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Showing content with the highest reputation on 08/12/19 in Posts

  1. I just finished one build and before I started my next one I decided to do some repairs to my old Monogram B-36 bomber, and while I had if on the work bench I figured I would take some pictures. This kit has suffered the slings and arrow of outrageous fortune and several cleaning ladies that just have to dust everything. The nose and tail guns have been replaced several times and the propellers drop like flies. But I think I have it back in shape. This was painted with a combination of SNJ metalizer and Flowquil Old Silvers, neither of which are available anymore. It is by far my biggest build, bigger even then the B-52.
    52 points
  2. Dear fellow Britmodellers, here's the new 1/72 Zvezda Pe-2 in markings of 34th Guards Bomber Regiment, Leningrad, December 1944. I built from the box with addition of Mini Art defense guns. Painted with Gunze/Mr.Hobby acrylics. Photographs by Wolfgang Rabel. The new Zvezda kit is excellent in detail and fit, comparable to Tamiya offerings. Alternative parts enable you to build aircraft of different production batches. 5 attractive color options are included, 4 Russian, 1 Polish post-war. The kit decals perform exceptionally well. I really enjoyed building this model kit and can recommend it to all modelers with an interest in Russian WW2 aircraft. Thank you for your interest in this topic. Best greetings from Vienna!
    30 points
  3. 56th FIS Wright Patterson AFB
    25 points
  4. Hi comrades! Here is my take on AMT kit. Despite the kit's age, it was a pleasant build. Aftermarket used: Foxbot decals (excellent!) Eduard brass (intermediate, not everything helpful) True detail resin wheels and rescue inflatable boat - (nice) Montex masks for canopy and standard markings (excellent) Quickboost engines, cowlings and browning's - (good, but engines were additionally wired ) Scratchbuilt: engines wiring, wheel wells wiring, wings navigation lights, tail light enhanced. Thanks for looking The build is here
    23 points
  5. Hi everyone, just finished this and thought I'd post a few pics. Had a lot of satisfaction while building this, it seemed to go well and I seemed to fly through it in a month or so which is super fast for me. I am in awe of the men who actually flew these things. As I was making it i was struck by the fragility of what the real thing must have been like. Surely one dodgy landing and the plane would crumple. This is the plane that Lanoe Hawker was killed in after a dogfight with the Red Baron. The blurb with the kit says Richthofen described his duel with Hawker as "the most difficult battle I have had" after expending 900 rounds of ammunition. As the pics show there is a lot of rigging with this kit, I had to have a lie down after each session If I had one small criticism of Wingnut Wings its that I do sometimes find the rigging diagrams a bit confusing, I know that's a bit like trying to find fault in Margot Robbie but I do wish they were a bit clearer on the intricate sections of rigging. Im still brush painting and I seem to have reached a plateau of how good I can make things look. I can never decide whether to take the plunge into getting an airbrush. Overall I am happy with it though, which is the main thing. What a very therapeutic hobby this wonderful pastime is. As usual I think I have struggled with the pics but I would love to hear any comments about what you guys think, good or bad. I'm now at my usual dilemma of trying to decide what to make next. Many thanks and best wishes to all for the new year, Martin
    23 points
  6. Hello all, This is my recently built 1/72 Hasegawa RF-101C Voodoo. I used a Pavla aftermarket ejection seat as the kit's ejection seat is pretty basic. The wheels and gear doors are from a Valom F-101 kit, which I never finished. The model was painted with Vallejo Metal Colors. A final coat of Model Master semi-gloss was applied to dull down the finish a bit. The decals are from the both the Valom kit and the Hasegawa kit. The Valom decals are nice and thin, but they are fragile. Although the Hasegawa kit is quite old (released 1969), it does go together nicely. Cheers, Mark Pavla ejection seat
    21 points
  7. Hi all Here is my RAN A4G Skyhawk finally finished 4 months after my last post -it is a shelf of doom rebuild. WIP link here - https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235027738-ran-a4g-skyhawk/ The main list of parts used and some of the detailing as follows - Avionix A4E resin cockpit Aires resin Wheel bays and white metal landing gear set AMS resin wheels Eduard slat and vortex generators etch SAC Buddy Pod Master refuelling probe and cannon barrels Flight Path USN Carrier Deck set provided the ladder and wheels chocks Maketar paint mask for RAN roundels - - fin checks masked by hand - very fiddly AOA A4 airframe stencil decal sheet Scratch intake and exhaust blanks push moulded wing navigation lights & hazard beacons scratch built forward engine bay door port scratch built detailing added to landing gear & wing pylons various Quickboost bits and pieces like scoops a generous donation of spare Hasegawa A4 sprues from a fellow modeller Finally allocated a spot in the display case thanks for looking CJP
    18 points
  8. Being Austrian, the topic of Aviation is something, that you're only involved from a distance, if any. Apart from being famous for the prolongued use of Swedish flying history (we used the Draken until 2005, making it a 50 year old plane in active service) and difficult purchasing processes, there isn't much aviation happening in Austria in the recent years. That wasn't always the case, as in the very early days of aviation, the Royal Austro-Hungarian Aviation Troops (or K.u.K. Luftfahrttruppen) where the seventh-largest airforce in the world, While, to be honest, most of the models where derived from German models, there was a kind of an Aviation industry in Austria. Me definitely not being exposed to patriotic influences in a larger dose, this just being a bit of a historic sideletter to larger chapters in the book of flight. But not too long ago I found out, that one of the larger companies, the Phönix Flugzeugwerke AG, had it's original location close to where I was raised and used to play as a small boy in the 70ies. Even the original factory buildings where partly in use then, in my memory a transport carrier was located there until the early 2000s. So, this has become something a bit personal, and