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Finished this Do17Z built in the WW2 twins group build. It's the modern Airfix 1/72 kit which goes together quite nicely, apart from the engines which are a bit of a pain. Displayed next to my old tool version WIP thread:

Well, that's not a very flattering thing to call your wife! 😲

Was driving towards the offramp leading to a great local hobby shop, and my wife suggested I pop in for a treat. Left the motorway like Ari Vatanen rounding a corner! Anyway, came away with an Eduard MiG-15bis Profipack. Can't decide on the United Arab Republic or Hungarian scheme, both are visually compelling.

Good evening all, Here today I have my 2nd attempt at this Revell kit. The first was a disaster, broke pylons, glued the wings too far forward amongst other things. Parts used for this kit were the SBS models nose and pitot tubes and also the freightdog conversion kit. All other little modifications were scratch built (badly) by me and the decals were supplied by Xtradecal. I opted to use tiny neodymium magnets to connect the pylons to the wings which have turned out to work really well. Thanks for looking Dave

It's almost done. I have to add the props, wheel bay doors, fabricate a pitot tube and maybe some more small work. I also got a new camera set up with one of those photo tents, so I'm playing around with that a bit as well.

Hi Everyone, Had this kit lurking about unstarted for a couple of years, as I wanted to do a different scheme to the kit offerings So here`s Revell`s 1/48 Ventura done as an earlier aircraft in the two colour US Navy scheme and 1943 markings Finished to represent an aircraft flown by VB/VPB-136, Adak, Aleutian Islands, 1943 Built from a combination of the Octopus marked boxing and the more recent RAF marked issue The decals all came from the stash and used Steve Ginters `Naval Fighters Number 86` as main reference The `Grumpys` are a bit of artistic license as early Venturas often had factory applied Walt Disney Cartoon figures painted on them. Added a few blinds and curtains to the windows as quite a few photo`s seen to show. Lastly here it is with my earlier effort of the same kit in the markings of VB/VPB-135 also an Aleutians based aircraft Hope you enjoy, thanks for looking Cheers Russ

Bad for head-gasket repairs

The good old '163 Academy requires various interventions, both in the cockpit area… …and in the exterior of the fuselage, in the wings and finally in the complex undercarriage-skid. The specimen being built is the Me163 B V45, in charge of the Erprobungskommando 16, as it appeared in Bad Zwischenahn in July 1944. The following December it was used to test the SG500 rocket system, which caused irreparable damage to the airframe. The camouflage scheme, slightly different from that of most Komets, consists of RLM 81/82/76. The fuselage decals are Print Scale 72-303 and, as always, the model is painted entirely by brush with Humbrol Enamels color blends. View of the undersurfaces. Hope you like it. Thanks for your interest. Giampiero Piva

And another model completed and the photos go to the gallery, S.M. 79-II "Sparviero", 283 squadriglia, 130 gruppo autonoma, Mediterranean 1942. feel free to visit the gallery.

A few books this week. Thanks to @Pete in Lincs a copy of Michael Caine's "Blowing the Bloody Doors Off" from a local 2nd hand book seller & from Amazon a couple of books to get free postage. "Gone the Dark Night" by Graham Clayton, a follow up to his "Last Stand in Singapore" I read recently & the story of the recreated 488(NZ) sqn as a night fighter unit. Also, "To Save an Army", the story of the Stalingrad airlift by Robert Forsyth, a topic I've long been curious about, this should satisfy most of that I feel. Steve.

After having a couple of projects ruined by crappy Academy decals, the 'Red Tail' P-51C that they came from was left on the shelf. No more. First coat of primer is on, combat role identified, decals easily sourced from a totally different aircraft in the stash. Note that I used the Malcolm Hood that was an extra part in the kit. Stay tuned...

A suggestion for replacing the doors you so meticulously chain drilled out. As you have a second Mariner available, why not use that as a template to make a buck to then crash mould new doors? Gondor

Am a Brown Sauce on a Bacon Buty but chili sauce elsewhere. And the pen saved my sanity. Cheers Colin, I am impressed with the "Quilting effect" too. I tried that , leveled them off the best I could but still a lip sadly. Looks like a large sanding job coming up. Thanks @franky boy, @Hamden, @Retired Bob, @CH-53D, @elger, @dogsbody and @Stew Dapple. Well, how many shades of Black today ? Three.. Starting with Semi Gloss. Next NATO. Then Rubber. I have still to mask the tail wheel for the Aluminium. Wings and ailerons given a coat of primer. And the "Blanking Panels" added and filled, just a lot of sanding to do some when tomorrow. Sunshine .... Simon.

