Hooray, Hooray I'm underway, here begins my first BM Work in Progress post! I have this last week just started on this Crusader. Nothing to show in this post, but more to follow very soon. For now, a test first image link: http://i1079.photobucket.com/albums/w519/greggles_w/SMRR-MC-316101013150-1_zpsoxgoqy8d.jpg All going well you should see a finished model - however not mine. Instead, as the caption says, it's a photo of Short's original wind tunnel model. I hope it inspires you as it did me! If not, then I defy you to tell me this wonderful drawing does not excite: http://i1079.photobucket.com/albums/w519/greggles_w/11-07-09_shortcrus_zpsgjyrrscu.jpg All going well, more soon ... g.

Hello everybody , after roughly 20 years away from the hobby , I'm back in the business ! Considerring that I have everything to (re)learn and new technics to discover and apply, I' ve decided to start with a rather basic kit. It will be a french carrier born classic : The Etendard IV M. The model is the very single one available in this scale : the Heller one that I bought 30 years ago ! The general shape is very accurate, but most details are inexistent , to sum up what I'm expecting from this model : it will be no picnic ! Let's start with the "bang seat" a Martin Baker Mk4. Détails in scratch ( copper wire , an old toothpaste tube , platic card ). See you !

To save me from completely losing the will to live from tackling attempting to turn Hobby Boss' Mi-8 actually into an Mi-8 I have decided to pick up what should (hopefully!) be a nice simple build of one of my favourite aircraft of all time, the Mig-21. I have decided to build an old Academy 1/48 Mig-21PF that I have had for a while as it is a fairly simple kit and (to me at least) looks like the plane its supposed to. The one part of the kit which definitely does need improving on is the cockpit as the kit one if rather basic to say the least, and to that end I have bought a resin replacement by Pavla which should hopefully fit better than their Mi-8 bits, I have given it a test fit and all seems well. Anyway here's the usual box and contents shots. The kit instructions and decals. I am not sure at the moment exactly which scheme to do it in but I will most likely not be using the kit decals, I have a few sets for the Mig-21.... Would you believe there isn't a PF on any of them! Obviously I need more decals! Some of the decals can be used on PF's as the national markings are the same. As I said I have a Pavla cockpit, and here are the various bits. Much more detailed than the kit offering but the instructions on what to remove from the kit are non-existent so I will have to give it my best guess, oh dear! I say I don't know exactly which scheme to do but I am leaning towards an Egyptian one such as either of the schemes below. Probably the bottom one. I know one of the kit options is Egyptian and in a very similar scheme but the national markings look too big to my eye, I'm sure I have some more suitable Egyptian markings somewhere in the stash. Thats it for now, thanks for looking in, and wish me luck! Craig.

