Grant

Excellent save on the wing Karl! And I love that interior - shame so little of it will get seen. Grant

During a hot'n'high trial at Buena Vista, Colorado in 2002 the Naval EH101 airframe on the trial was carrying a lot of icing trial markings from a previous trial. Silly me has decided to make a model of it! Here she is on arrival. The extra effort starts inside, where the test instrumentation rig and a couple of seats for the flight engineers is required. And here it is slotted into the port fuselage half. Note the blanking plates inside the various intakes, and also the live pictures from the space station on PDA. That technology just blows me away. There I am modelling away, watching live footage from space across the web and wirelessly up to my PDA. Awesome. Here is the other half with the top deck and 'gearbox'. The insides are chromate green because a lot of stuff was stripped out of the aircraft, to reduce the weight for the tethered hover testing that formed part of the trial, and this included a lot of the interior sound proofing and partitions. Hence no door on the rear console. And then the real nonsense begins with the blades. First painted white, then added 4 little bits of tamyia tape on each blade before painting yellow. I then get to mask little dashes, top and bottom, at 10% radius intervals and a large L-type marking at 60% radius, before painting the leading edge red and finally the whole blade green. I hope I can make it work! Cheers Grant

Umm. That does look tasty in that worn winter camo. External fuel tanks!? What's it doing, taking part in Red Flag and operating from Coningsby?? cheers Grant

Spot on Richard. Grant

Very useful Jon. What a great set of posts. The effort you have put in is much appreciated. Grant

OH YES!!! Brings back memories of that Herc I did when I were a lad. Best camo there is, I reckon. cheers Grant

No. He was (still is!) Ed Banham, the chap who had all those models of early aircraft on our display at Plymouth. A very useful chap to know. cheers Grant

As promised here are a few words on how to make wire wheels cheers Grant

Thanks guys, glad you like it. The wire wheels are deceptively easy, once you have seen how to do it. I took some pictures during the process and will put some words to them this weekend to make a little tutorial. In the meantime you need to rummage through any left over electrical cables you see lying around - cos some of that stuff will be your tyres ... cheers Grant

A friend brought this back for me from the States as a nice addition to my growing collection of Diorama bits and pieces. Clearly a very basic kit, and those wheels just wouldn't do. However, I knew a man who could show me how to make wire ones! So after... - Scratch building the wheels - Replacing the radiator grill with a scribed bit of plasticard - adding number plates - glazing the windscreen - adding the wiper blades (from that little wire spring in floppy drives that returns the cover) - using real wood for the dash and some decals for instruments This is what I ended up with And in a little diorama setting, surrounded by CMK resing figures, it really looks the part. I hope you like it. As ever, any and all comments welcome. cheers Grant

I hear what you say about making decisions on new ideas, never easy. Though of course the easy way is to power up the rotor cheers Grant

Beat me too it! I have two that need building. Grant

That's a good stab at a spinning rotor disc. I think 'clear' would get my vote and the disc should go to the centre, as the rotor head goes round aswell. I reckon you will have started a few people thinking with that model. Nice work on the paint scheme. The Lynx looks quite good in those colours. cheers Grant

Cracking photos Dave. It looks just as good in the flesh and every inch a Lynx though, as you say, it could probably do with being more tail down. I think they have really cracked the debris guard with that clear molding. Probably the best bit of the kit? cheers Grant

It's very satisfying isn't it? Good luck with using them. The only problem I ever have is sealing them properly so that the ink don't run when it gets wet. They normally go on really well. cheers Grant

Very pretty! Nice touch with the rudder slightly off centre, and the figures and photos add so much to the presentation. Sweet! Grant

Good Lord, don't quit! That would never do, where would the rest of us go for inspiration? How about posting the days work and words in one post? Set it up before hand in your preferred editor and then just cut'n'paste into the post page and hit the add 'reply button', job done. I reckon that is only 3 button clicks per forum! Keep the ideas flowing. cheers Grant

You might like to check this guy out too... and my own attempt in 1/72. If that wing is not stuck on yet, you too could have working flaps!! HTH Grant

Interesting.... I recently finsihed some armour in Humbrol acrylics and had absolutely no problems. Sprayed on lovely, thinned with water, and brushed on as washes really well. I am amazed at the outrage they seem to be engendering! But there again, I didn't get on with LifeColour... As ever, in this hobby, I guess it is what you are used to and what works with your rig. cheers Grant

Actually folks, that's the new modeller friendly version of 'digital camo' cheers Grant

Your unknown helicopter is a Sikorsky S-76C Spirit , of the Royal Flight. I think it went on to Exeter as well that day. And yes, come on, ante up - details of the new toys are required! cheers Grant

Thank you SO much for your tutorial Paulo. The timing was perfect, and it really adds to the finished model. That 50 odd photo guide was a huge effort on your part and was just right. It had all the important steps and was easy to follow. I think the only problem I had was strength in this scale. The stbd flap got broken off several times! cheers Grant

My pleasure! Grant

Here is an interesting colour scheme option for a Harrier. Surprisingly the tests were conducted 20 years ago! Doesn't time fly ... Airfix kit with movable flaps (after Paulo's turtorial.) The decals had aged a bit so a white residue needed cleaning off, but they went down OK with a bit of Klear. The build thread can be found here. Any and all comments welcome. cheers Grant

Finally got around to taking some shots of the finished article! Looks OK (from a distance ) and looks pretty in the display case. Here it is 'at Filton'... A full walkaround is in 'Ready for Inspection' cheers Grant