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The Tupolev Tu-4 (NATO reporting name: Bull) was a piston-engined Soviet strategic bomber that served the Soviet Air Force from the late 1940s to mid-1960s. It was reverse-engineered from the American Boeing B-29 Superfortress.

Hi there, My first post is a kit that I built a few years ago. It's the profipack repop of the Mauve 1/48 P40. Post shaded and chipped, the effect is quite (maybe too) subtle. Gunze Aqueous is my paint of choice at the moment. Its quite a clean build, I may revisit at some point and add exhaust stains but I just loved the skull motif and didn't want to f....., well you know. Really enjoyed building the kit. Comments welcome. Rick

Hi everyone and happy new Year ! My latest completion . I used the Eduard set for the cockpit and some Montex Masks for the decals . The 'net' is freehand airbrushed and the rest just simple masking . Hope you like it !

Hi guys... here are some photos of my recent realization ... Hawk T1 Italeri 1/72 A tribute of the 100 Sqn 95th Anniversary ciao Silvano Dedicate @Fritag my Ispiration Modeller ...

Completed on New Year's Day, 2019, here's my Airfix 1/48 Supermarine Walrus. Extras include a Vector Resin engine, Eduard PE Interior set, and Eduard PE bomb racks. Rigging is Inifini Models elastic line attached to eyelets made from .004" Nichrome wire and secured with polyimide tubing and CA glue. Camo paints were MRP (Mister Paint). MRP paints are fantastic and are made to be airbrushed straight from the bottle. I've heard them described as inks rather than paints due to their extremely fine pigments but regardless, they're a pure joy to use. Cheers, Eric

A typical Fujimi model: not many parts, scarce interior details, very simple build and gentle panel lines. Build process went okay, some effort and several styrene strips are needed for the alignment of rear upper fuselage and the upper wing/fuselage joint. MLG interior could use some details, due to its size. Gunze colours were used over Alclad aluminium base. Upper colour is Gunze Nakajima IJN Green, lower surfaces Gunze IJN Gray. National insignia and yellow ID stripes airbrushed. AK weathering oils were used and chipping was done with various colored pencils.

Hi, Please find attached some pictures of my recently completed Airfix B-17 of RAF 100 Group. To those who are in the process of building the model please be aware of the squadron code error on the Airfix instructions. Tonyot made a gallant effort to get me the information but alas it was too late. Here's is Tony's comment for reference. "Looking nice,...I`ve just discovered this one and reading through it I was really hoping that you hadn`t reached the decal stage as I wanted to warn you about a mistake in the kit instructions which is often made elsewhere,..... but I`m too late!! The sqn codes were 6G and they were grouped together as such on both sides of the fuselage and separate from the individual code `B' ,..... but on the left side they have been mistakenly grouped as B6-G!" In any case here are the pictures and I hope you enjoy them. Oh and if you get a chance do participate in one of the group builds. This was absolutely fantastic....I'm earmarked for the February C-47 group build ...perfect for the 75th anniversary of D-Day.

Hi all - well here is no 1 of the bench for 2019. I made a series ii from the series i kit as all parts are in there - and sorted out the daftly large and wrongly shaped prop holes in the spinner. The "cuckoo clock" air filter is scratch built. Xtradecal markings for an immediate-post-war 56 Squadron crate. Paints & post shade are Tamiya and Gunze for the camo - freehanded with HS Evolution, weathering from oil washes, detail painting from an assortment of acrylics. All comments welcome as ever. Hope you like her. Jonners

Okay chaps, moment of truth time! I got a seat all ready to go: The level of detail you can achieve out of the box is incredible, on a par with an Eduard profipack. IMO, the Arma photoetch also fits a lot better than Eduard's. (Though tonight I lost two lap belts and the little pouch that goes on the big pouch when they pinged off into the ether, so it's not all smooth sailing.) In the seat went: So far, so good... The kit closed up pretty well; excellently at the ends and along the spine (but I managed to get a gluey fingerprint on one side, as per ancient and inglorious tradition), but needed a little coaxing around the coaming area before finally coming together. I've drilled out the female locating point at that location for the next two, which I think should help -- it was little shallow I think. It went together pretty well. So well, in fact... I used my worst set of wings, because they were the only ones I'd fully prepared -- two pairs went together perfectly, but this one was a little gappy at the leading edge wing roots, and required some coaxing as a result. So here's where we are now: Hopefully I can close up the other two fuselages tomorrow night.

By ‘eck, there’s a lot of fiddly details on a Beaufort! Thanks for looking, Adrian

Hi, Please find attached some pictures of my recently completed Airfix B-17 of RAF 100 Group. To those who are in the process of building the model please be aware of the squadron code error on the Airfix instructions. Tonyot made a gallant effort to get me the information but alas it was too late. Here's is Tony's comment for reference. "Looking nice,...I`ve just discovered this one and reading through it I was really hoping that you hadn`t reached the decal stage as I wanted to warn you about a mistake in the kit instructions which is often made elsewhere,..... but I`m too late!! The sqn codes were 6G and they were grouped together as such on both sides of the fuselage and separate from the individual code `B' ,..... but on the left side they have been mistakenly grouped as B6-G!" In any case here are the pictures and I hope you enjoy them. If you want to see the entire build sequence please go to the STGB B-17 page. Oh and if you get a chance do participate in one of the group builds. This was absolutely fantastic....I'm earmarked for the February C-47 group build ...perfect for the 75th anniversary of D-Day. All the Best! Don

