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Hi, This week I completed some figures from ICM's excellent 1:48 RAF personnel kit and created a grass field base for a Trumpeter Display case to display them together with a my latest creation, a pre-war 72 Squadron RAF Gloster Gladiator. It then occurred to me that the base and case could also be used to rotate the display of other aircraft in my collection from the late pre-war and early second world war period. Apologies for the striped backdrop, but I have yet to figure out the best printer quality settings, hence the vertical lines. Other than these, it is however a fairly accurate depiction of the skyscape at Church Fenton because its the upper section from a picture I took of the Spitfire line-up parked at Flying Legends here in July😀 Amazing how a simple backdrop can make a model pop! All photos were taken with an iPhone 11 Pro. First of all the 72 Sqn Gladiator based at RAF Church Fenton around 1938 Hurricane P3153 US-U for "Euthanasia" of 56 Sqn based at RAF North Weald in summer 1940 Spitfire Mk1 R6835 XT-W of 603 “City of Edinburgh” Sqn based at RAF Hornchurch in Summer 1940 Finally, some shots more featuring the Albion 3-Point Re-fueller. I based this on an example seen briefly in a British Pathe B&W Newsreel, but took some liberties with the brass radiator and red sun-rise Albion logo, which would no doubt in reality have been painted over when the vehicle was camouflaged.

Hi, This week I completed some figures from ICM's excellent 1:48 RAF personnel kit and created a grass field base for a Trumpeter Display case to display them together with a my latest creation, a pre-war 72 Squadron RAF Gloster Gladiator. It then occurred to me that the base and case could also be used to rotate the display of other aircraft in my collection from the late pre-war and early second world war period. Apologies for the striped backdrop, but I have yet to figure out the best printer quality settings, hence the vertical lines. Other than these, it is however a fairly accurate depiction of the skyscape at Church Fenton because its the upper section from a picture I took of the Spitfire line-up parked at Flying Legends here in July😀 Amazing how a simple backdrop can make a model pop! All photos were taken with an iPhone 11 Pro. First of all the 72 Sqn Gladiator based at RAF Church Fenton around 1938 Hurricane P3153 US-U for "Euthanasia" of 56 Sqn based at RAF North Weald in summer 1940 Spitfire Mk1 R6835 XT-W of 603 “City of Edinburgh” Sqn based at RAF Hornchurch in Summer 1940 Finally, some shots more featuring the Albion 3-Point Re-fueller. I based this on an example seen briefly in a British Pathe B&W Newsreel, but took some liberties with the brass radiator and red sun-rise Albion logo, which would no doubt in reality have been painted over when the vehicle was camouflaged.

In July 2023 I had a great weekend staying with my daughter and watching the Flying Legends warbird displays at Church Fenton in Yorkshire. I can thoroughly recommend this shows new venue, although we could have done without the thunder storms on the Saturday.😬 To get an idea of the views available from the airfield and inside the village, click here to see my Youtube vid of The Flying Bulls B-25 and P-38 display. In the weeks of anticipation leading up to the show, I looked up the history of RAF Church Fenton and found out that the first RAF Squadron to be based there was 72 (Fighter) Squadron, who moved here not long after the base first opened in 1937. 72 Sqn had just been equipped with the Gloster Gladiator Mk1, the final front line bi-plane fighter to serve in the RAF and an aircraft that following the recent development of monoplane fighters was pretty much outdated for front line use even before it entered service.🤔 I got the yen to build a 72 Squadron aircraft and was delighted when a quick search yielded this 1:48 I💓 Kit, which is apparently a re-boxed Merit kit (Nope - never heard of them either!). It even appeared to have the decals required for the markings of 72 Sqn's red section leaders aircraft. It took me on a bit of a journey, as I've never rigged a bi-plane model before and although the kit is basic in many respects, it goes together well but the decals proved to be a bit iffy in several respects. If you'd like to see the full the build log, the journey starts in Work in Progress - Aircraft here. There were a few mods and additions required to the kit parts. Otherwise, may I present my rendition of K6130 as she may have looked circa 1938. My working assumption was that both reflector gun sight and a radio had been fitted by 1938. I based the two colour prop scheme on a photo of the squadron's aircraft on the tarmac at Gloster's just before delivery here, and I used the kit decal version of the wing flash with straight ends, rather than the curved boundary with the wing roundel seen on other renditions. This could be wrong, but the photo of 72 Sqn from above taken in the air in the Flying Legends show brochure is somewhat ambiguous on this front. The wing and fuselage flashes were airbrushed directly on to the model, because the kit decals had incorrect colours. The kit roundels also have incorrect proportions and colours, so I used the correct 1:3:5 1:48 scale 15" and 40" Type A roundels from Xtradecal sheet X48031. A mixture of Alclad II Shiny Aluminium lacquer and Tamiya Flat Aluminium acrylic paints were used on the airframe and Tamiya acrylic s for all other paintwork. All finished off with the sparing addition of MiG Storm Grey pin washes on the panel work and aileron hinges. Rigging lines are INFINI Models 110 denier (0.121 mm) Lycra Rigging and the Aerial wire is mig Medium Fine lycra rigging (0.02 mm).

