely OOB, acrylic paints except the green which was lacquer. Painted by hand. The kit was great, the best part being the decals as they were matte and hair thin. Here goes: WIP here http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235009662-172-ch-46-sea-knight-by-fujimi/

Hi to all Also finished in this year, Revell Spitfire Mk VB, well-known model with few issues (wing root shape, not very accurate wheels, questionable spinner shape...etc..... At the end, from my point of view, a nice model to work, and when done definitely looks like the Spitfire. What is added: detailing of the cockpit, seat belts, opened door, opened canopy (which is evident because it sits too high ... but ..::) .. Humbrol paint, wash - artistic oil paints, lacquer Gunze mat. I hope that you like it, all critiques welcomed Regards ... and of course the pictures ...... PS. i broke mirror, and when I get a replacement will glue it, until then .... a pilot need to turn his head .....

" Сами не летаем – другим не дадим." ["Don't fly – don't let anyone else."] -- Unofficial motto of the Войска ПВО СССР, Soviet Voyska-PVO -- the branch of the armed forces which operated interceptors and SAMs for home defense. "The Soviet estimate of their own effectiveness against high altitude penetrators must have been high... planning factors for the probability-of-kill of SA-2s (given launch inside engagement parameters) were 0.8. Similarly, the handbook probability-of-kill of the air-to-air missiles on Victor Belenko's MiG-25 was 0.86. These are end-game probabilities of kill in Western analytic jargon. If the PVO command and control system could enforce at least two end-game engagements for each penetrator, the bomber attrition would have been estimated as above 0.95." -- "SOVIET STRATEGIC AIR DEFENSE: A LONG PAST AND AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE", James T. Quinlivan, RAND Corporation, September 1989 "The other attack option available to pilots was ramming- -a much celebrated tactic used in the Great Patriotic War and even in modern conditions. "Given the high value of a nuclear -armed strategic bomber this tactic presents a good trade-off and has been explicitly endorsed in the VPVOS press, but ramming requires flying skill at least as great as that for gun attacks and would be unlikely to greatly increase VPVOS effectiveness. "The conclusion of most Western analysts is that the VPVOS did not present a very effective defense against low altitude penetration during the 1960s and 1970s." -- John William Rix Lepingwell, Organizational and bureaucratic politics in Soviet defense decisionmaking: a case study of the Soviet air defense forces, MIT PhD Thesis, c.1988 I was going to do a joint Spitfire build with Cookie after I finished the Hunter, but we're both a bit worn down at the moment, and I wanted to wait until happier times to build my favourite aeroplane. The Yak-28P is probably one of the less well-known Soviet aircraft of the Cold War. It was never exported, never served overseas (unlike the Su-15 -- which used the same radar and missiles -- a few of which were apparently briefly stationed in Egypt during the War of Attrition), and labored more or less in obscurity as part of the PVO (in the USSR, the air defence command was an entirely seperate and independent service from the VVS, the tactical air force) covering lower-priority sectors of the vast Soviet Union against the possibility of NATO intruders. It was phased out around the same time as I was born in 1983, which seems more recent than it actually is. I probably wouldn't know anything about it if there wasn't a two-page full-colour spread of it and the paltry selection of stores it could carry in Bill Gunston's Modern Warplanes book, which I must have first seen in 1988 or 1989. I thought it looked incredibly unlike any NATO plane (my favourite at the time, by the way, was the hapless Tornado F.2), and spectacularly Russian. Of course, now I know it's a rather old-timey-looking design for the late 1950s from whence it sprang (it and the F-4 Phantom are contemporaries), but despite its vague resemblance to an Me 262, there's just a bit of muchness to it: the nose is too long, the wings too swept, the whole thing too pointy. I dig it. When I got back into modelling in 2011, I happened upon a secondhand kit of it in a local hobby shop and bought it immediately, only to discover it lacked a radome, which pyro-maniac kindly sent me. I then read that it was a bit of a tough build and left it at that, until now. [fanfare] 20161006_214424 by Edward IX, on Flickr 20161006_214430 by Edward IX, on Flickr Hmmm, "prefer quality". Well, I like to think I do. I like my models like I like my women, beautiful surface detail, expensive, and locked up safely in the basement. And look, only three steps, basically, and then it's all together! 20161006_214418 by Edward IX, on Flickr Sprues don't look too bad. Low parts count is good. 20161006_214442 by Edward IX, on Flickr what the butt 20161006_214457 by Edward IX, on Flickr This should be a hole. 20161006_215101 by Edward IX, on Flickr "Intriguing" fit. 20161006_215818 by Edward IX, on Flickr I've started the cockpit tub: 20161006_225434 by Edward IX, on Flickr From what I know of Sovjets, they didn't start getting their delightfully hideous vomit green cockpit interiors until the late 1960s, so this aircraft should have a restrained light grey with black instrumentation. A three-part nosewheel bay, which I then have to capture between the fuselage halves! Oh, Amodel, you spoil me. 20161006_225430 by Edward IX, on Flickr