Hiya Folks, A bit more progress,..... (using Village.photos after my Flickr account was stopped for being too large!) after sanding most of the camo off and trying again with ever thinner paint,.....here it is with the decals applied, for 73 Sqn in the Western Desert, from the Xtradecal sheet; And here it is with the second model; Cheers, Tony

Hello All, This is my first scale model in over a year now. This is also my first Aircraft in 1/48 scale. I have always built aircraft in 1/72 before this. I made a few mistakes with this one, but I think by now I understand that this is part of modelling. Also I was never really concerned with historical accuracy. I am concerned with the build and the finish. I tried some preshading and post shading on this one. It is hard to tell in the photos, however you can clearly see it in the video. Here it is my completed Tamiya 1/48 Spitfire Mk V (b). This is the old tool. I have gone for a well maintained aircraft with some stains on it and some faded paint. So something not too dirty but stained if that makes sense. My camera has been damaged and so the photos do not do it justice. The video however does do it justice. I hope you all enjoy the video. (the music signifies a comeback!) Here are some photos. As always all comments welcome.

It is the first B-17 loss in that has crashed in occupied Europa. I had a hard time finding at photo of the accual plane, manage to get at not very sharp clip from youtube. 90.Squadron RAF WP-D/AN 525 "D-DOG" 08.09 1941 Crew: F/O David A A Romans (RAF)- P/O Frank Gordon Hart (RAF)- Sgt. John Brown (RAF)- Sgt. Peter Barnard Corbett (RAF)- Sgt. Robert Henry Beattie(RAF)- Sgt. Walter George Honey(RAF)- Sgt. Henry Merrill (RCAF). Their target was "Admiral Sheer" wich was in Oslo for repair. Plane shot down by Jacobi and Steinicke of 13./JG.77 in their bf.109T-2. https://ktsorens.tihlde.org/flyvrak/bygland.html Cheers Jes

Wow! They have haggis! In tins! Tinned haggis! It seems so wrong. There's a TV series here somewhere Tomo. 'The Food Programme' meets 'Model World'! 😃 A bird can't fly on one wing! I like to think I'm doing my bit to support the British statin industry Bill.... I don't blame you quite frankly Giorgio! 😃 There are a range of processed foods peculiar to the British Isles - such as the tinned pie - that those of us who grew up in the 70s have a warped but instatiable nostalgia/hunger for. Such food was presumably designed to survive a 25-year nuclear winter and there is no way to adequately explain these cravings to a gentleman such as yourself reared upon the glories of Italian cuisine. Don't judge us because we are weak..... Kind of you - as always - Giorgio. It feels like I'm on a bit of a roll with the fuselage tube-work at the moment and I couldn't wait to get some time in on it again this evening (after a big feed of homemade spaghetti & meatballs funnily enough. Yum!) I'm sorry Simon but you're wrong. An alloy is a wheel. I saw it on Top Gear. Heyyy!! I'd seen something like that on your bench and never got round to asking you what it was. Seeing as how I seem to bloody well buy near everything you suggest - and never have cause to regret it - don't be suprised to find part of next month's paycheck invested. I can already see how useful that might be. Have a safe journey my friend. It is a possible candidate for Most Pointless Piece of Video Ever Made (Classical Soundtrack category) isn't it?. So bad that I find it magnetic in the same way that those 'Worst Postcard' collections are so malignantly atractive.... Oooh. So 'All-Day Breakfast' is fine, but an 'All-Night Lunch' suddenly has the meal-police all hot and bothered now does it? Actually, in my callow youth I worked for a period in the Heathrow Penta Hotel on night-shift and although we got tons of free food to microwave at meal breaks, a lot of it was lunch stuff left over from the day. A diet of Fish Pie or Liver & Bacon at 4am can really do your body clock serious harm. Not to mention digestion... It would not dare not to Ced. 🙈 Thanks Roger. Every now and again the craving for a bit o' processed food has to be assuaged doesn't it? Strewth Adrian! That is incredibly unnaturally attractive as 'a thing'. Like something from the French Academy of Sciences of something in the 18th century. Funny how it hadn't got any customer reviews yet! Just a swift report tonight on progress with the framework. I managed to get the sides of the main part of the cockpit done this evening: I meant to say that I'd switched to the Powerflux paste for soldering on tis work as I find it a bit more satisfactory than the liuquid stuff I'd been using for other jobs - it works well in holding the flakes of solder in place whilst you dab them with the iron (which I've also switched to a much smaller tip and is giving neater results on the 0.3mm tube joins): I quickly test-fitted the rear section I'd done yesterday to give you an idea of the overall visuals at this stage: I've also learned not to worry about cleaning off any excess solder at the moment as I'm finding that with some many joins involved on thin tubing, it works better to have a bit extra there when soldering a new bit on to an already existing join (if that makes sense?) in giving a good strong bond. Tony