when I discoverd that Special Hobby had a DI in their offering, I had to order one sometimes last year or so. Giving it the usual time to mellow it in the stash, I stated to work on it this summer. Sorry for not involving you in a WIP, it just started as a side project and sort of a late night build, but nevertheless I finished yesterday. About the build; the modell is somekind of basic in some aspects, with only some 30 plastic parts, complemented by some resin- and photoetch parts, Some parts are really beautiful, like the body with nicely molded caps and lids, and some nicely structures for rivets and various structures, and some very parts are so basic, like struts and landing gear, it almost hurts. Also, there is no structure for holding or giving a bit of positioning aid when mounting the upper wings, so from a point in build, about when the lower wings has been mounted, I'd say, you mainly use CA-glue as, plastic cements just doesn't do the job any more. Also, the instructions are somewhat very basic, giving just an rough idea what to do. So there where moments when I sincerely doubted to finish this - but I've went through, but ordered some help in form of a biplane jig from JS models, without I doubt I would have been there. And, yes; I know there are other jigs as well, but this was the only one available late night, when I suffered a moment of deep desparation. For the version I wanted to display; as I didn't like the brown mottle camouflage offered with the decals, I decided to give here a bare livery without any paint, of natural wood and bare linen. I painted the wings in Light Stone Grey from Lifecolor, giving it a quite yellowy linen colour, the body/wood structure with Cold base Wood, also from Livecolor and giving it a cover of Uschi Van Der Rosten wood decals. For the rear struts (after some examination, if these are thin struts, not wires). I used some electric guitar strings. Beware, these are very strong and can easily kill some modelling tools. Caps and hoods were painted with Alclad Semi Matt Aluminium, which maybe turned out a bit to matte, but I think it's okay. Rigging is done with EZ Fine, I decided not to make any turnbuckles, as these are so tiny one would barely see. Maybe I'll change this in future builds of that scale, but I do not miss them overly on this, to be honest. Mayor difficulties where the installation of the upper wing, as stated before, the mounting of the exhaust pipes, which I didn't manage to align properly, due to having installed to upper wing prior, and not having drilled some holes at the very beginning, but according to the manual. While definitely not being perfect and having a lot of flaws, I'm happy so far with the result of this little bit of kind of exotic early aviation. 😉 Here are some impressions, some details look much harsher as on the real model, due to small size:
    18 points
  9. A little 'alternative history'.... Following the decisive success of the U.S. Coast Guard's once-classified armed interdiction helicopter program, the Guard's Office of Aviation Forces (CG-711) was directed to formulate a proposal to expand that interdiction capability to the possible use of fixed-wing aircraft. Tasked with an ever-larger share of Homeland Security responsibilities...and facing increasingly-sophisticated threats from narco-traffickers equipped with high-tech gear (including armored fast-boats, high-powered weapons and even submarines)...the Guard's planners studied a wide range of existing fixed-wing platforms as an economical basis to upgrade that airborne capability. The ideal candidate would be a proven and reliable twin-engine aircraft with a large and adaptable payload capacity (sufficient for more 'enhanced' offensive options), excellent low-speed and low-altitude functionality, and acceptable range and loiter-time to undertake both interdiction and the Guard's ever-present search and rescue missions. A more indefinable (but highly desirable) quality would be the ability to get 'down and dirty': to go toe-to-toe with potential and ever-expanding threats, to maintain the enforcement mission with which the Coast Guard has always been proudly tasked. The new concept -- labeled the 'Augmented Interdiction Asset' (AIA) Program -- was given a fast-track and a tentative priority funding, and high-level discussions were initiated between the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense. Options were studied, resource-allocations fiercely debated -- and perhaps a few arms twisted -- and at length a deal was struck...with a truly 'outside the box' solution having been found. In an all-too-rare example of inter-service procurement, ten of the Air Force's perennially-unloved A-10C Thunderbolt II aircraft -- fresh from the fleet-wide Enhanced Wing Assembly upgrade (designed to potentially extend service life to 2040 and beyond) -- were flown directly from Hill AF Base's Ogden Air Logistics Complex, to the sprawling Grumman Aerospace Systems facility at Palmdale, California. There, they would be modified to the Coast Guard's newly-created 'MA-10J' standard. Structural changes needed for the new mark were purposely kept to a minimum. Because the Guard's aircraft don't typically operate in a 'battlefield' combat-threat environment, the spaces occupied by the Air Force Warthog's many active radar-warning and counter-measure systems could effectively be re-purposed for integrated sensors more suited to the new marine search and interdiction roles. To increase range over water, the A-10's original single 'wet' centerline pylon (designed mainly for ferry flights) was augmented with two fully-plumbed wing pylons, capable of mounting standard external fuel tanks. A minor computer software upgrade would maximize the already-existing A-10C all-glass cockpit to the new USCG mission profile. The longer 'view' required for those missions would be supplied by what came, during development, to be somewhat whimsically referred to as the 'Three Magic Beans': three self-contained, pod-mounted systems --specially 'hardened' against the challenging marine environment -- chosen to provide long-range search/reconnaissance, targeting, and communications functions. 'Bean 1' would equip the radar-lacking A-10 with the An/ASQ-236 'Dragon's Eye' synthetic aperture radar pod -- already field-tested and optimized for use on the Air Force's fleet of combat-capable 'Hogs. 