thiird introduction model and will be enough for now...i hope i do not bother too much Another "project" which took too much time is finally over. Hobby Boss's Spitfires 5 easy kit (not so easy in this project), converted to version VI High altitude fighter. Some of changes on basic model, shortening wings, added resin extensions for HF version, added intake on the right side of the engine, cut off the strange "growths" on the lower part of the wings (landing lights ?), completely made cockpit interior, replaced canopy (the original is sick over sized), replaced wheels and added covers (model doesn’t have them at all), replacing three blade rotor with for blade one…..... etc .... Paints, Humbrol, weathering artistic oil paintings, lacquer Gunze. Will stop with bothering now, so pictures next. As always all critics and advice welcomed. I hope you like the model Regards Djordje

Hi One more recently finished models after many drawbacks and leaving model in box end returning it on workbench..... This is AZ Model from early series, lot of parts need cleanup, very hard to line parts, lot of putty needed.....in one word....complicated. But at the end i think that AZ Model catch up very nice Spitfire shape, lot of nice details....and i am happy with him at the end. Airplane is personal mount of Duncan Hamilton, Port Reitz, Kenya in unusual Royal blue color. Colors are Vallejo, wash artistic oil colors, and final coat is Gunze semigloss varnish. As much i tried to catch original color on camera, i was not able , tried all white balance settings but without success. Anyway you will get some idea.... I hope you will like it. Thanks for looking and as always all critiques are welcomed. Best regards....and pictures at the end At the end little history research, and my build is probably doomed... Duncan Hamilton was Chief Instructor at an OTU, or Chief Pilot at the base. He did have a reputation as a fairly flamboyant character. After the war we was driver for the Jaguar Le Mans team(won the classic Le Mans 24-Hours race in 1953). Now the color, i found that on few places, including his memoirs book (Touch Wood), Royal blue was maybe in fact BLACK color. Also i found on one forum that one of modellers contacted his son and his wife so i am just paste this part of the text: "Confused by various claims as to the colour of Duncan Hamilton's Seafire (MB340) I e-mailed his son Adrian in England last night. He spoke to his mother (who was a WREN on the station at the time) and she confirms the colour as black (as Hamliton states in Touch Wood). This does account for the major colour difference between the airframe colour and that of the blue section of the fin flash. So even this Blue spitfire is more eye catching that any other....historically it could be totally wrong. So maybe another BLACK one will stand beside him in near future. Maybe like this one: So that is all what i manage to find.......but anyway i did not regret that i finished it in blue color, it makes my collection more colorful Regards Djordje

Hi to all As a new member on this forum i will first post few of my finished models from this year so this will be some kind of introduction Finished well known Academy model A6M5c Zero, flown by Takeo Tanimizu. Model is finished out of box with addition of cockpit details (harnesses, guns drilled,) Colors Gunze, Hinomaru are airbrushed, satin gunze warmish, wash artistic oil colors. I was not sure which level of chipping i need to apply, so i decide not to ruin very much this plane, as on one picture i sow, where Tanimizu looking at kill marks, fuselage looks not so chipped.....so i decide to stay on low damage side. Sorry for long text...pictures Best regards to all critiques welcomed as always

Hi second model from introduction part..... Well known P-47D from Academy. Out of box, only some correction - shortening about 1mm main lending gears, so now it sits a little better. Model master olive drab, tamiya neutral gray, washes - artistic oil paints, varnish - gunze mat top cote. Only thing missing on pictures is drop tank, still not finished, and light bulb under wing for landing light, applied just after taking pictures. As always pictures not perfect but i hope you will like this model. I enjoyed a lot making it. Regards Djordje

Carrying on with my personal theme of Mirage Deltas for this year I present the High Planes 1/72 Atlas Cheetah Project Brahman/Cushion. Based on the High Planes two seat Mirage with some Resin additions for the nose, wing leading edges, tail and seats, it went together fairly well but I did have some problems with wing leading edge inserts but that was probably down to my dodgy modelling skills rather than the kit. Anyway enjoy C and C welcome Willy

U.D.T. Boat and frogmen 1/35 This vignette keeps all the figures within the 6 x 6 area with just the boat & dinghy overhanging. This is the monogram/revell 1967 kit built OOB with Mantis miniatures 1/35 fish and use of clear plastic sheeting and copious amounts of kristal clear. All the best Chris

