ChrisL

The Swedes seem to build the fighters that they want, then see if anyone else wants to buy them, as have France from time to time. Elsewhere in Europe more commonly a group of countries decide to collaborate then spend years arguing in an attempt to get everyone to agree what they want. This may be part of why Saab and the French firms seem to have managed quicker developments than groups like Panavia and the Eurofighter consortium. Maybe the UK plans to nail down the basic requirements and then see if they are suitable for any potential partner nations. That may result in a reasonable development time. However if there's an attempt to align Tempest to the Franco-German project then it could well get bogged down in development hell. There's also the risk that each time Lockheed, Sukhoi or MiG announces a new theoretical innovation that'll induce a new round of requirement changes too. As for its looks, it's just another stealthy fighter shape in my eyes. Nothing glaringly interesting nor offensive. I still dream that some forward swept design will become a reality (the Su-47 came closest) but we'll probably be stuck with blobby-yet-angular stealth jets for a while.

I've found a couple of articles that have renderings of the proposed Tempest. The wing's definitely got a different shape to the YF-23's and I reckon that the air intakes/engine layout probably shares more in common with the F-35 and F-22: https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/uk-unveils-new-next-generation-fighter-jet-called-tempest/ https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/farnborough-tempest-concept-underscores-uk-fighter-450327/

Is there a decent 1/72 Fullback? I like the aircraft but it is very large! I have a vague idea that there's a fairly recent 1/72 tooling but at what almost seems to be 1/48 pricing, is it any good?

Could you sand off the framing from the MS canopy then use micro mesh to polish it back up to clarity?

I got some from eBay, I think they are marketed as tattoos for action figures. They weren't great (thick transfer film, a bit transparent), but they weren't expensive either.

There are some good high resolution photos of the Strike Eagle demonstrator available somewhere online, I'll see if I can find them again. One thing I remember from when I asked a similar question some time ago is that the demonstrator was a modification of a really early airframe so it has the small airbrake rather than the larger one used by almost all Eagles. Here's my (7 year old) thread on the matter. Unfortunately some of the links (including the one with the hi res pictures) are now broken:

Wow.

Lots of great suggestions, thanks for pointing out that Airwaves kit! The Big Boy looks interesting too, but there's a risk with cool looking kits like that... I may end up wanting to build it instead of scavenge from it so it'll end up stashed rather than used! I'm a bit of a hoarder so I do have some bits and bobs lying around that may work well for a build. I found a surprising number of ribbon cables last week and I reckon they'll be a good source for scale cabling or ribbing.

So far I've got the Airfix Tiger kit. It's cheap, though I imagine that a Trumpeter kit would have a better selection of decent bits. I reckon I may find a use for the Tiger's deck grills. The road wheels look like they shouldn't look too out of place as access hatches and I think that if I modify the barrel it may work as a laser cannon. My project isn't a Millennium Falcon sort of ship and I'm not planning to cover every available surface with greebly bits. That should keep me safe from the risk of bits of detail being obviously a ship's crane, bits of engines, the Batmobile, etc. Hopefully some of the detail I want can be created from non-model sources too. I think that some old hard drive ribbon cables and some cheap wires may work as a source of pipes and cables. I've also bought some nylon bolts that may be useful for ribbed pipes, though it sounds like Nylon can be difficult to paint so I'll need to check that out before I use them.

In an ideal world that sounds awesome, but I'm an Aberdonian with a father from Yorkshire so I'm going to try and do this on the cheap!

Good call, I hadn't thought about ships. A quick look at a selection of ship kits suggest that Revell do some cheap ones but they're 1/1200 scale and the detail is a bit limited. Once the kits reach 1/700 or so the details start to look promising.

What would people suggest as effective donor kits for Star Wars appropriate greebles for a scratch build project I am thinking about? I was wondering about an Airfix Tiger tank or similar as they're cheap, all the wheels should be useful and there's a decent amount of gubbins on the back of the hull that could be useful too. Has anyone got any other suggestions?

I have somehow managed to keep hold of the nearly-disintegrated copy of "The World of Star Wars" magazine that I got when I saw a Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back double bill in Aberdeen in '81 or '82. My impression of it that it is partly is re-used content from a pre-Empire publication with a few extra articles written after the release of Empire. Its article "The Spaceships of Star Wars" (which seems very much like a pre-Empire article) has the following to say about the Y Wing: Even back then there was some thought being given about not just how ships should look but also why they look like that. I think it's cool how even when it was an obscure low budget production the people creating Star Wars were world (galaxy) building while they were also building props. In addition, George Lucas was into hot rods, cruising and street racing in his early years, so stripped-back and modified ships like the Millennium Falcon and the Y Wings could well be those that are closest to his heart. Edit: I really shouldn't have forgotten to say how amazing this build is!