As my ludicrously long Sea Vixen build finally shows signs of drawing to a close, thoughts turn to what to build next. I always try to have two things on the go at any one time, with the other being my never-ending Ark Royal build - but there is a limit to how much 1/350 scratch building and detailing I can stand at any one time, and I need to have something in 1/48 (my aircraft scale of choice) to keep me going. I thought about a twin Buccaneer build - an Anti-Flash White S1 and an Ark Royal (4) final commission S2D. Those will come at some point, since I have the kits and the necessary conversion materials. But watching the splendid work of Steve (Fritag), Debs (Ascoteer) and others has convinced me that it is high time I built something that I actually flew myself. Sea King or Lynx, Sea King or Lynx... much indecision was finally tilted towards the Queen of the Skies by all the press coverage of its retirement from RN SAR service earlier this year (though the ASaC7 Baggers will soldier on for a while yet), and by markdipXV711's excellent build of an 819 SAR cab which he and I flew in together 20-odd years ago. So, since 819 (my other Sea King squadron) has just been done, I have finally plumped for an aircraft from my first tour. Pull up a bollard and listen to a true dit. 820 Naval Air Squadron, 1988, 18 months into my first front-line tour. We were part of Ark Royal (5)'s CAG (carrier air group) throughout my time on the Squadron, and in July 1988 the ship plus 801 (8 x Sea Harrier FRS1), 849B Flight (3 x Sea King AEW2), a detachment from 845 (2 x Sea King HC4) and 820 (9 x Sea King HAS5) set off for Australia, via Malta, Singapore, Hong Kong, Brunei and Subic Bay (Philippines), and home via Mumbai and Gibraltar. 6 months away, and a bloody good time was had by all... Less than 2 weeks after we sailed, we were taking part in a NATO exercise in the approaches to the Med; basically we were playing the bad guys trying to force a passage through the straits, and a number of RN, USN and Spanish units were trying to stop us... including HM Submarines Torbay, Otter and Opportune. The aim of these exercises is not to be 100% realistic, but to make sure that there is maximum interaction, so occasionally there would be a 2 hour pause where the submarines, having come right inside the screen and "attacked" the hell out of the ships, would withdraw 30 miles and start again. We would knock off tracking them and leave them alone to reposition. In those long distant 1980s Cold War days, ASW was our bread and butter, and on the whole we were pretty good at it. Most of the time we did passive ASW - chucking huge quantities of sonobuoys out of the aircraft and finding submarines that way, often working with our Nimrod and P3C brethren, and often working against USSR boats rather than friendly exercise ones. In my first few weeks on the squadron we rippled 3 (3 cabs airborne 24/7) all the way from Norfolk VA to Harstad in Norway, including several days of tracking 2 Victor IIIs that were taking an interest in our games. It was pretty exhausting, but we could keep it up almost indefinitely. For the guys in the back, passive ASW was often good fun; 3-dimensional chess, and all that. But for the pilots it was skull-shatteringly dull, flying around at 4-5,000' (nosebleed territory for any self-respecting helicopter pilot) and stooging at 70kts for maximum endurance for hour after hour after hour. But on this occasion we were doing active ASW, the task for which the Sea King was originally designed. Active ASW in the daytime is enormous fun for the pilots, especially when you are in contact. At night the aircraft flies the profiles for you, closely monitored by the pilots (since you are down at 40', you want to keep a close eye on things in the pitch black; it can be a tad buttock-clenching at night). In the day, however, you generally fly it all yourself ("manual jumps" as the jargon goes) without any assistance from the AFCS (automatic flight control system), and it's a blast. So there you have the scene. I am 18 months into front line flying, and have reached the dizzy heights of being captain of my own crew. My P2 for this trip is a hugely experienced USN exchange pilot (way more experienced than me, but