Giorgio N

Stashes are all full of kits waiting for their hour. However when it comes to being built it seems as certain subjects always end up having their hour postponed and postoned while others jump the queue. I see the same myself: I have not one but five Canberra kits in the stash, more than once I thought about starting one but in the end there was always some reason to postpone. The old Airfix kB.6 needs work to look better, the newer PR.9 is a bit of a pig, the Frog one would need a lot of detail, the Hi Planes B.2 is not an easty kit to build... any of these would require work and such builds are rarely something that I feel I can fit within the boundaries of a Group Build. Said that, the Canberra shape lends itself to a relatively easy build if the modeller is not interested in improving shapes or details. KP has recently reissued the old Frog kit with new decals at a good price (around €15 in Europe), it's the kind of kit that can be built quite quickly OOB. Should this STGB go through the bunfight (like it seems probable) I would expect a few of these kits to show up. Different story however if someone plans to rescribe and add detail like I do, then it takes time

I'm surprised by the votes that the Canberra STGB is receiving, really a good number. I'd be curious to see how many modellers will then build a Canberra if this proposal goes through! The RFI section is not really thriving with builds of what I personally consider the best British military aircraft of the era (and the fact that few decent models exist hasn't hekped the cause of Petter's finest). Will our community rise to the challenge of filling an STGB with models of this elegant aircraft?

There are many other mediterranean islands that can be interesting.... Pantelleria and Lampedusa are two smaller islands South of Sicily. Both were heavily involved in fighting during WW2, with aircraft based on the islands and air and naval battles raging on the islands and around them. Combat also raged on many Greek islands in WW2. There were also tensions in the postwar years over these islands between Greece and Turkey.. and let's not forget that many of these Islands are wonderful holiday destinations with airports hosting several airlines: why not build a Ryanair, Easyjet or Aegean airliner serving one of these ? The same could apply to the many Islands of Spain. Now some of the Greek Islands are taken alreadt but there are plenty more available and if I'm not wrong none of the Spanish islands in the mediterranean has been taken yet, A few more random suggestions from around the world: Sri Lanka was not only involved in combat during WW2, after independence they had an air force with several interesting types, for example the Kfir. Similarly, Singapore was heavily affected by WW2 and later became an independent country with its own air and ground forces using some tineresting types. Sakhalin in Russia was home to a number of air defence units during the Cold War and of course it's infamous because of the shooting down of a Korean 747 by an aircraft based there Ascension was the main hub for flights supporting the Falklands War, with a number of types based there, like the Victors used for air refuelling roles Guam has always been a very active base for US forces, particularly for the bomber force. Many missions were flown from there during the Vietnam War, the Gulf War and other later conflicts in the middle east. Luzon is the largest Island of the Philippines and as such hosts a number of military bases. The most famous is probably Clark AFB, that hosted many different USAF types over the years. The island also hosts bases of the Philippine Air Force Last that comes to my mind at the moment, the Isle of Elba may have not had seen much military activity but someone a bit famous in those days was exiled there for a while in the early XIX Century...

Of course we should buy more kits! Spending is good for the economy and in these days of uncertainty it's important to have a stable economy (or at least that's what my horse says)

Glad to see that some of the GBs I supported seem to be doing well and may get through. Others however are struggling.... In any case I realized that I could easily enter subjects in all the GBs leading the fight with kits from the stash. That's the good thing of having bought plenty of kits.. Things were not always like that though: at some point I was so short of money that I couldn't pay my electricity bills. Those were the darkest days of my life...

Good news and bad news! The good news are that with the new deadline I have more time to complete the model. The bad news are that the AML masks could not be used. Not because of any problem with them, it's because of my subject. I had noticed that the instructions show a simplified pattern compared to the masks, I wasn't sure of how correct this was so checked a picture of this aircraft and found that neither was exactly right but the pattern in the instructions was closer. So I had to draw and cut my own masks based on the picture for the starboard side and the instructions for the rest. Here's the model now fully masked and ready for the green coats: Ok, colour balance is quite off but the masks are well visible. These were made in both vinyl and kabuki paper, depending on how well each material suited the surface. Making masks is something I've done several times before and I'm now pretty experienced, however it is always a long and nerve-wrecking exercise with this kind of camouflage. It took almost a full day that I'd have preferred spending differently.

Tempting and the price isn't particularly high for this kind of kit. Would sit nicely beside my 4000...

Flaps were used for take-off and landing. Usually kits that reproduce them also offer a compressed nose gear leg, that was used for launching from a catapult. This allows to build the model as part of a diorama, ready to be launched from the ship. The Tomcat also used flaps for manouvering so having them deployable can be useful for a modeller wishing to reproduce a model in flight... however ideally the spoilers would also need to be separate. With flaps down the wing can't be moved on the kits that allow this. The Hasegawa and fujimi kits just allow the kit to be built with wings at the minimum sweep or in the oversweep position used when the aircraft is parked. Anything in between needs modifying the wing-fuselage joints

I have heard the rumour about the 10-to-1 myself but the one I heard was 1 pint of red every 10 gallons of white... that may or not work in giving a similar colour but in any case it was information reported by someone who had heard it from someone else so not worth much. Personally I'll aim at something similar to the sample that the late Edgar Brooks shared with us and that is ahown above.

As a self confessed Tomcat fan, I have to take part! More so as since Dave is a true Tomcat enthusiast and connoisseur, I can not disregard his call. Mine will be a 1/72 model, I'll decide kit and subject closer to the start. No lack of options considering the over 25 kits and the good number of decal sheets in the stash...

I cast my votes first thing this morning before even leaving my bed. Should this GB finally go through, I'll build something from the various colonial conflicts, like a Skyraider or an A-26 (if I find somewhere to display it...). The Invader would be something I'd really like to build, I love the combination of overall black with white roof and tricolour on the rudder

Hasegawa and Fujimi offered lowered flaps and slats decaded ago but none gave a really accurate representation of the flaps. Should Tamiya offer this option in the future they will hopefully do better (GWH also offers lowered flaps I haven't checked their parts in detail yet although I have a couple of their Tomcats)

There's one being built at the moment in the WIP area of the forum, worth a look!

Hard to tell for the simple reason that none of us has seen the Tamiya kit yet. The price is also not confirmed everywhere and may vary in the same way the Academy kit varies. I've bought my Academy D for € 24, doubt that the Tamiya kit will be only slightly cheaper.. at the same time Academy's A seem to sell for €30-35 and should the Tamiya Kit cost around €40-45 it would indeed be only slightly more expensive... until all these details are sorted it's hard to tell. One thing however can be said: the Academy kit includes a lot of parts for different variants, the Tamiya kit from what they have shown til now seems to have only the parts relevant to the D. Tamiya will sure offer other variants in the future, the sprues seem to indicate this. This is not much a problem for the D but if building an A the Academy kit offers parts that allow the modeller to build different configurations through the whole career of the Tomcat (excluding those with the early beavertail). Tamiya will likely force the modeller to choose the box depending on the sibject desired, as they did with their 1/48 kit

Alternatively, a good choice for a Sicilian car would be the blue 1989-90 Fiat Tipo as used by Inspector Montalbano, the main character in an Italian TV series that had quite a good success in other countries, including the UK. That Tipo has become as famous as the character here and is now a symbol of the series, so much that has been retained through the whole run of the series. Not sure if a Tipo of that vintage is available as a kit though Probably more interesting for car modellers, Sicily saw for many years one of the oldest car races, the Targa Florio. This was held from 1906 to 1977 and many important cars raced it. In 1978 it ceased to be an international event and became one of the events of the national rally championship