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A pair of Airfix Hawks in 1/72. Finished.


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Great stories and great modelling. Can life get any better? Keep both coming please Steve.

I'd love to see your stories in a thread of their own, or even a book!!!! Go on, you know you want to.

It's funny, my old tales of clattering around the skies of Northumberland and dicing with death at 90kts in a 20 year old Piper Cherokee back in the 1980's don't seem to have the same level of excitement some how.

 

Edited by cngaero
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17 minutes ago, cngaero said:

I'd love to see your stories in a thread of their own, or even a book!

They say that journalism is the first draft of history - is this thread the first draft of The Jaguar Boys?:lol:

 

Oh. And of course The Sea King Boys over on a neighbouring thread; apologies Crisp...

 

 

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17 hours ago, Fritag said:

Hi Tim,

Good to hear from you - surprised you haven't upbraided me for my dreadful b*llsh*ting there....or maybe added to it :D

Wouldn't dare suggest any b*llsh*ting from a Jag mate or a barrister!  Could add to the Red Flag stories, I was lucky enough to do 2 Exercises out of Nellis, enjoying some great flying.  Remember running away from the target on one occasion at 600 ish knots and 100' to see in front of me a C-141 Starlifter, equally low, going around a turn in a valley.  Now that was very impressive - nearly as impressive as this build!

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54 minutes ago, TheBaron said:

 

They say that journalism is the first draft of history - is this thread the first draft of The Jaguar Boys?:lol:

 

Oh. And of course The Sea King Boys over on a neighbouring thread; apologies Crisp...

 

 

Could be part of The Jaguars Boys part two or three Tony

 

I was introduced to the The ... Boys books via one of Steve's other threads and Jag Boys was the first one I bought

 

Part two, three and more would be mahvellous dahling.

 

We'd love lots more of these tales Tim, Steve, Crisp, Bob and others please

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2 hours ago, cngaero said:

Great stories and great modelling. Can life get any better? Keep both coming please Steve.

I'd love to see your stories in a thread of their own, or even a book!!!! Go on, you know you want to.

It's funny, my old tales of clattering around the skies of Northumberland and dicing with death at 90kts in a 20 year old Piper Cherokee back in the 1980's don't seem to have the same level of excitement some how.

 

Nor my microlight days @ 50 knots although the slower speeds did allow for dropping in for pub lunches!

 

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29 minutes ago, woody37 said:

Nor my microlight days @ 50 knots although the slower speeds did allow for dropping in for pub lunches!

 

Jammy devil. There was never a pub with enough space to put a Cherokee down. Had to be very careful though when looking, as the airspace was quite often filled with those pesky low flying Jaguars:D:D.

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4 hours ago, feifeitim said:

Remember running away from the target on one occasion at 600 ish knots and 100' to see in front of me a C-141 Starlifter, equally low, going around a turn in a valley.  Now that was very impressive -

 

What can I say?  600kts is just showing off - and smacks of a rather unseemly haste to get away it seems to me.

 

You wouldn't have seen us running away at 600kts.................but not for the want of trying :D

 

I did see 600kts at low level once - but that was in a clean Jag over the sea and so not terribly useful.

 

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7 hours ago, perdu said:

Could be part of The Jaguars Boys part two or three Tony

Cor! Only now do I belatedly realise that there is a whole pantheon of 'Boys' aircraft volumes available...:blush:

3 hours ago, Fritag said:

I did see 600kts at low level once - but that was in a clean Jag over the sea and so not terribly useful.

Embrace the exuberance and utility be damned! :lol:

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9 minutes ago, TheBaron said:

that there is a whole pantheon of 'Boys' aircraft volumes available..

I was in my local bookshop this morning and ordered the 'Javelin Boys' due out on September first.

The 'from the Cockpit' series never did a helicopter.

Will the 'Boys' series take the plunge? (pun intended:D)

 

Anyway enough of a drift..

 

Great work on the Hawk and keep the stories coming.

 

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It is possible you may pick up a reference to our friend Mr Fritag here in one of these...

P1130774.jpg

 

I regret I keep NOT finding any more of the set in The Works but you can believe me, I always look

 

(I picked up Lightning Boys for a few quid in The Works in Lichfield last year. I keep looking...)