flying as second pilot while he gets up to speed with RN procedures). We do 45 minutes of active Torbay bashing, but then reach the pre-briefed pause while she repositions. Rather than disrupt the flying programme, we simply keep going, so we have taken a plastic milk float with us (hi tech, I tell you) and are doing some grappling training; chuck the milk float out of the back and practice SAR with it - much harder than it sounds, cos the milk float thrashes around in the down wash, so it is great training for the back seat in conning the aircraft and the front seat in hovering it precisely. A few minutes into the grapple work, with Jim the USN guy on the controls, the port engine stops... or so we thought. The Nr (rotor speed) decays as the good engine runs out of puff (too hot and too heavy to hover on one engine) and we subside rapidly onto the water yelling Mayday and punching the windows out. Phil Smith, the Observer, says he had never seen anyone strap in as fast as poor old BJ Sandoe, the Crewman who had been lying on the floor of the aircraft with his head sticking out, conning Jim onto the milk float, when suddenly the Atlantic Ocean came up to greet him. As I reached up to shut down the No 2 engine (cos you sure as heck don't want to abandon a helicopter while the rotors are still turning) it became apparent that the No 1 engine had not in fact failed, but simply run down to flight idle. The fuel computer had developed a fault and tried to shut the throttle, but there is a physical interlock built into the system for precisely this emergency, called the Flight Idle Stop, which is basically a screw jack that prevents the throttle from closing beyond a certain point - the very last thing you do when starting up is to engage it. So we over-rode the computer and managed the throttle manually, the Nr came back up to where it should be and shot off the surface of the sea like a startled rabbit, downgraded our Mayday to a Pan, and flew back to Mum. A Green Endorsement much later (still on the wall of my loo) and very shaky legs for a few hours afterwards. Well, it has to be this cab, doesn't it? So I present to you ZE419 / 014 / R of 820 Naval Air Squadron in July 1988; a bog standard Sea King HAS5. Dark blue (this was just before the days when everything became grey), black markings. Photos of the real aircraft to follow, I expect, but for now she is one of these in the distance (photo taken the day before we sailed from Pompey, so about 2 weeks before the ditching): The aircraft will be built much as in this photo, actually; folded, included the tail, with engine blanks in. The cabs in the photo have tip socks on, but I will probably build mine with the more robust blade support system known as "Forth Road Bridge" gear (as in this Mk 5 at the Fleet Air Arm Museum): The basis of the model will be the Hasegawa 1/48 Sea King, using the "Ark Royal HAR5" [no such thing; it should be HU5] edition (which for some reason Photobucket refuses to rotate, so turn your head): ...and the excellent Flightpath conversion set, which contains all sorts of goodies important to this build - notably weapons carriers, assorted aerials and a tail rotor much better suited to having a gust lock fitted to it. Herewith statutory sprue shot: ...and pic of the contents of Flightpath box and a couple of other aftermarket goodies: As it happens, I also have a Hasegawa AEW2a kit (acquired before the Mk5 kit was released, as the only game in town for a future Mk5 build). This will also be useful, since it contains a number of applicable bits such as Orange Crop ESM aerials (removed from the HU5). And since all the Hasegawa boxings are variations on the same theme, the kit already contains some parts that I will use - e.g. the HU5 has the sand filter in front of the engine intakes, but in my era we simply had the "barn door"; similarly the HU5 has the sonar removed and a blanking plate fitted. The kit contains both a barn door and a (sort of, -ish) sonar. [i also have a second complete "Ark Royal HAR5", designated eventually to be an 819 SAR aircraft... but not yet]. There will not be much progress for a few days, while I get the Vixen over the line.... Herewith photo of the appropriate log book entry (bottom line:

It's 2017 now, so now it's time for a new special offers thread. Remember, like the title says, we get new offers in stock pretty much every Friday, so keep checking our website every Friday! Academy 1/700 Meng 1/700 USS Lexington £22.00 Trumpeter 1/700 USS California (1941) £21.60 Trumpeter 1/350 1/72 Airfix Hawk 'Red Arrows 2016' £8.10 Airfix Whitley MK V £23.00 Airfix C-47 Skytrain/Dakota (with Jeep/Pack Howitzer) £27.70 Eduard Messerschmitt Bf110C-6 Ltd Ed £18.60 Eduard Aussie Eight Spitfire Mk VIII set £30.00 Eduard Avia B.354 Serie III Profi £9.70 Eduard Avia B.534 Early Double Profipack £14.00 Eduard Fw190A-8/R2 Sturmbock Profi £11.00 Eduard Fw190A-5 Profipack £11.00 Eduard Lavochkin La-7 Profipack £9.00 Eduard F6F-3 Hellcat Profipack £10.20 Eduard Hellcat Mk I/II Dual Combo £15.50 Eduard Bf110E Profipack £11.30 Eduard Bf110G-2 Profipack £13.50 Eduard Bf110G-4 Nightfighter Profipack £15.00 Eduard Avia B.534 Royal Class quad kit £36.90 Eduard Fw190 Royal Class quad kit £34.80 Eduard Spad XIII Weekend £4.90 Eduard F6F-5N Hellcat Nightfighter Weekend £6.00 Eduard Fw190A-8 Std Wings £7.80 Eduard Fokker DR.1 Triplane Weekend £5.00 Eduard Fw190A-8 'Heavy Fighter' Weekend £7.80 Eduard Fw190A-5 'Light Fighter' Weekend £6.00 Eduard Fw190F-8 Weekend £6.20 Hobby Boss Mil Mi-2US Hoplite gunship £9.40 Hobby Boss Mil Mi-2URP (anti tank) £9.40 Revell Eurofighter Typhoon Trance 3 £13.00 Revell F-4J Phantom (starter set) £12.30 1/48 Eduard F-104G Starfighter (NATO/German) £39.40 Eduard Bf110G-4 Profipack £22.00 Eduard Bf109F-4 Profipack £20.00 Eduard Bf109G-2 Profipack £18.60 Eduard F6F-3 Hellcat Profipack £15.90 Eduard F6F-5 Hellcat Profipack £15.90 Eduard MiG-21BIs Profipack £20.60 Eduard MiG-21R Profipack £23.00 Eduard SSW Profipack £11.70 Eduard Spitfire IXc early profi £17.70 Eduard MiG-21MFN Weekend £14.70 Eduard F6F-5N Hellcat Nightfighter Wkd £10.50 Eduard Nieuport Ni-11 Weekend £8.40 Eduard F6F-5 Hellcat Weekend £9.50 Eduard Bristol F.2B Fighter Weekend £10.40 Hobby Boss F/A-18C Hornet £23.00 Hobby Boss Focke Wulf Ta152C-11 £11.70 Hobby Boss F4F-3 Wildcat £11.20 Hobby Boss Saab J-29B Tunnan £17.70 Meng Me410A-1 £28.30 Revell 1/48 Spitfire IX/XVI £13.70 Trumpeter 1/48 1/35 Armour 1/32 Hobby Boss thanks Mike