Nakajima B5N 'Kate' IJN Soryu December 1941 I've built a lot of WWII Japanese aircraft but nothing new for a l-o-n-g time. So when a good friend here in NZ (an American ex-pat) announced he was selling off some of his Hasegawa IJN/AF kits, I was first in the queue. Other than the seat harnesses from masking tape, what you see here is exactly what you get in the box, the aircraft was part of the first wave off Soryu on December 7th 1941. Yes the brown mottle was probably more dense on the actual machine and there is some question as to whether the undersides were unpainted (like this one), painted aluminium dope or grey, but I've used a little artistic license, because why not ? Build was virtually faultless like so many Hasegawa kits from the 1990's, mnimum amount of filler and sanding needed. Essential IMHO is the Eduard mask set - wouldn't like to guess how much time that saved me !. All the best from NZ, please feel free to ask any questions or make any comments. Ian.

Okay you folks got me going crazy, or is it just the heat in here? Anyway, a second coming of a group build-build that never started. An American Classic indeed. Compared to an 1:72 scale model, it's like Texas vs. Rhode Island. Well not that much, but much bigger (1,5^3 = 3.375) anyway. The sprues back then still in their bags. It is probably the first and only kit so far that I've washed the sprues, never found any harm with that but these felt so greasy I decided to go the extra mile with it. But then I never dared to actually start building it! I still plan to decorate her as "Marsha Sue". A plane, whose pic is in a book I got when I was probably ten years old! It's also a plane whose details match the Monogram kit 100%. Read more of her here if interested 🙂. Oh, one thing I don't know yet for sure is whether I want to decorate her with the red CBW colours or not . I like the all-grey looks, a lot. V-P

