Tripod

I have the Valhalla Tomtit kit. It is not only rare, but a bit rough. A bit like a Merlin kit. I believe there may be a simple reason why it looks like one. At some point I may return to fighting it. Normally one might expect the two fuselage halves to have mirror-image cross-sections. The Valhalla kit doesn't, quite. As for the Mongoose engine, I asked John Adams about this a couple of years ago. I'm fairly sure he said it was basically a five-cylinder Lynx, as the cylinders were the same. The Valhalla kit's engine has the streamlined fairing built in, and it's a bit rough. It may be better to start with a Lynx and chop it up, unless you can find someone to design and 3D-print one.

. . . and some motoring heritage, and what I think may be the last Swiss-style garden in the UK from the 19th century fashion for Swiss gardens. Mid-February probably isn't the best time to see it, but I may go for a stroll round if I don't spend too much pf the day talking . . . so that'll be waiting for the airshow season premiere then. Peter

No, I think the letters are painted on the underside of the top wing - the space between the C and the A is much greater under the wing.

In the third photo, the thing on top of the fuselage looks like the civil registration again. Very unusual!

All five schemes are now showing as available from Hannants and elsewhere.

I can't see any sign of it in earlier posts, but Hannants are showing a York from F-RSIN in their Future Releases section. Five boxings shown: BOAC, Dan-Air, Skyways, MEA and FAMA. Peter

Good point! My Google search was more specific, and took me straight to the page for the Shuttleworth set.

Or Alleycat still have them listed at £15 for the set, which has decals for 20 Shuttleworth aircraft, including a DVD of photos of the aircraft concerned. Or if you prefer, it has transfers for 20 Shuttleworth aircraft. Or maybe ten of each...

The Gowland kit is one of the Highway Pioneers series (though it was a fairly modern car when the kit was first produced). It subsequently went to Revell, and has since been produced by Dapol and I presume Minicraft, as they produced the Cord from the same range. It has a little over twenty parts, and is noticeably narrower than the Aurora and Lindberg kits. I haven't checked their size against published dimensions. The Aurora kit has a similar number of parts, including a front bulkhead with pedals, where the HP kit has nothing. It is right-hand drive, unlike the HP. Generally, it looks a better kit to me, but they are somewhat rarer than the HP kit. The Lindberg kit represents an XK140, and has only ten parts, six of which are the wheels and axles! All three kits have a one-piece body, but the Lindberg's one-piece body also includes the seats, dashboard and rear bumpers, There's a vaguely chassis-like piece that sits under the body, but nothing to stop you seeing straight through the car where you might expect to find footwells in front of the seats. Peter

By the way, have you seen the Pyro range from the 60s? Not the most detailed kits, but they did a couple of Alfa Romeos, one of which (called "Alfa Romeo Gran Turismo") I think may have been a 6C. I get the feeling it's not the same as the Airfix one. Pyro also did a Bentley Speed Six, which is a bit harder to find, especially since it wasn't re-released by Life-Like in the 70s as the Alfa was.

Michael I make it about 45.3mm for both axles, measured in a straight line between the inside ends of the tiny pips at each end of each axle. Peter

I may have missed it, but I haven't seen a mention of the KP Let L-200 Morava, which is still available.

I hadn't heard of them either, but if you Google "Southampton Air Services" with the inverted commas you get a few aircraft photos as you say, plus a biography of Johm Habin on 500race.org, which mentions his founding of the company in the post-war period. It's an interesting tale! Peter

More goodies: at 0:48 the Miles Falcon taxies past a red BA Swallow 2 (Pobjoy), and at 1:18 the Taylor Cub overflies a parked Leopard Moth and Aeronca (as well as the Monospar). The Ken Waller connection to the Caudron was interesting - a bit of Googling reveals that he had flown it over from Brussels three months before this (in hops, not a single flight). Peter

The aircraft at 1:42 looks rather like the De Havilland TK2. Interesting that it seems to be dark green with the registration in red. I'm also wondering if the aircraft at 1:27, after the cub, is a Moth Major. The wings don't look swept to me. Also, when the 1913 Caudron is flying past, what looks like a modern Caudron (Simoun?) takes off. The tail seems taller than the one I think is the TK2. Peter