stever219

Unless you’re studying for a Masters in Plastic Massochism or a PhD in “filler, it’s uses and limitations” you might want to quietly ditch those old kits. Later issues had additional weapons (all external) but the basic airframe was needing a lot of work to put together and cockpit detail was non existent.

You’ve done a lovely job on a kit that has a number of foibles and gotchas Neil, and it’s nice to see one that looks like it’s been bulled up for the static park at an air show rather than a refugee from the fire dump. I’ve got to take issue with your concept of military aviation pulchritude though😛, for sheer simplicity and elegance the Blackburn Blackburn or Avro Bison Canberra wins hands down.🤣 Any kit of the Tornado is going to have gaps around the wings; the glove fingers above and below the wings and the fuselage-side bags are almost impossible to replicate in plastic or resin in a way that mimics the operation of the full-sized versions. One of the members here did some resin fuselage-side bags (sorry, I can’t remember his name just now) which look better than the kit parts but can only really cater for fully spread or fully swept wings.

It’s nice to see an early Beaufighter that isn’t overall Night, and that hasn’t been “weathered” to death. Do you have a WIP anywhere please? One minor point; the navigation lights should be red on the left wing and green on the right.

ZH590/DA4 is presently being readied for a move from the IWM site at Duxford to Newark Air Museum. The intention is that she’ll be there some time in late spring or early summer.

Good progress so far Bosse; but you might want to break with the suggested assembly sequence before adding the lower wing skins. There are two additional ribs that go in where there’s a shallow chordwise depression in the bay roof and it’s a damn’ sight easier to get them in without the lower wing skin in place. Also there’s an almost square trapezoidal raised panel under each intake which should be flush, scribing round these and sanding ‘em flush is also easier before lower wing skin installation.

TSR 2 was designed with a high wing loading in order to give a low gust response and therefore a smooth ride at low altitude so yes, if the engines failed, it would have the gliding characteristics of a (very) tired brick, much like the Harrier, Jaguar, F-104 and F-4, to name but four. Roland Beaumont described the aeroplane as rock steady in low-altitude turbulence which had persuaded the pilot of the chase Lightning, a type with quite a low gust response, to pull up out of the roughness. Some of the TSR 2 avionics, albeit in modified or adapted form, found its way into the early Harrier but quite a lot died with the TSR 2 programme.

Good progress so far. A couple more “gotchas”: the windscreen anti-icing spray heads are too close together as moulded by Airfix and need to be separated from their mounting plate so that they can be located more in line with the centres of the main windscreen panels. The ends of the wing fuel tanks can (just) be seen through the undercarriage bay ribs. On mine I used some brick red painted very thin plasticard blanks cut to match the shape of the ribs and glued to their outer faces.

This is a lovely kit Shellie but it does take some care. The main area where care needs to be taken is getting the wings on; the saddle that goes across the top of the fuselage tends to sit a bit high. I’ve found with mine that a bit of sanding and filing on the inner surface will get it to fit neatly. That job is made a lot easier if you don’t install the spar/upper intake tunnel moulding first (I’ll let you work out how I discovered that!). There are plenty of WIP threads on the site which include plenty of information and research material so go fill your boots and enjoy one of the best Airfix kits ever.

What’s not entirely clear from the article is whether the proposed wiring changes are peculiar to the presently-grounded MAX 8 sub-type or affect the not-yet-grounded MAX 9 and -10. The MCAS installation only, as far as I know, applies to the MAX 8 but I suspect that most of the tailplane control system is common to all MAX sub-types. Boeing’s position that there have been no instances of the type of stray feed failure described earlier which have led to hull losses and/or injuries and fatalities amongst the NG fleet, from which the MAX is derived, should, perhaps, be qualified with “yet”. The failures that resulted in the two MAX 8 crashes were described as being possible “once in a million miles”, the problem is that they could occur at any point in that million miles and the NG fleet and it’s wiring isn’t getting any younger.

If you’re building the new Airfix Defiant the Aeroclub prop and spinner are redundant, the kit parts are perfectly adequate. I’ve a suspicion that the Aeroclub unit was produced to overcome the deficiencies of the parts in the original Airfix Defiant and some of its cottage industry compatriots, e.g. Pegasus: if @John Aero spots this hopefully he can confirm or correct my memory.

It’s you: the Academy Hunter is dimensionally inaccurate in a number of areas, not least the canopy and windscreen shapes to the extent that all of my Academy Hunters have been built using the now long out of production Aeroclub upgrade sets. That said, no kit is 100% accurate, not even those from the much-vaunted Tamiya.

I gave up on the new wing mouldings on mine and used the original FB. VI wings which then led to the “fun” job of butchering modifying both these and the engine nacelles for my Mk. XXX. The original wing parts retain the spanwise spar “caps” of later Mosquitos which the new ones depict as fictitious engraved panel lines. I’ve got another one in the stash that I’ve recently rediscovered and I’m now wondering how to get it into a too-congested build area.