Hi guys. Welcome me to the RFI of my Revell Stearman Kaydet 1/72 It's been a while since this little bird was finished but I didn't have a spare moment in the sun to take the pics. I had to go to the docs today so I had a few hours to myself, I got some nice pictures taken in the garden with some nice autumn sun. The WIP can be found here. I scratched the office from plasticard. re-built the prop painted with Tamiy acrylics and rigged with ez-line. An excellent fun little build to bring the love back after the Mamoth prowler build. Here we go then, Welome the Stearman Kaydet. (Yellow Peril) 1/72 And there we are. I really enjoyed this build, the rigging seemed to go well giving me some confidence to do a bigger string bag I have in the stash. I hope you all like the shots and thanks to everyone who helped along the way. Take care y'hear. Johnny Ramone.

Another Dragon kit from September 2016

Hello, Another old build from 2000. Flaps, fin, elevators repositioned. A very easy kit, stripes, among other features, are airbrushed... Thanks for looking at !!! AE

Thanks Sean; I have them made specially, you know I decided I'd have another go at black-basing this weekend so last night I gave the model a coat of Alclad black primer: Yes I know, but it is black in real life. I think the first thing I'll have to do is the white fuselage band and spinner, then apply the grey to the underside; hopefully I can make some progress over the next few days... Cheers, Stew

Perhaps when Sio has time from actually making the kit - anything that distracts him from doing that only prolongs the release date. Not something I want him to do really. I prefer that we just take your notes, look carefully at what you tell us, act on it and go forward. I think it is probably enough to say that we have done it and to thank you for bringing it to our attention.

No you're right, I still need to do that. I was going to spray a matt coat over the terrain first since the water needs to be glossy, but I can probably do the base for the waterfalls before that. That seems to be a popular verdict Although I think Carts' Aliens are worse - they have see-through teeth :eek: I did a load of little things today, starting with cleaning up any loose scatter (vacuum cleaner followed by turning the board upside-down and banging it). I added more scatter around the edges of the board as I don't like seeing the edges bald. I also painted some sticks for dead wood in the jungly end and added fallen rocks below the cliffs: I tidied up around the water edge, detailing the stream a bit: As part of that I painted over the rocks with raw umber where they'd had overspray from the water. You can still see some of the green but I think it's looking better. In the damp areas I've added some moss (ground foam, a bit of static grass for the hairs, and thinned PVA) which is drying slowly - it'll be dark rather than light when it sets properly: So it now looks like this - not markedly different but a bit tidier: I need to get cracking on the plants, the outpost, and a hundred other things as well as finish painting the warriors. The big onion has been cut for this year (sorry onion fans!) but will make an appearance in future. Cheers, WIll

Hello, this is Czech manufacturer Brengun's new-ish 1/72 Yakolew Yak-1, Series 2, 1942 production. This kit is a little bit more expensive then your average short-run model - you'll find out why as soon as you open the box. It contains a very nice photo etch fret with finely detailed parts for the interior, the landing gear covers as well as lower wing surface panels. The box offers three decal options, all of them in the usual (and rather unspectacular) Green/Dark Grey scheme. I used Gunze/Mr.Hobby acrylics for painting, choosing H303 for the Green and H331 for the darker colour. According to the 'scale effect', I used H331 Dark Grey (with a drop of White added for the faded effect) instead of Black. The fit is unproblematic, all the interior bits go into the fuselage without extra work. You'll have to sand down the wing roots a little bit, to make the upper wings click into place without tension. While the Yak-1 is a rather unspectacular aircraft, I'm quite happy that Brengun provide us with an up-to-date rendition. All photographs by Wolfgang Rabel (IGM Cars & Bikes). Cheers from Vienna!

Hello all, Here is my recently completed 1/48 Hasegawa F/A-18F in the markings of VFA-211 'Checkmates' as seen during their 2015 cruise which saw the squadron in action in the skies over Iraq and Syria. The build thread is here. Extras used included a recycled Aires cockpit, Pavla seats, Fightertown decals, Steel Beach ACS coaming, FOD covers and ECS pipes. The GBU-38/54's are a mixture of Wolfpack and Academy, the AGM-65 is Hasegawa and the AIM-9x are from the kit. Colours are Dark Ghost Grey over light Ghost grey, both from Model Master. I wanted to depict a heavily weathered jet as per pictures i've seen of F/A-18E/F's in the theatre so a mixture of washes, pigments and dry brushing was used to try and achieve this. And with my VFA-41 'Black Aces' F/A-18F: Comments welcome, thanks for looking. Dave

