Philbky

The other aircraft that was re-registered before the CAA loosened the registration rules in the 1970s was Granada TV's Dove which was originally G-ARSI until someone twigged and it took up the vacant registration G-ARFZ. Airlines have often been nervous of depicting actual registrations in publicity material in case the depicted aircraft crashes but this is the first time in 66 years interest in aviation that I've seen a publicity shot using a registration of an aircraft that had previously crashed!

The Airfix kit is based on the Rolls Royce engined 707-436 so you will need new engines if you are going to model a Pan American 707-321. If it is to be an early version, the difference is slight but if it is to be a 321B or C version then you will certainly have to change the engines. If you go for the early version you can retain the under rear fuselage fin of the 436. If not then you will need to find a photo of the particular B or C version you wish to model as some had a reduced sized fin, some no fin at all. Also you will need to look at the passenger windows to see if there were blanks on the aircraft you are modelling.

I hate to spoil the party and, before I do, the build and finish achieved is first rate, but the model is totally inaccurate. The original Airfix kit of 50 years ago was a Comet 4B in BEA colours. This reissue is still a 4B. East African only operated the Comet 4.The major differences are the fuselage of the 4 was two metres shorter, with fewer windows and it had longer wings with pinion tanks. The windows on the model are accurate in number for the Comet 4 but the cheatline finishes far short of the cockpit windows compared to the real thing, presumably because the decals were made for a Comet 4 fuselage, not a 4B. A photo of the original is here:http://www.abpic.co.uk/photo/1406525/

Actual aircraft at Davis Monthan in September https://www.flickr.com/photos/philbky/22061259571/in/photolist-zBtHSk-zBtKaF/lightbox/

By curtains I assume you mean the window blinds as no fabric curtains were fitted. Certainly when I flew on these between 1963 and 1967 they were a blue grey shade.

davidelvy, perhaps you too need a dictionary. I didn't belittle anyone. If someone posts on here they should expect criticism and you owe me an explanation of where I was anything other than constructive. If people come on here for sycophancy they won't get it from me. An inaccurately finished model, no matter how well constructed, is still inaccurate and if that isn't pointed out then people won't have the opportunity to learn. Your post would have had some validity if I hadn't taken the trouble to give some background and offer my effort as a way of tackling a very difficult subject to finish correctly. This site offers a great deal of expertise and showcases some really amazing talent as well as people who, like me, will never reach the levels exhibited at competitions and everyone's efforts are worthy of praise, where due, and criticism where necessary, otherwise what's the point of posting?.

Oh boy, I've really kicked you in the what's its haven't I? Actually I haven't. I complimented you on the build quality, I tried to be helpful in pointing out the error in the finish and how difficult it would be to achieve accuracy but how you could achieve at least a semblance of accuracy and that a straightforward matte finish would be somewhat more accurate. You are, of course, free to finish your model anyway you choose but if you put it on here you must expect those of us who strive for accuracy to point out obvious errors. Pointing out errors is not ridiculing you. If you think I ridiculed you you need to look up the word in a dictionary. Again if you think my comments were negative, you need to sort out the difference between negative and constructive, i.e. I tried to point you in the right direction. Last year I put up Beaufighter where my research and box art let me down http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234910188-beaufighter-tf-mk-x/?hl=philbky Compare my reaction to yours. You say you build for your own pleasure (fair enough) and yours is the only opinion that counts. If the latter is the case, why post on here? Posting here is begging for the opinions of others and some of us (and I for one could never have the skill to build to competition standard) at least strive for accuracy and post our efforts for criticism and to learn, not for praise alone - though you seem to have done well in that area by those who obviously also just build a model without research or care for accuracy. Finally, we are all suffering from the cost of kits, tools, paints etc. but to plead that Hobbycraft and Modelzone could not supply Matte Black spray cans beggars belief. In extremis, there is always Halfords. I've said my piece now, I've tried to help but obviously you and a number of others here are modelling in another genre and I'm happy to leave you all there.

Night fighters did not carry bombs - what would have been the point as they operated over their own territory. Their role was to intercept incoming bombers and to be as agile as possible so weight was cut don as much as possible. On the Mossie nightfighters, which were a quick fix for the RAF as the Defiant which was a purpose built nightfighter had prove relatively ineffective, the bomb bay and bomb bay doors were retained as access was needed to the fuel tanks and the fuselages were taken from the regular production line with minimal structural modification.

I didn't say I didn't like it, I pointed out that the finish was incorrect for the aircraft depicted. I also pointed out the difficulties of replicating the accurate finish and provided a link to enable you to look at my far from perfect effort along with a description of how the original was achieved, its drawbacks and how I'd tried to replicate it. I can't understand spending a great deal of money, time and effort in producing a well built model and then spoiling the whole thing by not researching the correct finish before starting off. I could well understand, having done the research, deciding to go for the later black lower and camouflaged upper surfaces but I just can't see the point in producing a model that doesn't come near the finish of the original. Even just painting with basic matte black would have been more realistic. Of course it's your kit and you can do what you want but if you post on here you open yourself to praise, criticism, correction and help. I think I gave all in fair measure.

