Dave Swindell

Italeri HAS1 & HMA1, reboxed by Revell as HM1 & HMA1 https://www.scalemates.com/search.php?fkSECTION[]=Kits&q=AgustaWestland AW101 Merlin&fkTYPENAME[]="Full kits"&fkSCALENORMALISED[]="1:00072"&fkSUBJECT[]="AgustaWestland AW101 Merlin HMA.1"&fkSUBJECT[]="AgustaWestland EH-101 Merlin HAS Mk.1"&fkSUBJECT[]="AgustaWestland EH-101 Merlin HM.1"

Assuming that's Argentine Pesos it's just over a fiver - they're literally ten a penny

Yes, there's this sheet, https://www.scalemates.com/kits/aerocalcas-argentinas-48032-avro-lancaster-fuerza-aerea-argentina--1303028 available direct from the manufacturer https://www.aerocalcas.com.ar/products.php?cat=QzA1NEUzRTgtNTlGMS0yNjVELUM3MDQtQTc3REUwQzE2OUEy&/ Haven't seen their decals before, so no idea of quality, you may want to check them out before parting with hard earned readies

I presume this is the photo you're referring to? AIRCRAFT OF THE ROYAL AIR FORCE 1939-1945: HAWKER HURRICANE.. © IWM (CM 3653) IWM Non Commercial License I can't help with colour, but whilst it does follow the typical pattern of exhaust staining (if you zoom in you can see the staining over the stripe) it is too hard edged to be any form of weathering. If it had been an attempt to remove staining with petrol I would have expected there to be some form of vertical streaking on the lower edge of the stripe where liquids had run down the fuselage, and as you point out the squadron codes appear to be painted over it (or possibly this stripe has been carefully painted roundt the codes) @Troy Smith?

Missed toolmaking error I think. The nosewheel centres 18, 19 & 20 are slightly off as well. Disappointing, but the rest of the kit is pretty good.

Agreed, you'll not see much of it once the gear and oil tank is in and it would be a fair bit of work to correct it, especially as Eduard miss the cutout for the top of the gear legs. On 1/72 ones I've done I just used plastic card for the bulkhead and formed the cutouts with milliput shaped with the rounded end of a paintbrush handle. The only one where the bulkhead shape is obvious had an Aires engine upgrade fitted, this had the correct shaped resin firewall bulkhead included. I did it in 1/72, but Aires do the set for the Tamiya kit in 1:48 as well. https://www.scalemates.com/kits/aires-4200-mosquito-fb-mkvi-nf-mkii-engine-set--150476 A quick heads up on the cockpit of 143 Sqn FBVI's - they were fitted with Gee (the whip aerial is just visible on the rear of the canopy) so the kit supplied T1154/R1153 radio fit behind the pilot and nav wouldn't be fitted, instead there would have been the Gee PPI behind the pilot and the Gee contrl unit on the rear shelf as in the NF XIII/XVII kit, snme more info on this fit in this thread.

Hi John, don't know whether you might want to correct this, but you've got the firewall too far forward, it should follow the line of the rear edge of the engine side panels, the bottom edge of the firewall should come down to the rear edge of the carburettor inlet fairing, with a hollow concave curved cover either side of the inlet over the top of the undercarriage legs.

The two boxes stacked on top of each other are accumulator (battery) boxes. To the right of this is the Gee R.1355 Receiver, then the Gee control panel, not sure on the one on the right, but most likely part of the H2S system.

Yes, both on this coming weekend 27/28 April 🙂

Good job you couldn't, try again next weekend 🙂

For those wondering what this is all about, I think the upper fuselage is the one under discussion. Definitely looks like it wouldn't sit on standard undercarriage.

Difficult to tell from the tiny image provided, but it looks like the whole engine thrust line is angled further down on one than on the other. As others have said I'd avoid jumping to conclusions based solely on lidar scans of just two airframes without fully understanding the engineering reasons behind the difference. As an example of this Newark's Shackleton exhibited a similar issue with one of it's engines having a distinctly different lower thrust line than the other 3. Enquiries resulted in an explanation from one of the volunteers looking after the airframe, there was a problem with damage to the engine bearers which resulted in the engine having excessive downthrust. It was noticable due to the proximity of the other correctly mounted engines, but viewed externally in isolation there was no obvious external indication all was not well inside the cowling. A small change in the engine mount geometry at the firewall, whether by design or accident could lead to a significant change in the distance of the spinner tip from the fuselage datum.

A well scrubbed teak deck can vary between a very light bleached bone when dry through to a very dark brown, almost black when soaking wet.

Wingnut didn't go bankrupt, Peter Jackson just closed them down and kept the tooling. If Ebbro have indeed gone bankrupt all the company assets including the tooling will be sold off by the liquidators for whatever they can get to cover whatever debts are are outstanding. Someone will buy them and hopefully reissue them.

I don't know about that, but the Liberator II - V were noted as being tail heavy, introduction of the nose turret went some way towards rectifying this.