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For a 25 year or so old kit it really stands up well in a number of areas whilst also showing it's age in others. The detail in the cockpit, weapons bay and wheel bays is as good as any new release that has come out in the past year or so; however the fit of the parts is very 1970's and the panel lines are raised. Rather than rescribe the kit I built this old gal in the manner of the day when she was released and built up any panel lines that had been lost during the sanding of the not to well fitting parts. Construction was completely out of the box, which just showed hoe well detailed this kit is. The main colour was finished in Lifecolor UA041 FS16473 ADC Grey and I am very happy with their rendition of this somewhat elusive colour. The Eaqle Strike decals performed flawlessly with Microset and just a little Microsol being needed over some of the more prominent raised panel lines. Weathering was kept to an absolute minimum with just a light highlighting of some of the panel lines and minor fading to some of the panels as the F-106's were quite possibly THE best maintained planes ever to have served in the US Air Force. So here we are, hope you enjoy the pictures... Thanks for looking.

This is the second of my many adversary TA-4s. It has been a WIP for a long time but I finished it last week. And with its "sister": Jens

Just finished Airfix's latest, and what a superb little kit it turned out to be. No fit issues, a little filler required here and there, a nice cockpit and a wonderfully thin canopy. It captures the sit-up-and-beg look of the real Vampire T.11 perfectly, and the method for attaching the wings and booms has banished all memories of misaligned tailbooms on other Vampire kits permanently. It will not be the last Airfix Vampire that crosses my bench, that's for sure. Hmm... Norway... Kit built out of the box with addition of masking tape seatbelts. Painted with Vallejo Model Air (first time- very impressed) Aluminium and varnished with Alclad matt clear lacquer. Decals by Bright Spark.

44-13691, G4-A "Passion Wagon". Pilot: 1st Lt. Arval J. "Robby" Roberson (6 kills), 362 Fighter Squadron, 357 Fighter Group, September 1944. Aircraft painted with British paints Dark Green and Medium Sea Grey. After Roberson left 357 FG "Passion Wagon" was flown by his wingman, 1st Lt. Charles E. ‘Chuck’ Weaver, who added another two kill markings to the fuselage side. Later the airplane got a fin fillet and was reassigned to 364 FS and coded C5-V with name changed to "Gypsy", but still with Roberson's pin-up girl. Kit: Airfix, 1/72. Fin fillet removed. Drop tanks from Revell P-51C, decals: Kits World.

My latest work, excelent and acurate model. Link to WIP pictures http://www.maketarskikutak.com/index.php/topic,15521.0.html. I hope you like it .

I've just finished this on Friday after getting it at Telford 2012. I had no idea this was on the market or due out so was very pleased to see a pile of them and a built one on display on that stand. Like a western gun draw the cash was out and I was well chuffed. Anyway I got started straight after the Heritage JP3 build whilst in the groove. I was quite impressed by the cockpit although there are a couple of anomalies but hey ho its a 1/48 JP5 that's mass produced, I really didn't like the side panels I'd prefer it if it was molded rather than a separate panel. The kit itself fly's together and I had no real issues at all, except the canopy was quite cloudy but came up nicely with Klear, I nearly took the plunge to polish it but it didn't need it. I had a big issue with one wing join, one was fine the other was miles out standing proud and took a lot of sanding then rescribing. The seats are a very tight fit together when you get them in and with the throttle box as well it's all very snug (probably like the real thing) and you have to be careful that when the seats are drying that they don't get encouraged to point inwards towards each other before the glue is set. I've now found out the instrument cowling is wrong for an RAF version but this can easily be addressed if you want. I hand wrote (with my artist pen) the MDC on then Kleared it to seal it in. Gloss appliance white and Revell aqua red and Xtracrylix LAG with a blob of metalcote for the exhaust. I think the MLG is way too big as compared to the Heritage JP3 they are a million miles apart and the Heritage one looks right with comparison with photo's. I'd like to measure the JP5's real wheels and tyres to see what they should be. I did cut 1mm off all 3 legs as otherwise it looks like its on stilts. I put in the nose lights with the crystal jobbies from LittleCars but then the clear bit wouldn't fit from the kit, so in the mean time I've put some clearfix on it but I'm coming back to fit the lens. The seats are ok and you obviously cut off the extra bit from the headbox if you want an RAF version. Walk panels matted off and I left off the air intake one as its way out of proportion, so painted it instead, apart from all this I enjoyed it.