You’re right, they do, apart from the square window at the wireless operator’s station. All of the FE Lancasters were built after the windows were deleted, somewhere after the JA-/JB- serial blocks. You’ll also need to fabricate the cabin heater air intake fitted above the starboard wing root (or rob the part from a Revell kit) which Airfix don’t provide. If you have a look at images of PA474, NX611 and FM213/KB726/C-GVRA, for example, you should see what’s needed. Edit: just beat me to it Rabbit Leader.

Thanks for the warning about the nose wheel door Al; one of my Fujimi F-4Ms is close to getting up on its legs so I’ll check that before committing (too much) glue to plastic. Those inner main gear door struts are a real pain; I’ve managed to break or feed the carpet monster with most of those that I’ve had. My preferred MO now is to use “reverse action” tweezers (squeeze to open) and to install the struts before the doors and then carefully butt the doors up to the struts before the cement cures.

Beautifully smart Valiant Derek, it looks like the Nuclear Detergent worked. When I built my first Airfix Valiant I found that the part bulkheads that go into the bomb bay are too wide, quite possibly being sized for the external rather than internal dimensions of the fuselage. Other than that I had no significant problems, apart from where to put the finished article.

It would be Dave, but as I said, convolutedly, someone else has my book and I don’t know where he, let alone it, is.😡😡😥😥😥I’ve found a potential replacement but have no idea how long it’ll take to get to me.

I wonder if turret removal might have had something to do with optimising speed, range and payload. The 400 gallon fuel tank in the bomb bay would weigh as much as a 4,000 lb bomb, plus the associated pump(s) and pipework, another 10,000 lb of bombs would put the aircraft fairly close to their normal MTOW for UK ops. Factor in the higher temperatures in the Pacific theatre and every lb of extra weight really begins to have an impact. Interestingly when 617 Squadron were operating Lancasters in India post-war they were having to call for take-off clearance before starting engines as the coolant temperature limits could be exceeded whilst taxying or whilst waiting for any preceding aircraft to take off.

Dave if you can find a copy of the Airlife “Lancaster, the definitive record” it’ll give you all of the serials for completed airframes and, for many, their first flight dates. Unfortunately someone “borrowed” my copy several years ago and I’ve never seen it since.😫😡😥🤐

NX611 has a Martin dorsal turret and I've just found an image of '612 also so fitted so I'd expect '618 also to have had one.

By late 1944 - early 1945 most heavy bombers, Lancasters and Halifaxes, were leaving the production lines with a Smooth Night underside finish. This had replaced the super matt RDM2A Special Night which had proved to be difficult to apply, easily damaged and less effective against searchlight detection than had been hoped. Night, in its various forms, was/is a dark blue/grey/black colour intended to mimic the night sky over Europe prevalent before our modern levels of light pollution. Smooth Night was exactly that, a finish that was smooth to the touch unlike the rough, drag-inducing RDM2A finish and prone to adopting a satin or part-gloss appearance: I’m not sure whether this appeared in the official nomenclature as “Night Type S” as happened to Sky but that “Type S” always refers to the finish type, I.e. smooth, than to any variation in the colour itself. After the discontinuation of RDM2A Special Night the boffins at RAE, AFDU and in industry along with other specialist research and development bodies got on with devising a better night bomber camouflage and by early 1945 had come up with “Anti Searchlight Glossy Black which, as the name suggests, is a “true” black with a high gloss finish. Early Lincolns with RA- and RE- serials were delivered with Smooth Night undersides but I am almost 100% certain that Lancasters with NX-, PA-, SW- and TW- serials, particularly those intended for Tiger Force had the Anti Searchlight Glossy Black undersides. I’m sure that there was an article or short series thereof in Scale Aviation Modeller International several years ago covering this subject but I don’t have copies.

The aircraft used for the film were from a far later production batch (RTxxx serials, as opposed to ED937 for example) than those used on the raid itself. The film aircraft had all been withdrawn from storage so the H2S instruments and controls would not have been installed to prevent theft or damage whilst the aeroplanes were inactive. Once filming was complete the Lancaster’s were sent back to an MU, there to be scrapped shortly thereafter.

The seat with the arm rests is closest to the Lancaster pilot’s seat.

@Harry_the_Spider before you get the fuselage buttoned up you should remove the H2S “box on a stick” from behind the pilot’s seat. This wasn’t installed on the Operation Chastise aircraft.

Thanks @MarkSH you’ve done a good job there; I don’t think Avro’s AID Inspector would have any trouble signing that off.😉👍

I think you and I might have been to the same d-I-y (destroy it yourself) classes as mine involves a lot of swearing too; none of the curtain rails I’ve put up is horizontal, even having used a spirit level. You’re right about the lack of mating surface to apply adhesive/solvent to or into which to drill and pin; the anhedral angle on the tailplane doesn’t help.