Search the Community

Good evening. Another one flies from the bench to the cabinet..... IIRC, the Academy kit is a reboxing of an old Haseawa kit, but with engraved panels. Even the terrible navy blue plastic is the same. I built it OOB, except for a set of resin wheels (those included in the kit resembled a pair of Mud Terrain BG Goodrichs, fine for a Land Rover, but not for a plane). I used a set of 5" HVAR rockets and bomb from my spares box, as those included in the kit were a mere rubish. This time, I used Testors' enamels...got a few bottles with are still in very good condition, so why not...... Hope you'll like it....Best regards from Tenerife...!!! IMG_20200405_202540[1] by Arturo Navarro, en Flickr IMG_20200405_202531[1] by Arturo Navarro, en Flickr IMG_20200405_202520[1] by Arturo Navarro, en Flickr IMG_20200405_202844[1] by Arturo Navarro, en Flickr IMG_20200405_202509[1] by Arturo Navarro, en Flickr IMG_20200405_202627[1] by Arturo Navarro, en Flickr

Slightly wounded during an encounter with an RNAS pilot, Voss was soon back on duty, but went on leave until the end of June 1917 when he was briefly given temporary command of first one then another Jasta. During this period he was also seconded to Schwerin where he test fllew the Fokker Triplane prototype which probably started what became a love affair between the young pilot from Krefeld annd Fokker's Triplane design. His career took a new turn when he was given command of Jasta 10, one of the four units that made up Jagdgeschwader 1 under the command of his friend and contemporary, Manfred von Richthofen (MvR). Voss took command of Jasta 10 on 30 July 1917, just as the unit was re-equipping with the Bavarian company's sleek Pfalz DIII, which for me is one of the prettiest and most streamlined fighters of this period of WW 1, whatever its operational shortcomings. Voss appears to have found the performance of the Pfalz less suited to his flying style and it's suggested he may have flown 1370/17 on only four occasions before reverting to the Albatros DIII in which he made four further victory claims, bringing his total to 38. While better in a dive than the Albatros, the Pfalz was slower and had an inferior rate of climb compared to the V-strutter. The fact that the twin Spandau machine guns were enclosed within the interplane fuselage structure may also have created some issues with the process of clearing jammed machine guns. In addition, Voss may have already been made aware that one of the two prototypes to be issued for combat evaluation was shortly coming to Jasta 10 for his use. In an old Profile Publication from the 60s/70s, I came across the above contemporary photo of 1370/17 after it had been caprtured by the British when it'd been flown by another Jasat 10 pilot, Vzfw Hecht. Right or wrong, I decided that the vertiical bands either side of the fuselage Iron Cross should be in the unit's colour of yellow. I now realise I should have coloured the backround to the cross white, rather than leaving it silbergrau. Hey ho! The eagle-eyed amongst you may also spot the elevator and rudder cables are much thicker than they should have been. In reallity, the whole rigging was finished initially in this thicker gauge material, a fact I'd not noticed until I put the Albatros and Pfalz alongside each other. Much corrective procedure and frustration later, I replaced the majority of this with more delicate rigging and decided against messing about with the aft fuselage items. This Eduard kit (rareish and of some vintage) did not include any parts for the coolant pipes to and from the engine, nor for the fuel pipes running from the upper wing tank to the engine. The former were fashioned from 30 amp fusewire and the latter from artfully-bent thin copper wire. Perhaps forgiveable in a kit this old but it shouldn't happen with modern kits in this scale. Sometime between the last days of August and early September, the F.1 triplane in which Voss would gain his last 10 victories and meet his death was delivered to Jasta 10. I used an Eduard weekend kit for the F.1 103/17, suitably-decorated with the face on the cowling and the khaki drab stripes over the pale blue undercoat. I decided to try out the GasPatch Spandaus instead of the kit ones and found these to be very good though also very delicate. I managed to break off the ring sights which I replaced with some fine brass wire, bent (almost) to shape. I also added some seat belts and the cowling retaining wire around the aft portion of the cowling. I'd decided that both 102/17 and 103/17 had slightly different lower cowl structures compared with the production run machines, as detailed in Paul Leaman's wonderful book on the Triplane, a modification that was easy with a strip of plastic and a bit of filler - not that this is very visible in my pictures. Perhaps controversially, I decided that there's insufficient evidence that either the cowling or the rudder of 103/17 were painted yellow, preferring khaki drab for the cowling and white for the rudder. As you can probably see, the upper surfacce stripes are painted with the hairy stick in my interpretation of the patterns shown in contemporary photos. So, as they used to say at the end of the Disney cartoons at the cinema when I were a lad -"That's all, folks!" Apart from one final shot just to reinforce the point of this lengthy post. I hope you've been amused by it. Paul