'Bean 2' would supply enhanced mission-specific search and targeting capabilities through a pod containing the groundbreaking new ViDAR™ Optical Radar system -- providing up to 80x greater ocean search coverage than existing EO/IR sensor suites, with enhanced small-object-at-sea-surface resolution. [This pod -- only slightly larger than the A-10's original 'Pave Penny' pod -- was adapted to fit on the same pylon as that now-redundant sensor, with only a slight modification needed to the existing mount structure.] 'Bean 3' would house the critical communications link: a purpose-developed full-spectrum 'Communication and Navigation Integrated System' (CaNIS) pod, with datalinks to tie the aircraft's systems to standard marine, civil and military nets, as well as the Coast Guard's own C41SR 'Rescue 21' advanced command, control and communications system. The offensive 'one-two punch' for the newly-designated MA-10J 'Seabolt' -- known, perhaps inevitably, to her affectionate crews as the JayHawg -- would be provided by ordnance already tried and tested as primary weapons throughout the Air Force Warthog's long and distinguished career. The signature GAU-8 rotary cannon would be retained without modification, for its decisive stopping power against fast-moving narcotics smugglers and potential terrorist threats. Further offensive capability would come in the form of the familiar Maverick EO/IR guided missile...specifically the AGM-65F, the Navy's version specially-optimized for the anti-shipping role. No need for air-to-air missile armament was anticipated. To support the Coast Guard's other fundamental role -- their core search-and-rescue mission -- the A-10's generous load-carrying ability and numerous pylons would be utilized for rescue-specific stores: air-droppable life rafts for at-risk mariners, and similar droppable modular CSS (Containerized Survival Store) canisters carrying medical supplies, rations and communications equipment which might be needed in critical rescue and survival situations. The (10) MA-10J JayHawgs were commissioned into service in June 2018 to great acclaim...and an already-heavy waiting workload. They are organized as the provisional FITRON (Fixed-wing Interdiction Tactical Squadron) 10, with administrative H.Q. -- shared with the armed-helicopter HITRON interdiction squadron -- at Jacksonville, Florida. In practice, small numbers of the aircraft are regularly deployed on a rotating basis as needed, with principle operating sites being the Coast Guard Air Stations at Clearwater Florida, Corpus Christi Texas, and the joint-services Naval Base Ventura County (formerly NAS Point Mugu) in Port Hueneme, California. Postscript: While the technology mentioned above is (mostly) very real, the rest is...quite obviously...insanely untrue. (But it makes a grand excuse to dress up the old 'Hog in striking Coast Guard colors...and to use up but a few of a large cache of suitable decals in my vast 'spares' collection.) Kit is the solid 1/72 Academy A-10A, built mostly OOB with 'pods' and stores scratched up from spare drop tanks, styrene stock and bits of sprue. Decals from assorted commercial sheets, with nose art homemade. Hope you enjoy the 'What if.' And on a very personal note: this build is fondly dedicated to the memory of my childhood friend John Chindblom, who went on to serve proudly and with great distinction as a Chief Petty Officer in the United States Coast Guard. John passed away in 2001, at the all-too-tender age of 44, after a valiant battle with cancer. Johnny...I hope this would bring you a grin.
    17 points
  10. Hi all here is my Tamiya Spitfire MK1a (61119) I finished this back May/June and only just got round to posting here I decided before starting this kit that I wanted to do something different and try new things I finished it as a 19 Squadron spit serial N3200 code QV using Topnotch Cammo and insignia Masks ( a first for me ) Ive tried to replicate it as close as possible when it was lost on operations on 26th May 1940 having been shot down but not before it brought down a Junkers Ju87 Tamiya paints used throughout the build figures from Tamiya and ICM (another first in doing figures) Thanks for looking and enjoy Happy modelling Photo credit unknown
    17 points
  11. Another one from the stash finished. Great kit to put together only let down by the now infamous dayglo decals. On the tip tanks they took about 6 or 7 applications of Microsol to conform to the curves, and i completely gave up on the wing leading edges after they cracked and disintegrated completely. Ended up spraying the wings with the closest match that i could. Doesn't look too bad from a distant and fills a gap in my 1960s RAF training collection nicely 🙂. Finished with Vallejo Model Color for the grey and Humbrol 207 for the dayglo touch up. Thanks for looking. With Matchbox Piston Provost.... ...and Airfix Vampire T.11.... Collection building up nicely.....
    16 points
  12. Hello, this was just quick relax project with easy click B-25 Mitchell from Revell (ex old Monogram snap-tite), how it will look when glued and painted ..airbushed with Revell aqua Martin 20191208_122216 by Martin Kubis, on Flickr 20191208_122323 by Martin Kubis, on Flickr 20191208_122332 by Martin Kubis, on Flickr 20191208_121928 by Martin Kubis, on Flickr
    15 points
  13. I sprayed the whites of the roundels tonight; normally white is a pretty unpleasant colour to spray, I find, but I managed to recently secure a tin of Colourcoats V-Bomber White, and friends, it is magical. Really well-behaved, excellent coverage, so far seems so good! Hopefully we'll have time to add the roundel red tomorrow. It's my dad's birthday party (my present for him is that I haven't written my memoirs), my mother-in-law is coming in, and we have an open house tomorrow again. We looked at houses today, and we found one we love, but it's quite a bit more than we'd like to pay; at worst, though, it gives us a list of what to look for. It occurs to me that this means I'm officially an Influencer, and I stand ready to be bought like an Ottoman bureaucrat should any brands be listening in. I have no dignity, no shame, and I'm going cheap! That said, I should thank Cookie for letting me know about the Procon Boy airbrushes, which are allegedly made by the same Japanese factory that makes the Iwata brushes, but whether or not that's true (and I have no frame of reference, because I've never used an Iwata), they're performing really well for me (especially since JD sent me a set of quick disconnects for them, which really do make a huge difference when swapping out brushes), and seem to be, if this makes any sense, "smoother" than my old Badger brushes.
