stever219

I recall reading of a TriStar that spent several weeks flying around the Middle East in the ‘seventies with very stiff ailerons. Eventually someone was persuaded to take a look at the problem and found a large plank wedges into the starboard wheel bay that was fouling the control runs. Apparently it had been used as an impromptu support during some work in the bay and “forgotten” on completion.

A friend of mine, now sadly deceased, used to chuck mustard sarnies to the gulls from the Dover-Calais ferries: the birds would thank a big chunk and gulp it down and only then discover that doing so was not a good idea, especially as they couldn’t regurgitate them. As for the bicarbonate of soda butties.........

BOAC/BA used a mix of Standard (V.1101, G-ARVA -‘VC and G-ARVE-‘VM) and Super (V.1151, G-ASGA-‘GR). The Standards retained the original wing without inboard leading edge extension and associated extended stub wing whilst the Supers all had extended inboard leading edges and associated extended stub wings. IIRC the stub wings were built integral with the centre fuselage sections and the wings were then attached to these (I hope @bzn20 can confirm or correct this for me).

Little-cars is now modelling-tools.com. Paul has been very helpful to several of our club members, getting them set up and providing extra help, information and demonstrations as necessary.

I haven’t bought a modelling magazine for several years now: I’d stuck with SAM since its inception but for me things really came to a head when Jay Laverty took over as editor and I allowed my subscription to lapse. I used to enjoy articles that explained how and why the modellers had done what they’d done and, better still, where clear photographs of the work in progress were provided. What I don’t want or need are images the size of a very small postage stamp or a blow-by-blow account of pre-, post, and in-between shading, panel line washes and paint chipping. Two dozen images of the completed model may fill pages but they’re no substitute for some decent detail close-upsof how the end result was achieved.

All “silver” Valiants in RAF service were painted High Speed Silver: the only natural metal Valiants were the prototypes WB210 and ‘215.

You may be able to float it back off using water and/or Micro Set and a size 0 or 1 paint brush. Patience and/or bad language may also assist.

When on the ground the Canberra’s ailerons droop symmetrically, but only by about 2o. To achieve the degree of droop depicted would require the aileron cables to have been disconnected or cut and the stops to have been removed. Whilst I don’t doubt Rich’s skills as a painter I do think that the weathering, and particularly the emphasised panel lines, is overdone and makes the model look like a refugee from Wyton’s fire dump. I know it’s his model and that this topic has been done to death and back again the long way but just my two (proper British) two penn’orth.

Airfix gave us six colour scheme options in the Nimrod kit: I can’t get at mine just now but I think the R. 1 was in the later overall grey(s) scheme. If that’s the case the antenna fit will be vastly different to that when the jets were in the earlier Light Aircraft Grey and White scheme so check your references. “Maid of Moray” is indeed one of the other options in the kit in the Hemp/Camouflage Beige and Light Aircraft Grey scheme.

I think I saw the RWR fairing in one of the CAD illustrations and an indication that the entire fin top dielectric fairing is a separate part.

If the colour artwork from the blog is going to be the box art there’ll be a lot of impulse buys of this kit. Can’t disagree with Texantomcat’s wish for some support vehicles but I’m not holding my breath.

35 Squadron’s Pegasus emblem has a lot of appeal.

Don’t be too hasty: apart from the choice of subject matter any resemblance between any new Airfix Vulcan that may or may not be about to be officially revealed (or not) tomorrow is likely to be accidental. There are a limited number of ways that the Vulcan structure can be sensibly broken down for kit manufacture so there may be some apparent commonality but we might now get a vertically-split front fuselage as per the new Buccaneer and separate intake and tailpipe sections to allow for a B. Mk. 1 later on. If this new tool, should it exist, is anything like the Victor we’ll get half-decent wheel wells and weapons bay, full-depth intakes and exhausts, more cockpit detail (albeit that most will become invisible after assembly) and maybe a selection of things that go bang in the night/bucket(s) of instant sunshine. We might also get a choice of fin tops, with and without RWR antenna failings, and TFR radome, rather than having to resort to surgery to delete these as on the current kit. In the meantime do your best with your present Vulcan and Victor: I’m sure the tricks you learn from the Vulcan will read across to other kits of that vintage that you’ll probably wind up building at some point. Talking of tricks, if you’re building the Vulcan with undercarriage down and you’ve not yet started on it (or found out elsewhere) there’s a wrinkle to getting all of the main wheels touching the ground. Firstly install the nose wheel leg and the forward parts of the main legs, all three complete with wheels and leave them to set on a flat, level surface (support the model if necessary). Once the main parts are set you can push the rear parts of the main legs up against the main parts ensuring that the wheels are all in contact with the surface (you may need to adjust the rear struts to get them to fit neatly). Once everything’s set you should have all 18 wheels with no daylight showing under them. Good luck!

