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Inspired and stocked up from Telford, the next build is going to be the Blackbird Avro Manchester. I picked this up and a Lancaster Mk.VI conversion at the show. Based on my experience of the Lincoln build, I'm rather looking forwards to making a Manchester in the classic 3 tail guise, the resin looking very nice and a 'straight forwards' conversion compared to the last two Manchesters I've built. Andy (General Melchett) has lent me his excellent Manchester book by Robert Kirby. I've really got in to this book, not only for reference, but the mix of technical, historical and mission information contained, I really like reading about particular crew experiences more so than simple technical statistics. One thing that is becoming obvious from reading this book is the many evolutions that the Manchester undertook, not only due to serviceability problems, but also in camouflage schemes. I've not yet decided on a scheme, but based on reading so far, I think that pictures will be the best way of determining the correct configuration for a particular aircraft due to the fact that many modifications / camo changes were made at airfields. I'm open to ideas and inspiration for a particular scheme, but quite like one with a wavy high level demarcation scheme as a starting point. Whilst the Manchester had the obvious engine issues, I never knew until now what the specifics were. Plagues with hydraulic leaks including in cockpit high pressure releases due to 'paper' seals and general leaks due to poor joint design lacking olives, these issues were gradually addressed. The engines suffered from oil starvation around the big end bearings for a multitude of reasons including air contamination of the oil which in itself was caused by several root causes included poor seal types. Also inadequate bearing material which caused them to fail. To combat this, tougher, slightly smaller and grooved bearings were used to get more oil around the moving parts. Overheating due to these oil starvation issues is what caused many of the engine fires that resulted. Further issues with air turbulence coming from the mid upper turret when traversing resulted in flutter and complete fabric removal of the centre tail which led to the redesigned twin tail configuration that was standard on the Lancaster. Other minor issues plagued the Manchester including the radiator doors fouling the undercarriage if closed when retracting the gear. How this wasn't noticed at the design stage I don't know! Anyway, back to the build, well, I haven't started yet! I have however been able to take some pictures of the resin thanks to the fantastic new light that Andy talked me in to buying at the show (cheers mate). I can't recommend getting one of these enough, so I took a picture of the modelling space too with the light on! I forgot to take pictures of the clear resin, but it's great to finally get a proper shapes FN.4 turret for the Manchester. Should get started on the build this week Cheers