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Hello All, It was painfully obvious that I wasn't going to do the Fairey Long Range Monoplane in time for this GB, so I have paused it. However, while reading Bonhoff's excellent S6B post, I got to musing about kits you could slap together on a Saturday morning. So, this being Saturday, I tiptoed down to the garage at 7am... I always remember looking at the Airfix SR53, thinking "I don't build jets, but if I did, I'd build that one!" Build a classic, hard to find, red stripe baggie? Gulp. Not on my watch! "Hello, my name is Adrian and I have a red stripe collecting problem." Welcome to the group Adrian. So how about the beautiful Freightdog model? Nope, it would take too long to do properly. But how about this? The Ursus repop, acquired for peanuts on EBay years ago. Same plastic - perfect! Including Gort: And a wacky stand: If only I had some references: The fairing on top of the tailplane is wrong, but the fuselage is wronger, being too deep: A Saturday morning build needs a thumbprint: To make the fuselage shallower, the lower edge was brutally bent upwards, getting back some 3mm of added slimness: The airbrakes have a side with an ejector mark and a smooth side. I put the smooth side out but then realised that it is flat. The ejector pin side is contoured to match the fuselage: After all the bending the lower fuselage needed some brutal filing to restore some mating edges. This took the stand slot away: Add air intake trunking: Gort and the seat do not measure up to the Freightdog one: Time for a new interior and seat: And painted up with some hypothetical red bits. I would demand a button that said "rocket booster!": I had glued the wings together and got the undercarriage in: glued up the fuselage: and cut my finger open when the blade broke when I was trying to make the front undercarriage door fit: I took this as a sign that it was time to make lunch... Next up was to remove the end of the tail fairing to get it off the trim tab, and to extend the front a bit: Reshape the canopy to use as a vacform master: Sand down the wings to get the undercarriage doors level. Note that the plastic has a yellow skin - dried moulded release agent? Components ready for assembly: Thogether and filled: Canopy is a plunge moulded, first try: And sprayed with Halfords white primer in the garden: So I should be able to finish this one! Thanks for looking, Adrian

Hi fellow modellers, hi from me in the land down under (i.e., Australia). This is my 1st ever post and I'm not much of a computer wiz, so let's hope i don't embarrass myself or burn out your web site by pressing the wrong key! I'm building the Ursus-made 1/72 scale SR53 (i.e., the Eastern block kit made from old AFX tooling) and want to add some scribed panel line details for the upper wing. Do date, all my searching has failed to find a nice plan view of the upper wings which include the panel detail. I've seen this detail in photo's taken at an obscure angle, so I know it exists! So does anyone out there have such a drawing? I also understand that the actual SR53 is on display at the Cosford air museum (but correct me if I'm wrong), so I would imagine that some enthusiastic modeller would have gone there and pleaded a case to allow access for the purpose of obtaining such details. As I said in the title for this post- the detail seems as rare as hens teeth, but here's hoping!

My main interest is in experimental aircraft and prototypes, especially those 'G-Whizz'aircraft of my childhood when new and exciting types appeared regularly. All are 1/72 scale Supermarine 510, Maintrack Vacform (my first vacform) Hawker Hunter prototype, PJ Hunter F6 resin with 'knobbly' bits removed. Anti-spin parachute added and home-made registration letters. The font I used to make the letters didn't match the photo I had, so I spent some time modifying the figure '8' only to find that when the registrations were cut up and spread over the u/c legs you couldn't tell the difference! Saunders Roe SR53 Kit was of Polish origin, bought from Hannants several years ago. I suspect it is a copy of the original Airfix version Fairey Delta One Olimp resin kit, Alclad finish. I thought that I had 'cracked' doing Alclad after the P1 (next pic) but found that I hadn't English Electric P1a Aeroclub vacform fuselage, Airfix F3 wings and tail, RAF roundels from Xtradecal, home made warning stencils More to come ( the foreigners) John