Duncan B

Certainly that appears to be the case with some aircraft coming off the production lines for the Navy in the yellow wings era. I do recall seeing photos of Devastators on the production line fully marked up which surprised me at the time. I guess when the USN only had a few carriers it was easier to manage? I think I have seen photos of the first batch of SBD-1s fully painted up in the factory too. Duncan B

Fantastic, a great job. Duncan B

If I remember correctly Eduard have only ever reboxed the 1/72 scale Arma Hurricane so that might explain why your price comparison comes up with a price differential? These 1/48 kits are superb by any standard. Duncan B

Fantastic work, especially on the wings. Could you give us more detailed photos of the modifications you did to the wings as I am interested in doing the same thing when I build my GWH Tomcats? Duncan B

The full set is 73272 and Charlie had the choice of the full set or the SS272 set as I had both in stock. Duncan B

Well done on just completing the kit, it's a bear and I never managed to finish mine. Great to see one in the Chinese markings. Duncan B

You didn't state which kit or scale you are building but the Airfix and Eduard 1/48 Emils do have the correct front screen and scope included in some of the editions. You might be able to get them form someone who hasn't used them (I did have some spare but recently dumped a lot of Bf109 spares because I doubt I'll be building very many more in the future). Duncan B

All my display cabinets are getting full now so this is something I'm currently debating with myself, to store them or to dispose of them? I really don't see the point in storing them because they'll never be looked at again and I have photos of each build so it's looking like I will dispose of the ones I don't want to keep on display but binning seems a bit harsh for some of them that are decent but not as interesting to me now. Duncan B

What the gasoline will also do though is pull oil and other fluids out from behind engine covers etc if said oil has accumulated there which will add to the staining. Duncan B

If I was going to paint a model of that last photo I would be painting the wing root to look like was intentionally applied to control the mess from the exhaust but the marks on the side of the cockpit would be getting treated as if they were stains. The marks appear to be too irregular (on this example) and something has been running down and then spreading horizontally along the panel line roughly where the top hinge of the cannon bay on the fuselage would be. Something to bear in mind is that every one of the photos posted in this thread so far appear to be from after capture so how long had the aircraft been sitting unattended and unserviced before the photos were taken? Are there any in service photos of NDW built aircraft from this late batch that show the same pattern? Duncan B

It's always on them anyway if they leave it in the wrong place or without instructions but there's no financial penalty other than not getting their bonus (which is barely worth the extra effort anyway) and potentially screwing it for the rest of their team too. The only time a driver will get sacked instantly is for not following through the Age Verification procedure, Amazon take that very seriously and will fire drivers on the spot (but it still doesn't stop some of them). The Amazon operating system is very impressive in that it tracks everything and can even track the placement of a parcel when the driver switches his phone to airplane mode. I never did figure out how it was doing that but it still knew when the delivery wasn't within the 20m radius of the intended door with the phone in Airplane mode and they could pull up a street view type map and show you where you had actually put it (including coordinates and distance from the intended customer) or at least where you were when you swiped the delivery off the system if you were walking back to your van (I fell foul of that a few times). Duncan B

That sounds like a scam. The scam goes like this, a company or manufacturer sends out random items to Amazon customers and then puts up fake reviews to get more traction on Amazon. It's usually only low value items though so maybe it's not a scam in this case. Duncan B

Seek and ye shall find, this is one way to get there. There will be other routes to the same option but I do agree they don't make it easy. Duncan B

You have to start on the Customer Service page with the menu options but during that you should then be offered the option to speak to someone flesh and blood (by which stage you are ready to spill said blood lol) Duncan B

I was working for Amazon pre and post Covid and can tell you that the correct delivery procedure was always supposed to be in order; attempt to deliver to the customer in person, failing that phone customer for further instructions if the account had a contact number, if the account had a designated safe place (or instructions to deliver to a neighbour but Amazon kept changing that one) leave it there unless the safe space was deemed by the driver to not actually be safe at all in which case the item was not to be delivered there. If none of the above could safely be done then the driver had to attempt to redeliver after a minimum of 1 hour had passed from the first attempt (Amazon preferred it was done after the initial round of deliveries were completed but that wasn't always possible if the end of your round was miles away). Now saying all that it's pretty obvious that during a working day the chances of getting each door answered (by a responsible person) is going to be unlikely and many accounts didn't have designated safe places or willing neighbours so the driver would have to phone the customer. Phoning the customer was a must do because the system logs everything and before a parcel can be returned to the depot the system has to see 2 delivery attempts with the associated call attempts, to save time I'd be making the call as I walked back to the van as most times the cx didn't answer anyway. Amazon doesn't like to see parcels coming back to the depot and marks drivers down (all drivers are constantly monitored and scored by performance, it's a very useful tool for Amazon to stop paying bonuses or worse!) if they are returning more than a certain percentage so the driver has to make the decision whether to bend the rules and make the delivery anyway (potentially getting marked down if anything goes wrong) or to follow the process and get marked down anyway. A decent driver will know what they can get away with and what is too risky. On the other hand drivers that don't give a toot will simply take the easiest option and chuck the parcel through an open bedroom window without doing any of the process! That's the bottom line, it comes down to the individual driver as to whether they follow the procedures, bend the procedures or totally ignore the procedures. Most drivers don't last longer than 6 - 9 months in the job, I was a rarity with 3 years but going completely gaga by the end. I was usually near the top of the score cards but was never finished early because even attempting to follow/bend the process (to cover my b'hind) adds time to each delivery, an extra minute on ever delivery to follow the process on a 180 stop day obviously adds 3 hours so that's not something any driver likes doing. I would never condone lazy drivers who make no effort to provide a decent service but I do understand that every driver is under huge pressure from both sides and sometimes make bad decisions with deliveries. It might be the only delivery they have screwed up that day but if it's your delivery you're rightly going to be annoyed.