Hello everyone, Here are some pictures of my latest completion, the Encore (Roden) 1/72 Pfalz D.III. This is their “Blue Max” boxing, which depicts the aircraft flown by Ltn Bruno Stachel (George Peppard) in the 1966 movie “The Blue Max”. If you haven’t seen this aviation classic, I strongly recommend it. The kit was built with the addition of the PART photo-etched set. The kit itself is a bit rough around the edges, and requires a bit of refinement, but it looks like a Pfalz. The Lozenge decal is from Aviatik, and presents some better colours than those included in the kit. These decals are excellent; translucent (which makes them good for pre-shading), very thin, durable, and able to be contorted across compound curves (mostly). This was especially useful given the compound curves of the fuselage; I didn’t get it perfect but I was happy enough in the end. Rigging is from Uschi brand elastic. I didn’t go for a ‘movie perfect’ model; rather, I built is as a ‘normal’ Pfalz (though I did mix up the D.III and D.IIIa parts, deliberately), with the markings broadly representative of the movie aircraft. Here’s some pics of the model: I also decided it would be cool to mount this one to a more appropriate base: I added a pilot from the spares box, with a rather stern looking head from an Airfix BE-2C crewman, and a scarf made from foil. I tried to replicate a spinning propeller, but nothing I tried or looked at really looked convincing, so I simply made a prop-less spinner from scrap plastic. Overall this was a fun little build. Good hunting, herr Leutnant!

Hello modelers I present my model of a Polish Medium Bomber. Here you will find some information about this plane

In a probably fruitless effort to return this thread to some semblance of normality, I shall attempt to explain what has been going on since my last update. Last night's endeavours were directed towards constructing the framework that is situated above the bomb cells, thus making the model look even more like the Space 1999 transporter in the Baron's thread! This took an inordinate amount of time as care had to be taken that every part of the assembly was perfectly lined up to prevent the whole from appearing wonky (wonky, now there's an absolutely filthy word for the General!) There is still a way to go towards finishing the bomb bay but there is a definite if very faint light at the end of that particular tunnel. Thanks for looking Martian 👽

I was planning on wearing a t-shirt with a hedgehog on it. Alternately should I go classic American abroad and wear a Hawaiian shirt, cargo shorts, and one of those fishing caps while marvelling at all the things that aren't like back home?

Hi Everyone, I’ve not been posting completed models for a while although I managed to complete a bunch over the last year. Starting to catch up now. The first one is OV-10A Bronco in Vietnam markings of VAL-4. I have a mixed feeling about the kit and about the effort I did to get it completed. The kit can be assembled out of the box with moderate effort (only sponson to nacelle fit is really poor) and will definitely result in a decent model that would 100% look like a Bronco (it’s probably impossible to do a Bronco kit that would not look like a Bronco). But that works only until you see Bronco photos… Below is the list of errors and omissions I was able to find and tried to fix: - Empty undercarriage bays. Front bay is also almost empty on a real thing – reverse side of a landing light and some wiring only. Main bays have engine covers inside (Academy kit represents an aircraft as if its engines are removed), a lot of wiring, hydraulics, etc. I tried to scratchbuild at least engine covers and added some wiring. - Too small and simplified engine nacelles in particular anemic intakes over propellers should be noted. I tried to enlarge those with plastic and putty and drilled intakes through. - Wrong weapons sponson. In real life machine guns are placed asymmetrically, while kit has completely symmetric sponson. I tried to fix this. Also sponson shape is incorrect being a little narrower and with wrong angle of the front edge. - Short wing and short tail booms. Some reviewers also wrote about wrong wing angle of attack which I was not able to measure but seems to be true as well. Wing span is around 8 mm (!) shorter. Mostly outside of booms so easier to fix. Tail booms are approximately 3 mm shorter. The above is per my matching to real thing photoes. Tails are sitting at right height which leads to wrong angle on booms upper side which is more pronounced on a kit compared to real thing. I did not do anything about it as fixing booms represents pretty strong surgery and lengthening wing without adjustment of booms would result in even greater proportions distortion. - Simplified undercarriage. Some enhancement was done by replacement of plastic parts with metal tubes. Given the weight of lead I had to hide into nacelle to avoid tail-sitting – not sure if original plastic undercarriage would survive at all. My metal gear only marginally carries the weight. - Wrong shaped wing pylons. The kit ones are shorter and place rockets at wrong angle to the wing. Fixed it. - Fuel tank has the wrong shape. The thing is too pointy. I only identified it when starting to apply decals so live with it as is. - Cockpit details OOB are heavily simplified – here I just used CMK interior set. - Inconsistently applied panel lines. Academy did pretty decent panel lines on the wings (however they marked wing walkways with panel lines which is wrong). However, Academy ignored panel lines on the nacelle and sponson. Even cargo door is not properly shown! I tried to reapply missing panel lines to the possible extent. Some other non-OOB additions included Zunies from Crusader kit, LAU-10 launchers from Hasegawa weapon set (kit have extremely tiny Zuni warheads), LAU-32 launchers from Italeri OH-6 kit, CMK interior resin, Eduard PE set (which I only barely used to do some external features), and an excellent AOA decal which actually inspired me to buy and assemble the whole thing. Not much of a background story of the chosen subject as VAL-4 history is very well known. AOA provides almost 20 different options and I selected specific aircraft because of unique spinners colour which is said to be golden per AOA instruction. Overall conclusion – quite a lot of effort done to improve the kit but I know I went only half the distance to make a fully correct copy of a true thing. Also this is the subject that desperately needs a new 1/72 kit which would be of the correct geometrical shape as a minimum and would maybe provide a better level of details in the cockpit, undercarriage. And on top of it a wider choice of loadout other than standard LAU-3/10 and Mk.82 as Broncos carried almost everything what was available in Vietnam. Hope you enjoyed A great modelling year to everyone! Dennis

