Aircraft Content

Photographed at the Alliance Airport Airshow on October 12, 1996 is F-16C 90-0719 of the Oklahoma ANG. Unfortunately, the shot was taken a little too early in the morning but at least I was able to stay one step ahead of the crowds. Steve

The 1:72 Hobbyboss MiG-15bis built in the pre 1956 East German markings. No issues with the build, but it's a tail sitter, so ended up stuffing more weight down the intake, and it just balances on it's wheels. Overall SMS PMT04 silver. Decals are from the spares file, so are a mix of RVresin, Eduard etc. They went on without any issues. Build Progress video

While viewing this video I noticed something odd. Whats under the nose/cockpit hanging down like a giant scoop ? Photo is a clip from the video. https://youtu.be/iuiDGJnggeU

Photographed on the north side of the Terminal 2E ramp at DFW in November of 1985 is UC-12B 161514. Steve

Very nice! I saw one of these 'shoot down' a Mil-24 on Red Flag a few years ago - very impressive

Great work Ian, looks marvellous! the clear nose is a triumph! That worked very well!

If I understand it correctly, the style of the air scoop had nothing to do with which varient of the P&W engine was installed. The ducting inside the cowl proved too weak and could collapse under aerodynamic pressure. The internal inlet reduced this somewhat and was a temporary solution until stronger ducting could be designed and introduced. I don't think it mattered after that. The external scoop was reintroduced in December 1941. It made its reappearance with the first F4F-4, but that seems likely to have been coincidence, and not a defining alteration of the new variant. I believe that Dana Bell has looked into this, perhaps he can add more. If by "3rd group" you are referring to the 88 F4F-3s (BuNo 3970-4057) that were built after the F4F-3As were all completed, they were outfitted just as you describe. What you note as oddities would certainly be odd if the airplanes were built and delivered in February-March 1942. Are you certain of this time frame? My resources show all of them as delivered by Fall 1941. Lundstrom has recorded the details of O'Hare's February 20th MOH aircraft, BuNo 4031. It was assigned to VMF-211 in November 1941, was left behind when they went to Wake, and transferred to VF-3 on December 15 1941. Other than that it appears to be an excellent summation. I wish that I knew more of the technical details of the problems that resulted in the little variances. Grumman, like most manufacturers, constantly sought to produce the best airplanes that they could. Improvements were introduced as soon as they could be without interupting production, not always reflected with a change in designation.

When you have to travel so far you have to make the most of it! Adelaide to Vancouver via Auckland is a long trip, especially flying diagonally the entire length of the Pacific. Yellow wings look very nice. AW

We have the walkaround section for this https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234943318-hawker-hunter-two-seater/

A little more on the fly and a moral of “Time doesn’t always equal quality” . Is that a moral? More of a statement. 🥹 Here is a belated photo. Of the fixed tail fin. The glue line will vanish under paint. The wells got a Flory wash, top coat and left to dry. What is it with wheel wells and this hobby? We spend ages getting them just so, then point them at the floor for all eternity. Then they got pegged and glued as a very deliberate act of progression. Now here’s the thing. @Ex-FAAWAFU pointed out an inaccuracy in the chin oil cooler. The Trumpy kit has that one little PE part that’s a bit vague and a bit see through and as is seems a bit deeeeep. So What a to do ? Cutting a very long journey a little shorter to save you the pain after many attempts I found the best way to fix this was to firstly bung said hole with tin foil. Pack it in noice and toit. Then upon poking it out from tother end you can make a template using plasticard. the foil goes back in then card and now all you have to do is make a convincing vent. Imagine if you will the throaty tones of our very own Welsh gravel tin Bonnie Tyler, belting out “Holding out for a hero” while I rattle through what can only be described as a really dull montage spiced up by some classic Jim steinman. Here we go!!!! ”Where have all the good men gone And where are all the gods? Where's the streetwise Hercules To fight the rising odds?” lord knows but here’s a vent. I did say it was boring. Imagine siting doing it for well over an hour and this was the best of three. I looked at it for ages and from different angles but I just couldn’t get in with it. so I found a bit of old PE bomb bay I think cut it down with scissors spent 5 mins painting and weathering and bunged it up the chute. Much better. Always the way. As it stands you get to see my bunged tin foil from tother side which is a pain. And I’d cut the PE to use in the first vent. never mind. I had a spare, should look ok with a spot of paint. Ok so after the madness I’ll end on a bit of a fun little dry fit. The wells had dried and fit wonderfully. The wings seem to fit. All the other bits just seen to slot into place. Looks a bit like a firefly. On that note I’ve just seen the time so I’m headed off to the land of nod. Take care y’all. Johnny.

Cool Komet! The RAF markings and yellow underside really make it stand out.

What's not to like about a Northrop flying wing? Beautiful job! Cheers, Bill

Ive decided since the Airfix kit is non existent this side of the pond that if my local gets one of these I will buy it.

Superb work Matt, she's gorgeous!

Great looking model!

Thanks Jure. The Mosquito that I'm helping to restore has evidence of colour coded bands on the pipes but many appear to have been rubbed off. Typically they are applied within 2 inches of the pipe ends but many of thee pipes have threaded couplings that can chafe on the bands creating damage if not outright eradication.

Quite a few recommendations on this thread: HTH.

I'll have a look in the Warehouse of Doom later this morning and get back to you.