You could use plastic card, etc. to detail the internal structure. Just a thought. Cheers, Bill

Started stenciling. Still quite pristine-looking, will add some wee dirt later. Skipping stencils on the green tail, unsure if they’d put them back. Decided on olive drab warheads on the rockets, with dark grey or black fins. Haven’t found anything definite, so have to make a guess. The tanks look odd because they are hanging by a thread, literally. I always had problems getting tanks to stick on Airfix hardpoints.

I saw something interesting yesterday. The cat hid the little kittens in the woodshed. And she went somewhere on her cat business. At this time, the fox came and smelled the smell of kittens. See for yourself what happened next.

Having been quiet for a few days; well quietish on BM. The same could not be said for the Martian cave where I have been trying to juggle this beast with soldering another Zeppelin. Mrs Martian says that some of the expressions emanating from my room would make a Vogon blush. However, further reading has established that these as a bulkhead either end of the bunk compartment and that the same had a deckhead which supported a stool for the astrodome. This lets me off having to detail the entire interior of the hull. Most of the time has been spent sorting out the bulkhead and adding structure to the starboard side of the hull, all the time trying to ensure that it meets up with the portside structure. It did: eventually. I have some tidying up of the bulkhead and partition that goes just aft of it to do, so I am going to have to let the glue cure for a day or two. After a final push, you know, the one @general melchett is always going on about, we can then begin to think about adding equipment to the hull. No Melchett! not your secret "chum" Miss Lucy 'Quipment! Anyone up for helping his Generalship with an ice cold shower? The bit I am not looking forward to is the equipment rack that fits in what had been the galley on the dedicated flying boat versions of the Mariner. I keep thinking that it would be fun to do an Operation High Jump boat used for the aerial mapping of Antarctica....... Anyhow, I'm waffling now so let's have some pictures and thanks for looking. Martian 👽

Quick update - the FA.2 had a probe mounted on the leading edge of the vertical tail as can be seen here: Although Special Hobby provide this in styrene it looks rather like the Blob That Ate Cincinnati™. I figured there had to be another way, so I rummaged through the Island of Misfit Fiddly Bits and found an unused turned metal pitot from Master that looked reasonably close. I fashioned a fairing of sorts, added it to the tail, and drilled a 0.010 inch hole to accept the pitot. I popped in the metal bit and I think it will work. In any event, it looks better than the Blob. Also note that I had to drill a hole to accept the port tailplane - for some reason Special Hobby left that out of my kit. It's no doubt hanging out with those other holes from Blackburn, Lancashire. Cheers, Bill PS. Note also added a hole for the RAM air exhaust. The windscreen is on, and I've blended it into the fuselage. I'm now doing some minor work on the intakes, and then it will be time for paint. Luckily, in my rummaging around, I found a bottle of Hataka Roundel Blue. I have no recollection of ever buying it. PPS. Most importantly, I cleaned my workbench. Much better now.