Hi y'all! First of the year! Once again, from the SW board game. Painted with acrylics. Ciao Iwik

Some more pics of my recent finisher in the Grumman GB. Above: 'Plonky' TBF-1 NZ2518. And below; with my TM-3W RCN Avenger from the Sword kit

In the late 60's, Communism was the threat around the world and with it looking increasingly likely that New Zealand would fall to a Communist dictator, Australia decided that it needed to bolster it's carrier strike force. With the retirement of the Sea Venom ans Sea Fury, strike aircraft were limited so we purchased two squadrons worth of A-6 Intruders from the US, freeing up the Skyhawks to perform the dedicated CAP duties they were optimised for. In 1970 New Zealand fell to Communism and Australia, unwilling to have a 'Cuban Missile Crisis' in this part of the world launched Operation Sheep, the invasion of New Zealand. A-6's from HMAS Melbourne deployed to soften up the landing areas and interdict all forces moving around the target area. Australia's Intruders retained the outer pylon from earlier models that was wired for air to air missiles, this aircraft scoring a Skyhawk kill over the beach head. After a successful invasion and brief fight, the dictatorship was overthrown and democracy returned to the country, thanks in part to RAN Intruders. The kit is the old Fujimi model in 1/48, with weapons and bomb racks/missile rails added from the spares box. Decals come from a Red Roo Gannet set.

Not sure if this should be in with the Whifs really – I have been reading a lot of Biggles books recently, and got quite interested in the modelling possibilities that they provide. In one recent read, (Biggles Breaks the Silence) he heads to the Antarctic in a Wellington under the guise of a government research vehicle to retrieve some lost gold from a shipwreck. Not much is said about the aircraft other than it being modified for the cold weather, including the addition of skis – which leaves me with some latitude regarding livery. This is my first proper build in a long time, so hopefully it doesn't go too awry! With that I toddled to the local shop and picked up airfix's offering to begin this weekend. Below is a rough mockup of my intended scheme: Looking forward to this

This was one of my final models before graduating to an air brush. A P-39Q Zebra Training aircraft, used to train air-gunners. This was the forerunner to the P-63 Pinball aircraft.

The subjects for my models are often the result of coming across a story which catches my interest. This is one of those. In late 1941 / early 1942 there was a need for something (anything) to lift morale. The victories in North Africa that marked a turning point were still months away and Europe was shrouded in gloom. An SOE specialist undercover in Paris had noted in September 1941 that the German army paraded daily at midday along the Champs-Élysées. He suggested that the RAF could mount an attack on the parade as a morale boost for both Britain and occupied France. After a rather daft idea from Fighter Command involving three Spitfires and coloured smoke, the mission was assigned to Coastal Command to use a Bristol Beaufighter Mk Ic which had both the range and a navigator as a second crew member. Several crews volunteered with pilot Flt Lt Ken Gatward and navigator Sgt George Fern of 236 Sqn being selected. The mission needed complete cloud cover so was delayed many times but finally on 12th June 1942 they took off from RAF Thorney Island in T4800 at 11.15am. The flight would have been roughly 200 miles (320 km) to Paris most of which was over German occupied France so they flew at less than 100 feet, often as low as 30 feet. The pictures taken by George Fern are a vivid testament to this. See this image of Le Grand Palais - apparently 'La Vie Nouvelle' was to be that night's show. They arrived at midday but the Champs-Élysées was empty. Their secondary target was the Gestapo HQ in the Kriegsmarine (navy) building so this was attacked with the four 20mm cannon in the nose. They also dropped two French tricolour flags, one over the Arc de Triomphe and one as they passed the Gestapo HQ. The return trip was as uneventful as the outward - without being fired at by AA guns or by Luftwaffe fighters. They landed at RAF Northolt in west London two hours after departing Thorney Island and were debriefed and instructed not to discuss the details. Rather nicely George's parents heard about the mission from the BBC whilst he was on leave with them. It seems that they missed the opportunity to attack the parade due to the Germans having synchronised French time with Germany. Time in northern occupied France was moved an hour forward to match German time (the unoccupied south remained unchanged). And they didn't tell the British. How mean. On to the model and my attempt at T4800 ND-C. I have used Tamiya's 1:48 Mk VI backdated to a Mk Ic. To do that I used a conversion set from Resinair with zero dihedral horizontal tails and short exhaust manifolds (that shows quite clearly in the first pic). I also filled in the wing .303 machine gun holes and cartridge ejection slots as I believe the wing guns were replaced by extra fuel tanks in the Mk Ic. Other extras were Eduard steel seatbelts and canopy masks plus a Yahu instrument panel. Paints were Ultimate acrylic primer and Xtracrylix acrylics. Decals were largely from various Xtradecal sets with the stencils from the excellent Aviaeology set. Weathering was done with Winsor and Newton oils with pastels for the exhaust stain and darkening the collector ring / exhausts. The historical info mostly came from an article in 'Aeroplane' magazine of March 2010 which was based on an interview with George Fern and was my inspiration for this build. I also used the Modeller's Data File on the Beaufighter which has a profile of T4800. I've made a couple of mistakes. One I'll own up to – I forgot to install the gunsight. The other might be spotted by those that know the Beaufighter. I'll probably live with it as it is. As usual - comments appreciated. All the best Mark

Ah, thanks Ian Answer? Probably not, just: on Flickr So as Bill suggested I can probably fill with something and sand back. Once I work out how to hold the sides in while I'm glueing it. I got some 'for goodness sake get on with something' mojo so decided to stick in the internals: The raised cockpit floor means that the crew now look nicely through the windows: One final shot before they disappear: The front gear bay has a 'nicely open door' effect that I originally thought was a bad fit, but isn't (I hope): Now for the front resin bulkhead fit. Doesn't. How about the kit part? Fits. So I just need to use that as a template to sand this bit off the resin: This is all getting a bit messy as you can tell by the state of the bench: Untidy for me. I like tidy. A lot.