Lt. Francis Gahan, S/Lt. Alasdair Elder and L/A Peter Mansfield took off in Avenger JZ217, from the escort carrier HMS Trumpeter, with seven other Avengers and the four Wildcats of 846 squadron. This was 4th May 1945 and Operation Judgement - which was to be the last air raid of the war in Europe. HMS Trumpeter in 1945 853 sqn departed HMS Queen with the same mix of Avengers and Wildcats while 882 sqn on HMS Searcher saw twenty Wildcats launch. Their target was a U-boat base in the north of Norway within the Arctic Circle in the natural harbour at Kilbotn. The base consisted of the depot-ship Black Watch, supported by a flak-ship, two barges fitted with anti-aircraft guns and numerous gun emplacements surrounding the harbour. Several other ships were employed in ferrying supplies and ammunition to the base at Kilbotn, including the cargo ship Senja. Four of the Wildcats were assigned to provide top-cover against German fighters, while the majority of the other Wildcats were to arrive at the start of the operation, to attack the gun emplacements on land and in the harbour. The Avengers would then arrive to carry out glide-bombing runs in quick succession, The attack lasted seven minutes and destroyed Black Watch, Senja and also U-711, which had been moored alongside Black Watch. No Norwegians in the village of Kilbotn were killed or injured. Two houses suffered windows blown out and some damaged woodwork from a stray bomb. An Avenger of 846 sqn going in to the attack on Kilbotn Bay. The U-boat depot ship is centre right; a tanker is in the centre, and a flak ship can be seen above the aircraft. The airborne force arriving from the west over Kilbotn at 17:00 on a sunny afternoon, achieved almost complete surprise. Early in the attack a Wildcat of 882 sqn was hit by flak and crashed into the sea. Lt. Hugh Morrison from Wairarapa, New Zealand, Senior Pilot of 882 Squadron, is buried in Narvik New Cemetery. Several other aircraft received flak damage in the next few minutes, most later returning to the carriers, but the attack went according to plan. The main targets of the attack are hidden behind water columns and smoke in the centre of the photo. They were the depot ship Black Watch and the Type VIIC submarine U-711 - both sunk. The ship visible in the centre is probably the Senja, also sunk in this attack. U-711 was the last U-boat sunk by the Fleet Air Arm in WW2. One of the aircraft hit by flak was Avenger JZ217 of 846 Sqn. They tried to make a forced landing on a field but there wasn't sufficient space and they ran into the tree line. Lt. Francis John Gahan RNVR (aged 24), S/Lt. Alasdair Donald Hay Elder RNVR (20) and L/A Peter Bernard Mansfield, Royal Navy (22) were buried by the Germans, assisted by local Norwegians, in the churchyard in the nearby village of Sørvik - where they remain. Francis Gahan is often stated as being 22 years old when he died but his gravestone shows that he was 24. I feel that this is important but I'm not quite sure why. This is my attempt at Avenger JZ217 using the Italeri boxing of the Accurate Miniatures 1:48 kit. The kit has fantastic detail with Italeri having taken all the Accurate Miniatures options and placed them all in one box with a huge decal sheet. My one gripe about Italeri is that they have taken the extensive Accurate Miniatures instructions and removed all the text. The text being replaced by arrows. This approach makes the instructions more accessible but there are a few cases where parts are left hanging in mid air with no arrows. I definitely recommend getting hold of the original Accurate Miniatures instructions. Assembly was mostly straightforward with my main difficulty being (as others have said) the turret – both the assembly and the installation. There was a fair amount of fiddling and fettling involved in that. I added an Eduard p.e. set and a set of their canopy masks (there is a lot of glazing). I also replaced some of the RAF roundels on that decal sheet with spares as I thought the red too bright. OK, that's enough words – here's some pics. all the best Mark I've just realised that, looking at these images, my carefully sanded flat spots on the main wheels don't touch the ground. Oh well. I'm sure I'll get round to sorting that out at some point!

Roden's O-1 Bird Dog in 1/48 scale is not the most straightforward kit. But with the right attitude (not all kits are Tamiya kits!) the experience was pleasant in the end. Big parts went on well mostly and it was the small parts that required some extra attention. Biggest flaw with the kit is probably the clear parts which are quite foggy. And my careless glue handling skills didn't make them any better. But given the subjects down-to-earth attitude, I didn't go the extra mile trying to make them clearer. Only thing that I spent quite a lot of time improving the cockpit with some greenstuff, lead wire, plasticard and brass rods that majority of them is not visible. But atleast I know they are there! And I did leave the door open. Other than the cockpit, I only added the 'Remove Before Flight' labels on the rockets. Kit was painted with Vallejo acrylic paints. Decals required some extra attention with some varnish, sanding & polishing & painting. Not all came out perfect but atleast majority of the big ones came out OK. Weathering was done with enamel products mostly. First, dark gray panel line wash, followed by Vallejo Premium satin varnish. Then some more localized weathering like muddy wheels, exhaust stains and engine grime. O-1 Bird Dog presented here is a forward air controller plane in Lai Keh, South Vietnam in 1966. They were called in by ground forces to scout out the enemy forces and mark them out with white phosphorus rockets for the fast movers like F-100 Super Sabres. This required some slow & low flying which suited the plane well and it had excellent visibility. Only thing that it didn't have much in the way of defense, just the flak vest that was not worn, but instead laid flat on the seat and sat on! Oh, and you could use your CAR-15 rifle by reaching out the side window, far enough that the hot shell casings didn't fly into the cockpit, While flying the plane _below_ treeline. Crazy stuff! WIP here:

hello to the board! here comes pictures of my build of this nice Mustang. Kit from Eduard ProfiPack 82103. The kit is nice with very nice decal sheet. My choice felt on "Genie" the aircraft N5-X serial number 44-14659 from the 111th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron, 69th Tactical Reconnaissance Group of 12AF. The prototype: Enjoy it:

KP's 1/48 SIAI SF-260W in Irish colours. Tiny little plane in 1/48 scale. The kit felt really rushed in many aspects - the details, the fit, decals and instructions. Details are quite sparse and the plastic quality is more of a short run kit with partially soft details etc. The fit was simply atrocious - mainly the wing/fuselage fit. Decals were poor print quality and colours were not aligned, I needed to correct them with paint quite a lot. I lost patience with the instructions as they were simply missing bits and the decal placement instructions/coding was so bad that I gave up on them, only put down few of the smaller decals. But as I wasn't happy with the quality of the decals in the first place it didn't feel too bad leaving some out. But I don't want to be all negative, in the end it ended up a nice little plane with some character. I painted it with Vallejo acrylic paints and used Tamiya panel liner to bring out the details. Kit needs a huge amount of nose weight, I didn't put enough so it ended up a tail sitter. Hence the clear plastic rod on the underside... Part of my 2023 Challenge:

I have great satisfaction that I managed to finish this Fiat, the model is quite nice and it was fun to build especially as the parts fit perfectly. The biggest challenge I faced with it was how to build it? What to change and improve? Thanks to my friend Marcin, who suggested building it VINTAGE. And that's how I built it, without any changes. It's just a pity that it sat on a cupboard for a few years.

Hi all, Just wrapped up my first Japanese fighter i've built since i was a kid. I had a choice from the stash, an Eduard Zero or this Finemold Oscar. I wanted a challenge and the Oscar's schemes looked far most interesting than a boring old zero! I've always liked the look of the Oscar and the way the fuselage tapers down to an almost unbelievably thin section at the tail, such an elegant aircraft to my eyes. The Finemolds kit gives you options to build either a late or early Ki-43 II and i settled on the early version depicting Satoru Anabuki's aircraft from 50th Hiko Sentai in Burma 1943. The build was fairly straight forward although i did encounter a few difficulties in getting the cockpit to fit and with the wingroots. I really struggled to fill the join and sand it smooth enough, especially obvious when the silver was applied (so don't look too hard!). Built OOB, the only additions being the brake lines, ignition lines on the engine and a couple of machine guns made from tubing. Looking at @Zigomar's recent model I wish I'd made the effort to open the engine cowls but mine was all glued on before i saw his excellent build. Looking at pictures of the camouflage, the edges of the paint look quite rough, so smooth airbrush camo wouldn't do. I got round this by applying hairspray first, then free handed the camo with the airbrush and then rubbing away at the edges to achieve the effect i was looking for. A few washes and oils later and here we are. I'm debating on whether to do a little base for this one as an airfield in Burma sounds like it would be fun to have a go at. I've also just finished the airfield scene for it to sit on. You can see more pics here in the diorama section https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235129154-mingaladon-airfield-burma-1943/#comment-4750308, but here's a few anyway That's all and thanks for looking Graeme