Let's not confuse the internet in general with a forum like this where kits are discussed by people with a certain knowledge of the real thing. Yes Britmodeller may have a good following but it is still only one source on the web. Numbers may look high but within the bigger scheme of things they are not as massive as they may look. We may have 28,000 visits a day but how many of these are multiple visits by the same person ? Sure there are at any given time several hundred people connected (checked just now, there are around a thousand people at the moment, over 800 of these not members) and mind, they are great numbers! Still, overall it's only a few thousand. Even assuming that all of them would be reading about say the Italeri Fw.190D and its issues, how many of these few thousands would actually change their mind because of what they may read here ? Some will sure do but I bet that a lot would just not care. Similar things may be said about other forums.. of which there's a good number although generally only the ones in English language have an international reach. I have to say that forums too vary in regard to the aspects discussed. We may harshly criticize a kit here but the same kit may well be highly rated on a different forum because of the different slant of the members. Model companies are sure well aware of the importance of an online presence, it would be a crime not to be ! Italeri has a long established online presence and as a company they are very "social", with not only a presence on the main platforms but also a number of initiatives aimed at involving the modelling community. For any bad thing we may say on this forum about one of their products, they would be able to counter on multiple channels with a "firepower" much superior to ours. The same applies to all other companies, they are all on the web, they all have their social media pages, they all run initiatives to connect with the customer base. They pay people to organize these things, people who do it for a job and know to best get the message through. I can't see why they should be scared by my comments on Britmodeller when they can access many more people in more convincing ways. Then there are all the other websites, youtubers, Facebook groups and so on... Websites... some are run by enthusiastic modellers (a number also contribute here) and will have no problem in pointing the good and bad of a kit. Others are run by people who have less interest in analysing a kit and may focus on other things. Then there are websites that have as a policy to never criticize a kit. I know as a fact that there are even people running websites who contact model companies asking for free kits promising good reviews in return! Modellers as a result will find very different opinions on a kit depending on which of these websites they hit. They may get a complete assessment of every rivet or they may get a "builds well, little filler needed" rating or even a "great kit, just buy it so next time I'll get another free kit" kind of review. Facebook... there are a lot of Facebook groups devoted to our hobby and it's not hard to find groups with over 10,000 members. Granted, only a fraction of them will actually contribute (same as here in the end) but the contributions can really be very variable, from some real insight to some that can't tell a Spitfire from a Buccaneer. Yet these have quite a good reach... although it's a fact that single individuals are often members of more than one group. Youtube is pretty much the same, channels there vary a lot in quality but most of the time they don't go into much depth in the pros and cons of a kit. Personally I've seen some impressive builds on youtube with some very useful videos showing how to apply a certain technique but if I need an assessment on a kit it's a platform that gives me very little... but maybe I just haven't found the right YT channel. So really do we think that if we on this forum don't like the newest Italeri issue this will make a big dent in their sales ??? Our voice may be authoritative (at least to me the voice of some here is) but it's but one in a crowd. Of course sometime the crowd may start singing with one voice and companies may change their mind (see the Trumpeter 1/32 Wildcat story). Most times the criticism would just be confined to a niche and companies would still keep offering the kit as it is. Companies that received heavy criticism are still around while companies that offered great products have closed. When a company has to close it's because they have done something wrong, most of the time something that has little to do with the plastic kit that ends up in our ends. Most times it's because they are badly managed or have financial issues or they got the distribution wrong and other similar things. That brings me to Italeri (afterall this is a thread about Italeri): sure they must have done something right if they are the only European mainstream company from the '70s still around in the hands of the original owners ! And it's easy to see where they their strengths are: a wide but balanced catalogue (proper mix of safe and less common subjects) and a very good distribution. In the past these were also complemented by a very reasonable pricing policy. Now this has been changing quite a bit and Italeri is becoming expensive, too expensive for the quality they offer. Will this continuous increase in prices be a problem for the company ? Not if others suffer the same fate (Airfix prices are also increasing considerably), however others manage to offer quality at good prices. Someone here keep criticising companies like Eduard for their prices... well, today Italeri is the expensive company, not Eduard ! Italeri still holds the advantage in terms of distribution so they may not worry (and Eduard's range is still very limited). My local hobby shop however is now starting to have more Hobby 2000 and Special Hobby kits than Italeri ones in the window.... So, Italeri's Fw.190D... it was considered the best on the market in the '80s, superior to the then recent Airfix one and the various older offerings. Today however we're not in the '80s anymore and there's better stuff around. Yes the Academy kit may be OOP but it's easy enough to find for a tenner or little more and it's a much nicer kit. Italeri's old Dora may still be of interest for those who don't mind raised panel lines but at €16 ???? To me it's an absurd price compared to the competition. I've already seen shops offering the kit for less, at say €12 it may be a more interesting product.. but then the same shop that sells it for €12 sells Eduard Spitfire kits for €10

If you had any integrity, you would remove your post. Suggesting that people criticizing Italeri quality/price must be paid shills for Asian model companies is both ridiculous, and offensive.