About three years ago, after Airfix released "Folland Gnat" in the 48th scale, I had an idea to create a diorama based on the movie "Hot Shots!". And I even started working on this topic. http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234984908-hot-shots-airfix-148-folland-gnat-aka-oscar-ew-5894/#comment-2048342 But there was a problem - there were no decals. And I had nowhere to print them. So I decided to freeze for a while diormau with "Folland Gnat" and decided to make another, less large-scale, but no less ambitious. So, the diorama based on the film "Hot Shots!" named "Eyewitness".

Hi guys, I will try to build the 1/48 Hobby Boss FB-111. The kit will be build almost straight out of the box. I have got one exta thing for this kit and that is a pitot tube from master. I think I will also need some seatbelts for the ejection seats, but I hope I can score them this Sunday at the Shropshire show. I will try to use the decals from the kit. Here are two pictures of the box and content. It is a box full of plastic. Cheers,

TRUMPETER WESTLAND WYVERN 1/48 I have previously posted a couple of completed FAA models on BM but this is my first WIP - I only decided to do a WIP when I was part way through this build - there have been quite a few nice builds of the Wyvern on BM since its release and my main interest was in improving the wing fold detail to make it more realistic plus a couple of other refinements. I think this is a nice kit of the Wyvern that captures the feel of this heavy turboprop aircraft. REFERENCES I used the 4 PLUS book and the From the Cockpit publication on the Wyvern as well as some photos I took of the TF1 prototype at the Fleet Air Arm Museum at Yeovilton in 2006 – also found some clear walk around photos of the TF1 on the Prime Portal website. After a lot of searching in books and on the internet I found it almost impossible to find "in service" Wyvern close up photos showing wing fold details – there are Pilots Notes available but I could not find any maintenance manuals that are available for some aircraft like the Sea Fury and Spitfire. I scaled up the 1/72 plans 150% to 1/48 scale on my scanner THE BUILD SO FAR I used the Wolfpack WW48014 resin cockpit & Eduard air brake etches - still deciding on how much detail to add to the wheel bays as the inner u/c doors will be closed - brake lines were added to the undercarriage legs. The exhausts for the engine were replaced by K&S aluminium tubing I also reshaped the end of the inner flap fairings by adding plastic to the bottom of the fairing as they looked too pointed to me WINGFOLD BREAK The wing fold details are therefore based on the TF1 which I assume is basically the same on production aircraft but there are some detail variations particularly on the outer wing – the main aim was to get rid of the over scale parts (E21 B25 & B29) representing the hinges. I used the kits aerofoil sections for the wing break (parts D14, D15 & D16 &D17) as I think they give a quite accurate cross section of the aerofoil – I also missed out seeing parts E12 & E13 that provide detail at the wing break which could have saved me a job making them. To give the wing fold strength I used brass strip and wire incorporated into the wing hinges which were fabricated from plastic card and strip – jury struts were made from K&S brass wire and tube so the plastic hinges only needed to be cosmetic and don’t carry any load. Once this basic structure was sorted it was just a matter of bit by bit of scratch building the detail at the wing break with plastic strip & rod, solder wire, copper wire from electrical cable etc until it looked busy enough from a viewing distance of about 18 inches (450mm approx.) SOME EXTRA PHOTOS OF HINGE DETAILS Brass wire and strip reinforcing the hinges holes drilled for the brass pins and cut away area around hinges to accommodate the fold sketches of estimated shapes hinges and wire reinforcing Photos I took of hinges on the TF1 Wyvern at Yeovilton 2006 Hydraulic lines are made from lengths of copper wire twisted and soldered each end to make it easier to handle - the photo below shows prepared copper wire to represent hydraulic lines to go into three different holes in the outer wing The thicker cable is from solder wire Photo below shows some hydraulic lines installed in an outer wing panel - the brass etched pieces are from an old Airwaves wingfold etch for the Wyvern - I have no idea what the flap looks like at the wing break at the so used this piece from the etch - the flap on the out wing panel differs between the prototype and production Wyverns. I think the wing fold is just about done except for tidying up & final fitting out once the angles are checked and the wings go on permanently. thanks for looking CJP

And we're off......Well, now that I have managed to complete the Vampire for the De Havilland GB - I can crack on with the Bf109. Below is the kit that I am building: I'm just going for OOB on this one and so far the kit has proved to be excellent and is going together without any hassles. I've made a start by beginning with cockpit and managed to get that completed today - pics as follows: The kit is going together like a dream - in fact I don't think I've ever had two fuselage halves go together better than with this model - the tolerances make for a perfect fit. I'm currently busy bringing all the fuselage, wings etc together so I'll look to update with more photos once I've made some more progress. Kris

Another one of my recent builds, this time it is a Bf 109E-3 of 9/JG3 in France 1940. It came as a profipack and is OOB apart from the marking being painted with Montex (told you I was converted). The fit on this kit is supreme and it pretty much fell together. Only place you have to do some fettling and dry fitting is around the engine cowling and cannon area. Hope you like IMG_2062 by Phillip Loughlin, on Flickr IMG_2063 by Phillip Loughlin, on Flickr IMG_2065 by Phillip Loughlin, on Flickr IMG_2068 by Phillip Loughlin, on Flickr IMG_2066 by Phillip Loughlin, on Flickr

For me, there's something quintessentially British about the Boulton-Paul Defiant. A misconceived oddball that nevertheless went on to find roles that the designer would never have dreamed of. Crews that, despite being outmatched, kept on fighting. I think of it as the fighter equivalent of the Fairey Battle, and I've always had a soft spot for it. So, of all the possible candidates, it seemed a good fit for this GB. I had a four month hiatus from modelling from November last year. I think that helped me consider my approach: it had been all about the detail before, PE, resin. But I'd neglected some basic skills. I finally located my airbrush as well, something I'd never learned to use. So the focus now is on getting good results from plastic. This won't be my first airbrushed kit; that "honour" goes to a Spitfire PRXVII. But it will be my first attempt at camo with an airbrush. And it won't be wholly devoid of aftermarket, as I'm going to try the Eduard steelbelts (I cordially detest PE seatbelts so that could go out the window!) Here's the obligatory uncut sprues: The kit has two very similar marking options: PS-V of 264 Squadron in July 1940, or KO-I of 2 Squadron in September 1940. I prefer PS-V as it has a slight tie-in to my preference to build aircraft that served in bases local to me (in this case, Duxford, where 264 spent some time in 1940, though in July they were at Martlesham Heath). At the time, the squadron was resting and training after its efforts over Dunkirk, and the various photos that I can find show little fading and only some exhaust staining, so I'm not going to weather it too much. Cheers, Chris