Some background I’m off to the Flying Legends air display at former RAF Church Fenton in sunny (here’s hoping) Yorkshire next weekend and this is responsible for spurring me back to the modelling bench after a short spring/summer break. My Daughter lives in Church Fenton about 1/2 mile from the end of the NE-SW runway and although we have bought tickets for the airfield on the Saturday, I’m staying with her and looking forward to seeing a few more flybys over her garden on Sunday, before heading off for a short break on the NE coast. I last went to an air display at Church Fenton when I was studying at Leeds University back in the late 70s through to early 80s. Despite this past familiarity I know little about the airfields history, so this time around I decided to Google whack the subject and learned that RAF Church Fenton first opened on April 1st 1937 as part of the UKs re-armament push in response to the threat of Nazi Germany's rearmament. 72 (Fighter) Squadron were posted to Church Fenton in midsummer 1937. The Squadron had reformed at RAF Tangmere on 22 February 1937 from 'B' flight of No. 1 Squadron who were then equipped with the Gloster Gladiator Mk1. Gladiator was the last bi-plane fighter to serve with the RAF and the squadron continued to fly the Gladiator from 1937 through to 1940 and didn’t in fact have them replaced by the Spitfire Mk1 monoplane fighter until around the time of Dunkirk evacuation, when the squadron moved on to RAF Acklington to take part in the Battle of Britain as part of 13 Group. It’s sobering to think that 72 Squadron Gladiator Mk1s came quite close to flying up against Bf-109Es during the summer of 1940. Whilst highly manoeuvrable, the Gladiator was almost 100 mph slower (top speed 257 mph) than the new monoplane fighters and somewhat lightly armed with 2x 0.303 Browning machine gun pods under the wings and 2x fuselage mounted synchronised Vickers machine guns firing through the propellor arc. So they would surely have been duly hacked out of the sky. With this in mind I searched for a Gloster Gladiator Mk1 kit in my favoured 1:48 scale to replicate a 72 Squadron Gladiator from Church Fenton. ICM have an excellent kit in 1/32 scale and I’ve seen several excellent builds of this on Britmodeller, but it’s a tad too big for my display space. I learned that Roden and latterly Merit produced 1/48 scale Gladiator Mk1 kits and a bit of further research indicated that the recent I 💓 Kits re-boxing of the Merit kit would be the easier build. As a bonus it also comes with 72 Squadron decals, so I paid my £25 and ordered one last week. First impressions Thus far I’ve removed all but the smallest parts from their sprues and cleaned the parts up. I’d never heard of I 💓 Kits, so for my part this was a bit of a punt. However, when it arrived I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the moulding, which uses a hard light grey styrene. However, the complexity and level of detail provided by the kit is relatively low. Perhaps £25 might be a bit steep in retrospect, but then I was brought up in an age when similarly basic Airfix kits cost 2/6d at Woolworths. The sprue gates are a bit clunky and required a substantial clean up of their locating lugs on the parts, but there was minimal flash or burring on the parts to deal with and a few dry fit tests indicated the accuracy of fit is good overall. The basic shape looks about right, but a number of compromises have been made. The cowling is a one piece moulding (so no seams to deal with) but this results in too linear a barrel like profile. There is an aftermarket resin replacement engine and cowl available on the Hannants site, but I don't think this kit warrants the extra expense or effort, so I'll build it out the box. The cowl also has a very thick trailing edge, but judicious thinning of the inner edge with a scalpel blade should fix this. I did consider thinning the rear outer edge because this could create a more accurate curved barrel like profile for the cowl, but it would also likely ruin some of the external surface detailing, which should pop nicely with a silver finish.. There’s some internal fuselage detailing included, but with no opened canopy option and a rather thick transparency at that, it’s not likely much internal detail will be viewable when fully assembled. A quick review of the Gladiator walkaround by @Julien here on Britmodeller shows that a lot of detail is missing from the cockpit internals, such as some tubular steel framing above the control panel, a bulkhead incorporating a roll cage behind the seat and some side framing on the windscreen. I might add some seat belts, scratch build some parts and modify the canopy masking to replicate the missing details, even though I bet they will never be seen. The wings, tailplane and tail fin are all single part solid mouldings. So cutting out and positioning the control surfaces looks to be nigh on impossible. However, I might yet have a go at easing the hinge points with a scalpel, setting the rudder slightly displaced to one side and have the elevators upwardly deflected to create some additional interest. We shall see. The comments I saw about the wing and strut assembly being quite straightforward has proved to be correct. Even when assembled as a dry fit only, the wings, interplane and cabane struts align very well and it all holds together nicely. It looks like this should be a relatively straight forward build, although I’m not looking forward to replicating all that wire rigging, because I’ve never attempted a bi-plane before. Everything could fall down when I get to this. Does anyone have some guidance for this? Wish me luck!