I like the tile idea! And Phantoms, I always like Phantoms too!

Overall the Bandai is a nicer kit, it has more detail and it goes together more easily. The difference in detail in the vertical parts of the kits is quite noticeable, unless your eyes are young and healthy (mine aren't) or you're looking closely it's fairly academic and the larger size of the Revell kit gives it some extra presence despite its simpler detail. Though actually the panel lines on the Revell kit make the front of the ship look a little less sparse, even if you can easily take apart the logic of having panel lines on a 1:12300 scale kit. Enjoy building your Revell kits! There were a few more mould seams and small gaps to clean up around the bridge but otherwise the most awkward part of the build is fitting in the tail weight needed to compensate for how far back the stand is mounted.

I have one of these that I plan to finish in a non-canon paint scheme, which is fortunate as if I did it as Red 5 it certainly wouldn't be in the same league as yours!

Last year I played in an Age of Rebellion RPG campaign. We played members of the crew of the Imperial Star Destroyer Hammer of Justice, who had mutinied against the sadistic Captain Bastrad and joined the Rebellion. Initially we masqueraded as an Imperial vessel to gain the element of surprise against Imperial forces, but eventually we had to publicly identify as rebels - we didn't want the Empire taking the credit for our battles against the forces of the evil Vaki Sith! In order to make our allegiances clear we painted the Rebel Alliance's starbird emblem onto our ship. When I spotted Revell's 1:12300 Star Destroyer kit in my local model shop I decided to build it and paint it up as the Hammer of Justice. When I got it home I discovered that Bandai had released a similarly sized kit (no scale given but approximately 1:16000) that had a better reputation than Revell's offering, so I ordered one of them too. After purchasing some Star Wars decals off eBay I ended up building both ships as Alliance Star Destroyers. Revell's offering: Bandai's: There's a total of 9 pictures of the two kits in a Flickr album here. As is clear from the photos the Bandai kit is clearly the more detailed of the two. It was also easier to build, as the Revell kit required some clamping, some filler (particularly around the superstructure) and 20g of weight to get it to balance. However the Revell kit is noticeably larger than the Bandai kit (the triangular shape seems to exaggerate the difference) and from more than about 2 feet away the difference in detail becomes fairly academic. The ships were painted with Alclad primers, Humbrol acrylics, Alclad varnish and Humbrol washes, all mostly airbrushed on (except for some drybrushing and the washes). The decals were a bit of a faff, they were translucent and stiff and didn't conform well. Overall though both kits were fun to build, I'm happy with the finished articles and hopefully they've broken me out of a long spell where I've not been doing much with model kits except adding to an already overloaded stash!

Your initial build was very nice and I'm very impressed with your repair!

Following their "rebirth" Airfix released a lot of new tools, presumably feeling that they needed to put in the investment to update the brand's product range. Over the last few years Airfix has reduced the number of new tools and taken to re-releasing recently re-tooled kits (and the better and/or good sellers amongst their old kits) with new decals. Each year we however still seem to assume that Airfix is going to treat us with a large number of new tools but I imagine that those days are gone for now. The 2018 catalogue has some stuff in it that interests me. Not an overwhelming amount but then again I don't want to be overwhelmed!

I built an early boxing of the Airfix Vulcan a few years ago. I am not a great modeller and was able to produce something decent. It took me a while but that's par for the course for me. The main awkward bits as I remember are as others have said the intakes (I think I used Milliput to smooth out the joins there and the joins between the fuselage and the wings. The gaps in those joins were large enough that they were packed out with thin plasticard to reduce the amount of filler they'd take. It definitely sounds like joining the wing uppers to the upper fuselage and doing the same with the lower parts would be worth trying out. I also recall that quite a lot of test fitting and trimming was necessary to get the tail fin and fuselage end to fit right. I used the exhausts from a Flightpath detail set, which sidestepped the hollow plane effect you'd get from using the kit's exhausts.

That's a lovely build of a subject from what's probably my favourite Studio Ghibli movie. Nice work.

I had a similar varnish problem a few years ago, but thanks to some advice and assistance from the fine folks of this forum I managed to largely recover it. http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234960184-my-blackbird-egg-plane-has-gone-horribly-wrong/

Airfix did a starter set with their old Sea Hawk kit and decals for WV908. I'm not sure if they included any RNHF-specific markings though.

That is nice. It is ugly to my eyes too, but in the same sort of brilliantly ugly way as a Phantom.

I went on the Saturday and had no idea until now that I'd missed a B-2 by doing so. Darn.