Hello again! I would like to participate with this little Italian fighter, kit from Italeri 1:72. The Regia Marina (Italian Navy) experimented with a carrier version (Serie II) which was successfully launched by catapult. Lacking a carrier, Italy used a similar system to the British CAM ships equipped with Hurricanes. The first proposal was made in late December 1940, although the program officially began with an order issued in April 1943. The first modified Re.2000 Cat. (taken from the Swedish orders) flew on 27 June 1941, the last on 18 January 1942 (MM.8282-8288), but crashed on 10 September. There was another navalized Re.2000, the MM.471. It flew initially with a lower powered A.74 RC.38 engine, but it was lost too, during the travel from Reggio Emilia to Taranto (12 May 1941). The first launch was performed on 9 May 1942 with test pilot Giulio Reiner.[11] The work to make suitable the Re.2000 Cat., nicknamed Ochetta (little goose) took considerable time and only at the beginning of 1943 were they used aboard the Littorio class, but not more than one for every ship (although capable of holding three aircraft). RE 2000 "Catapultabile" Re 2000 aircraft modified for catapult launch from Regia Marina ships. On the day of the armistice, 8 September 1943, 6 Re 2000 "Catapultabile " were in service, with two on the battleship Roma and one each on the Vittorio Veneto and Italia (formerly the Littorio).

This is the Dragon kit 6303 completed in September

The Amodel Yak-28P needs some work - but it makes up into a decent model..... I have an old T-shirt showing a caricature of the Russian Knights Su-27 - and on the back it says in Cyrillic - "We have no brakes" Which seems odd at first - but when you understand that it is better translated as "There is nothing to stop us" it makes perfect sense. So the PVO motto is perhaps better translated as "If we don't fly - nobody else does" I have all of Amodel's Yak-25/27/28 series of kits - but have not yet got around to making any more after the Firebar. I did fancy having a go at marrying a Su-15 fuselage to engineless Yak-28 wings to make the one-off Yak-28-64 Have fun with your Yak..... Ken

But I'm not a remotely normal person.

If you asked any remotely normal person to just rattle off World War II aircraft until they couldn't think of any, the Walrus likely wouldn't even be in the first hundred, though.

Xtrakit Spitfire XIIs are almost impossible to find and go for a princely sum on ebay when they do turn up. The Brigade Models conversion looks like crap. It isn't, it hasn't, and they shouldn't.

Sure does Trevor - thats why I had to make the U/C in brass and mount them to some big brass plates! evening ladies thanks for stopping by so to whats been happening today.. I am feeling particularly pleased with myself as I think I have sorted something that has been bothering me. Having finished the tops of the wings, I was going to move onto the nose and get the really tough skinning out of the way.. ..I actually started to wrap the rocker cover bulges in ali before I started to really look at the shapes in detail - as soon as I did I understood what had been bugging me all along - the nose never really looked right... ..the cowling bulges are such a distinctive feature of a Griffon Spit that any line out of place and the nose looks off - well I had a lot of lines out of place - they were much more bulbous than they should be, deeper, longer, blunter, fatter and one higher and bigger than the other.. ..apart from that they were perfect... ..I made some scale templates from drawings and photos and drew out roughly what the shape should be by using the exhaust slot as the reference point (which is perfectly placed..) I have already tried to take the fronts down, and you can see how much more bulge there is vs the side outline... ..some serious hacking - I did wonder at this point if I should just cut them off and start again... luckily they were solid fibreglass/resin so took some beating.. ..and after a lot of reworking - you can see the 'ghostline' of where the old bulges were.. ..much happier with the look now... ..I started to wrap the bulge in soft ali and marked out where the fasteners are... ..ended up with the rough part - I am definately learning more about dealing with these full blown curved shapes... ..once it is stuck down, I can start to work the shape and smooth out wrinkles with wooden tools - a coffee stirrer stick being the most useful... ..and shaped with the fasteners added - I will trim around it when I come to skin the rest of the nose.. ..even as I look at it now, it looks a lot more like a Spitfire than it did when I woke up this morning ... TTFN Peter

Oh I got some more done on the seafire too. for some reason Airfix would have you fit the spinner at this stage, but I'll be darned if that's going to happen so I glued this bit in to take the nose later on. The pit got glued in place. A bit of a pain as there weren't any real locating points. But I think it looks good all together. i got the cameras finished, took snaps, and it looks like they got deleted while I was doing the RFI they looked pretty good too. Alas you will have to make do with their bums. Word of warning if you're going to add cameras to this model, make em shallow. I had to sand the heck out of these to make the fuselage close. But we got there eventually. Remembering back to Ced's last few builds bits have fallen off/in with only the slightest pressure so I adopted a bet and braces approach. Milliput the little buggers in place. Then glue. And a start on the wings and things. Before I finished up I had decided to copy Tony again and have slightly tilted elevators, so out with Dexter. Having finished too much had been cut from the far edge so plasticard was added to fill the gap. And sanded. and that leaves us here. Im going to get a glass of red and a chunk of Toblarone to celebrate. Thanks for looking in, I hope you're enjoying the build so far? Lots of little bits next it seems. So so until next time. Happy Modelling. Johnny Triangle.