    13 points
  14. And here are some more photographs of the details I love this anchor, all scratch made from bits of brass, the flukes fold and the cross bar slides to it fully folds per full scale practice These leather cushions are made from brown fimo, can't remember how many failed attempts it took to get them right Underneath the seat is the silencer and exhaust, with a grill to protect the passenger's legs The engine room bulkhead with fire extinguisher, great graphic made by Nigel at Flightline Graphics. The rev counter image came from an illustration I found on line. You can see the lifebouy rope well in this shot, made on a rope-walk I used to have. My Christmas Break project is to make another, better one The steering wheel was etched (4 pieces), is works with a servo controlling the bowden cables The hand operated light works if a battery is installed. Checker plate is diagonal mesh soldered to copper plate, centre section lifts out Beautiful arrangement of the rudder and propeller bushing. Exhaust in the background Steve
    13 points
  15. Storm Atiyah hitting these shores today: Co.Kerry's just shot up to a red warning and we're expecting big winds to hit where we are this evening further northwards so cracking this out before any power cuts. 🌬️🍃🎐 Most kind of you Chris: there'll be one going up at some stage during the week, sunlight permitting! 😁 'Fraid so Crisp. P.99 and we are done!: You're a wicked man Adrian. ... I just knew there had to be a better reason for the Heinous Hawk Hiatus than merely cycling round the world twice Steve. So. In under the century with the props and rudder on this morning. Some of the paint touchups involved more complicated masking than originally anticipated due to the proximity of roundels but pleased to say that aside from knocking the large point aerial err....aside, no parts were dislodged. Don't fancy heading out into Atiyah with Annie and a camera today so expect an RFI during the week when the light is kinder and the atmosphere in less of a foment. A few teasers to keep you going until then: It's been a long haul hasn't it? I don't mind admitting its taken it's toll somewhat on the Baronial carcass... What on Earth am I going to do with my days now? Tony
    12 points
  16. Also, a few details I would like to present to your hopefully forgiving consideration...
    11 points
  17. Here is my build of the classic Hasagawa kit SOC-3 Seagull off of the Light Cruiser USS Phoenix. This was an easy kit to build and reminded me that all the Hasagawa kits are well engineered and, althighh they sometimes lack the detail of the current Eduard kits, are a dream to build with few, if any hiccups. Hurrah for that! I didn't do any weathering on this, preferring to keep it ship shape, etc...as it indeed might have been for a time pre-WW2 conflict. It also looks really good all bright and shiny. All the paints are Vallejo or Vallejo Air...aside from the radio antennae inside the cockpit, all OOB. Many thanks for the GB hosts, mods, etc...another fine on-line get-together and fun was had by all... --John
    11 points
  18. Hi folks, this is new addition in my IAF collection. Special Hobby made a fine job on this elegant French fighter and it is excellent kit just of ouf the box; in addition I used Eduard etched mainly for the flaps air brakes. This re-engined Sambad flew with no.105 Scorpion squadron in early 1970's. Cheers Libor
    9 points
  19. This is my 1/72 Northrop Grumman E-8C Joint STARS build using the Heller E-3 Sentry kit and the Flightpath (David Parkins) E-8 conversion. May of 2018 I build the Heller kit as an E-3 and my opinion of the kit has not improved; very poor fit and finish almost as bad as Mach 2. But the decals were excellent. The Flightpath conversion contains a resin canoe,etched metal antennas and templates for the added doors and windows, and some white metal parts. No decals are included. The instruction are OK, but they make no mentions about marking so I used this picture from Wikipedia as my guide I had used the Flightpath TF-33 engines on the E-3, but based on this picture the housing shape is different and more closely resemble the kit parts so I decided to use them. You will notice from the picture that all 4 engines have a hood on top of them that goes from the front of the pylon to the front of the engine. I got half way through the build when I discovered that the Heller kit had that hood on only 3 of the engines but not the left outboard one . I am told that is correct for the KC-135 and maybe some E-3s, but not the E-8, at least not this one. I was a bit of a loose how to fix this and went on Ebay to see if I could get another kit for cheap to use one of the engines when miraculously I found someone in the UK selling just the engine sprue from the kit. So I bought that immediately. Unfortunately it had to be shipped from the UK to the US so while I was waiting I built the Monogram F-16XL kit. Once the new sprue came work proceeded fairly quickly. Wolfpak made a decal sheet (72-077) that included E-8 markings but unfortunately I did not have the foresight to buy it when it was available and it is now out of production. Fortunately the markings for the E-3 and E-8 are mostly the same so I was able to use the kit ones and only had to cobble together the tail markings from bit and pieces from other sheets. I rushed the final completion so I could get it finished in time to bring it to my local club's meeting tonight. That worked out and it won the monthly contest 🏆. So here are the pictures. And here it is in its new home. It is pretty big and takes up a whole shelf to itself Next up is the Hasegawa F-G Wild Weasel. Enjoy.
    9 points
  20. Another off the bench. It's the 1/48 Airfix offering. Decals by Xtra decal. Great little kit. No issues to note. Doing the Tamiya kit at the same time which is a lot simpler to build. Will be looking forward to the Eduard weekend edition to compare. Many thanks for looking ….please feel free to comment etc. Dick
    9 points
  21. Today. Hhhhmmmnnnn. The bin was close. Very close. It was tempting. Very tempting. That damned Fly thing very nearly ended up in it today. But first a roundup of the weeks happenings such as fitting the last of the brass handles. Uneventful, but satisfying. Then a touch of black for the fuel points Stating to look as if there is a finish line ahead, somewhere. A spare half hour saw me getting the gloss coat on. The 28 SQN Pegasii went on the tail at last. Looking not too shabby though they are a tad on the small side - but they'll do. All in all, the tail doesn't look too bad despite the earlier damage. and from the other side... That was all straightforward stuff, all going according to plan. Until today that is. The morning started off with discovering that the gloss coat has some white'ish marks here and there. Now whether those will disappear under another gloss coat and a flat coat remains to be seen. Today's plan was to get at least one side of the transfers done and I Started off with the Alpha on the nose. Easy peasy. Then it all went south. I had to use individual characters for the serial, and that went okay - until I went to add some MicroS2 - I just touched the brush to the X and a chunk of it came away. Damn. After that it went from bad to worse. I managed to get one or two (Caracal) decals in place. Most of the Fly transfers are completely unusable. Their stencils are the size of bill boards. Riddled with spelling errors - Stripe instead of Strip. Acess instead of Access Graphics such as the jacking point are about 4 times the size they should be Most of the other graphics aren't even included. - Such as the arrows for the handles Close - Open etc. No roundels for the airframe I am depicting. The transfers that are actually usable are the wrong color. Fly provide a black version and a white version (28 SQN stencils were yellow), and when they do provide a yellow version, there aren't enough. After about 4 hours of increasing frustration I walked away and when I came back I started on the cabin step, but soon left that as the mojo was not cooperating much. I'm not sure what I am going to do with this regarding transfers. I think it will end up missing most of them. Does anyone have a good paint reference for the roundel colors?