Having recently battled my way through an Eduard P-400 which took a looong time since I was not very motivated, I chose something that hopefully should keep my mojo tank from getting emptied this time. Even though there's lot's of colourful DR.I's schemes to choose from and quite a few comes with the Eduard Profipack, I have always liked Fritz Kempf's. There's just something about the "Kennscht mi noch?" statement on his plane, which should be "Don't you know me?", but I think it was meant as "Don't you know who you're up against?". Pretty bold stuff. It will also learn me to deal with the dreaded Fokker streaked finish, or have me fail my attempt. We'll see. This will also be the last time my workbench looks somewhat tidy. The Eduard kit is getting on in years now, but other than some slight flash here and there, it is still a very good model. But I will try to improve it where I can, and the first thing I did was to take a file to the rudder pedals and carefully thin them to look more to scale as there are no replacements among the photo etched parts. The right one is finished: Guess I could make it thinner, but it will have to do. It's not like it easy to see anything in the cramped cockpit anyway. Took a sandpaper to it and smoothed them out after the picture was taken. Next thing up was to add the missing frame part. Eduard chose for some reason to mould the rest of the interior steel frame with the fuselage half's, which I think is a bad decision given they are very prominent. Perhaps there's a reason for this and I will regret it later on, but in that case it is very easy to remove. Work has also started on the seat and cushion, which I'm quite excited about since I'm trying out a new technique for painting leather using oil colours. Mojo meter still at 100%

Here is the model I recently finished - 1:48 F-104S Starfighter, serial M.M.6869, no. 51-01, 51º Stormo, 22º Gruppo Aeronautica Militare (Italian Air Force) in occasional livery on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the unit in 1989. Kinetic kit (very nice to build) with PE set by Eduard, metal Pitot tube by Master, 3D-printed ladder by LP Models and decals by WandD (nice but very thick). Thanks for watching!

Yesterday I received such a marvel from the company "Fly", so quickly took photos of what is inside the box. So it flies in for a quick test workshop. The "Fly" company has released the Breguat in three boxes, but I will try to write more about them later. My model will be in Polish painting. And this is what it looks like ready with the decals for all three boxes. Thank you to the company 'Fly' for the model received for review.

Here is my 1:48 Alpha Jet E of French Air Force aerobatic team "Patrouille de France" as I saw her on Radom Air Show in 2011. Kinetic kit "out of the box" + some scratch. Nothing special, because the kit itself isn`t very good. Painted with Mr. Hobby C, polished. Thanks for watching!

When I saw the announcement of the release of the Polish PZL.46 "Sum" reconnaissance-bomber aircraft, I was delighted; dreams do come true. Having it on my shelf is a joy. I have just received my first 3D printed model from the Art of Trans company in the 3D Polish Wings series. They have it in 1:72 / 48 / 32, and I'm going to get it in 32 too. So this is what it looks like inside, instructions in pdf form, vacu glazing. The kit doesn't include decals or bombs and the open bomb bay is begging for them. And I'm happy to get it right away as it's one of many models I've always dreamed of having on my shelf.

I found such a marvel from "Smer" in my stocks and was wondering what to do with it, a deep valorisation. That is, re-routing the lines and riveting and making the interior from scratch or leaving it as it is. I also wanted to give it just a bit of a facelift and redo the cab and its cowl and also make an inlet and outlet in the radiator and do something to improve the undercarriage. But after discussions with my colleagues it is thanks to Marcin that I will make it in the VINTAGE version, that is, I don't fix anything just put it together. That's my hope for a quick project, sometimes you need to de-stress. There are two camouflage versions in the kit and I had no problem choosing and I am making an Italian for the collection. Below is the in-box of the kit and as the model is years old I think everyone knows it.

Hi here is my F-104 STARFIGHTER by Kinetic I stared this back in February and only just finished it due to my mojo waining and a few issues with the build along the way so wasn’t enjoyable as I’d of hoped. I brought this kit sometime last year and what seems to be a theme this year so far my wife picked this out of the stash to build next! I purchased a few aftermarket items for this build. Qunita Studio Interior 3D decals (QD48201) and very impressed with them MasterCasterS resin Martin-Baker Mk.Q7[A] Ejection Seat (MST48065) Master brass pitot tube (AM-48-044) Eduard TFace Canopy Masks (EX830) I decided to try Ammo-Mig paints with is build and this where I had the problems with paint peeling off with masking tape Tamiya and Vallejo paints also used thank for looking and enjoy

I'm struggling with a 1:48 Hasegawa F4U-4 kitbash. I'm thinking it might have been easier to fix the Hobbyboss F4U-4 by grafting the Hasegawa cowling parts on it. Had anyone here tried it???

Not sure what scheme but will probably be pretty much oob.