Right my swear box is full on this one... but for £18 (thanks Debanhams) wasent so bad real *cough* ive tried to add more details on the interior but i fell there should be more its just sooooo big and my patience started to flag. so here it is in all her glory... Introducing my Spitfire Vb. Thanks for looking

I would like present to community my latest finished model. Model was inspired by photo of pink-coloured Spit of No.16 Sqn. This is "light" conversion of ICM Spitfire Mk.VII. Short list of additions and corrections: - camera window was cut out, camera immitation was made and installed inside; - rivets was added; - locks on engine compartment panels was rescribed, as there was missing a lot; - elevator "dropped down" as it should be when control stick is not locked; - exhaust pipes sustituted for halvanically grown from REXx aftermarket company. Model painted with two tones of pink color, with following postshading, wash and weathering with artists oils and AK-Interactive.

hi guys!! this fw 190 d-9 "Red 3" of the "Jagdverband 44" was flown by hauptmann waldemar wübke at ainring airfield as a member of the famous "sachsenbergschwarm" in april 1945. the "doras"where delegated as "platzschutzstaffel" to protect the taking off an landing phase of the me 262 jetfighters at munich-riem airfield. to make the d-9 clearly visible to the ground crews of the aa-gun protection the planes where manually painted to have a red underside with white stripes. the platzschutzstaffel of jv44 is also known as "galland's flying circus". it's a great kit and it was really fun to build this model. Best regards Stefan

Latest of the bench is the new Airfix 1/48 Spitfire PR XIX. This is a peach of a kit .....totally shake and bake. It's OOB except for the decals which are MA (the codes were a bit miss registered so I had to go to the spares box) and the addition of a boat antenna under the rear fuselage. A big thanks to Gingerbob and Miggers for their help with the dreaded cockpit colours. It's meant to have 4 spoke wheel hubs but these are not included in the kit. ( WWII machines had both the 4 spoke wheel hubs and boat antenna ..... why did Airfix not include them like wise the wing black walkway lines???? ) A really enjoyable build...... so much I bought another two to do. Hope you like. Please feel free to comment in any way Thanks for looking.

Here she is, finished over two months, which puts me on target to complete 6 models this year.... There are some things I'm not happy with, but rather than correct them I am going to make sure I overcome them in the next build, whatever that might be........

This one is almost straight from the box apart from the addition of some of the CMK resin set which replaced the gun bays, cockpit and nose gear retraction leg. Other than that it was pretty much straight out of the box including the decals, which represent the subject of the box art, F-84G Thunderjet FS-271 of 508th SFW based at Turner AFB in 1956. I know that the gun bay cover should be hinged at the front, but for the purposes of the photos this was left unattached and I think that the ladder should be zinc chromate yellow, which I'll re paint at some stage before she goes into the display cabinet. Other than that I am quite happy with the way she's turned out and welcome any comments, good, bad or down right ugly!