    9 points
  22. Thanks Stuart, glad you like them Thanks Ced, much appreciated See below for some more work on the canopy So, I started posing the decals/stickers; actually, I began from the pylons stencils, because I had no recollection on how Revell decals behave, so I thought I'd try with something not so visible In fact, I noticed the decal sheet says "Printed in Italy for Revell", so chances are that they are Cartograph - In fact they are pretty thin and go down well. I then moved to the 1000lt tanks nineteen (19) stencils each, including this nice NO STEP Which is basically the only one you can read In the middle of all of this (and for my own sanity) I started adding some internal framing to the canopy, using the very advanced and technological device you see in next pic to hold the styrene strip in place while waiting for Gator's Grip to set Now on for more decals - next update tomorrow, probably.... All comments welcome, meanwhile Ciao
    9 points
  23. Hi gents, Thought these might be of interest, especially as the 493rd FS F-15C in the D-Day anniversary scheme is due to be painted back to normal soon, if the 48th's comments of social media are accurate. Shot on Wednesday of this week in some nice light on the 24 approach. They didn't fly the similarly marked 492nd F-15E either, although that has been active this week. The third, the yellow tailed 494th FS jet has gone, as it's back in the US on overhaul and it will almost certainly come back blank. The 493rd 'heritage' jet, 84-0010 landing Wednesday afternoon as the second jet in 'Hitman' flight. Still seems strange to see a single seater painted in F-15E grey. Also a few routine shots of the 492nd and 493rd, the final squadron, the 494th is deployed for six months. Some of the 492nd still retain their mission tallies from their 2017 deployment. The 492nd's newly marked flagship has also strangely now acquired a green star on the nose, well after their last deployment operationally in late 2017. I can only assume they've decided to credit it with a UAV kill in a similar manner to 97-0219, the heritage jet. Still a few 494th left behind, presumably borrowed by the 492nd. Last light of the day, with a C and D paired up. Hope that's worth a look. Gary
    8 points
  24. Hello, I build some time ago the D.I Special Hobby: Phönix D.I K.u.K. Kriegsmarine again in 1/48. The plastic parts are somehow of short run quality, but really not bad! The kit comes even with PE and resin parts. I added some further details like Gaspatch turnbuckles and airspeed indicator, and wooden parts like airscrew and struts. And this was my first model with a "rubber" rigging, painting of the light effects on the wing ribs and a wooden plated fuselage! It was a experiment and with a fail it would only be visible from below Painting was done with Gunze and Alclad. Happy modeling, Frank The real wooden bottom side: And a nice view: The curved front was the hardest part: The resin cooler is really cool and was part of the kit, painted with Alclad: The Gaspatch speed indicator ... ... was really in use:
    8 points
  25. Kitech 1\32 Blue Thunder. Not bad for what the kit is at least it looks like blue thunder and I actually enjoyed the build and I am pleased with the results.
    8 points
  26. Here she is...the rest are in the gallery... --John
    8 points
  27. Great looking Tomcat, Steve. Looks FAST already! This is a drawing I made years ago. The shape of these machines on the deck in a haze of catapult steam is fantastic.
    8 points
  28. The decalling of the aircraft was completed yesterday: Pic 326: The sharp end of the ship. A bit of touching up of the Flight Deck grey is required but it is looking okay: Pic 327: The aft end: Pic 328: A view from the other side: Pic 329: The rudders were fitted and I now need to make good the damage around them and the 'A' brackets. Unfortunately, I have almost run out of red paint but luckily I have an order of fresh paint on the way: Pic 330: I wasn't happy with the striped decalling on the Flight Deck so I removed it all. Here I have masked off the yellow area so that I can sand it back before repainting it and applying new decals: Pic 331: Here I am decalling the Lift warning lines and I have fitted a pair of HF Loop antennae aft of the AS6000s. HMS Queen Elizabeth was built with a pair of Cobham Type HF Loop antenna aft of the AS6000s and when I built my QE model they were taken from the Airfix HMS Illustrious. HMS Prince of Wales has been fitted with a different type of annenae (Comrod NVIS HF230L-N) and HMS Queen Elizabeth will be getting her Cobham Type antennae replaced by HF230L-N during her first refit. Despite this, I used the Cobham Type from HMS Illustrious again as the difference is minimal and only noticeable to nerds: Pic 332: Nearly completed: Pic 333: The Forward Lift and it’s chains need to be fitted. Pic 334: Everything has been glued on now, including aircraft and the ship has been mounted on it’s proper base: Pic 335: Pic 336: Pic 337: Pic 338: Pic 339: Pic 340: Pic 341: Pic 342: The handover of the model to Darrell Burge (Head of Brand for Airfix at Hornby Hobbies): Pic 343: As I said at the start of this build thread, this model was commissioned by Airfix for display at SMW 2019 (where the last six pictures were taken) and it's final home will be the Hornby Hobbies Visitor Centre in Margate. If you have managed to read through this whole thread or even followed me through the build on the ATF, I thank you all for your staying power. Hope you enjoyed the journey that began with a single step (or a single sheet of plastic card). Dave
    8 points
  29. Hello everyone, Here is what will be my last model for 2019; Eduard's 1/72 MiG-21MF "Fighter-Bomber" kit completed as 9712 of the 9th Fighter Air Regiment, Czechoslovak Air Force as based at Bechyně in the period 1989-93. The kit is almost OOB but I managed to loose part D47 (rather vital for locating the exhaust!!) and used Eduards own resin replacement exhaust set. Paints are primarily Humbrol (186 and 149 for the uppers, 65 for the underside) supplemented by Xtracolor and Sovereign Hobbies tins. Although I have a 1/72 Spitfire Mk VIII and 1/48 Oeffag Albatros D.III in the stash, this is the first Eduard kit that I've completed and I must say that I'm very impressed - I didn't have to use filler and any mistakes in construction are purely down to me! Roll on the upcoming MiG-21PFM and PF kits! Only three photos unfortunately as although today has been a nice sunny day here in the North East of Scotland the light still wasn't that great for indoor photography! Comments welcome, Mike.