 

Jaguar Boys was a birthday present a couple of years ago and started my 'Boys' collection

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7 hours ago, Martian Hale said:

Those "Boys" books are all excellent reads. Thus far the Lightning Boys has been my favourite.

 

Martian

Ah!  You can't beat a good WIWOL story!  WIWOLs always had faster, higher, lower, scarier stories than any Tornado mate!  

 

Sorry Steve, I'll trump your 600kts clean with M1.05 at 500' over the North Sea.  The nav was scanning the radar like mad to keep us clear of any ships - I decided going faster might make his job more interesting!!!  Ah!  Mature pilots!  None seen!

 

Alas, my modelling ability, like my flying ability is only a fraction of what yours is/was and I needed a nav to stop me getting lost!

 

Ian Hall, the author of Jaguar Boys, was my Boss on 31 Squadron.  He had a varied career, flying F-4s to start with, (same squadron as my Dad), and also F-5s on exchange and finishing his RAF flying career as a Tornado sqn cdr.  I think he always regretted not being given one of the Colt sqns.

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15 hours ago, perdu said:

It is possible you may pick up a reference to our friend Mr Fritag here in one of these...

P1130774.jpg

 

I regret I keep NOT finding any more of the set in The Works but you can believe me, I always look

 

(I picked up Lightning Boys for a few quid in The Works in Lichfield last year. I keep looking...)

 

Jaguar Boys was a birthday present a couple of years ago and started my 'Boys' collection

The works currently have the fighter boys and  buccaneer boys and I recently picked up the Hunter boys for £4 so you could always add those to the collection. I have just read the Lightning Boys and  I'm currently reading the Jaguar boys.

 

Regards,

 

Mark

 

 

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4 hours ago, feifeitim said:

Sorry Steve, I'll trump your 600kts clean with M1.05 at 500' over the North Sea.  The nav was scanning the radar like mad to keep us clear of any ships - I decided going faster might make his job more interesting!!!  Ah!  Mature pilots!  None seen!

 

..........and I needed a nav to stop me getting lost!

You know,  I don't think I ever went faster than Mach 1.  It's not the sort of thing you were likely to do by accident in a Jag :) and I'd have to check if it was even permitted (assuming such a thing was possible) with tanks on (one can disregard the idea with tasks plus stores).

 

I think you'd have to set out deliberately in a clean jet - with let's say a modest downward component to ones flight path.....to achievement the same; and I don't recall ever wasting the fuel just to get the 'stat' as it were.  Hope I'm not doing the old girl an injustice here - it has been over 25 years after all.  I'd have to google it! :D

 

As to needing a Nav.  So did I Tim - its just that it was a box (or several boxes) called FIN1064.  If that dumped (and it just didn't) we handed over the lead and flew as a (rather reliant) wingman.  The old Navwass dumped quiet often - and so I spent quite a lot of the time on the OCU lost in Scotland - even if it didn't dump it drifted at a seemingly frightening rate, and enormous amount of the OCU student Fritag capacity was used up randomly fixing the kit every time I thought I recognised something - with a no better than 50/50 chance of being correct......

 

When I started the F16C conversion course it seem like a retrograde step (notwithstanding the all-round state-of the-artedness of the jet generally) to not have a moving map display as a navigation comfort blanket......

 

BTW - I did some painting last night!  Airbrushed some LAG on the U/C legs.  Hopefully some photos later.

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22 hours ago, Fritag said:

 

I did see 600kts at low level once...

 

I managed 168 kts in a Lynx once.  True story.   But then I suppose I could also stop, fly backwards, land on small ships, etc.  Horses for courses!

 

 

 

 

 

The "Boys" series of books are indeed very good - though with the notable exception of the Buccaneer volume they are VERY Light Blue-centric.  The Toom book (Vol 1 - I don't have Vol 2), for instance, manages 2 chapters out of 19 about RN Phantom ops - and even they are written by an RAF pilot (could they really not find a single ex-RN Toom driver? I know half a dozen!].  Similarly, Vol 1 of the Harrier book has 25 contributors, of whom only 1 (Moggy) is RN.  This isn't some Crab-bashing rant, but for those of us who are interested in all aspects of operating these aircraft, it does feel a bit skewed. 