Dates: 2 September 2017 - 7 January 2018 Hosts: jrlx, TonyTiger66, Rob G, Pin Dear Fellow Modellers, I've been developing a "thing" for flying boats and float planes recently. I've only built one up to now (the old Airfix Grumman Duck) but have been adding such types to my stash and still have several in my wish list. I've gone through the list of finished GBs but haven't found any on this subject, so I'm proposing a GB on Flying Boats and Float Planes. Eligible entries would be all flying machines with a hull and/or floats, therefore capable of landing on and taking-off from a water surface. This includes helicopters on floats and any helicopter designed to land on/take-off from water in regular operation as well as aircraft-shaped Ekranoplans. Civilian and military aircraft from all ages in aviation history are eligible. No what-ifs, only real aircraft. So, simple and straightforward rules. In the end we'll have a vote but no prizes, unless there's a sponsor volunteering. We could discuss the type of voting, if there's interest in this GB: either a general winner or winners per age (pioneers, WWI, inter-war, WWII, post-war?). I would be a host to the GB but would be grateful if a co-host volunteers. I'm not sure we can make it to the 2017 vote but we still have almost one month to gather the 30 manifestations of interest. Here's a picture to kick up your interest Here's the list of interested members: jrlx CedB Paul J wyverns4 Beard Doug Rogers spaddad JohnT greggles.w Jb65rams Rob G stevehnz Antoine TonyTiger66 LDSModeller Arniec Mitch K Pin bootneck TheBaron Moggy rob85 zegeye Dave the Doctor JOCKNEY Rick Brown vppelt68 SleeperService JWM Ray S TallBlondJohn Cheezburger Christer A Grandboof Stew Dapple Dazey Cheers Jaime

Stand by your beds..I've decided to post something just to prove that rumours of my demise have been greatly misrepresented by the popular press and Social Services. I thought I would assail you with one of my builds for our Bomber Command display at Telford in the form of the AW Whitley Mk III using a mix of the newish Airfix Mk V and an old DB Productions Tiger conversion set that Geoff Trenholme kindly gave me a while back. Although it's designed for the ancient Frog offering it fits well on the nice shiny Airfix kit too with a bit of fettling. The most obvious difference between the early Whitleys, (Mk's I,II and III) and the later marks were the AW Tiger radial engines and larger rounded tail fin and rudders, though the Mk IV had Merlins and the rounded tail fins to confuse matters however there were a number of other subtle changes including a ring DF aerial later changed to a bullet shaped casing, nose turret changed from the manually powered AW unit to the FN16 , the bulbous single gun A W rear turret later changed to the four gun FN4a, an FN17 ventral 'dustbin' turret, (not successful and often removed to save weight), deletion of small observation windows in the nose, triple windows above the FN17 circular hatch reduced to two later, the addition of a 'chin' bomb aimers glazing section, (Mk III on). References were many and various including the excellent Warpaint 21 by Ken Wixey and plans and the old Profile publications booklet. I always liked the looks of the early versions so thought it was about time to add one to our table. The Airfix kit has been around a while now, (this is my third one) so all it's little foibles well known to me. The DB set, now available from Flightpath UK included some very nicely moulded resin Tiger engines with integral engine facings, rear turret extension, (needs modifying), resin tail fins, (superb), new exhausts and carburetter intakes, (good), wing oil coolers (excellent), new white metal props (excellent) and clear acetate rear turret, (totally useless) and new replacement flat bomb aimers glazing position (irrelevant for Mk III). This is the airframe I'm going to have at, (take little notice of the drawing it has detail issues as ever, it's the aircraft serials I'm more interested in). http://img.wp.scn.ru/camms/ar/553/pics/9_37.jpg Obligatory sets obtained through nefarious acts included the Eduard PE cockpit and essential masking sets. Decal sets to be used, excuse the butchered Airfix set and Kits at War grey serials.... And Fantasy Printshop 8'' black serials And finally a new AW turret borrowed from an AZ Oxford Mk I which fits perfectly and is a huge improvement over the awful kit part. So I shall begin, I need to finish one this a bit sharpish..... shouldn't take too long... And he's off...straight into the fuselage parts, no big problems here. I really like the Mr Cement C stuff, easy to use and very quick drying...just don't get any on your model via careless hands it's as thin as water and travels a long way, ask me how I know, (not on this one, so far !)..... Also some Xtracrylix Interior Aircraft Grey/Green has been applied. More soon...