Pre-pre-amble: I know I have other things on the go. I don't care. I'm fed up with them and want something easy. I've been working loads recently and even any modelling time has been hijacked with work, the latest being a pair of Bf109s to go on the table at the Scottish Nationals at Perth next weekend as part of a general drive to show what the paints look like on the models. I'm not enjoying these. There's nothing wrong with the little Airfix kits, but it's not my scale and I don't like making models to deadlines (I sprint from one deadline to the next in real life and don't need any more at home). They're almost done, but they're a chore. The project: I wanted to start this little project months ago but I don't get the time to do much for myself, or at least I don't get much time when I'm not also burned out and sat like a zombie or sat answering emails at 10:30pm. I grew up and still live in the north east of Scotland. It's home and I like it here. I like how unpopulated it is, how quiet and technical rural roads can be and I like little reminders dotted around of the past, something largely bulldozed and redeveloped long since further south. I live roughly equidistant from most of the military airfields from WW2 in the area; Dyce, Peterhead, Dallachy, Banff, Crimmond, with Lossiemouth and Kinloss not that much further. But for a few subtle memorials dotted around it's generally not that well known that the Banff Strike Wing existed at all here, nor how prolific they were at the time. I decided to build a few aircraft that took part in what is now known as "Black Friday" - the 9th of February 1945, a raid on Germany destroyer Z33 in a Norwegian fjord which to be honest was probably the worst day of the war for the wing and indeed they racked up the worst losses of any Coastal Command wing during the whole war. First up is the sole Mustang lost during the raid. This was a Mustang III from 65 Squadron, temporarily based at Dallachy I understand at this point (RAF Peterhead where 65Sqn and 19Sqn Mustangs were usually based was having runway work done for around 2 months). The aircraft was HB836 and carried squadron codes YT-N. The pilot, W/O Cecil Claude Caesar, was assisting a 404 Sqn Beaufighter when he was shot down by Unteroffizier Heinz Orlowski in Fw190F-8 "White 1". Caesar was reportedly hit but kept on the offensive before crashing in to a pine forest on the side of a mountain. Two teenage Norwegian boys climbed the mountain hoping to rescue Caesar but he was dead when they reached him. Some German military arrived and had the boys extract Caesar's body from the wreckage and take him down the mountain on a sleigh to be buried. Orlowski himself was hit and forced to bail out by then too low, but was tangled on the way out and hit the ground hard with a partially opened parachute, causing an avalanche in the snow and somehow igniting the flare pistol in his pocket badly burning him. The model: For this I am returning to my preferred scale of 1/48, and will use the Tamiya kit: To help me along with minimal effort, I'm using some Ultracast resin bits: New propeller New seat New wheels I will get new exhausts for it too. Probably. Last night I sprayed a base coat of Colourcoats ACUS09 ANA611 Interior Green on the cockpit, some ACUS24 Dull Dark Green on the seat and cockpit combing and aluminium in various places. I am trying to confirm the colour of the fuselage fuel tank. I've found no photographs yet but black would seem an educated assumption if it's a self-sealing tank. If anyone can contribute here I'd appreciate that! I was about to spray the wheel wells aluminium with yellow zinc chromate spars but concluded that I couldn't live with the kit inaccuracy here despite my desire for a quick and easy build, and late last night ordered a resin wheel well insert by Vector via the nice man at Neomega. I received an email notification this morning saying it was dispatched, which is excellent. http://www.neomega-resin.com/p-51b-wheel-wells-469-p.asp In addition to this, I have already got some Xtradecal RAF squadron code letters in Sky and another set of registration code letters in black. To end the first post, if anyone has an actual photograph of HB836 I'd love to see it now rather than after I've built it with some assumptions based on typical aircraft I've found