The top scoring non-German fighter pilot during WW2 was Eino Ilmari "Illu" Juutilainen with 94 confirmed combat victories (though he claimed 30 more), all against the Soviets. He had flown "obsolete" Fokker D.XXI and Brewster Buffalo B-239 fighters before he had a chance to get something more modern - a Messerschmitt Bf 109. Today the Brewster Buffalo is frequently considered one of the worst fighter planes ever made. But achievements of pilots like Ilmari Juutilainen, Hans Wind, Eino Luukkanen and other Finnish aces proved otherwise. In competent hands and under right circumstances the Buffalo turned out to be a really vicious killer. Ilmari Juutilainen had been flying the Buffalo BW-364 until 1943 when he was transferred from LLv.24 to LLv.34 armed with new Messerschmitts Bf 109G. He concluded his “Buffalo adventure” with 34 victories (the second best score after Hans Wind with 39 victories). The Hobby 2000 kit (Hasegawa repack), built completely out of the box. This was a quick but surprisingly fulfilling project. I liked this simple kit a lot 🙂 Enjoy and comment at will 🙂 Marcin

Hi guys! I want to show You recently built model. The well-known F4F-4 Wildcat from Arma Hobby. Built didn't cause any problems, except those that were my fault. I added positive rivets from HGW, unfortunately the effect is not very visible in the photos, you have to look closely, it is much better visible in real life. Moreover, I decided to minimize the number of decals, so I painted the markings. I also replaced the position and formation flight lights, which were cast together with the wings and fuselage. The whole thing is enriched with 3D printed parts that I received from Marcin Ciepierski (engine elements, cockpit elements, bombs and bomb racks). You can watch build process o YouTube:

He's made of plasticine?

This allows me to airbrush the underside of the model while it's on its back, then carefully flip it over onto the cocktail sticks to continue painting the upper surfaces. You could do the same with the actual undercarriage parts installed, but sometimes they need to be a different colour, and sometimes they get in the way when trying to mask the lower sections. It's just easier to use something temporary and removable. Kev

the dangers of friction

Fellow Modelers, The 1966 American sci-fi adventure film Fantastic Voyage tells the story of a submarine crew who is shrunk to microscopic size and ventures into the body of an injured scientist to repair damage to his brain. The operation must be done in one-hour, as the shrinking process only last that long before an object returns to its original size. The main action of the movie deals with the submarine crew overcoming the challenges of reaching the brain, performing the experimental surgery and being able to leave the body before being destroyed by the body’s natural defenses. Fantastic Voyage is an outstanding movie that is entertaining and impressive even when viewed today. It received five nominations at the 39th Academy Awards mostly in technical departments, winning for Best Visual Effects and Best Art Direction in Color. One of the film’s most enduring stars is the Proteus submarine (a.k.a. U-91035), described as an experimental U.S. Navy vessel designed to research the spawning habits of deep sea marine life. This elegant and believable vehicle was designed by Harper Goff, who also designed the Nautilus submarine for the 1954 Disney movie 20,000 Leagues under the Sea. For decades many modelers (including myself) have been wishing for an accurate and detailed plastic model kit of the Proteus submarine to be produced. Those wishes were granted in 2016 when Moebius Models released their big 1/32 scale (16” length X 9” width) kit. After sitting on a closet shelf for eight years I have decided it is time to build mine. Welcome to my Progress Build of the Moebius Models Proteus submarine… Figures 001 through 004: Here are photos of the box art and of a manufacturer build-up from the instruction booklet. As you can see in the photos the kit comes with a complete interior. Figure 005: Here is the kit decal sheet. Two sets were included with my kit instead of one and I am very grateful for the bonus! Figure 006: The only aftermarket item I purchased for this kit is the ParaGrafix photo-etched set. That company makes an excellent product and everything I use should enhance the build. According to modeling experts on the internet, this kit has multiple minor inaccuracies (inside and out) but I am fine with not correcting many of those inaccuracies. My main goal is to make the build neat and attractive, like it comes across in the movie. Figure 007: As always, the first step was cutting, sanding, test fitting and cleaning up each part. This is never a fun process, but it always gets me familiar with the model’s fit up and possible issues down the road. Figure 008: This photo shows all of the kit parts, except for the interior floor tub and upper/lower hull halves. No modifications have been made yet. Figure 009: The kit supplied interior is really detailed but once it is sealed up inside the hull halves about 75% of it will not be seen. However, I want the best of both worlds-a completely viewable interior and a completely assembled exterior. To get this I decided to build the interior and exterior as two separate models, and when finished they will sit side-by-side in a display case arranged very much like seen in this photo. Therefore, this Progress Build will be divided into two sections consisting of PART 1-Interior and PART 2-Exterior. Figures 010 through 012 (PART 1-INTERIOR): Since all areas of the interior floor tub, walls and furniture will be visible, extra sanding was required to remove rough spots, injection pin marks, molding flaws and raised copyright wording that would be hidden in a standard build. These photos show the interior floor tub after the cleaning was complete. Figure 013: The pilot’s seat support part was modified by removing the plastic foot rests to be replaced with photo-etched foot rests later. Figures 014-015: These before and after photos show the removal of a control box and conduit piping from one of the walls. They were removed to make painting the parts easier and will be replaced later. Figure 016: The conduit piping from this wall has been sanded away as well, but holes have been drilled to mark their original location. Figure 017: A thin piece of Evergreen styrene was used to fill in the open backside of the wireless radio. Figures 018-019: The chart case front part used dimpling to represent open holes. It did not look very convincing so I very carefully opened them by drilling. This modification made a tremendous improvement in how the part looks. Figure 020: The chart case side part details were sanded away and replaced by a photo-etched part. The ParaGrafix photo-etched control panel parts were only used where the kit’s raised details were poorly molded. Figure 021: The assembled chart case is shown. Figure 022: The assembled chart table is shown with one photo-etched piece added. Figure 023: The laboratory sink base was improved by adding photo-etched doors and a scratch-built faucet. Tiny Evergreen styrene hot and cold water valves will be added later. In the movie there was actually two sink basins but I was content to live with one. Figures 024-025: The laboratory cabinet was the next part to be modified. On the front side, photo-etched doors were added and the molded-on dispenser knobs were cut off and holes drilled in their place. Small pieces of Evergreen round styrene will be added later where the molded-on knobs were. On the backside, various Evergreen pieces of thin sheet and 1/4” blocks were used to fill on the hollow areas and improve the overall appearance. Figures 026-027: The laboratory cabinet is shown being test fitted to the interior floor tub. Until next time… Phillip1