Greetings. This is my first RFI post and my first completed model in about seven years. It’s the Sword F9F-8T/TF-9J Cougar. The Cougar (along with the S-2 and F-111B) holds a special place for me. My father worked on these aircraft at the Grumman Bethpage facility as an electrical assembler and installing wiring harnesses. Unfortunately, when the F-111B program was cancelled, so ended my father’s employment with Grumman. Since I pretty much limit myself to /72 scale, I was rather excited when Sword announced the “Twogar”. In the box, the kit looks very good, but it doesn’t take long for the some of the short-run “features” to pop up – maybe that’s why I haven’t seen any of these built up yet. It looks like a two-seat Cougar and the shape looks good to my eye, but the detail is very soft. The panel lines are complete, but too soft to do my usual pin-wash. I ‘m not ready to re-scribe and entire model yet, and maybe a white finish should just have fine penciling to accent the lines anyway. The series of “fish gill” vents along the lower front fuselage are perceptible as a series of small bumps, not all of the center fuselage vents were open on my example. I elected to drill out the airbrake holes (don’t look to closely at the alignment) and the cannon troughs. The axle holes in the wheels are just dents, but that matches the very short axles on the main gear legs, the wheels ending up in full contact with the brake stacks. The result is a toe-in of the main wheels. The tail bumper wheel, which is typically extended with the gear, is represented as a lump just below the exhaust. I found late in the build that the left main gear leg extended further than the right from the wing. Both legs looked to be the same length, so this may have been an error in my assembly of the gear bays. I had already removed the locating pins on the gear legs as the didn’t seem to have any place to go in the wells, but ended up removing some of the gear leg to get things to look level. I also found that the nose wheel fork was not deep enough to grip the nose wheel at the axle line. I filed some of the inner fork away, but was concerned about breaking the fork. So it is now only just deep enough to take the wheel and looks more like a one-piece nose gear reminiscent of 1960s kits. The cockpit is painted ModelMaster Dark Gull Grey with details picked out with Prismacolor pencils. The kit provided resin seats have surgical paper tape seatbelts and wire overhead ejection handles added. Not taking any chances, the nose is filled with lead shot encased in Epoxy Sculpt External colors are Floquil Reefer White and Testors gloss red (the little square bottle). The standard markings are from the kit decals. They are printed by Techmod and are very thin and fragile. Many of the two dozen or so stencils had a tendency to wrap around my tweezers or fold upon themselves, making it difficult or impossible to get them onto the model. The unit specific markings are computer generated with a laser printer. It wasn’t until I started applying the decals that I realised that I had scaled the aft fuselage MARINES AIR FMF PAC legend too large and had to reprint tem about 30 percent smaller. Maybe this wasn’t the best choice to get my modelling legs back under me, but I have two more of these kits, so maybe I’ll take on more of the detail deficiencies in future builds, particularly the landing gear and the tail bumper. Thanks for looking. Sven Old Viper Tester

Resin on and filling begun. Still a bit of work to be done on the wings as the dihedral was a bit excessive - didn't factor on the pliability of the Airfix plastic. Anyhow, all part of the fun - here's some photos

Calling this done, added a scratch pitot, and the aerial wires and flat coated it. Off with the masking, and there she is. When the sun comes out I'll takes some better photos and stick them in RFI. Thanks for all the support guys, this has been an enjoyable little build, mojo restored so back to my Liberator.... Thanks for looking Steve

BLOODY HELL!!! Jonners

Here is a picture of a Finnish 35S Draken with, if not white, so definitely not green landing gear parts. The colour is a very light grey. Nose gear: Also note that Finnish 35S had the Danish-style nosewheel without spokes. I would not recommend RLM 02 for neither the Austrian landing gears, nor the cockpit. The colour is much greener than that. Here is a Austrian Draken: Swedish ones had a darker green colour: (to see the difference, compare the landing gear lights on these two pictures, they had the same colour.) It is correct that the cockpit in Swedish Finnish and Danish Drakens had a variety of green colours. However RLM 02 is not the best match. The walls have the same colours, but the instrument panels have different kinds of green: Swedish: Danish: Finnish: The Austrians cockpits were grey and a little black. Note that there are different shades of grey on the instrument panel compared to the rest of the cockpit. Inside of canopy is black while SE/DK/FI Draken canopy insides had the same grass-green as on the cockpit tub walls.