Another kit rescued from the shelf of doom, Aeroclub 1/48 Tiger moth started some time ago . It was intended to be a Tiger Moth of the pre-war CFS display team but was abandoned after painting had started , when I discovered that the actual aircraft was a single seater. I decided to restart it after seeing pictures of G-ANNI , a current Tiger Moth in the same CFS colour scheme. Model in finished in Halfords rattle can paint with decals from Xtradecal and Fantasy Printshop. Andrew

I'm going to build a Beaufighter TF.X soon, and am frankly sick of fiddly details (so that's the entire 1/72 scale helicopter, Fiesler Storch and Hellcat engine on pause) and wanted to hack and chop away at plastic. The later TF.X Beaus were built with a new tailplane and elevators assembly which reduced the area of the tailplanes and increased the aerodynamic balance of the elevators ahead of the hinge line. This assembly was available from Bristol as a retrofit for older aircraft. The Beaufighters I have in mind had this later tail fitted in the time period I am aiming to build a little collection around, i.e. Black Friday - 9th February 1945, me being a local loon an' all. I'm using the Tamiya kit as a basis. There are several conversions for the original flat / non-dihedral tailplane but I couldn't find any for the late tailplane, so I have decided to make my own. It's been a while since I've done any decent plastic work. Aviaeology (http://stores.ebay.ca/Aviaeology) makes some very nice decals with very comprehensive literature to go with. I sourced mine from Ultracast who have the 1/48 scale sets in stock (still 6 left at last check ). The literature contains very thoroughly researched details of the tailplane mods and helpfully comes with 1/48 scaled plans of both the mid-production dihedral tail and the late production. It should be a simple case of copying the plans and trimming the tailplanes along the line of the leading edge of the elevator horn. I was going to separate these before the package arrived in fact. I'm glad I didn't... It seems that Tamiya has got confused when they tooled this. It's not as badly mishapen as their Spitfire kits, and I think I can guess where they went wrong, but even still, these are wrong - no two ways about it. It seems that they have used the broad chord of the late elevators then extended a balance horn ahead of the leading edge. The tips are also mishapen but I can address this with some sanding and new material. So, glad I didn't do this before the plans arrived - I marked on where the trailing edge of the tailplane should be and separated the elevators. I did contemplate scratchbuilding new tailplanes but frankly the Tamiya kit parts do fit together well, and I wanted to keep the dihedral and kit parts' interface with the fuselage so have settled on modified kit tailplanes and scratch built elevators. There are some more issues to address at the root, but plasticard will save the day. So, 30 minutes in I have some wrecked Tamiya parts that are almost the right shape for a late production Beaufighter tailplane, and no elevators.

I like to have 3 models underway at any one time. Definitely no more. This way I have something to work on while paint is drying on two other models. So, this one got started today as number 3 in the queue. 3 shall be the number of the count, and the number of the count shall be three. Anyhoo, was quite interested to take a look at one of the latest releases from the all new and improved Airfix. I'm a lazy modeller - I no longer have any time for hours and hours of re scribing and filling. I want good quality kits that minimize the amount of that stuff I have to do. My hat's off to the serious modellers who do all that to get the most accurate representation of a subject possible - it's an awesome approach. But I'm too lazy for that. So having heard good things about the recent Airfix incarnation kits, this seemed like fun. Box: The mouldings do look nice. There are very small amounts of flash here and there, but nothing serious. I haven't found anything in the way of sink marks either - so far so good. Made a start with the cockpit tub and ejector seat. Gone are the old days of a crudely moulded seat to be placed into a bare cockpit area - now the tub is made up of several pieces, as is the seat. Not bad really - I think that will look OK through a closed canopy once painted up. Certainly not up the look of a nice resin cast seat, but not bad. I thought it was interesting that there were two seat options - one without moulded in seat harness. Great idea - but no pilot chappie to put in place on the bare seat. Oh well. Cockpit parts Front wheel well assembles on to the underside of the tub. Dry fit of the seat into the tub looks good. I also assembled up the undercarriage bays on the wings. Really, I'm quite pleased with this model. For the price, there is plenty of detail included. I think that with some basic techniques this will make into a nice OOB model Meteor. I got as far as priming some areas today, and I'm looking forward to picking this up again next time I get to the bench.