Let me present to you the next model from my series of soviet aircraft of World War II. I consider it necessary to note that this aircraft (prototype I-200) was actually the brainchild of a talented air constructor Nikolay Polikarpov (not only Mikoyan and Gurevich). In 1939 Polikarpov was sent on a mission to Germany. In his absence, the plant manager Pavel Voronin and chief engineer P. Dementyev separated from the part of CB (Constructors Bureau) units and top designers (including Mikhail Gurevich), and organized a new experimental design department, and in fact - the new CB, under the leadership of Artem Mikoyan. Remarkable is also the fact that Artem Mikoyan agreed to become the head of the new Bureau only on condition that his deputy will be Mikhail I. Gurevich, who unlike Mikoyan, almost the only "advantage" which was consanguinity with Anastas Mikoyan, was indeed a competent professional designer. Kit from Hobby Boss is typical "easy kit" with very poor cabine detailing. But this kit is better at this moment among other MiG-3 in 1/72 scale. I had to mill the entire cabin and primitive imitation to acceptable thickness of wall less than 1 mm. Cabin made entirely of an additional set of resin parts from "Goffy Model". Also used rubber chassis from the "Elf" company. Shields chassis also is resin. Added wiring rack, re-did the pitot tube, rods chassis plates, indicators of the harvest, guns and exhaust pipes. I distinguished the landing flaps, hatch radiator. Dashed off a fairly long riveting. Wasted a lot of holes of air intakes. Antenna cable out of the nylon thread. Sliding canopy - squeezed again (because the native canopy has nonscale thickness). Landing light - is rhinestones. The navigation lights on the tail made from stretched clear sprue. Stabilizers of rockets (named “RS”) was made more thin. The prototype is selected from "air war" № 115. HB offers another aircraft of the same IAP and boring "white five" owned russian ace Alexander Pokryshkin. Colored with acrylic Tamiya, varnishes Tamiya X-21 and X-22. Washing with MIG. The numbers on the tail fin painted in black marker by hand. REFERENCES: 1. War in the Air 115 - MiG-3 2. MiG-3. The first high-altitude tactical fighter (Bear A. Khazanov, DB) 3. "Soviet fighters" (Voronin, P.Kolesnikov) 4. Samolot Mysliwski MIG-3 (Piotr Bartoszewski) 5. Magazine "Wings" № 8 M-Hobby

Hi all, Some 56 Squadron added, more to add later. Brian.

Latest completions for the wifes growing collection. She has a thing for the old stuff, so if she spots a kit she thinks looks 'nice', she buys it and I have to build it! Anyhow, Airfix 1/48 Spitfire XII and Italeri 1/48 Spitfire FR.Mk.IX

Was delivered 20/02, started building 22/02 and finished today. Bit of a record for me! The model almost builds itself. As I was building it with the lid closed, I used an antique set of Extratech belts. The cockpit is more than adequate if closed up. Regardless of what Brett says on HS, you cannot pose it canopy open using the kit canopy unless you do a bit of excavating to the inside of the canopy. That's what I did when I built the Mk XII. I drilled out the exhausts replaced the air scoop with one made from sheet copper and fitted a monofilament whip aerial and that was about it. The MSG was Gunze and the PRU was a hombrew of 4 parts XL18 Medium Blue + 1 part XL66 Light Grey plus a couple of drops of Tamiya clear blue and clear gloss was added to brace it. http://img10.imageshack.us/i/p1110017h.jpg/'> Dave

Hi all!! Here comes my Bf 109 E-7 "Trop" from Revell....but actually it's a Hasegawa-Kit. My model shows the "Yellow 13" flown by Hans-Joachim Marseille at the beginning of his participation on the africa campaign. Later he flew the famous "Yellow 14". The fit was great so the assembly was easy. For painting I used colors from Gunze and Revell. The camouflage spots on the top of the wings and the fuselage I made with a paper template. The antenne wire is made of pulled sprue. At last everything was sealed with matte clear coat. Hope you like my "Emil"?!