Sorry Tbolt I was not referring to your post but just anticipating the numerous reactions/posts of those who had preferrred another type of a/c at another scale etc. Forum's life... V.P.

Interesting translation. ;-) In fact it means simply "We don't fly and won't let anyone else". In Poland (and maybe in Russia too) a person thinking this way can be called "a gardener's dog" (in Polish: "pies ogrodnika") because it does not eat fruits and won't let others to taste them.

Thanks Badder, you're too kind (and definitely too hard to yourself) Here we go, everybody, the Indian Tracker is completed. A lot of pics to follow, as I'm going to show a little SBS on how I painted the hands. But first, hip band completed: Shoes: base color is a mix of Lifecolor Tan and Lifecolor Sand Yellow, with highlights made adding the latter to the mix, drybrushing it pure and also drybrushing some Matt White. The colored inserts have been painted Matt White and Matt Dark Blue Some Matt Black and Matt Brown drybrush (in that sequence) on the parts closer to the ground. Matt Brown also used to outline the edges. Hands: a slightly different approach compared to what I did for the face. For the base (on top of the Matt Black coat) I used Lifecolor Matt Brown, a couple of coats First highlight adding to the Matt Brown some of the base skin tone I used for the Yankee face Second highlight done adding Lifecolor Matt Flesh and trying to start outlining the hand features. More Matt Flesh added to the mix, and fingernails painted too and more First filter; it's the first highlight mix, adding some Matt Red and Matt Yellow (sort of orange-ish filter) The second filter instead is a darker mix of the base coat, that is Matt Brown plus Matt Black, very thinned: A dark wash in between fingers and some touch ups to the nails (alternating Matt Flesh, Matt White and going over with the darkest filter) The Tracker was then completed brushing on a flat clear coat and gluing the head and the feathers, and here he is: Comments welcome, as ever Ciao

I've managed to get the gloss coat and the stencil decals on. I've also made the deals for the AVM pennant (Not sure if Park had one on the aircraft but I'm assuming he did) and what I have taken to being a Cerberus on the right hand side of the aicraft. There are only 2 photos of OK 1 that are known to exist, This one is the only one I'd seen However whilst discussing what this could actually be over at Kiwimodeller another image came to light that gives a much better view of the symbol on his Hurricane A bit of work with Paintshop Pro and I had something that looks close enough for me . The Airfix stencils went down Ok.

Morning to all.... I had a lot to read today morning. Interesting discussion. Let me react to some details - There was written in some posts, that KP/AZ is a small producer with suggestion for us to produce "obscure" types. But we are not a small company. With some 300 kits active in our offer and monthly new releases, with HGT and CAD/CAM technologies we belong to the big players on the ground. We released more than 60 kits this year. How many kits released the big players? To stop the rumours - we did not cancel our Me 262. We will finish it, it is close to be finished today. The first three boxes planned are Aces, then Avia S-92 and Me 262A-2a. Two seaters and other variants will follow, including the variant with BMW 003 engines. With wide selection of camouflage schemes. That is why we will do it. There is a difference. Our offer will include accurate easy to build kit with wide selection of versions. Please compare with our competition. One box with two decal options? Okay. There is still the space on the market. It was not easy for us to decide, direct combat with Airfix is not the thing we want to see in our plans, but we think that we can do the same quality kit, maybe better. It depends on the taste of you, our customers. "Obscure" types - if we want to make Rippon, some other type has to fill the gap in cashflow. Easy to understand, Rippon, when looking into Excel, can be sold in let us say, 2000pcs batch. In total. 2000pcs is our weekly sale of Bf 109F. It means, that if we want to make f. i. MB-5, Bf 109 has to pay it. If we base our production on obscure types, we are dead. But in our plans we have also the types with small potential. Because of our mainstreams. We will make Me 262 to get the money for Rippon, for instance. And - Abakan - "Thank you, Mr. Customer....." :-)

Thanks Sergey! Martian - ok, now I'm up to date! I think I'm going to use some borderless crosses and paint the white edge, just as would have been done originally. I'll see how that looks...the undersides are borderless anyway so it would make sense.. I have now attached the lower wings to both of these, and added the Spandau to the D.II - I'll wait until the struts and exhaust are fitted to the D.I before I put the MG on. I also tried to make a start on the cabane struts, but after doing one, then dropping it and losing it to the carpet monster, I decided that I should leave it alone and come back later.... I have also made up and attached the radiators to the D.I.. Back to work tomorrow so probably no updates for a few days. Ian