Hello folks, This kit annoyed me... The parts were covered in flash, some parts were ill-fitting, and one of the outer wing struts snapped on me as I removed it from the sprue. Research indicated that a number of details were wrong with the kit, and many of these have been remedied by previous builders (including one in a current thread in the progress forum). However, after beginning assembly, I decided to simply build the kit as is - I had already cockeyed the wings because the struts didn't align perfectly. The only real work I did was to cut some excess plastic out of the lower wing to make it fit the fuselage. In the end, the decals were also toasty, and after attempting to remove two large soviet stars with disastrous results, I tossed the rest! So, this entire piece was hand-painted with acrylics after complete assembly. I could have sanded the fuselage better along the top and been more careful applying details to the radiator, and on and on... But I wanted to get it done and this is what I came up with. Cheers! -Gregory (p.s. I plan to use the piece to practice rigging before I get to any other biplanes in my stack, and will probably also add exhaust pipes made from cut sprues.)

F-4D, 65-0631 of the 141st Tac Fighter Squadron, New Jersey Air National Guard. On the Edwards AFB transient ramp in January 1982. Thanks for looking, Sven

Good man Ced! Regarding serving - I personally favour two slices of white bread thickly buttered and a strong mug of tea as accompaniements. How do you like yours? Benedikt: that had me laughing uproariously at the vehemence with which you said that! I understand your loathing of over-definition; where I live it is frequently the opposite problem - a verbose lack of clarity in order to permit Jesutical evasion further down the line. How does texting by smartphone work out in Germany given what you've said Benedikt? Do German teenagers cut down language to a bare minimum like their Anglo-American counterparts? What id the German word for this concept I wonder? 'There are holes in the sky Where the rain gets in, But they're ever so small That's why rain is thin.' - Spike Milligan Heather - I'm most grateful for that reccomendation and propose to buy some to see how it works out. (Now you just know that I'm going to have to look up what 'resistance soldering' is too! ) Pootering around before work this morning I had a few minutes to spare so decided to bung the rear section of the tube-work into the fuselage for a test fit: General fit was not bad considering that the floor and ceiling of the palstic haven't really been thinned-down yet. Except for - as you know doubt latched-on to with your beady minces immediately: Cue thoughts of 'What the deuce! How did I get those measurements so wrong?' and Mrs. Hudson rushing in with the laudanum. Presently rallying for a quick check against the plans from the maintenance manual revealed no such discrepancy, but look at where the window is marked here: No conundrum Watson. See how the rear of the window is inline with the datum for 'Cabin rear bulkhead in the drawing above, and then at the gap between that bulkhead and the lip of the gun turret. Now have thyself a butcher's at the comparison shots below: It is my contention m'lud that (as no doubt has been mentioned on many a build before but I've been too lazy to go looking) that the window on the kit is too far forward by several mill., meaning that the side windows of the cockpit don't extend back far enough eitheras a result. I nailed this differential down more precisely during lunchbreak with an overlay: The match between framing and fuselage is pretty good - indeed would not pose any problems, save for the erroneous placement of those windows. And by extension, all that trouble I went to with the door on t'other side.... The offending apertures have now been plugged with scrap plastic and lie in want of some filler in the remaining gaps: Feeling like I needed something more productive as a result I cut out the air-gunner's platform and added that to the rear framework: Rear and starboard side then got joined together: Still plenty of 'v' braces and stuff to add yet: Just blocking in the main outlines a tthis stage to get overall shape correct to fit into the fueslage: Fits over the spars ok, need to lose some plastic around the rather generous moulding for the gun turret and a bit off roof and floor later and we should be ok. Apart from cutting new windows and doors.... Oh well. Hope you're all having a decent week so far. Tony

Cheers Fella`s,..... glad you like it and I wish that I was on commission lol!!! I did this aircraft previously in 1/32nd scale using the PCM kit; And here it is with a photo of the real thing,...... I hand painted the 73 Sqn flash onto this large model; The silver forward ring was either a replacement part,..... or more likely part of the early `spaghetti' style scheme found on Hurricane`s circa 1941,...... with silver areas added to the nose and wing leading edges with `squiggles' added,....... the colours of the squiggles are said to range from green & brown to blue and violet,......I couldn`t see definite signs of these so only lightly represented what I could see using green. I`m also not sure whether they were on the wing leading edges (some versions of the photo show some sort of trace,...others show nothing!),...... so as the side of nose wasn`t painted the same way, I assumed that the `spaghetti' scheme was being removed,.....phew! Some were seen with just the silver paint without squiggles too. Cheers Tony