One way to avoid streaks or ridges when brush painting is to use a wide flat brush and well-thinned paint. Which brand of paint did you use? Xtracolour tends to take much longer to dry in my experience than Humbrol, even using a hairdryer on it doesn’t help much. You may need to bite the bullet and either rub down or remove the existing paint; wet and dry paper, used wet, can give good results but you’ll need to be careful around raised detail and parts such as aerials. Mr Muscle oven cleaner or brake fluid can also get rid of unwanted paint, but experiment on a bit of scrap plastic first. Whatever you do I hope it works because, as Learstang said, too much work invested by you and too good a subject to go to the Shelf of Doom.

Revell have, with the help of Xtradecal, dealt with the RAF Skymaster gap, but I do wish we could con Airfix into giving us a decent York; so many users and they’ve just missed out on the 70th anniversary of the end of the Berlin Airlift too.

The underside colour on camouflaged Vulcans changed over time. Initial finish remained gloss white but from the early-mid-seventies this was slowly replaced by Light Aircraft Grey (Humbrol 166 or its equivalent), coupled with the change from red/white/blue national markings to the “tactical” red/blue variety. As ever try to find a photo of your chosen subject.

Airfix only did the F-84F, but it was a decent little kit with a nice cockpit, fine raised surface detailing, generally good fit of major components, a reasonably deep intake duct and jet pipe and good choice of markings. For my money the only let-downs were a lack of undercarriage well detail and poor fit of the inset lower wing panels. If someone was to chuck one in my direction now I’d quite happily sit and build it.

As far as I know the kamikaze mentality never officially took root in the bowels of the Air Ministry and the intention was that Super Gnat and weapon would separate sufficiently before the latter’s detonation to allow the former some potential for escape. However with the number of similar weapons likely to be going off in and around the target areas and the Gnat’s limited range I think it’s very unlikely that the Gnats could get very far away. As an aside I was told several years ago by a member of the ROC that documents had been found in the former Eastern Bloc indicating that my former home town of Dover was earmarked for two megaton-range air-burst weapons and a kiloton-range ground-burst weapon (I dread to think what Manston further up the Kent coast from us was scheduled for: at least we wouldn’t have known much about it had it all kicked off). I can’t believe that NATO/SACEUR wouldn’t have allocated only a single weapon to each WarPac target of significance so my surmise is that the Super Gnat pilots would, despite any assurances to the contrary by their commanders and politicians, have been on one-way missions simply because of the likelihood of becoming a “friendly fire” statistic.

Gnats were used to simulate stand-off weapons (cruise missiles) during at least one set of air exercises in the late ‘seventies, in which they flew in close formation with Vulcans as part of “Red Air”. There was a proposal to a “Gnat Mk 5” which would have had provision to carry a nuclear weapon and a supersonic capability. How the pilots of those “super Gnats” would have fared after delivering their buckets of instant sunshine probably doesn’t bear thinking about.

Very nice recovery on that old kit, and very envious of your 3D printing facility. You may not need to print a new radome to accommodate ballast; there’s a lot of room in the front fuselage ahead of and below the cockpit for fishing weights, lead shot or lead sheet. As Martian says you can use a needle in a pin vise, and I’ve had acceptable results from that despite being lethally fat-fingered. For long straight lines the tip of a fine saw blade can also give acceptable results. It looks like you might originally have used Humbrol 30 for the Dark Green of the camouflage (but it could just be that the colour balance on my screen is off). Humbrol 163, or even 116, is a better match for RAF Dark Green but obviously other manufacturers produce paints that are also a good match, e.g. Colourcoats and Xtracolour.

I’ve just found some images of XR806, ‘808 and ‘810 with black radomes, Transport Command titles and no AAR probes. You just couldn’t write it that all of the original probes were scrapped but, sadly, it’s typical of the type of officialdom we seem to have too much of.

I’ve a sneaky preference for the black radome. Do you know if the AAR probe was fitted during that period? As you your query on price the kit didn’t even show on Mach 2’s website when I looked earlier, but I’d guess around 80 quid.

Not a problem here Allan, but the Vickers Funbus is a favourite if mine, which does tend to push me towards rivet-counting mode🤪🙄. I agree that this is likely to be our only shot at an IM VC-10 but if I can get hold of one I'd be doing it as an RAF C. Mk. 1 from the "Shiny Fleet" days.

ZA141 did fly in those colours, but was repainted into the then-current Hemp (Camouflage Beige) and Light Aircraft Grey scheme some time around when she was delivered to the RAF. The point that was being made is that the kit has the “wrong” wing for a BOAC/BA VC-10, from which all of the K. Mk. 2 tankers were converted, although some of them had seen service with other airlines before conversion. I’ve not yet seen the kit, but from comments above it appears that the kit wing has the extended inboard leading edges appropriate to the V.1103, 1106, 1151, 1154 members of the VC-10 family and may even require some judicious modification to properly represent one or more of those variants.

I have a couple of possibilities: split the wing leading edge joint and fiddle the kit parts in through the gap using a pair of fine or long-nosed tweezers then reassemble and make good the leading edge; cut the kit lamps from their backing/support piece, fettle them to fit and install them from the outside or make up a couple of replacements from clear sheet and install them from outside as above. Or what Adam just said.😉