Hello all Thought I would share with you my experiences of the new Airfix Vampire. First, it is a good kit with some lovely detail and panel lines that although seem a little deep actually look fine under a little paint. I built it pretty much OOB except for adding some seat harnesses from lead foil, seat top ejection pull handles and a few antennae around the place. After finishing it I saw some pics of the Duxford machine on which my chosen scheme seems to be based and found I had the wrong configuration of pull-handle so don't go copying me! Construction wise it's a little smasher with almost self jigging boom alignment - be sure to follow the assembly sequence though otherwise you'll never get the booms into the wing. I chose (in my infinite wisdom!) to leave the main gear legs off until after painting then found out why Airfix suggest fitting them when they do! In the end it was all recovered by a little careful trimming of the locating blocks at the top of the legs - no harm done! Airfix mould a number of protuberances onto one half of an assembly which presents challenges to not knock them off during the rest of the process. I managed to keep them all there until part way through the decalling I managed to remove the fin mounted pitot. I replaced with a small section of stainless tube. In retrospect I should have just removed it at the off and planned to replace it anyway - but I like a challenge! I painted it with Alclad Aluminium and Precision Paints Fluorescent Red-Orange and yes, it fluoresces! Decals are fine with stencils aplenty and all behaved well with a little Sol. I would love to build another and when I find a scheme that does it for me I'll have another on the bench! Anyway, enough waffle, here she is, I hope you like her!Sorry about the picture quality but I seem to have mislaid my tripod in the move so these are hand-held so no depth of field. Comments and critique very welcome. Cheers all Rick

Hi Guys, Here is my first helicopter for many years, Italeri's superb 1/48 Wessex. I managed to acquire all 3 of the Revell offerings but never built one as they really don't capture the look of the Wessex. This kit however does justice to the Wessex, the long serving workhorse of the Royal Navy. Construction was pretty much from the box. The PE provided a good touch but I did find the guide pins for mesh round the main rotor were too low when using the PE. I built them up with some thin strips of plasticard which worked well. I lined the interior cabin with tissue coated in dilute PVA to represent the waterproof bag used on the rescue machines and added a few red first aid rescue bags and some wiring in the cabin roof. A few other bits were added to the cockpit and cabin. I used the kit decals and found them good. Only 2 'RESCUE' signs are too small and a walkway for the tail is too big, otherwise they were OK and went on well. Aerial wires were done with Aeroclub elastic Eze-line. Overall it took less than 2 weeks and was a very satisfying build. Cheers Colin W

Finished her off this afternoon, complete with NI fit armour and Night Sun... Built totally OOB with the only addition of the antenna wires... Build thread is here

Yeah, i could put it in the lounge and look at it when I get made to sleep on the sofa

LOL... seven pages on a £8 1/72 kit... I've not bought one yet but intend to at Southern Expo... I will have fun building it and will happily display it at shows and won't give a thought about accuracy... IMO, there is no such thing anyway at least not at these prices. I love when some builders buy a kit then buy resin cockpits/intakes/etc, PE parts. vacform canopies, white metal undercarriges and after market decal sets..spending twice what the original kit cost.... they do make for wonderfully insightful WIP's... long may such model builders continue... but it's not for me personally... but is someone wants to super detail an £8 Airfix Vampire kit I will be the first to cheer them on. Our hobby needs all extremes of modeller from the novice to the master, so less bickering and more building is what we really need...

I thought this was BritMODELLER so use your skills and don't expect perfection from an £8 kit. If you can't use your skills to overcome the alleged faults perhaps it time you took up another hobby. From my point of view its a little cracker and well done to Airfix for it.(The last one I built with my Father was chunks of balsa and a plan in the 1950's) Not really a rant but just to show you how far we have come in our hobby.

