Pat C

Would this make a Martlet III without modification?

Having just finished the Westland version of this kit, I can fully appreciate the outstanding amount of effort that you have put in to get yours looking this good!! I smiled when I saw you had installed handles to the inside of the doors :-). Pat

My rendition of AMP Models 1/72 Dragonfly. This is vastly superior to the LF Models version and is the one to go for IMO if you are looking to add one to your collection. Untitled One gripe would be that the instructions are not the clearest particularly when it comes to the rotor head and it pays to have a look at a few photos of the real thing to work out how it is supposed to fit together. The sliding door rails are also represented by photoetch and apart from in one area I replaced this with thin stips of plastic given photoetch is an invention of Satan designed to turn modellers mad with twisted bits of brass superglued to their fingers. The clear plastic front end pieces on which a Dragonfly model will stand or fall were an excellent fit. Untitled I did need to do a bit of fiddling with the sit of the aircraft - it sits a bit nose down which I think is due to the way the nose gear is modelled with a compressed oleo. Have tried to give it the slightly nose up attitude that most parked machines seem to have with some judicious fettling with the main gear legs. Untitled Paints were Xtracrylix XDSG over Gunze Aqueous Sky, with black rotor blades. Decals from a mix of a Modelart sheet and generic sheets to represent a machine from RNAS Culdrose in 1957 pictured in "Fleet Air Arm Helicopters since 1943". Hope you like!! Untitled Untitled Untitled

Tamiya Fine White Primer in a rattle can is my favourite

Could you use a second Hercules with the back sanded right down to represent the second row of cylinders? I assembled the entire top wing of my Shark in one go which I found easier than what the instructions suggest. Also be prepared to randomly have to lengthen/ shorten some of the struts 🙂 On the plus side at least there is very little rigging on the Shark given all those Warren girder struts!!

It does - and Frog would have you mount it at 90 degrees to the angle it should be mounted as well :-). Have just finished a Shark and scratching a new oil cooler wasn't too hard - its basically a tiny box held on with 4 struts.

IIRC International Orange is the colour the Golden Gate bridge is painted 🙂

Superb Wasps - I think the conversion looks every bit as good as the LF kit and in the case of the engine, is superior. You have also done an amazing job getting all four wheels sitting on the ground on both aircraft - I bet that was difficult!! Pat

Nice looking Vixen, Count!! You have done a stellar job of getting the boom joins nice and smooth!! What's an RC Vixen like to fly??!! I read somewhere that HPM had ceased production of all the "blue plastic" kits to concentrate on more modern toolings. Might be a question of finding one on eBay sadly. Pat

Thank you! On the plus side the pilot is sitting two stories high so the view would have been pretty good 😁

My rendition of the very nice Trumpeter kit of the mighty Wyvern in 1/72. Despite Trumpeter's variable reputation for accuracy I have never seen any adverse comments on this kit, which I think caputures the brutish lines of the this aircraft very well. It is huge for a single-seater - must be twice the size of a Seafire and way bigger than contemporaries like the Sea Hawk and Sea Venom. wyv6 wyv1 The kit went together without any particular vices - it needed a little care if being built without the wings folded to avoid a bit of a step where the inboard and outboard wing sections meet, but nothing major. I (carefully) removed the rockets from the rails to display this unloaded as per the pic I found of VZ773. wyv7 wyv5 Colours were in my favoured Xtracrylix XDSG over Gunze Aqueous Sky, with decals mostly coming from generic sheets to represent this machine from 813 NAS - the squadron badge is from the Trumpeter decal sheet. I have had a bit of an educated guess that the spinner is white and red from studying a b/w photo of this aircraft. The camera apertures in the fuselage sides were painted/plated over in the pic of this aircraft so were given the same treatment here. wyv3 wyv8 Hope you like! Pat wyv4

Superb work - in the first pic we could be looking at the real thing! Pat

Thanks Count 🙂 - i decided to fit the overwing tanks because they covered the top of the join of the booms to fuselage!! However the area where they blend in with the leading edge of the wing is more Miliput than plastic 🤪

Thanks JC ! - yours was a remarkable effort - inspired me to keep going with the High Planes one! Pat

Hi David - indeed I do have The Baron's version in the stash 😀 I did see (EDIT - it was JCBahr - see below!!) one on here that was a mash-up of the Xtrakit and High Planes kits that looked pretty good. The resin undercarriage are pretty good in the HP kit - I recall the nose gear in the Cyber-Hobby kit was particularly poor. Here is a pic of the C-H so you can see the difference - bear in mind this one had an aftermarket nosecone and the kit one is even worse. C-H made a real hash of the front end - you can see the fairing next to the canopy droops down towards the nose whereas the real one is more or less straight as correctly depicted in the HP kit. vix9