Looks like a good build but I'm sorry that the finish is wrong. Your black is glossy whilst the original was very definitely not just flat but horrible to look at and work with and extremely difficult to replicate. This was my effort using the Tamiya 1/48th kit:http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234914424-tamiya-mosquito-nfii-148th Not perfect but a lot less reflective.

Like most major airlines BA do not have a host of back up aircraft. They have regular maintenance schedules for all types and this can leave them short of capacity when aircraft go tech. Generally, if the problem is easily fixed, they will delay a flight overnight if necessary or, if enough capacity is available on later and competitors' flights will cancel the flight after transferring passengers. On average BA have between 2 and 5 technical delays/cancellations around the world each day where the flight cannot operate on the day. Where aircraft are likely to be longer than 24 hours off line in Europe and as far away as North Africa/Middle east they use Titan's fleet to substitute. This week BA have used the 767, they have used every type Titan have operated. Google The BA Source for daily updates on happenings within the BA fleet.

Emergency exit outlines were a gradual process. The overwing exit markings were made mandatory first, the main and service doors came later.

It just looks.......RIGHT!!

I should have added that having worked in the business tourism industry, used Heathrow for years out of need rather than choice and travelling regularly in retirement, Heathrow is no big deal to me, Terminal 5 is by far the best terminal in the UK and I'm really looking forward to Aer Lingus moving to the new Terminal 2 next year from the appalling Terminal 1

This whole thing of missing out to other airports is a London thing - more specifically at present a Heathrow thing. The provincial airport with the greatest range of international services is Manchester. Birmingham and Glasgow also have a reasonable range but none have the worldwide coverage of Heathrow and Gatwick. Most people in the provinces who want to travel to worldwide destinations not served from their local airport have a choice. For direct flights fly to Heathrow, or to a lesser extent Gatwick or fly to Paris, Amsterdam or Frankfurt and miss out on the chaos that sometimes takes place at the London airports. This may sound stupid for people flying to the USA, Canada, Africa or South America but the deals offered by airlines do tempt many people to do this. It makes far more sense for people travelling eastwards - Finnair does good business over Helsinki from Manchester to the Far East but the classic is from Manchester to the Gulf States where over well 1500 seats a day are available on 3 airlines and load factors above 85% are standard. Not all these people by any means are travelling to the Gulf. They are using the flights for connections to the Far East, India, Africa and Australia with much less stressful connections than over Heathrow. Every one of those passengers is lost revenue to Heathrow and every passenger transferring to long haul in Europe pays a smaller amount in the government's rip off departure tax than they would on long haul from Heathrow, and the government loses out twice if they could have used a UK domestic flight to Heathrow. The same applies to tourists inbound to the UK who don't want/need to go to London or would rather visit London by surface transport having arrived by air elsewhere in the UK. For my own part, living in the west of Ireland and having to travel to see family in Houston, I do fly Shannon - Heathrow - Houston and vice versa. I could fly from Shannon to New York, Boston or, from next year, to Chicago and connect to Houston there being no direct service. Though the departures to the USA cities available from Shannon are at easier times than having to get up to make a 75 mile road trip to take the 07.30 flight to Heathrow, the arrival times in Houston on the connecting flights are late at night and, coming home, we would lose the best part of a day with the family compared to using the evening flight to Heathrow and arriving home the following afternoon. So the shortest time/mileage in the air isn't always the only factor to take into account The idea of expansion of Heathrow, or of a new airport, is to provide enough runway and terminal capacity to offer more landing slots and make transfers easier. Given your preamble I won't comment on th paucity of thought that governments of all parties suffer from when looking at airport policy and tourism generation for the UK as a whole. Julien, they don't often prefer to fly to Heathrow, they often don't get given the information that would help them avoid Heathrow. See the paragraph above.

Aviation: If you want to watch/photograph aircraft, see here: www.washbaltspotters.net Don't forget the Smithsonian has two aviation museums - on the Mall, downtown and out at Dulles. Both need a good while, probably the best part of a day each. The White House, Capitol Building, Lincoln and Washington monuments and some of the other Smithsonian museums are worth visiting. Georgetown in the evenings is alive with a great range of food available and masses of restaurants many with music. Normally good for Senator/Congressman spotting, most will be on the campaign trail in October. Safe after dark. Baltimore, Annapolis and the Blue Ridge Mountains are all within reach on a day trip. Driving around the city is easy but the Beltway (major ring road) can be murder at rush hour. For the capital of the most powerful nation in the world,Washington still has a small town feel about it. I've been visiting for 26 years for work and pleasure and, after Boston, it's my favourite US city. I'm off to Houston in mid October for a week. Not the best tourist city but it does house my grandchildren!

I was going to go into a deal of detail re dimensions based on official drawings but David has decided what he wants to do. All I would say is that Construction and Use dictated that vehicles built in the mid 1950s had to have no more than five longitudinal seats without some form of separation.