I've always wanted one of these but can't shake the idea that the 1/72 version is a bit big, so here's Pit Road's boxing of Trumpeter's little LCAC: I got one (actually two!) for a bargain price in HLJ's sale at the end of last year. This seems like the ideal opportunity to make it, although I realised I have a couple of 1/144 Gundams lurking in the cupboard too. Maybe later... For a relatively small machine the box is quite full. The parts are laid out much like their ship kits - one piece deck, structures built up from separate walls, and lots of fine detail. I'm quite looking forward to the cutting and sticking, I'm not sure yet how much to leave separate for painting and decalling since there are quite a lot of markings to consider. Does anyone know of any suitable vehicles I could load into it? Will

How do chaps, All done and fit to be seen. Comments welcome, Regards, Steve

So here's my first build posted to the forum. It started life as a 1/72 Revell Gannet to which I scratchbuilt (butchered?) a starboard wing fold. I doubt the configuration is authentic operationally, but my aim was to replicate the Gannet on display at the Nowra Fleet Air Arm Museum as seen in the last pic - and scratchbuilding two wing folds was a bit beyond my endurance. I've made a few changes since taking these shots, including modifying the attachment point of the wing brace which I got totally wrong initially and painting a few more of the attachments and struts red. The paint scheme came up a bit grainy and I'm hoping to improve my airbrush skills through the forum and lots more practice! Thanks for looking. ... Andrew

I finished this Alconbury F-5E almost a year ago but I only got to photograph it today. It's the AFV Club kit with TwoBobs decals. Paints are from Xtracolor. Jens

BM being down gave me a chance to actually do some building instead of looking at everyone elses!! Chinook is coming along nicely but ramp is causing a few issues. Its gonna be a 240ocu Cab from 1992. Fond memories of doing work experience as a trainee Load master. Ahhh.... 2 weeks spent flying around vomiting all day everyday!! Sea King looks great. was a bargain on Ebay. Haven't built one before so looking forward to getting my teeth into it. Its going to be a yellow one. Not sure which of the squadrons yet. Stu

Hi all, just thought I`d show you some pic`s of my very latest effort: Hasegawas RF-4 Phantom in 1/48 Built from the RF-4B kit, as I couldn`t find a `C` version and done as `Snoopy War`s Hell` from the 11th TRS, 432nd TRW, Udorn, Thailand circa 1969 Apart from after-market decals it`s mostly OOB exceptions being; home made seat belts , rear view mirrors, detail on rear cockpit stbd side and ECM pod from Hasegawa weapons set Had to cut a few lumps and bumps off the kit but most of the `C` bits were on the sprues took a while to get finally finished for some reason. Hope you enjoy looking at Cheers Russ

This is my B-17 its was a bit of a pig to put together lots of filler and flash and had a few mishaps with decals i dint put the camo patter on and i think the flaps are the wrong colour, i will say some it looks better than the one i built when i was 13 (in 3 hours:shutup: ) Thanks for looking

lovely finish on a pretty little jet well done Glenn.....

There's a lot to do here, to get these bits of styrene sheets and strips to look like an ICBM transporter/launcher so I'd better get started. I've finally found an image of both sides of the vehicle and have been able to scan it and resize it to 1:144 scale. This will really help. The driver's section is a split two-cabin component, separated by the ICBM containers nose section. Once the sizes had been identified, I cut the floor base and then started to build each cabin. The right, driver's, side is a short section, whereas the left, crew, side is a double cabin unit and stretches further back. Whilst those pieces are drying, I will get on with the chassis. I have drawn out a template and will cut out the chassis ready for adding the driver's cabin etc. . I think the hardest part will be constructing the wheels and tyres so I'll make a basic start here. As there will be 15 wheels (14 main and 1 spare) I plan to build one complete wheel and then make a cast for the remainder to be produced in resin. I intend to build the tyre first. I can't find a single piece of plastic tubing which has the correct inner and outer diameters so I will build one up, from tubes of varying thickness. Once I've got the parts glued together, giving me the correct outer measurements and the correct hole size for the wheel when it is inserted, I will fill the joins and then sand them smooth. Then, the tyre will need to be cut from the rest of the tubes in order that I can do the same to the other side of the wheel. With the tyre now at the right size and basic shape, I can round off the edges ready for the treads to be added. Working with white plastic can make it difficult to see whether the rounding off the edges will be equal so, to help me here, I have used a pencil to shade the complete tyre. When it comes to filing, I should be able to check whether the chamfer is even by looking at the white showing through the grey of the pencil marks. Right, now for the difficult part which is adding the tyre treads. I've looked at various drawings and there is a distinct V-shaped pattern to the tread. In order to be able to keep control of the tyre, whilst I'm trying to work on such a small thing, I have made a little bench rig to hold the tyre. It is just a piece of tubing, similar in size as the internal diameter of the tyre and this tube is taped to a wooden block. Once the tyre is positioned on the tubing I can then add each tread piece and then rotate the tyre to the next position. Each tread piece will be 2mm long, although I shall be using 3mm so that I have an overlap to file down at the sides. After I had completed a full revolution of treads on one side, I put the block aside to dry overnight before starting the other side of treads With the one side of treads completely set, I then proceeded to repeat the operation on the other side. Again, once complete the whole thing has been set aside to dry overnight. The next phase of this tyre build will be to sand down the sides of the treads so that they merge with the tyre wall. Hopefully nothing will fall off when I attempt that! That's it for tonight. I'll try to get some more done tomorrow. cheers Mike

