Dave Swindell

Colomban Cri-Cri?

Last year I bought the Mother-in-law a cemetery plot for her birthday. Didn't get her anything this year as she's not used last year's present yet......

The gun bay covers hinge forward, they're in shot. The queried item is a detachable work stand.

Read the report @NoSG0 linked to above - https://aaib.gov.in/What's New Assets/Preliminary Report VT-ANB.pdf There is no indication that the cutoff switches were defective on the accident aircraft in the report. There is no mention of a pilot seat issue There is no mention of a decompression panel issue. The penultimate paragraph of the report reads :- ➢ At this stage of investigation, there are no recommended actions to B787-8 and/or GE GEnx-1B engine operators and manufacturers. In other words, the investigators have not yet found any indication of a safety issue relating to the design or normal operation of the aircraft or it's engines. The SAIB regarding the cutoff switches fitted to 737's (similar or identical to those fitted to other Boeing aircraft including the 787) is discussed at length in the video @Skodadriver linked to (https://www.youtube.com/live/ka8RYplHD7Y?si=x8CUQiiiIYkEc-QR) by 2 very experienced 737-800 training captains. Their conclusion? It's not impossible, but it is highly unlikely that these switches were moved by accident. The final paragraph of the report reads:- ➢ Investigation is continuing and the investigation team will review and examine additional evidence, records and information that is being sought from the stakeholders. I'm sure if the investigation finds significant safety issues there will be a further interim report addressing these, otherwise we will have to wait until the final report for the investigation conclusions. This is normal practice, and if the investigation doesn't provide any concrete evidence as to why the switches were moved to cutoff it may be impossible to determine why this happened.

The Auster Warpaint should still be readily available and have the usual plans inside I'm pretty sure there was an Aviation News issue which included plans of the various marks, but I can't put my hands on it atm. Then there is the Auster Heritage group here:- https://austerhg.org/ with lots of downloadable magazines here:- https://austerhg.org/auster_mags/ and brochures here:- https://austerhg.org/brochures/ there's loads more stuff on Auster and Beagle aircraft on the site if you want to go down that rabbit hole 🙂

Just had a quick peruse through the instructions and the sprue layouts, I'd generally concur with your conclusions, but I'll defer final analysis until I have the sprues in my sticky little mitts 🙂 Given all the welcome spares box additions it's disappointing that this boxing doesn't include a gee setup for the cockpit, the supplied T1154/R1155 might be appropriate for some of the schemes (need to check for trailing aerial mast in photo's) but some would likely have the gee fit. I'm hoping the gee setup is in the nightfghter kit and hopefully forthcoming bomber kits, but it would have been nice to see alternative cockpit setups on the common sprues. @Graham Boak I can see pros and cons to both Hasegawa no frills version specific style kits and Eduard/Special Hobby multi version common sprue style kits, but I don't think they would have significant cost implications on the final products. The major costs for the kit parts are in tooling the parts and the setup/injection process. In both cases the alternate parts have to be designed and tooled whether they go in all kits or only selected boxings, and the tools have to be setup on the injection machine for the production run. The only slight saving you might have is in the volume of plastic injected, if part of the Hasegawa style tool is gated off to eliminate parts for some versions you might be saving a few pence in raw material per kit. Just like you I have boxes of Mosquito aftermarket parts, but I will still welcome quality leftovers from the SH kits, though as you intimate I'd be less likely to keep a load of AZ leftovers. YMMV, and vote with your wallet (mine's in hiding trying to avoid the Hannant's pre-order bill)

Yes https://www.scalemates.com/products/img/9/0/5/148905-62-instructions.pdf

Internet passwords seem to be getting longer and longer, had to change mine recently as it needed to be a minimum of 8 characters, a number, a capital and a special character. Typing snowwhiteandthesevendwarvesgotoseeforrestgumpinwashington gets a bit tedious every time you want to log on...

Just saw a local Turkish Barber has been arrested for drug dealing. I've been a loyal customer of his for over seven years and I had no idea he was a barber!

Revell did a Tribal in 1:720, WEM did Cossack, Ultracast did HMCS Huron, and Samek did several versions of the Tribal.