I finally got some spare time again and have moved on with the build. First up, I realised that I had left off the Fenestron shaft so that was a quick fix. Next up was to decide what to do with the spinny thing on top. The kit part is the wrong shape as the base should be a round not flat shape. I tried to improve it with filler but it was not very good so I decided to see if I could do anything. First up some brass tubing and a bit of solder I tried to make the thing myself. The piece on the left will be inserted into the main body and act as a holder for the bit in the middle which is the main rotor shaft. I then made the bit that links the shaft to the blade adjustment rods. Putting it in place it seems to look right so I will carry on with this to see if it pans out. Thanks for looking

Love it! 'British Excrement Agency' is priceless.. Matt

DC-2 would be accurate. That being said, way back in 1973, before we had the internet to find out such details, I built this kit with DC-3 wings and it came out great. Mostly depends -- do you want dead accurate or would you just like a nice B-18 model in the case? Enjoy the build in either case, as it will certainly look better than the one you had before... Ed

Time for an update I think! So, after the flap fiasco it was time to get the cockpit and fuselage together. The instructions say to keep the cockpit halves separate, glue them to the fuselage halves then glue the whole thing together. I felt that was just too much lining up of some very delicate parts that needed to be absolutely spot on so I decided to build up the cockpit in its entirety then join the fuselage halves together then merge the two together as two complete units. After all, that's how it was done on the real thing! Before I did that though, I wanted to get the canopy on for no other reason than when you're fitting things like this together, a displaced finger when gently easing things around can mean the IP top altimeter etc can fly off in a heartbeat. At least with the canopy on old Douglas Sausage Fingers here can't knock anything off! So first thing was to join the cockpit halves together. The fit was really very good and that then allowed me to put in the flight engineers' seat, extra instrumentation. So. before shoots me, I know the extra altimeter above the IP is in the wrong place. It should sit on top of the right hand dial. I'll come to that in a minute. If you look to the right you can see the engineer "dickey seat" and, if you know the kit you'll be saying "it looks nothing like it" and you'd be right. The kit engineer's seat looks like this: Problem is, that's from a late war Lancaster even maybe a MkX. The seat drops on a hinge and the backrest is a swing out lovely padded affair. The wartime LAncastgers had what was called a "dickey seat". Much less luxurious and with a simple canvas webbing strap for a backrest that clipped onto the upright of the pilot's seat. Something like this: So, with a scalpel, thin plastic rod and tamiya masking tape for the strap, plus a buckle from the PE spares box, you can make an authentic looking one from the kit part without too much trouble...he lied. Now to the extra instrumentation on top of the IP. I originally put the extra altimeter alongside the compass repeater because I was worried that there might not be clearance when the canopy went on. But then every reference I looked at had it above the compass repeater so I moved the whole lot forward and put it in its proper place. I'm happy now LOL! The DF ariel in the kit was a pretty poor affair, as you can see from the left hand photo. It's just an octagon with nowhere to wind any wire around as the original had. So the right hand photo shows that I've added some grooves with a very thin rat tail file so i cound put some winds of wire around and make it look a little more realistic. Next to work on the canopy. Dare I say basic again? The actual Lancaster canopy was made up of a metal front part and the rear was made of spruce wood struts. So using 1.5mm rectangular strip, I formed the spruce struts inside the canopy, gluing them on with minute amounts of CA glue. It also gives somewhere to fit the cables running the length of the canopy too which supported the sunscreen. Why a sunscreen in a night bomber? In summer when they were sitting all day out in the open, with a canopy that that size they got very hot very quickly. The sunscreen shouldn't be confused with the blackout curtain for the Nav which ran vertically between him and the pilot. The handles for the sliding windows are 1mm diameter wire with a bit of insulation sleeve on each end and painted black. I've done one closed and the pilot's open, it was a hot May in 1943. Last thing to be fitted to the cockpit was the bomb aimers' escape hatch and the bomb aimers' leaning pad There's no decal for the parachute exit sighn so I fashioned my own and added the ring pull from 0.5mm red florist's wire Looking down from where the forward gun turret will go you can see the finished effect. Yes I'm sad enough to make a scale Dann sight too So now it was fit the fuselage halves together. Not a bad fit, the worst bit is shaping the flipping great hole for the rear spot/ventral turret which you can't really do until the halves are glued together but then the floor of the fuselage gets in the way. I'll post pics of that later but suffice to say that buch sanding, priming, sanding, priming (you all know the story), cockpit met fuselage Looks a bit like a grumpy pug to me Lastly, I knocked the rear turret together. Same construction as the front turret but I had some lengths of bullets left from the PE of a 1/32 B17-G so I added them feeding into the guns. Just sets it off a bit I think Next up is to get the fairings on the underside and get everything in ready for Upkeep. As ever thanks for looking. Your comments are always appreciated

Welcome to the wonders of WW1 aircraft Andy. As a newbie myself all I can say is that all of the advice given so far makes good sense and is really all you need to get started. For what it's worth I started with a DR1 (Lots of nice schemes and the Eduard kits are well engineered so it's pretty solid once built) This only has a few rigging lines so you can get a bit of a feel of things. Since then I've added a couple of Nieuports again from Eduard so they go together well and have a few more lines of rigging. If you've not got a copy then rush out and buy Dave Hooper's book 'Modelling WW1 German Aircraft' which is current, excellent value and well illustrated and will explain a lot of the techniques garnered fro years of experience - There's a build of the Eindekker as a beginners model in there as well which was one of your choices Have fun and post some images as you go along - plenty of good advice and encouragement to be found here Paul