My entry will be Eduard's Weekend Edition 1/48 Mirage IIIC. Won't be starting for a while, as I still have to finish a couple of other ongoing group build entries, a MIG-21R and Mk2 Transit.

Polikarpov I-16 Type 24 Eduard 1/48 I don't often post in the aircraft section, as I'm usually an armour and SF builder, but I've been sorting through the photos of some of my older builds on Flickr, and came across this I-16 I built back in 2015. I didn't get around to posting it at the time, so I thought I may as well do so now. It's a strait OOB build of Eduard's excellent Polikarpov, and the third one I've built over the years, painted with Gunze Aqueous and weathered with various AK pigments and washes. Thanks for looking Andy

Ok, so. I bought the BigEd set for the Tomcat and it came with a set of F.O.D guards. This influenced my decision to pose my finished (hopefully) model parked. I've now got to the stage of fitting, only to find that they're nowhere near a 'close' fit. They will go into the inlet but they're just too tall. They sit at an angle. I sort of assumed they should be upright. Even the few pictures I've managed to find have confirmed this. Sitting just slightly back on the lower lip and perfectly upright. So, after seeing if they could be modified and quickly deciding against it, I purchased the Quickboost set. Great set as they are (with two decal sheets to boot!), I have exactly the same problem as the etched set. I made sure to have the intake ramp in the fully up position, it physically would not go any further. So, is it that the parts are too big for the kit they're designed for, have I built it wrong or am I just missing something completely obvious? It's the finally couple of pieces to finish off this build before I embark on the next project (Su-15 I think), so any help would be greatly appreciated. Cheers!

Hi all, my (First, there may be more) effort for this GB is Eduard's "Weekend Edition" DH-2 in 1/48th scale. Apparently not for beginners, before starting this my sum total of experience with biplanes is one Matchbox Walrus, a Frog Gladiator and a Revell Fokker DVII. The Walrus remains on the shelf of doom as all the single struts scared me.... Still, there are a couple of Airfix's recent biplane efforts in the stash for another day but I'm looking forward to the challenge of this one. If not the rigging....

http://www.mpmkits.net/2015/10/siebel-si-204-148-pripravujeme.html

My poor poor winterized Harrier hit a big snag recently, so much in fact that Ii put it back in the box for a while. To cheer me up a little, I decided to have a deeper look into my Christmas gift: 31 different decal options, but only 2 complete set of kits. I really hope that Eduard will offer more Overtrees soon! First, I thought that I should do one of the Grey Nurses, since I do have a thing for Sharkmouths... And I definitely want to do a brown/green one, and a desert one with the blue/light blue roundels and one green one with bomb racks... So, instead of botching Bobby Gibbes rather spiffy looking machines I decided to start with this to learn how to build an Eduard Spitfire. Pictures to follow! //Christer

Hi guys, I'm not usually an aircraft builder however I decided to incorporate a diorama into this build and have a go at adding an electric motor to one of the engines, also this is my first attempt at modelling a grass base. I wanted a patchy and worn looking effect where a lot of work seems to have been carried out under the plane and the grass has suffered for it. I hope you like the results.

my contribution to this GB...

Hello Modellers, because my wife told me that she's fed up with my airplanes all aorund at home I had to take my latest on to my office at work.... Thank God I have some space and maybe in the near future i will bring also another one. This dauntless is almost OOB with just some details added in the cockpit. Painting has been done with airbrush and Tamiya acrylics. Matt finishing is also a Tamiya but spray can. Any comment and criticism is welcome . Enjoy pictures even if quality is not really the best (I took them with mobile phone...). Cheers Andy

I started this the other day and thought I'd show how I was getting on with it. One thing that immediately strikes me is how small the 109 is. I also have even more respect for people who build in 1/72, this is small enough and it's 1/48! Sorry for the rubbish photos, they were taken in poor light... Sean