stever219

Read what it says on the box: "contains resin, etched brass and decals". Whirlybirds would have known better what was in their boxes than Scalemates.

I couldn’t possibly comment.😄😄

Psssssssssttt: anyone wanna buy a couple o’ pylons off a 1983 Airfix Vulcan? £20 a pair, low hours, more than one careful owner.....

Squadron codes and aircraft i/d letters are 48 inches by 30 inches with a six inch stroke width. Standard fuselage serials are eight inches by five inches with a one inch stroke width.

The kit wheel well is “a bit” shallow. On the real aeroplane the wheel well roof is the underside of the upper wing skin which, in reality, is less than 1/8 of an inch thick IIRC. For Airfix to have got a more realistic depth they could (should?) have moulded the wing centre section as a full-span structure that seats against the bottoms of the wing root fairings which, in turn, would have to have their mating surfaces on the underside rather than the ends as Airfix have moulded them. The way that Airfix have designed the kit means that the wheel well roof doesn’t have any unsightly seam lines running through it at the expense of greatest possible accuracy. Let’s hope that when they do a new tool 1/48th scale Hawk they do as Hawker Siddeley did and produce tip-to-tip wing structures with the wheel well detail moulded into the top skin.

Which shade of Olive Drab is the E-Type 1892 VT? There were some lovely motors there @Stef N., thanks for sharing them.

It's actually the other way round; the wing started life on the Type 679 Manchester. The centre section then stayed more-or-less the same through the Type 683 Lancaster and 685 York (with extended outer panels), Type 688 Tudor, Type 694 Lancaster IV and V (Lincoln 1 and 2) and Type 696 Shackleton (further extended outer panels) and the jet-powered Type 706 Ashton. The outer panels on the Shackleton Mk 3 were substantially altered again, having the tip chord extended aft and installation of wing tip fuel tanks. I'm not 100% certain but I think that that centre section box also made it into the ill-starred Avro Canada C-102 Jetliner. Good design or just "if it ain't broke", or maybe some of both?

If you're doing the early single-curvarure doors why not make copies of the bomb bay bulkheads and then wrap (laminations of) plasticard across the curved surfaces to replace the kit mouldings altogether. Further copies of the bulkheads could be inserted along the bay to help keep the shape along the length of the bay. The separation line can be scribed and rivets added using your preferred method if required. Just a thought.....

The original version of the FROG kit that I had came with Royal Canadian Navy and Royal Netherlands Navy (orange triangle) markings.

At least two Lightning pilots died when the canopy failed t9 separate from the aeroplane, thereby inhibiting the remainder of the ejection sequence. The first was Flt Lt Dennis Law of 56 Squadron who was carrying out a simulated engine failure approach when the live engine quit. He attempted to eject but the canopy did not separate. He then belly-landd the jet in a field, causing remarkably little damage until it hit a stone wall at the end of the field, at which point the canopy separated and the seat, now well outside its operating envelope, fired. The second involved a USAF exchange pilot on a night interception exercise (I'm sorry that I cannot remember his name just now). Engine/reheat FIRE warnings precipitated the election to eject but the canopy again failed to separate. Apparently the pilot caried out a textbook ditching but never lived to tell the tale. The aircraft was recovered with the canopy part open, but no signs of the pilot. His body was never found as far as I am aware.

@Dunny I have one of these lurking in the “Stash of Doooommmmmm” and I think that Academy have bodged the cockpit floor, having it at one level throughout rather than with the raised section at the forward end. A dry run with the seats installed shows that the pilots’ eye-lines would be below the side screen sills. The floor also lacks the access hole to the lower fuselage, entry/escape hatch and nose section. There’s a step or rib on the instrument panel support (also wrong for any B-17 I think) bridging the gap between the bottom of the centre pedestal and the too-low cockpit floor. Comments/corrections/confirmations anyone please?

Scans of the photos or a description of the markings would be a help; a quick dirty web trawl here produced absolutely nothing relevant.

@Selwyn I hesitate to beg to differ but It think there is a supplementary tank fitted at the front of the weapons bay in the shot of the Yellow Sun being loaded. I think that the image was taken using a long focal length lens which has compressed the perspective somewhat; look at the area behind the technician’s shoulder where there could be some stencilling on the tank side? If there was a front tank in the Victor bomb bay the fuel therein could be transferred to the main tanks in order to keep the CG close to where it should be so that there was no significant trim change when the weapon was released. Your image showing a bomb bay tank is from the last surviving K.1A, XH648, during her recent restoration at IWM Duxford and can’t be read across directly to the B. 1/1A/2. The tankers all, generally, had 2 tanks close to the CG but with space at the rear of the bay for the HDU.

I can't find anything other than images of the Gecko box art which appear to show a cab similar to the Airfix 30 cwt GS truck (3/4 rear view only). However Gecko also produce, or intend to, an open-cab 30 cwt GS vehicle which doesn't look much like the K2.

They're in the kir.

I know that feeling!!

The circular thing is the hood emergency release: the handle is under a clear perspex(?) "break here" panel.

@Jb65rams watch out for the two small ribs that go into the main wheel bays (sorry, I don't have the instructions to hand just now for part numbers but they have a D-shhaprd cut out). Despite the new Airfix plastic they're very fragile: one was damaged when the bags were opened and both snapped in half, despite judicious use of very sharp and new sprue cutters, when being removed from the sprue.

Although the arrangement increased the front pilot's g-tokerance it was uncomfortable, the controls were even heavier than normal due to the shortness of the control column, some systems controls and instruments had to be omitted and baling out with the undercarriage down was never going to be recommended.

It's been going in for a while: in the Bond "epic" Tomorrow Never Dies" the RN vessel is referred to as "the HMS Bedford" by at least one member of that mythical ship's crew. (Why on Earth Their Fisheheadships of the Admiralty would want to name one of their vessels after a rather grim, landlocked and definitely sub-par market town is beyond me.)

Underwing roundels should be 36 inch diameter, uppers could be 54 inch or sometimes 48 inches. As you say 52 inches wasn't, AFAIK, a standard RAF size.

Non-US air forces bought F-104s because the USAF didn't want nearly as many as they'd told Lockheed they did originally and because Lockheed lobbed huge amounts of money and other "incentives" at the people who signed the order forms.

Early and mid production Lancasters had a heat exchanger in the leading edge of each wing between the inboard engines and fuselage. This was to provide heating for the area of fuselage forward of the front spar. The outlet into the fuselage is immediately adjacent to the Wireless Operator's seat with the result that he was (almost) always too hot whilst the bomb aimer and gunners froze their bits off. The small vents seen just below and behind the nose turret were intended to create a lower static air pressure inside the nose from the passing air to draw the heated air forward but the efficacy of this is somewhat doubtful. On later Lancasters and Lincolns the heater/heat exchanger was relocated to a small fairing on the starboard side of the fuselage just above the starboard wing root and aft of the rear spar. I don't know if this system worked better or not.

It's a semi-inflatable radome for a search radar installed on SeaKings converted to AEW. 2s during the Falklands War.

@PatG there's a photo of R5556 possibly taken at AFDU at Duxford showing the mid-upper "taboo track" fairing installed. Sadly for @MACALAIN it also shows the squadron code letters to be smaller (35 or 36 inch diameter?) then the later standard 48 inches and the aircraft letter to be smaller than these (24 inches?) I'll join you in the Nitpickers Anonymous bunker.........😖😖😖🙄