    7 points
  30. Hello everyone! Here is the other Mark I Models 1:144 Westland Wessex kit I built back in 2015. It is Wessex HAS.1 XM840/300-R, No 815 NAS Fleet Air Arm, HMS Ark Royal, mid-1960s. I applied the same fix to the rotor mast as I did to my Uruguayan HC.2. The kit was fully painted and varnished by brush. Thanks for looking and all comments are welcome. Miguel
    7 points
  31. Hi Folk's,built about three years ago the photo's were lost in the PB ransom episode,long forgotten @Adam Poultney came across it minus the photo's so after a good wash 'n dry heres a few of her.
    7 points
  32. Nacelle mounted. Needs a touch up here and there but it’s straight and sturdy. Thinking about the “7” but meanwhile I need to crack on with the dio base. Thanks for dropping in. Dennis
    7 points
  33. Red paint on the nacelles. There's a little scrape on the black from removing the masking tape but otherwise not at all bad.
    7 points
  34. The wings and engines are nearly finished now so it's time to move to the fuselage. I'm thinking of putting it away for a few weeks and doing a few quick builds that I can get over the line for 2019 as the output is pretty measly so far! The evening has been spent riveting and tidying things up...
    7 points
  35. I glued "engine tower" on position: To finish I have to add armament (MGs and bombs intalation) and turrets details Cheers J-W
    7 points
  36. Airfix Spitfire PRXIX as per the Film, painted with Humbrol acrylics, varnished with Winsor and Newton Matt. Codes and serials from Xtradecal roundels/flashes/gundope from Airfix.
    7 points
  37. Hi all here is my recently finished 1:48 Italeri F-16 (2786) I finished it in the markings of a Portuguese Air Force F-16AM markings are 20 Years of F-16 in Portuguese Service by Model Maker Decals Mr Hobby Color paints used H305,H306,H307 and H308 For main colours plus Tamiya paints for minor parts An enjoyable build despite some fit issues with the undercarriage Thank you for looking and enjoy Happy Modelling
    6 points
  38. They cant all be historic busts. I bought this one a while ago, from Blacksun Miniatures titled "Abdel Rashid ", but I titled him " Desert Nomad", I was going to have a clever name like " Felis Tuareg" but kept it simple. I really didnt know how to paint him, what colour the cloth should be etc, I had an idea that the cloth should look the indigo dyed fabric worn by the Tuareg. Then Scale 75 released the Elven colours paint set, just the shades of blue I needed. So started painting, copied reference pics of lions, got to the point where I was happy with the face and couldnt suss why the paint was so thin and glossy on the cloth. so sat scratching my head shaking the bottle for a few minutes And there was the answer, boy do they take some mixing, but wow do they dry matt. I painted a simple check pattern on the cloak then left the paint a few days to settle and used the small amount of pigment in the thinner as a glaze over the top, kinda works. And again he did me proud with a silver at Telford in sci fi/fantasy busts. And a bronze at Bugle Call I've no idea how I'm going to top this year, very happy camper. Regards Mick
    6 points
  39. Good afternoon, gents. Only a small update on this occasion...not much for a months work, I know, but that's the way the cookie crumbles in scratch-world sometimes . Ok then, uprights and steering arms... 1st attempt- Turned from white-metal in the Dremel, then drilled a 2mm hole through the length to accept a 2mm brass tube. This was then soldered in place with low temp solder (70C) and the soldering-iron. After sawing the bracket slots I drilled for the stub-axles and then soldered the brackets. The arms are aluminium. It was only when I dry-fit them that I realised that the stub axles would be about 3mm too low (more than the suspension-travel would allow) ...D'OH!!!! The second attempt was going really well, until I mistakenly picked up the torch instead of the soldering-iron and made a puddle... Third time lucky. This time the top part is brass for extra strength- Well, that's all for now, folks!! I hope you enjoy and, as always, thanks for watching. Cheers, H
    6 points
  40. So here we go with the double build. The manuals let you start with the tires. Dragon with its option for 6 or 8 hole rims, Cyber Hobby only the 6 hole rims. For the Dragon kit, the 8 hole rims go with gun option, which in fact was a special cross country build for the Wehrmacht. All the other options with the Dragon kit are civilian trucks occupied from Opel production lines. Later on when the complaints came about broken rims, all 3t Opel Blitz got the 8 hole rims, which were much better / stronger and suitable for cross country. Wheels glued, primed and painted. Rubber color will be done by hand. Also my first mistake. Don't glue the steering parts to the rims in this stage of the build. I did, not a big disaster, but its simply not clever for paining the tires. Anyhow, next up were the chassis of the trucks. A solid 'one piece chassis' to start with. Manual says to attach the engine and cooler at this point. Well I don't do that, because it needs some extra details. Will show what I mean in another part of this blog later on. So this is what I have now: The two chassis: attached are the fuel tank, holder for Jerrycan, structure for cargo bed, hooks on both side, pintle, leaf springs and axles. Both have a coat of Acrylic Primer and a base coat German Grey (Tamiya TS-4 Building kits in sub assemblies is favorite with me. It gives a build some pace. Dry fit of the cargo bed. Will make pictures from the underside of the bed tomorrow, I forgot to do this today. Its a real nice piece of model engineering the Dragon and Cyber Hobby kits have for you as the builder. If you can get your hands on one of these kits, buy it, buy both, just do it. Low side boards completed, front is glued to bed, rest will have to wait. Mud guards, spare wheels and engine coolers primed. All goes very smooth so far. Chassis in base color German Grey (Tamiya TS-4) Engine hood, dashboard and cabin floor. The fit of parts is just great. Details are (really) outstanding. Never seen such a nice build up / engineering. Dashboard parts, cabin floor and engine hood, all dry fit That is it for today. More to follow soon. Hopefully with some color and detail painting for the cabin. Also will start detailing the engine, which is a real nice tiny moulded piece of Art. Just needs some extra attention to make it even more special. Kind regards, Robert Jan
    6 points