Hi folks and friends, I'd like to show (off?) my latest release, a backdate set for Kinetic's new tool F-16A kit. With this set you can build early Block aircraft, from 1 to 10. Contained are small stabilators with static dischargers, early type main isntrument panel, the corresponding coaming with HUD camera, a replacement fuselage panel with the early type ECS exhaust and a couple of antennas. With the exception of the ECS panel, all other parts are drop fit replacements for kit parts, no surgery needed. There is also guidance in the instructions on how to modify some kit parts to further increase accuracy for the early Block airframes. The stabilators are cast in extra strong resin (from a 3D printed master), the other parts are direct 3D print parts. https://www.hypersonicmodels.com/product/f-16a-backdate-set Many thanks for your attention, I hope you'll like this set. New F-16A (early) decals are on the way from Bullseye Model Aviation and PK Productions, something to look out for as well. Jeffrey

I wasn't sure if I was ready to commit to another group build after fizzling out on my last couple of projects. But I started slowly working on my F-6K and have really been enjoying it so far, so I've decided to share the experience. What's an F-6K? It's just a P-51D with some cameras (camerae?) Mounted in the rear fuselage. My goal is the build this aircraft from the 118 Tactical Recon Squadron, flying over Chengkung southwest China in 1945. A few obvious challenges await. Most relate to the natural metal finish. I'm also weary of Eduard's finicky new style decals. Especially over NMF. But I really want a mustang with some black and gold trim. So far I've only built the cockpit floor and radio deck. I still need to fold a little PE black box and add it, but this is where I left off tonight. Nice detail from Eduard, but nothing really earth shattering.

Kit - Airfix Paint - Lacquers & Tamiya acrylics. Decals - Xtradecal 48 220 Extras - None. I've built it, I didn't enjoy it, at all ! There's an unintentional coincidence between Vampires being the subject of horror films and trying to get this kit to 'work'. Soft, poorly defined details, poor fit & engineering around the nose, simply an 'opportunity missed' in my opinion. Reminds me far too much of the old Hobbycraft kit from way back in the day - I actually gave-up on that one. What I find hard to get into my head is the lack of continuity across recent Airfix new releases; the wee JP, that I've also posted, the Blenheim, Dornier 17, B-25, 1:48 Hawk 81A and Mustang were all superb... the 1:48 Meteor, 1:72 Gnat and this... not even on the same page. Such a disappointment, honestly I couldn't wait to get it off the bench. Please feel free to make any comments at all. Cheers. Ian.

Hi all, My first "In Progress" post. Done a few completed posts before so take a look at those if you wish. This is the first of many many Hunters I have planned (20+ in 48th in the stash and more planned when Airfix release the FGA.9 in the Summer). This is the F.4/5 kit but I'm doing a "basic" back dating to an F.1. I say "Basic" as I could go the full nine-yards and go as deep as possible e.g. the various different vents and holes and blah blah blah, but honestly, I just want to do as much as is necessary. This basically comes down to no Sabrinas and Squared off link ejector ports. I will enhance the kit along the way as will be shown here in this first update about the cockpit, but also other small things like drilling out the gun ports and giving the front nose wheel gear it's second *arm attachment* (no idea what it's called but you'll see what I mean when we get there. Scheme to be decided but probably from the Fantasy Print Shop sheet when they re-release it soon-ish. If anyone wants to give any other ideas about what to add, then feel free, but I'll do as I please and see fit! Any way... Cockpit! The kit seat is replaced with a 3D printed one, printed for me by my mate Lee. He also printed off some side control panels too. All these are primed with Alclad Black Primer and then painted over with Tamiya NATO Black to give a grey black interior. I then came in with some dry brushing with a few shades of grey - starting darker and working lighter. All raised details were picked out with white and then using references, various other colours came in over the top. To tone it all down, a few washes of Mig Ammo Panel Line Washes were used. Deep Brown, Dark Grey and Light Grey were all used in differing areas. Eduard Etch belts were used on the seat and the seat was given the same treatment as the cockpit tub. The gun sight, or lack there of in the kit, was cut in half to allow for a small piece of clear plastic, cut into a square to be glued in place for the gun sight. The dial just below the gunsight was a left over piece of PE from an Eduard Spitfire kit. More to come soon!