 

For all that, they're excellent reads - I particularly enjoyed the 3 V-bomber volumes, and the Bucc book is brilliant.  I have recently acquired the Hunter volume, but not read it yet.

 

I very much doubt we'll ever see a Sea King equivalent; helicopters don't generally sell books in the way that noisy Plank-Wing things do.

 

Having said that, if you're interested in rotary stuff, Larry Jeram-Croft's recent Lynx book is excellent.  I saw him at the Lynx farewell bash a few months ago, and I understand he is working on a Wasp equivalent at the moment, and hopes to do a Sea King version in due course.  

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I really enjoyed "Fly Navy: The View from a 'Jungly' Cockpit 1958-2008" - & it cost less than £3 from that big jungle bookseller...!! But yes Crisp it is all about Junglies...some great tales  in it though, often involving pianos !! :winkgrin:

 

Must retrieve my copy from the club mate I lent it to years ago, if he hasn't lost it!

 

Keith

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The Jungly book is indeed excellent - and it has a companion volume (from memory also called "Fly Navy") which is a similar collection of dits from the ASW, AEW and fixed-wing fraternity.  Indeed, the Jungly book was issued in response to the other one - not the other way round.

 

From memory, both of them came out around the time of the centenary of Naval aviation celebrations.

 

[Sorry, Steve; WAFUs clogging up your tales of Mud-Moving-With-Style.  And superb modelling, ça va sans dire].

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On 13/08/2017 at 8:17 AM, cngaero said:

It's funny, my old tales of clattering around the skies of Northumberland and dicing with death at 90kts in a 20 year old Piper Cherokee back in the 1980's don't seem to have the same level of excitement some how.

 

Oh I'm not sure about that.....I've got an hour or two (literally no more than that) in one of the Cherokee variations and I didn't feel safe at all.  Its got one of them funny yoke things to begin with instead of a proper stick - and I'm not at all sure it ever went where I was trying to point it.  Dicing with death sounds about right to me and I thought it was all just a bit too exciting.

 

On 13/08/2017 at 10:32 AM, woody37 said:

Nor my microlight days @ 50 knots although the slower speeds did allow for dropping in for pub lunches!

 

And I'm pretty darned sure that micro lighting is a bit on the chancy side too.  I had a go in a flexiwing last year - and all the controls work in the wrong direction!  push the bar left to turn right - push it forwards to go up etc etc.  And don't get me started on trying to steer it go kart style with my feet on the ground.....I felt like a complete and utter muppet.....

 

3 hours ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

Sorry, Steve; WAFUs clogging up your tales of Mud-Moving-With-Style.

Crisp you have licence to 'clog up' any thread of mine any time; with or without a tangible connection between WAFU stuff and said thread.  I'm rather in awe of of much of this helicoptery type stuff if truth be told......

 

And so.  I promised pictures of paint.  Yes paint.  And here we are.

 

Main legs in Light Aircraft Grey - with a protective coat of Klear - ready for some nickel tube oleos, lead wire piping and some oil washes etc:

 

IMG_1238_zpsjeh5zauk.jpg

 

Wheels in LAG and Klear, ready for masking and lightened Nato Black for the tyres:

 

IMG_1233_zps20jjenbk.jpg

 

And I spent some time this evening fabricating the oleos on the nose leg out of nikel tubing as recommended by Tommo; at least I think it was Tom who first mentioned it - it was several pages back now - and it might have been Crisp, or Bill or any one of several suspects as I come to think about it.....

 

After cutting the a length of tube using the recommended craft knife 'rolling' technique - I found a good and speedy way of squaring, cleaning and polishing the cut end was to mount the tube in an archimedes drill (now I think this was originally another Ced recommended tool - but I came across it I think on Tony's Boxcar thread (I'm finding to hard to keep up)) and rotate it against a diamond file followed by various grades of sanding stick.  The 'give' in the cushioned surface of the sanding stick was perfect for polishing the end of the tubes :)

 

IMG_1234_zpspzgjltfy.jpg

 

And here's the LAG painted nose wheel legs, again with a coat of Klear and ready for lead wire pipes and oil washes - but with the nike oleos dry fitted for a look see.  Worth the effort I think.

 

IMG_1237_zps5ptajjpu.jpg

 

Another baby step forward :)

 

 

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