  41. Mrs Gorby is getting suspicious as to where all the lids are going. She's developing a haunted look, so I needed to find a good (easy) way of making reasonably accurate cylinders/tubes. The lids I originally pinched for the two main wheels turned out to be unsuitable – the plastic was too thin and poor quality. Fortunately, along came a brain wave of truly tsunami proportions (although in hindsight it was more like a ripple that'd be unlikely to make an ant loose it's balance). Remember back when we were at primary school learning about dinosaurs and other current events? We used to use scissors to curl paper and stick them to other bits of curled paper for our parents to throw in the bin when we got home. Using the same method 0.25mm styrene curls very easily (I used the brass rods as I'm more likely to injure myself with scissors than when I was five). 0.5mm was a bit more effort (using the back of a scalpel blade) but still worked well. 0.75mm was equally successful but required a stronger device (the gouge/chisel). Even when I trained as a draughtsman I rarely used pi. I've used it more on my last three scratch-builds than since I left school. It's almost as if it was worth going to school. Not a lot of my education seems to have stuck, but is it my fault if I haven't got a sticky brain? Rather than use the currently known 31 trillion digits of pi, 3.142 was close enough to find the length of the side walls then a narrower tab was glued to the inside so that when the full circle was done the front and back face could slot inside using the inner tab as a stop/spacer. I didn't take any photos of the assembly as I'm giving you credit to be able to understand written instructions (okay, I forgot to take photos). The single small front wheel started it's modelling career as a Micro Sol lid. Little did it know when it was young that one day it would be discovered and go on to achieve great things. Unfortunately it got that wrong, as I chopped half it's body away drilled holes in it and hid it's natural beauty behind layers of plastic. Here it's been shown having a face lift. Originally I'd used double sided tape (as in my A7V build) but it wasn't up to the job. I had to apply super glue to it as you would normally use Tamiya Extra thin. Bit messy, but worked well. The wheels temporarily in place: The blob on the deck (?) is a drop of water to see if the deck is level. The thing I thought would be the next most difficult bit turned out to be quite easy – if a little fiddly. It's what I believe is called an 'elliptic leaf spring'. Only one of my reference pictures shows this springy thing, the rest don't, but I like it so it's in. First I made a simple, and pretty tiny jig. Over the two bits of tube on the jig slip two fatter bits of tube and the first strip of 0.3mm plastic gets wrapped around. Then: Off the jig so that I don't end up with a nice springy thing – but stuck to a bit of wood: Looks a mess as it's before it got cleaned up. That's just a wooden 3mm thick spacer in the middle: Front wheel assembled and primed: Time for my Robey to get some body and other extremities. There is much to catch up with, as a result, this post is turning into something of an ordeal. It was about this time that my mojo hit the buffers. Due to all the reference photos bickering about their petty details, I was wondering if the build was possible at all. I abandoned modelling and went of to do something completely different, but of equally futility. The only reason I returned to it is that I've never ditched a project part way through and I didn't want to start now. It was also because I found something I want to have a go at building – that won't happen until this out of the way. I needed more reference pics. A glass half full sort of person would have relished the opportunity to search down the missing information and set off skipping though fields of daisys, whistling merry tunes. A glass half empty person would have thought “sod it” and punched a rabbit or something. I'm more of a “who pinched half my bloody drink” sort of chap, and ploughed grimly on for two days through the deep dark Google mines. I found a bit more, but it only added to the confusion. Damn. Anyway, back to the only type body-building I'm ever likely too do. This is the underside of the deck (if I was playing Tetris, I'd have lost). The bits on either side are water tanks. Next the boiler gets fitted (odd that, it looks like half a test tube). The cone at the top was the result of plan B, as so many of these bits are. The ruins of 'cone - plan A', all three attempts: Plan B was just four disks glued together (the pole is to keep them central) and then turned on my mini lathe like this: Okay, it's a Dremel with delusions of grandeur. I couldn't resist putting the bits together. Next I need to dress the body and as my Robey is dead macho, this should under no circumstances be referred to a skirt. As I seem to be drawn to things covered in rivety pimples, I've re-purposed a bradawl to make the experience less painful (for me, not you). I've got no idea what the things on either side of the deck are. One image shows them as rectangular and one shows them with rounded fronts. I went with rounded. The yellow stuff is the double sided tape before the backing is removed. No prizes for guessing the base for the steering wheel is half a wheel from the spare parts supply. The riveting on the deck is a work of fiction. Like much of the build really. As I've not been doing this modelling business for long, I haven't got many spare bits to rummage through. This is my entire mini hoard: Coal bins for the back. There is only a little empty space at the top so that I don't have to fill the whole bin with 'coal'. I remember reading somewhere, somewhen, that coal is one of the few things that modellers can use that can be used for itself in miniature. If you see what I mean. But I haven't any coal and having a bag delivered is probably likely to be considered to be overkill, when all I needed was one lump. I'll probably use crumbled cork. In the original engraving I showed a few posts back, the funnel is a little dull. I can't have dull. Most of the other images I've found show a much more flashy funnel. As is so often the case, plan A failed. I tried sawing a few mill down from the top, all the way around the tube, splaying the petals outward and inserting tiny triangular wedges in the gaps. It sort of worked, but it was so fiddly and time consuming I gave up. I desperation I had a rummage in my drawers and thought this might be a possibility: After filing, scraping, puttying and sanding, I'm quite please with the result: I have no evidence that this was on any Robey steamer, as this build is delving into the realm of fiction, mine does. I know you can buy plastic 'I' beams, but I've never had a use for them, I just wanted to see if I could make them. Saw a square tube lengthways, Glue them back to back, Tadaaaaaaa. All together now….. If you've managed to get this far, some countries would award you a medal and a small pension. This, being Britain, I'll just say “Ta”.