I visited no.1 son's yard yesterday I think he's paying his foreman too much The foreman lives next to the yard and at it was a new orange Porsche Cayman

What a weekend away that was! Just going to sidetrack the thread for a minute. Not one, but two Slingsby T21s turned up! I had a go in BFY... and flew a loop! You wouldn't think it was aerobatic, nor that such an old glider would still be being thrown around the sky like that, but it spent most of the first day taking people up to do a loop. The other, WB922, has some interesting history. It was known as the "Royal Barge" in its time with the Air Cadets because Prince Andrew flew it for his first solo. Probably not something that gets mentioned so often anymore... I did some solo aviation after that in one of the club single seaters on the Saturday, but it was only a short flight. Sunday's forecast looked cosmic, so I decided to drive all the way from Nympsfield (near Bristol) to my home club at Cranwell (Lincolnshire) to have a go at a 5-hour duration flight. Unfortunately it was not to be as the conditions caught me out a bit just before 2 hours. Oh well, the season is just beginning so I'll have plenty more chances soon. Anyway, back to the workbench now. The weekend left me exhausted so I didn't do anything on the Dornier until yesterday. I got the decals finished. The tail needed another coat of gloss as it was missed on the first gloss coat, but once I had that done there were no more issues. Fortunately my plan with the canopy has worked well. It's come off without any damage so I can add the guns.

Looks like next boxing: from SAM 2024-05

To me it looks like the outside diameter of the outer tyre is larger than its inside diameter, but I've been wrong before (many times 😅), good luck with the fix. Even with this issue it still looks great - Andy

Hmm, am I the only one getting a huge gap here? Hope I didn’t put the wings at some odd angle. Anyhow that’s how it will be because it’s all glued together. Despite my best efforts the ”glass” pieces have a small gap that will require awkward and careful filling, between the large top piece and the starboard side piece.

I considered it, but had the following thoughts: The main hatch on top of the storage is glued shut, would look a bit odd having removed a shell then closing it afterwards. This was a bit of a necessity as gluing that hatch shut was the best way of getting the other panels nice and square. There isn't a figure operating the crane. The best setup I can get of the figures is them milling around, not loading the gun. Maybe I'm focusing too much on the realism here?