Hi all.....I'd like to show you my latest finished kit. It's the Scratchaeronautics' 1/48 resin kit of the nimble spanish jet. An original design from Willy Messerschmitt while working for the spanish company La Hispano Aviación de Sevilla, S.A., rhe original two seater, trainer design led way to an improved, co-in single seater, called "Super Saeta". The rear seat was removed and an auxiliary fuel tank was added, improving the range of the plane. Other modifications were the adition of two undernose gun pods, containing 20mm Hispano guns, and up to four underwing pods, able to carry a varied load of rockets or jettisonable napalm tanks. Their swan song was during the early to mid seventies, carrying out armed patrol missions over the Western Spanish Sahara against moroccan supported insurgents and moroccan army alike. From 1975 onwards, after the Spanish withdrawal from those territories, the spanish Ejército del Aire carried on armed patrols and escort missions over the Canary Islands' territorial waters, protecting spanish fishing and merchant vessels from the moroccan and Frente Polisario insurgents attacks. The kit was built OOB, with the only exception of some belts made from lead foil. It was painted with Humbrol enamels and slightly weathered with pastel chalks. I hope you'll like it. As usual, any comment will be welcome. Best wishes.... IMGP0008 by Arturo Navarro, en Flickr IMGP0010 by Arturo Navarro, en Flickr IMGP0012 by Arturo Navarro, en Flickr IMGP0011 by Arturo Navarro, en Flickr IMGP0014 by Arturo Navarro, en Flickr

Good morning....Finally, y managed to finish this one, wich has been lurking in my cave for so long....It's actually a present for my friend Felipe, a fellow modeller from Gran Canaria, and an excellent person, who had the whim of a 2/JG71 "Richtofen" Sabre... It was built OOB, except for the modified wings (the kit is a F86F30, with hard, 6-3 wing), wich involved wingtips and extended wing leading slats.... The decals came from the Revell kit, and were a real nightmare to work with...In fact, as you can see, the Tulip decals around the nose went completely wrong. I told Felipe I was going to remake that area, but he said "no, leave it that way, it goes straight to my cabinet", so left the model as it was. It was painted with good old Humbrol enamels. Sorry for the poor pics, in fact, the green looks much greener than it actually is....I've got an old, handy Pentax, no budget for a good camera....Please, feel free to leave any comment.... IMG_20180507_174930[1] by Arturo Navarro, en Flickr IMG_20180507_174611[1] by Arturo Navarro, en Flickr IMG_20180507_174833[1] by Arturo Navarro, en Flickr IMG_20180507_174440[1] by Arturo Navarro, en Flickr IMG_20180507_174706[1] by Arturo Navarro, en Flickr Finally, a pic of La laguna, my hometown. Yes, it's supposed to be summer here..... IMG_20180421_163349[1] by Arturo Navarro, en Flickr

Hi all...... I've got two of these old kits at home, and I'm planning to build one of them as a Spanish Navy example. AFAIK, Spain received both Sikorsky and Westland made machines, under the MAP program. Now the questions: Given the fact of its age, is it an accurate kit???? Not talking about detail or lack of it, but about general shape. The interior comes absolutely empty, except for some spurious cockpit detail, raised rivets (golf balls, in 1/48 scale), and a set of very weird looking wheels....So a complete sanding and rescribing will be mandatory, as well as some scratchbuilding for the cockpit and the starboard fuselage crane. So far, i've just got a few pics of the "Pepo", as they were nicknamed in Spain.... The tail boom is absolutely straight, and I've seen some models had a "twisted" tail...I suppose that's right for early H19B models, but not sure about it....the "twisted" tail was introduced from the H19D onwards, I think....It's a question of choosing a straight tail example, or doing major surgery..... Any info will be very helpful.... A late friend of mine used to say: "Pepos don't really fly.....they're so ugly that Earth repels them". TIA and best regards from Tenerife....