A few facts....... 1. At the time, the Soviets were our allies. 2 They had a non-agression pact with the Japanese - which meant that more Soviet troops could be sent to the Europeam theatre - thus helping the western allies. 3. Under the terms of the non-aggression pact, the Soviets were obliged to intern any aircraft and crews that landed in the Soviet Union from raids on Japan. 4. The Soviets secretely allowed the B-29 bomber crews to 'escape' via Iran. 5 They kept 3 B-29's and reverse-engineered one of them - converting all the parts (skin panels etc) to metric units - thus the Tu-4 was slightly heavier than a B-29. 6 The engines were replaced with Soviet ASh-73TK piston engines and the .50 cal guns with 23mm cannons. So the Tu-4 wasn't an exact copy of a B-29 - despite the stories about the dumb Soviets even copying the bullet holes. Ken PS - Didn't the US reverse-engineer a 'stolen' V2 rocket??

1 72 scale W W 1 dio built using two resin kits, a Wespe/Retrokit howitzer, a Dennis truck, and figures from W D models ( a great little model) .

Almost 20 years ago I build a Bandai Thunderbird 1, scale unknown but smaller than 1/72. I think around 1/82. I have scratch build the landing gear from copper wire and plastic rod. I airbrushed it with different metallic airbrush paint from Testors, It was my first TB I have build. Gerhard And refurbished a Matchbox (I think, scale about 1/72)) toy thunderbird to something you can look at. it was a good case to test the metallic paints( Testors), the letters are from ''dry transfers'' (lot of work to do it straight in one good line) Also make a old Airfix Saab Draken in to a Red Arrow from the episode ''Edge of Impact''. And a old Monogram VooDoo F-101 (scale unknown) as a UN Fighter from the episode ''The Imposters''

Here is a Chieftain MK 5 in NATO colors. Some dusty but not really dirty. Then my Chieftain collection. A MK 5 in NATO scheme and a MK 11 and a MK 10 both in the BATUS schemes. That's about enough of these. The old Chieftains look like a real tank, just a real "tankish" look to them.

Here's my Tristar (now Hobbyboss) Brummbar. Put simply, this was an excellent kit with outstanding detail and fit. I added Atak zimmerit, ModelKasten tracks, a brass antenna and mainly Tamiya and Gunze paints. I've kept the weathering light on purpose to show off the detail and the zimmerit. I left out the radios as they blocked the view of the ammo racks inside. I 'googled' for ages to try and find a picture of this particular vehicle and as luck would have it stumbled across one of poor quality just two days ago when this was close to completion. I got the camo pretty close but now I'm ready to move onto something else. This was a 3 month marathon for me. Thanks for taking the time to look. Tim More at: http://www.timboth.com/models/armour/Brummbar/brummbar.htm

This is an old build but freshly repaired! If deemed inappropriate here mods please remove. This is the Dynavector Fairey Gannet kit which is 20 years old now, being a massive Gannetphile and with only the Frog (and derivatives) Gannet in 72nd available at the time, I had to build this one as soon as it came out. I had never made a vacform before (and this is still the only one) so I was a bit worried at first, however the build of this kit was actually pretty straightforward and really enjoyable. I added very little to the kit, just various aerials and probes etc, panel scribing, and weathering was to a minimum. I used Milliput to better represent the Double Mamba intakes. There is so much white metal up f'wrd that it didn't need nose weight. Finish was good old brush applied Humbrol Sky and EDSG and Johnsons Kleer. XA361 was a Gannet AS.1 completed for the Royal Navy in November 1955 at Heaton Chapel. It was part of a great 'Flight' photoshoot as '551-GN' with 719 Sqn at RNAS Eglinton during 1956. It was put into storage in March 1958 before being sold back to Fairey's in 1960, becoming AS-06 for the Indonesian Navy. Anyway, this one has endured two house moves and has just been knocked out of the cabinet again, so I've just been round it with superglue to reinstate undercarriage legs and four prop blades, the model desk briefly became an RNAY! Dynavector Gannet AS.1 by James Thomas, on Flickr Gannet 9 (2400x1603) by James Thomas, on Flickr Gannet 6 (2400x1599) by James Thomas, on Flickr Gannet 4BW (2400x1598) by James Thomas, on Flickr Gannet (2400x1600) by James Thomas, on Flickr Dynavector Gannet AS.1 by James Thomas, on Flickr Gannet 10 (2400x1602) by James Thomas, on Flickr As you can see, I have another one to build at some stage. The kit is superb with very crisp moldings and engraved panel lines, excellent canopies (2 sets), and good decals, to my eyes captures the lines of the real thing slightly better than the Classic Airframes one does. If you haven't tried building a vacform before, I thoroughly recommend this as a good place to start.