The first thing that surprised me was that the fit of the fuselage is actually pretty good. It's not glued or taped together in this pic but a test-fit showed it'll be ok for a kit of this vintage. I'm glad I got the resin seats - even just painted up (no PE) they're going to be way better than what's in the kit. I do like the pilots, although they are too small. The rear seater has a mapboard in his lap. Nice touch! This is the progress I have made so far. There's almost nothing you can see in the cockpit especially those control panels which will be hidden once it's sealed up. There are no instrument panels and no control sticks either. I will tidy up that untidy paint though. Still a good long way to go!

Time to get kit #3 underway...! I'm not planning own posting too much about it, as I've covered most of this already on my previous builds. An hour on the bench was enough to construct the wheel bays and cockpit due to be inserted into the fuselage, and also the engine cores ready for painting: I then buttoned the fuselage up: A friend of mine had emailed me with a copy of the 'Avignon' artwork, which was invaluable for extrapolating the areas that needed to be designed - the A380 fin is a different shape from the 737, which was the only aircraft to feature this design. With the original artwork, I can fill in the gaps, something I touched upon earlier in this thread: Time for some more Photoshopping!

Ships ahoy! 😃⚓

All sorts of names

Thank you very much Alan, and a special thank's for your nice informations. Alain

Actually apart from the one at Gisborne there are two more TBF-1's preserved here in New Zealand One is NZ2504 (TBF-1) with the RNZAF Museum Collection at Wigram (RNZAF Official Air Force Museum of New Zealand - Used with permissions) The other is NZ2527 (TBF-1c) at MOTAT here in Auckland Both NZ2504 and NZ2527 can still fold their wings Of Note NZ2505 at Gisborne is also a TBF-1 Regards Alan

Two steps forward, one step back .......... Trevor

Lucked out and found an AMK Mig-31BM/BS going for half the MSRP. on Evilbay. I'll save this for a rainy day when I can do a proper full build, This is a monster of a kit.

Hello all. Here’s my latest from the shed, not my usual fare, but a change is as good as a rest they say. The SR.A/1 jet flying boat fighter concept was brought about because of the success of Japanese water borne aircraft during WW2. In 1943 the Air Ministry funded the development of three Saunders Roe designed aircraft which were completed after the war had finished. The first flight being in 1947. After evaluation the aircraft was not deemed capable of matching the performance of land based aircraft and was not ordered. Two of the aircraft crashed during testing and were lost. The pilot of one was rescued by the occupant of a support launch who dived into the water fully clothed after the aircraft suffered a landing accident. He pulled the pilot free from the cockpit of the sinking aircraft saving his life. That pilot was Eric ‘winkle’ Brown who became one of the most famous test pilots of the time. The kit was typical short run, taking a bit of work to get it together. I replaced the supplied flimsy PE nose grill with silver nickel rod, other than that it was built from the box. It was finished in a mixture of Humbrol 27001 and 27002 and sealed using Xtra color varnishes. The base is from coastalkits. A nice change from the norm I enjoyed the challenge of this build. Here are a few pics, hope you like it. Thanks for looking. Pete

(This build was originally posted in 2014 before Photobucket tried to hold the world to ransom. I have reloaded the original photos but really should take some new ones someday.) This is something I've been working on for quite some time. It started off as the new Airfix 1/72 Lightning F2A but I've converted it back to an F1 of 74 Sqn. I used the belly tank from the old Airfix Lightning F3 kit, I reprofiled the wings and fin, added a Pavla resin seat and a turned brass pitot from Finemolds. Painted using Alclads and Mr Hobby acrylics. The decals are from Model Alliance and ironically the Firestreaks came from the Trumpeter Lightning horror. I used the profile of XM163/K as the primary reference as found in the "On Target" book from The Aviation Workshop. 74 Sqn were the only Sqn to operate the F1 in a frontline operational role and relocated to RAF Leuchars in 1964. Three months later they became the first Sqn to re-equip onto the F3 version. I have depicted XM163 during that 3 month period, the profile shows that the paint was starting to peal off the fin and the tiger stripes on the stbd side were also incomplete. The WIP can be found here: http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234955535-airfix-lightning-f2a-conversion-to-f1/ Duncan B

Although the Special Hobby kit is a better option, the Sword F84F is quite buildable. I 3D printed a correct ejection seat as the kit only includes the early seat. The incorrect wheels were replaced with some new ones I designed and printed as well. The build saga is here.