GA drawings can be produced for many purposes and audiences, what is contained in them and the level of detail will be determined by what the purpose and audience is, and will also determine how accurately the shape is reproduced in the drawing. That is also true of just about any technical/engineering drawing - the dimensions are king, the pretty picture is just there to show what is being dimension-ed, and how the dimensions relate to each other. A blueprint is just an ancient (1842) and obsolete method of photocopying drawings, you can just as easily create a blueprint of a sketched GA drawing as you can of a drafted component engineering drawing, it's no more accurate than the original drawing. Original drawings would rarely be used for production work, copies (blueprints in days gone by) would be used and the original stored/filed for future use/tracing/updating etc. Even if the component drawing was produced accurately to the dimensions shown on the drawing (some were, some weren't) the act of creating blueprints, just like photocopying, could introduce dimensional errors in the reproduced image, and a common annotation on these drawings would be "Do not scale drawing" i.e. do not take measurements off the pretty picture to make the part, only use the dimensions shown on the drawing. Scale model plans, on the other hand, are often taken by modellers as gospel and they religiously take measurements off them to "correct" their latest wunderkit. These plans depend on the information and data supplied to the draughtsperson, and their skill in interpreting it for their accuracy, this may be better than the drawings used for producing the kit, or it may not. Prolific plans artists are less likely to have done the in depth research of someone who has specialised in a few different types, but there is no guarantee that these will be 100% accurate - Arthur Bentley's Typhoon drawings are noted on his site as "revised and updated" Not being an expert on B17's I won't comment on the accuracy of Al Granger's drawings of this, but his drawings of British light aircraft are generally well thought of.

@tempestfan have you got a question yet? You're owed a go for getting Teddy Petter right.

Focke-Wulf Ta 154 Moskito?

Back online here:- https://starlingmodels.co.uk/ https://www.facebook.com/starlingmodels

Rising Decals do a sheet specifically for this https://www.hannants.co.uk/product/RD72111

Or High Planes https://www.scalemates.com/search.php?fkSECTION[]=Kits&q=Lockheed U-2 u2*&fkSCALENORMALISED[]="1:00072"&fkTYPENAME[]="Static model kits"&fkSUBJECT[]="Lockheed ER-2"&fkSUBJECT[]="Lockheed TR-1A"&fkSUBJECT[]="Lockheed TR-1A Dragon Lady"&fkSUBJECT[]="Lockheed U-2R Dragon Lady"&fkSUBJECT[]="Lockheed U-2S Dragon Lady"

Looks way too far up on tippy toes to me. All that narrow tube fixed framework at the top of the leg should be up inside the nacelle, and the top of the hinged thicker rubber block suspension tubes should fit snuggly into the cutouts in the bottom of the firewall. Those legs should sit much higher up in the nacelle, I'd suggest checking the location points before committing to glue

Yes, or to be more precise, the Westland-Hill Pterodactyls, and the program was killed off. The program wasn't killed by the Air Ministry, they were providing specifications and buying prototypes. He did indeed. There was a bit of nepotism going on at Westlands, Sir Ernest Petter, Teddy's father appointed him to the board as technical director over much more senior and experienced engineers, which ruffled a few feathers including Geoffrey Hill. One of Teddy's first decisions as technical director was to cancel the Pterodactyl program, which had the Pterodactyl VI in development as a front turreted fighter version of the rear turreted MkV, wind tunnel models of a 4 engined seaplane MKVII were being tested, and a proposal for a transatlantic airliner MkVIII was being worked on.

No, but you're getting closer in time frame....

1) almost certainly, better decals 2) they'll be cheaper than a Fujimi release 3) You can never have too many Phantoms

Sorry, no, not the aircraft, and I'm after who killed them Sorry, not the USAF Or Congress, and not the A10 either Indeed he did, but again, not what I'm looking for. A layman would call the aircraft's namesake a dinosaur, a paleontologist would argue it wasn't.

Thanks Seán, try this for size Who killed the dinosaurs?

There is a small panel there but it's circular. I'd suggest its either a paint repair (ie fresh Extra Dark Sea Grey) or fresh primer (so probably dull red or a medium grey, and going on the grey scale it's similar to the roundel centre so I'd err towards red)

Err, Keith, or Ferris??? Apart from them all being B-17G's I'm not finding a common link at all. different blocks, manufacturers, air forces, theatres, fates, mission tallies Keith Ferris panted a huge mural at the NASM featuring Thunder Bird and 3 other B17's, but not the 3 in question, I wondered if he'd done others that included them.

???Keith Ferris???