Lothian man

In any case, the Sea Vixens were much closer to the Battle of the Denmark Strait time-wise than they are to today ... quite a few WW2 RN ships were still in service when the Sea Vixens and Bucc 1s were around (and my dad too, who completed his naval career with a reservist's week on Eagle with Vixens on the roof).

Not just filling rivets but whole panel lines. At least on the wings of fighters where it really mattered. It's definitely worth viewing. I stumbled on it by way of the instructional film about preparing a Wellington for the night's raid, complete with maintenance and refilling and bombing up, on the same chap's Youtube channel.

Very soft spot here for the Nippon-Go (civilian Nell). I bought mine in Le Havre (I think) about 25 years ago and it still resides on display here. Interesting to see what was the bees' knees in the mid-1960s - not having seen it myself at the time. Goes very well in a Trailblazers 1930s collection.

FAA have done it for years now, no need to go to Sweden, estimable as they are over there.

If it's any consolation it doesn't actually look 'old' from normal ranges - I am sitting about two metres from mine as I type and I can hardly see the ageing/craquelure, at least to me. But your vision may vary!

I have a replica from [email protected], thanks to my wife. Electric movement but the second hand moves steadily. Face is photorealistic with photographic craquelure (aka little cracks in old paint). Surround is dark brown plastic, painted up with a reasonable varnished wood effect. Looks fine above my desk. A nice detail is the mock clock winder socket which is inset like the real one. But really it works on an AA battery. https://ellisclocks.com/1940 RAF Sector Clock reproduction.htm

If you can do it yourself , all to the good!

I may have missed it, but has anyone mentioned the Falcon set? Perhaps I'm a coward but I do like this way of improving old kits. https://www.hannants.co.uk/product/FNCV0172 Of course quite a few kits catered for in the set are no longer what one would choose to model given their supplanting by more recent makes. But there are several other models in that set which are still pretty nice in my view, so the value isn't too bad.

The old Landships site had info on this - as so often. However, it's dead as a stegosaur. Happily archive.org has captured the relevant page: https://web.archive.org/web/20090309043226/http://www.landships.freeservers.com/austro-hungarian_colors.htm

I believe BAOR, or rather DB, were using 1933-45 German low-loader bogie wagons (of whiich various 1/35 kits exist) to carry British armour well into our time - but the reason I am fudging that timing is because I'm not an expert ... Obvious models for British railways would be WD 2-8-0 locos and Rectank and Warflat bogie wagons. The MAFVA magazine Tankette had a series on tanks on trains in recent years which might be worth a look. https://tankmuseum.org/article/tanks-on-trains https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co206021/warflat-50-ton-bogie-flat-wagon-1940 Edit: Those would really give a severe cross-check of the dimensional accuracy of the models of the wagons *and* their loads, given how closely British tanks were squeezed into the pathetic British loading gauge. Any width discrepancy would show. As for Flintstone's query, Resicast do some (at least) of the needful for Great War narrow gauge, e.g. https://resicast.com/eshop/en/military-vehicles/102-simplex-20hp-narrow-gauge-railway.html

Further news on the import duty changes: consultations closing, but it is still up in the air when the change happens. "The UK government plans to end the tax break on imports of goods worth less than £135, making them subject to customs duty, with the changes to take effect in March 2029 at the latest. [...] British retailers including Primark, Currys and Boohoo have backed the move but have criticised the government for waiting until 2029 to end the tax break they say has allowed Chinese rivals Shein and Temu to undercut them. The UK government’s technical consultation on the design of the new customs arrangements closed on Friday. The British Chambers of Commerce said while Britain should respond to action by the US and EU, “any reforms must be proportionate” to avoid unfair competition from cheaper goods flooding the UK market. The BCC said businesses were particularly concerned about proposals to introduce charges per item or consignment. The fear is these fees would be inflationary, distort business behaviour and disproportionately affect small- and medium-sized fircompanies and customers who use e-commerce for single‑item deliveries." https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/mar/09/ending-uk-customs-relief-low-value-imports-could-push-up-prices-bcc-de-minimis-exemption-tariff

I'm wondering if the Lightning box art was a reference to a very famous incident of 1962 where a test pilot exited one courtesy of Martin-Baker and his plane was photographed plunging to Earth sans canopy and jockey. It made a lot of newspapers. Indeed, the MPC version of the kit came out in 1964-5 or so if scalemates is correct. And I had just made my own example of the new Airfix kit in that 'configuration' as a direct result, I'm sure, of the press coverage. https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/56567 https://www.reddit.com/r/CatastrophicFailure/comments/pnmgku/test_pilot_george_aird_ejects_from_his_ee/ PS OK, it's a RAF not MoSupply example in the box art, but who's worrying about mere details?

So it was! Thanks, I'd missed that detail! But a lot of the paints will still be the same, no? And some of the schemes as hangovers.

Nobody with a word for this classic? The basic official schemes and colours as they were spoke. Tanner , John ( Ed ) : British Aviation Colours of World War Two , RAF Museum Series , Vol . 3 . https://www.abebooks.co.uk/9780853682714/British-Aviation-Colours-World-Two-0853682712/plp An oldie but a goodie - and with proper painted colour chips. I was shocked to realise how long ago I got my copy - it was published in 1986. And how much it fetches second-hand. But if you ever see one going cheap ...

Thanks very much!