    6 points
  42. Many thanks Adrian I got the main decals on this morning really coming together now.
    6 points
  43. I thought at 100 pages it deleted all the content and started again at page 1...
    6 points
  44. This is IMHO a very dangerous approach... It is impossible to know today what threat will appear tomorrow and given the time needed to develop a new aircraft it is necessary to have in service at any time something capable of dealing with the worst possible threat. Following your logic the RAF should have not bothered developing high speed fighters in 1933 as the only use of air power in the previous 10 years had been colonial policing operations.. imagine fighting the BoB with Lysanders.. It is also not true that An A-10 could have performed the missions typical of the kind of war fought in the last 10-15 years by Western air forces.. operations over Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan have required precision strikes that the A-10 was never capable of carrying out and in conditions where an A-10 would have been totally unsuited for. There's also the matter of power projection: the deployment of a wing of modern fighters is a deterrent that most countries will take seriously, a wing of A-10s would be a joke for anyone with a half decent air defence system
    6 points
  45. Wow, how time flies--while updates have been thin, production on this build has been steady but slow. First up are a few more reference photos of PS-U--I have decided to go with the Airfix decals as I believe the lighter blue on the fin flash is interesting--sadly my research has not provided greater insight into the story of PS-U, (does any one have better info) never-the-less I believe from the instructions it participated in the Battle of Britain. The references I found are (this awesome build on Britmodler-- by @06/24--well done Jon! Leveraging Jon's research I found the attached photos https://www.raf-in-combat.com/downloads/july-2015-bp-defiant-the-early-days-22-photos/ Based on my research I decided the turret was black on PS-U and based on the turret references in Valiant Wing's Defiant book, I determined the turret interior was black as well. As I am crewing my Defiant, I made the decision not to install the gunner's lower body shield so that I could put the figure in the aircraft. I also installed Eduard's repainted photo etch. As many have commented I found the kit's weapons when dry brushed satisfactory--but they do require this effort OOB. The most tedious part of the turret was, not surprisingly, masking the frame. Once the frame had been masked, I masked the interior with silly putty and sprayed the turret Tamiya TS-14 and completed final touch ups with Tamiya X-1 black The next step was to put on the final exterior photo etch, mask the canopy, airbrush RAF interior green for the canopy frames and then prime. Following this I did touch up sanding--I found this model fell together really well I then sprayed Tamiya Aircraft Aluminum to support follow on weathering over the primer and I airbrushed white on the propeller and spinner Thank you all for looking and hope all is well! Best Erwin
    6 points
  46. I start to do finishing works - like detailing KOR-1/Be 2. I added two small radio masts on MGs covers but also I add some wash. I used some black permament marker and pure etanol to wash out excess using small brush. Still some work is to done (bombs, waterline dirt, exhaust pipes...) Cheers J-W
    6 points
  47. Then wait no longer sir. I had a bit of an issue with the software upgrade this week, but the support team provided a fix, so the models were prepared and set up for printing Files then transferred to the printer... everything looking good but when it started printing, it appeared to be printing a solid block of plastic... not good! I stopped the print and investigated, and sure enough, it was printing one big solid block of plastic. Not good. Thankfully, I have a newer laptop in the basement which appeared to have accepted the upgrade without any issues so I reran the files on that laptop and tried again This time it appears to be printing the correct parts - in case you are wondering - those shapes are the base of the print which attaches to the build plate After a couple of hours it appears we have success. It always looks so bland when it first comes out of the tank but a quick wash in IPA and the details starts to show Some quick clean and the prints are a success. The luggage rack is incredibly flimsy so I may have to do some redesign work there to beef it up a bit. Very pleased with the diamond window though adn with the main windows though again, I may tweak the design just a touch next time around.
    6 points
  48. Ok...the Seagull is done and I set about to begin the Mossie...quick work as it s one of the older Airfix kits, designed for younger fingers than mine to build up over a rainy weekend! As promised, I fixed the nose. I used the Mk.VI nose, filled in the extraneous holes with Milliput and drilled two more. I'll just glue in the gun barrels separately. Easy enough. Then I set about assembling the larger components and the 'halves' that I could assemble. Not to worry! I didn't not forget the landing lights in the wings! And primed the rest of the smaller pieces including the cockpit interior bits. I will be painting them an interior cockpit green, much like the Spits of the era unless anyone had a better idea. I am assuming that Bab El Ehr's ground crew and pilots did not repaint the insides! --John
    5 points
  49. Various interior bits painted - classic 70s brown! - and I've given the body shell the first coat of the odd browny green colour. I've landed on a mix of two colours from Scale Modellers Supply - roughly 2 parts 'light khaki' to 1 part mid stone. In this photo it looks a bit bright, but to my eye it looks the part. cheers Julian
    5 points
  50. Since I know you've all been waiting with bated breath, I can divulge that my boss took me out for lunch at Jimmy John's, thereby obeying the letter, if not the spirit of Mrs P's enjoinder not to buy a lunch.
    5 points
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