All done, will upload to gallery asap! IMGA0659 by neil Connor, on Flickr

Hi mates, yes, Airfix is planning to release a new Buccaneer... I'm quite used to it and, to be honest, my friends modellers know if I start a project involving an old kit, it doesn't usually take long for a manufacturer to announce a new release of that aircraft!!! No problem, building the newkit won't be fun as it was the one I've been working on for the last 12 months. So back to my kit. First I'd like to thank @theplasticsurgeon for the decal sheet which is going to save this build!!! In the last two days, I've filled the gap and sanded the area around the wingshield and last night I masked it with Tamiya tape trimmed with a new blade along the frames. I added the refuelling probe to the fuselage. After 12 months the time has finally come for some painting. Gunze Matt black first. Then it was time for Xtracrilics EDSG, trying to live a darker shade in the positions in the shadow. white was added to a very thinned EDSG to enlighten some areas To smoother things down, I applied a very thinned EDSG coat. A coat of Future gave the kit a nice semi-gloss finish. This morning I applied some Tamiya panel lines accent black to enlighten the panel lines. These are the pictures which render the real idea of the colour and different shades of grey. This is where I got. I hope tonight I can paint silver the air intakes annd wings' leading edges, so tomorrow morning I may start decalling. Anyway tomorrow afternoon I'll travel to Cambridge, where I'll stay for a week, so..there 'll be a pause!!! Thanks for visiting! Massimo

The first entry of this year! I like to build classic Cold War jets in Scandinavian colours like Swedish Spitfires, Norwegian F-16s, Danish Starfighters and Finnish MiG-21s. So when Airfix released the Meteor T.8, it was a welcome addition to my stash - and now also to my collection of finished models! Most of it is built OOB, with Stoppel Hobby decals. I only added some details on the engine and the seat. A nice kit, highly recommended! Seatbelts and cushions from whisky bottle foil. Thanks for watching!

Afternoon all Some more progress on the Sunderland to update you on... One of the main problems when building big vacs like this the fact that due to the nature of the plastic and the fact there's no interior provided, the fuselage lacks structural integrity - especially when it comes to adding the wings and tail, etc. Therefore, lots of internal reinforcement is needed to provide enough strength for the model to be able to support itself. So it was out with the profile gauge and thick plastic card, and slowly bulkheads began to emerge... DSC_0039 by Thomas Probert, on Flickr For anyone familiar with the internal layout of the Sunderland, you will quickly see these bulkheads and floors are far from resembling reality, but considering next to nothing of the interior will be visible I went for strength over accuracy. The centre-section 'bomb room' as well as the nose section and cockpit are more in keeping with the real thing, however: DSC_0035 by Thomas Probert, on Flickr The other fuselage half... DSC_0037 by Thomas Probert, on Flickr ..now slides nicely over the other... DSC_0041 by Thomas Probert, on Flickr ...apart from the fact that the starboard fuselage is approx. 4-5mm deeper than the port - a bridge I'll have to cross at a later date! The sheer bulk of the fuselage and the size of the real aircraft is quickly becoming apparent: DSC_0043 by Thomas Probert, on Flickr A few more bulkheads to fabricate, and then it'll be on with making the finer details of the interior areas that will be visible. Until next time, Tom

Posted on BM elsewhere, but I though I would share my Matchbox Piston Provost here too. Still a Matchbox favourite of mine, this one was built the old skool way, oob and painted with a hairy stick... IMG_5157 (2) IMG_5160 (2) Edit! Just realised I forgot to add the exhaust! Doh! Steve

Not much, unfortunately. I went to bed at one this morning. That's my plan (along with Cookenbacher and Navy Bird)! Need to get my airline tickets, and will be staying with Ced, who will live to regret it, I'm sure.

I'm going for MW-R of 217 squadron, as featured in a series of well known in-flight photos and the front of the Warpaint booklet. It will be nice to do an example that wasn't shot down. So it's TSS over black,. Hopefilly this will be the time I actually get the TSS shades the way I want them! Grey codes will be either Xtradecal or hand painted if the font isn't right. I will use Xtradecal serials (or I may print my own to avoid fiddling with spacing) and national markings from Xtradecal or the decal dungeon, There's a little yellow "R" at the front that will send me scuttling to the decal dungeon but apart from that it's pretty straightforward. Interestingly (well, almost!) the colour scheme for that airframe seems to be the reverse of other airframes in the same squadron, so I will paint it how it looks in the pictures. Regards, Adrian

I really must step in here and defend myself against these slanderous and libellous claims... The regimental pit-pony, Keith, has only ever been engaged in official warlike duties and never, repeat never, involved in any immoral practices (although upon reflection the Royal Berks did borrow him for a long weekend and gait-wise he hasn't really been the same since, however, that was definitely a one-orf). For my part, I have never attempted to balance any fowl, living or deceased in a manner unbefitting to a ranking ossifer of His Majesty's Armed Forces, except maybe, for the confusion surrounding the incident involving the regimental cormorant, Derek, (sadly he recently succumbed to his injuries and received a full military send-off, but not until after a delicious slap-up meal). I certainly do have a lot of issues, but my brief has advised me not to elucidate here for fear of re-commitment. As for Darling's collection of 'sporting mags' well, the less said the better, the particular issue you refer to has now become a collector's item and worth a pretty penny...I'll rifle through his drawers and see if I can dig something up...or upon reflection, maybe not

Fuselage: Frog Beaufort, heavily modified Cowlings and props: Frog Beaufighter, heavily modified Seat, flying surfaces, undercarriage: new Airfix Beaufighter, heavily modified Interior, nacelles, transparencies: home made So it’s a long way from being a scratch build but it has been quite an involved “conversion”, using precisely two parts from the original kit. I’m actually looking forward to building the other new Airfix Beaufighter In my stash as itself, because it’s a lovely kit. But I might need a little rest from Bristol twins after this one... Regards, Adrian