Todays update via Nik Coleman Good evening everyone. Maurice Hammond update at 7pm. Firstly I want to say we've been in touch with representatives of the passenger today and we've been able to pass on our thoughts and deep condolences to them, and they have expressed their concern and best wishes for Maurice and the Hammond Family. Maurice had a comfortable night, and today has been moved to a different section of ITU in line with his recovery, freeing his previous room for more critical cases. Obviously he is in 'double' recovery - from his injuries and the surgery, but today staff have once again moderated his sedation - for an extended period - and I am told he's been able to open his eyes as a reaction to some sensory input like touching his hand. NNUH are offcially 'pleased with his progress'. The outstanding ITU team have also had the opportunity to wash his face as the visible effects of the incident and surgery reduce a little, and that's proven a real encouragement for the family. From here on in we may reduce the frequency of these updates as we are likely to be reporting the same incremental progress, but rest assured we will keep you abreast of all major improvements in Maurices condition. We want to thank all of you - each and every one for your support, including the media, photographers and journalists who have shown the utmost respect, restraint and desire for accuracy during this difficult time. My thanks, Nik Coleman

Cheers lads,.........here is another quick update....the airframe is together now; All the best Tony

Hiya Folks, Here is another little Eduard kit.,The only RAF flying Sqn to have a four digit unit number, 1435 Sqn grew out of 1435 Flight on Malta and it moved to Italy which is where MH660 joined the unit in 1944 and New Zealand ace Warren Schrader oftten flew this aircraft. It was lost on on the 7th September 1944 following an engine fire and it crashed into the Adriatic near to the Yugoslavian island of Vis. As with my other models this one is brush painted and the decals came from an old Almark Decals sheet. Here is the WIP on the MTO GB where there are some excellent models,...it is well worth a look,; Cheers Tony Edit,....here is the real aircraft (I put wheel hub covers on my model!); And I have since come across this photo which I believe is the same aircraft?

Hi all. Here are some pics of my latest build, it's Airfix's old (but still good) CH-53 built as an S-65 of the IDF/AF as she would have been seen in her early service life around the 1970 mark, they were delivered in the late 60's in this attractive scheme and re-painted in the more boring scheme they wear today in the 80's. The kit is straight from the box but with the addition of decals from Print Scale. Makes an interesting bedfellow for my recent Iranian RH-53! Anyway here are some pic's, there are more in the build log here:- http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234997643-airfix-172-ch-53s-65-double-build-iran-and-israel/ Thanks for looking, and all comments and criticisms are gratefully received. Thanks for looking. Cheers. Craig.

"Nerfing" at my place of work usually involves: A /, A big ball of masking tape(suitably still sticky with paint)lobbed at one of the welders by another welder. B/, The assembly mob firing pop rivets at a target with their air powered rivet guns(keep out of the assembly shop!!). C/, In the paint/powder shop(my neck of the woods),it's considered a good wheeze to clean out the powder coating machine's feed line by making a tight fitting slug of tape fit into the pipe and blast it through with 150psi (do not blow the pipe through first)to give a nice satisfying bang and a great big belch of powder. Best done when some poor unsuspecting sap who shouldn't be in the paintshop(restricted area y'see,all sorts of nasties about in there) is within range. Trouble is that there are now very few poor unsuspecting saps left(they've all been powdered),most are now very suspecting saps and tend to keep their distance from the denizens of the paintshop.

Ok checked. Everything fits. "Phew" although this bit is on backwards. Bit of sneaky fetteling has seen it cut off and spun around. Blimey. Thanks Darby.

Just to prove I have not forgotten this project here is a quick snap - I have progressed a bit and have the roundels on. Just trying to hunt down the squadron codes. I have them somewhere. Life is being a bitch at the moment so progress will be even slower than normal Tim

I see what Martian is up to Model gets finished Freightdog announce 'available' Wish I could Martian but it's a tall order for me at my usual sub-glacial build pace We'll have to see, it might be a part finished on the Birmingham branch table...

I'm in too, off you go Egbert! I'd not seen a 'Firebar' before and it certainly is an 'interesting' subject... Fuselage with interesting gaps, a bit flashy, sleek lines and a bit quirky, just like I like MY Women! Looking forward to you fettling it into submission.

Permission to shout "Hoorah" in an annoying loud manner?

The underside has been masked off and the Middle Stone applied. This is ACRN11 used straight for the first coat as per above. The rivets are quite subtle. They should hopefully be just visible if you look for them but not obvious once it's finished and weathered.