Here's a bit more nostalgia from me. I was a primary (elementary) schoolboy in Sydney in 1985 who raced home on a cloudy afternoon, desperate to see the incoming Concorde. February 14 1985 was the first time, as far as I know, that Concorde had arrived in Sydney since the prototype toured in the early 1970s. Luckily I got home in time - Concorde was late! My house was under the flightpath to Kingsford Smith, and before too long I saw the beautiful aircraft come roaring along, nose angled down for landing. As it passed I raced up the hill from my house, with my mother in tow, to keep the aircraft in sight and make the moment last. That's always been a vivid childhood memory for me so I figured I should commit it to plastic! I've wrestled with this old Revell kit for a year. I don't know if this is victory or abandonment but I'm calling it done. I found it hard to photograph - if anyone has pro-tips for photographing big white models let me know. There is a subtle wash through the panels which doesn't really show up here. I've used Bra.Z resin (intakes and windscreen) with the F-DCAL Negus and Negus livery sheet. I painted the vertical stabiliser using masks made with a stencil cutter - a first for me. Hopefully the spirit of the build comes across. I'm not trying this one again.

Right, time for the first heads up with this project. Although I really like this kit the same cannot be said for the instructions. To say they are pants would be to praise them too highly; in fact they give Dragon instructions a run for their money. To start with you get two sets of instructions for different parts of the assembly sequence and, in parts, these do not follow a logical order and this is where we come to our first heads up. The instructions would have you assemble and fit the gun turrets at the end of the build. Something sounded warning bells in my head about this and I decided to investigate. Unless there is something I am missing, there is no way the bow turret will fit after assembly. I taped the hull halves tightly together and try as I might, I could not fit the turret without the front of the hull opening out. It looks like the only way to tackle this part of the build is to assemble and paint the turret and fit it when the two hull parts are buttoned up. I think the dorsal turret should be OK, although we are not using it for this build but I am less sure about the tail one. I will do a test and report back. The kit machine guns are poor so I had purchased a couple of MiniWorld .50 calibre barrel sets .one has to be a bit careful here as it is necessary to drill into the bodies of the machine guns themselves, cut away the fairings where the barrels exit the turret from the kit guns, attach them to the turret and then drill through the centres of the fairings, ensuring that the holes line up with the previously drilled holes in the bodies of the guns. the bottom of the turret should be opened out in order to replicate the access for the gunner: I have a second kit coming for the utility variant and plan to use the redundant turrets on that kit to experiment to see if I can come up with a better solution. I have checked out the toilet and, although it was more basic in the PBM-5/5A, the toilet is in the same place. I have therefore added the floor and bulkhead of the compartment in question. My only concern is that I am beginning to run short of space for my preferred method of nose weight, tyre weights. So, if people still want the toilet, with all its potential for silliness and jokes; vote wibble, for those who don't, use that phrase beloved of @general melchett,"Don't be disgusting Darling" to vote no Finally. I have begun to detail the starboard side of the upper deck: Thanks for looking. Martian👽

At first I wasn't so sure about the colours, but now there's a glossy finish to them, and I've started adding decals. It's looking much better to me now. Just a few more decals to go.

And here we are, all covered in primer. When I bought this kit, I also bought this paint set from Colourcoats. I will start with the brown shade.

Wings are on, and suddenly it looks like an airplane now. And quite a big one too. After the nose and tailwheel are in place, I think I can start masking all the windows and give it a coat of primer.

I focused on finishing another build for a while, but now I'm back to the G.1. The interior is complete, painted and installed into the fuselage. The top and bottom windows of the fuselage pod come separate, and they don't fit well into their spots. Some sanding and filing was required. Even then it was a bit of a puzzle to find out what was the front and rear of each window, and two were misnumbered in the instructions. In the end it sort of fits, although I do have some filling and sanding to do, mostly at the top rear of the pod. I do like the PE parts for the interior. Next up is the tail cone with the gun inside, and after that work moves on to the wings and under carriage.