Ok, so had some time painting this beasty... first attempt: Not good at all, so tried again.. Much happier... So I finished her off... More in Ready for Inspection..

At long last I've finally succumbed to the siren call of my unfinished Lancaster. The Mr. Surfacer was a little too runny for fairing in the nacelles, so I've resorted to Tamiya White Putty, which has a more solid consistency. Very good stuff, and it builds ups nicely and is easily sanded. I've actually done quite a bit to sand the nacelles in, and I think it may be time for priming to see where I stand (or am sinking). Before with this kit, it was vying with my He-111, now it's vying for my attention with a Liberator GR.V conversion (see, I really don't just do VVS aeroplanes). However, I think the priming will give me an incentive to fix all the spots that need a-fixin'. Below are photographs of the unprimed work (I've since done some more work on these nacelles, so they look a little better than below). Regards, Jason

http://framework.latimes.com/2011/06/13/memphis-belle/

Just lovely. Stephen

Great looking adversaries! I love these schemes on the A-4s and you've done a great job on these two

Two brilliantly executed 'family sized' models.

nice scooters well done Glenn.....

Really nice. Good build. Great finish!

Great job Rob. Really impressive build. As far as the 'browning' goes, as an artist, I learned long ago about the benefits of 'happy accidents'. This is one of them and adds some extra realism I feel. Andy

My sentiments exactly Sean, what is the point? I've just built the Gnat (see elsewhere on the site 'My first build for the Year') and it has all the 'faults' mentioned above but once built it looks a little treaure. So when my two Vampires arrive on Tuesday via my Sister in law I'll build them as I did with the Gnat 'Out of the Box'. No resin, no PE no nothing excepting some seat belts from maskimng tape and what I'm provided with in the box. So when it turns out a little gem, I'll be please to add it to my collection. Colin

Heavy panel lines or not, I shall be adding one to the list. My grandfather was an apprentice at Shorts, before joining RAF B.C. as a Nav. He also trained on the Stirling before moving onto Lancs, so it's an essential purchase as far as I'm concerned.

Now to the cockpit and the nose , cleand the wall of the nose so to take the resin parts . using pva to hold them in position over night to see if they would fit !! Well it did but not very good and they do not go to the frount of the nose , so now held by cyano then put so more detail in . looking forward to the easy bit Arnold !!!

Phantastic, nice one. RR

She's a great looking example.

She looks fantastic.

Thunderbirds are go

My last Vignette done! Some rocks, catched on the street, cat litter, earth and DasPronto, and i have a montain terrain. The figures are German paras in Italy, 1944. Hope you liked!

Just a quick update......... RBF tags and FOD's added (one more on main UC) ....