TimK

Hi Patrik. Great project with great mods. Have you consulted the Wingnut Snipe (Late) instructions, downloadable from Scalemates? Worth a look if not. All the best, Tim

Beautiful! Congratulations. Tim

Looking great Malc. Amazing to think that George Carter went on to design the Gloster E.28/39 and the Meteor.

Great discovery Malc. Many thanks and best wishes. Tim

I wish I knew of a source of John Sizer's drawings. He was an aircraft engineer and design draughtsman who lived in Lowestoft until his death in 2002. He produced more than 100 detailed drawings with dimensions and sometimes wing sections, mostly at 1/20 scale. His plans for flying models were much fewer. Both kinds used to be available through SAMS (I have the full list) but I've seen no sign of them since. I have copies of his drawings of the Nieuport London, Gloster Gannet, Gloster IV, a separate drawing of the Gloster IVa and IVb, and the Gloster VI. The London drawing is fairly basic but the Gloster ones look pretty good. For the record he was born in 1913 and apprenticed to Blackburn at Brough. By 1939 he was at Hamble working for Folland. He designed the systems for the Folland 43/37 up to the firewall and is quoted in Philip Jarrett's article on the type in the Nothing Ventured series (Aeroplane Monthly June 1991). This involved working between Hamble, Eastleigh, Cheltenham and Staverton and liaising with Gloster, where Henry Folland had been chief designer. He went to the USA for the Air Ministry after WW2, later joined Bristol and was on the Brabazon's first flight in 1949. Any more information would be very welcome.

In 1/72 scale there's a set of unpainted Preiser figures: "Preiser 72510 - Pilots, ground crew". There's a picture on this link: https://www.modellbahnshop-lippe.com/Military/Soldiers/Preiser-72510/gb/modell_50623.html Hope this helps, Tim

Thanks Mika for what you are doing. It's great to have news of a new Swift model It would also be great to have the option of the more elegant pointy-nosed Swift prototype G-AARX. Very best wishes for the project, Tim

A good kit of the neglected FE8 would be very welcome. I once had the Lone Star vac but it was too crude to be worth attempting. The box art shows FE8 7616 "2" of 41 Squadron, based at Abeele. It was flown by Lt S Hay, who had been with 41 Sqn since it was formed at Fort Rowner, Gosport, in October 1916. It was wrecked when he crashed on 13 February 1917, but I believe he survived. I collected a lot of FE8 photos and drawings because my great uncle Harold Jackson flew FE8 6437 with 41 Sqn. Some time ago I gave copies of a lot of FE8 information to John Adams and Brian Fawcett. Both were interested in producing kits but nothing came of it.

Albert Ball VC learned on a G.III - as seen in the iconic portrait photo of him in uniform, hatless, with his coat over his left arm. Among many others my great uncle Harold Jackson trained on a G.III with the Ruffy Baumann school at Hendon, getting his licence in May 1915 before going on to die in June 1917 in an FE8 with 41 Sqn. There's a good Wikipedia entry on the type, which was operated by no less than 28 countries. I hope the kit sells well. T.

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Hi Elias, there are good 1/72 Overstrand drawings by George Cox in Aeromodeller June 1957. They are well annotated and include cross sections and forward fuselage internals. There's also a build feature for his wood Overstrand model. PM me your email address and I'll send you scans. Great project. Good luck. Tim

There's a superb photo on eB at the moment, with heavy bidding. Worth a look. Good luck with your quest, it's a fascinating machine. Tim

The picture of the S5 with the shed and crane in the background, apparently with long port struts, is definitely flipped horizontally. I have a Flight photo taken on what must be same occasion with the S5 and the Gloster IV together. The crane is on the left of the shed and the visible serial N222 on the Gloster shows that it's the right way round. Another piece of evidence: look too at the civilian on the "left" with his breast pocket handkerchief on the wrong side.

From Puss Moth entry on Wikipedia: "Most famous of the record breaking Puss Moths was Jim Mollison's G-ABXY, "The Heart's Content" which completed the first solo east-west Atlantic crossing in August 1932 from Portmarnock Strand near Dublin to New Brunswick, Canada and the first east-west crossing of the South Atlantic from Lympne Aerodrome to Natal, Brazil in February 1933. His wife, Amy Johnson, made record flights between England and Cape Town using G-ACAB, "Desert Cloud" in 1932." Tim

A great find and a great engineer, hardly known today. Fascinating. Thanks for posting. Tim