WARNING: This post may cause rivet counter's heads to explode. Set out to alter the tail wheel without sacrificing the strength of the simplistic design of the kit's parts. While I did look up diagrams of the actual mechanism for retraction of the tailwheel, I only used the "spirit" of the drawings guide what I did to rig it together. You probably would NOT want to use this as a reference to build an ACCURATE tailwheel assembly. So, here's the bulkhead and tailwheel piece as it comes in the kit. As I determined yesterday, the tailwheel should sit lower and farther forward. I also found this drawing online that I used "loosely" to modify the kit parts. I salvaged the lower arm of the tailwheel structure (black part in the kit) since I knew it would offer the best fit to the bulkhead piece. First I cut off the tail wheel preserving as much of the arm as I could (cut 1) Next I separated the lower arm preserving as much of the vertical connector as possible (cuts 2 & 3) Then I flipped the lower arm upsidedown so the connecting part that was above the arm would now point downward. I drilled holes in the wheel and the arm so I could install a short piece of wire to really strengthen the bond when I glued them together. A short piece of solder was glued from the wheel to the bulkhead at a slight angle to form the "triangle" structure similar to the schematic mentioned earlier. Then I used lengths cut from a jumbo paper clip to loosely represent other parts of the mechanism with the added benefit of adding considerable strength to the whole thing. - If you compare the wheel location in this photo to the unmodified parts in the first photo you can see that the wheel has moved lower and farther forward as it should be. Just for the heck of it, I made this overlay to easily show how the location of the tailwheel has changed. Like I said before, this was not intended to be a completely accurate representation of the actual tailwheel assembly, but I do think it will be a great improvement in how the plane looks when she's sitting on all three wheels.

More work. I wanted to depict the wings extended to give an overall impression of the size and unique shape of the aircraft. I am not a huge fan of folding the wings on my models as you lose the look of the real thing in its flying form. Although this would save a bit of space in my bursting at the seams display cabinets it was extended wings for me. The kit comes with some resin pegs to position the wings folded or extended and are a nice fit bit I needed to glue the wings in place and wanted to make the fit a bit more refined. I also needed to make the join stronger to avoid it snapping off if the model was picked up by the wingtip as it is now fairly heavy. As can be seen, there isn’t a whole lot of surface area to hold the two parts together. The first thing I did was make the peg significantly stronger by drilling and inserting brass rod along its length. I then drilled a hole into one of the sides of the aileron and inserted a short piece of brass rod that had been sharpened to a point that sat just proud of the surface. This then enabled me to push the parts together, leaving a small mark (just visible) on the other side of the aileron. The short rod was removed and replaced with a longer piece and a hole drilled where the mark was. As I am using superglue to assemble the model, there is very limited time to locate parts against each other. Not only does the brass rod provide greater strength across the join, but it allows precise alignment of parts whilst assembling them given the short period of time that superglue allows for fixing errors! url=https://ericgalliers.smugmug.com/Attacker/i-9srVLpF/A][/url] The wing tips joined to the wings. They join up O.K ish , but as is the short run nature of the kit, some rescribing of panel lines was required so that everything lines up. I didn’t want to re scribe the wing where it folds through the original joint, so I scribed a new line very close to it so that I wasn’t running my scriber through superglue and resin. url=https://ericgalliers.smugmug.com/Attacker/i-wmKpNb6/A][/url]

Well she's all over now, the poll is closed and the results are very close in the two main categories! SEA builds; This was a hard group to chose form with with a large number of really nice models to chose from, but in the end it was a close with Modelling Minion's (Craig's) Buffalo just pipping Giorgio's Spitfire VIII, both really lovely models. Congratulations to you both for producing really amazing models. RAAF & RNZAF builds; Again another group with a large number of wonderful models to chose from, in the end it was a tie for first with Ettore's amazing Dauntless and trickyrich's (me ) AiraCobra, closely followed by Pierpaolo's Corsair. It's good to see we avoided an international incident with both countries holding the top spot......thought it would have been nice to at least once beat that lot across the ditch! Carriers at war builds; GREG DESTEC was a clear winner with his lovely Nakajima Kate, and it was great to see an Axis aircraft come out on top in the GB as well. To everyone that made it into the gallery, well done, it was a great showing with so many wonderful model present. You can all be very proud of the models you built, well done. That's it, again thank you to everyone who joined the fun or just popped in for a look see. I do hope to see quite a few of you again ............in the "Specialists GB"!

Hi, What you come to realise is that this annual thread typically runs to about 40 pages before it gets locked. So in some ways the sooner we get there the better. Along the way it’ll be populated with guesses, insights from folk who have some connection with some museum or other where Airfix have scanned this or that. More guesses. The odd whinge and whine about prices. Assertions that Airfix absolutely must do this or that. This is or that is in the wrong scale. It’ll drift off topic a bit then there will be more guesses. When the show season arrives someone will pin a poor unfortunate Airfix employee in a corner of a display tent and report back that. ’When I said 1/24 Vulcan He went slightly pale’ This will then be discussed as proof that a 1/24 Vulcan is on the way.. Ultimately the thread is bourne out of the hope that someone at Airfix is reading it and collates the wishes / guesses into must do tooling list. I think we all know this probably doesn’t happen as the Model kit industry runs on a different product selection methodology. But the ‘fun’ is guessing. Somewhat like an Adult Santa’s wish list... Ultimately it harmless but shows the affection the BM membership has for Airfix. That’s it’s true value.. Take it easy Plasto