Some thoughts on seating based on Construction and Use for the late 1950s: Upper deck - You probaly have an inner dimension of 31 ft 6 ins clear floor length. A reasonable seat pitch would be 31 inches. This would give 12 rows of seats on the nearside, being 11 x 2 plus 1 x 3 at the extreme rear alongside the stair. On the offside you would have 9 rows x 2 plus 1 x 1 (to allow circulation at the stairhead), giving a total of 44. Downstairs you have positioned the offside emergency exit window as the second lower deck bay. On vehicles where this is positioned as the first bay, there is circulation room (admittedly limited) between the bulkhead and the front seat. You will need to allow floorspace access to the window (a scale foot would be adequate) so the seat pitch between one set of seats adjacent to the window will need to be 43 inches. Let's assume 210 inches between the front bulkhead and the forward side of the longitudinal seats. On the nearside you have room for 6.7 rows at 31 inch pitch. On the offside you have the same room but you need 1 row at 43 inch pitch, leaving room for 5.3 rows at 31 inch pitch. I'd match the gaps on each side and this will give a small gap between the back of the last row and the forward side edge of the longitudinal seats which, for safety, ought to be ocupied by some sort of soft covered dividers. Similarly the logitudinal seats need some form of division as trolleybuses have excellent acceleration and tend to have sharper brakes so the potential for unrestrained passengers to be injured is high. In terms of the mid/late 1950s the length of unrestained longitudinal seats was restricted in the light of problems found in WW2 when a number of injuries were caused to passengers on single deckers which had been converted to longitudinal, peripheral seats to allow crush loading in standee configurations. If you follow theabove, you will have a lower saloon seating capacity of 6 rows of 4 seats plus two rows of 7 longitudinal. This gives 38 seats so the total seats on the bus would be 82. You also need to address the point of standees as you will have to show the seating capacity plus the number allowed to stand. Union agreements and the Traffic Commissioners - in London the Met Police - determined the number which, in the period, was generally 5,whatever the bus length, as the poor conductor had to struggle past standees to collect fares Hope this helps.

Logical positioning and might well help with the axle loading

Talk about real life (or whatiffery) following art.... Whilst the model is still a fantastic piece of invention and skill, I'd take issue with the extra cream banding and the black outlining. By the time the Routemaster entered service Chiswick had standardised everything for each model (RT, RF, RM) so as to reduce the range of spares as much as possible and this applied to panels and beading. Black outlining defeated the object of the Chiswick and Aldenham spray booths and had the trolleys survived, even the older vehicles would have had the extra creambands and the outlining removed. The cream, for the era, should be a tad more yellow -refer to photos of preserved vehicles (RMs and RTs) in 1950s colours, the wheels should be the standard LT deep rusty red and the roof should have a tint of the wheel colour in the black. Finally, don't forget the lifeguard rails between the wheels as you finish this masterpiece. .

Re axle loading: even the Routemaster body may have been too heavy in this config for 8 wheels at the back, given the different weight distribution between a diesel powered, front engined bus and the electric motor powered "whatif". Doesn't matter really, the only people who are going to fret are your maintenance crews (and they'll tell you they are never listened to) and the bean counters (and at least in "what if" land we can learn from our mistakes in ther real world and tell them to go to hell!) That primer looks good and the application of just a bit of colour over the plastic gives real depth to the model.

Can't help with photos but you need to specify which BEA colours - red square or Union flag. If you are doing the red square, be aware that there were two versions - one with the red square in the lower portion of the fin, small enough to be forward of the rudder, and the later version with a much larger square placed higherr up the fin with one third of the square (approx) on the rudder. From memory the larger square was adopted from the 953 version and changed on the 951s in no particular order between 1962 and 1965.

In the context of history, we established a while back that the length of your bus would exceed the 30 foot permitted by Construction and Use legislation of the time and would have had to operate under dispensation - so a two axle bus would be out as British legislation was very conservative with regard to axle loading on "exceptional" vehicles - the Glasgow 34 ft single decker being permitted with two axles only because it was lighter than a 30ft double decker. Regarding the 3 axle layout, rear steer would be very much ahead of its time for the UK, and almost science fiction for the designers at Chiswick in the mid 1950s. If you were to go for a twin and single wheel 2nd and 3rd axles, the simplest layout from an engineering point of view is to have the rear axle steerable. Generally the range of movement is less than that of the 1st axle and many systems have the centre line of the 3rd axle wheel aligned with the space between the wheels on the 2nd axle. In the mid 1950s, British trolley design for three axle vehicles was two have single wheels on the two rear axles. Have you enough spare front wheels to do this? If so, don't forget that the wheel centres were slightly different to those on the front wheels (look at any London trolleybus photo) and LT religiously retained and polished the nut guard rings on those wheels (as they would have done on a third, steerable axle). Hope this helps.

This is looking really good but I'm going to have to get technical again for, even in the world of "whatifery" you need to get the power from the poles to the motor. If you look at most trolleybus bodies you will notice that the window pillars are just like those on a motorbus EXCEPT for those under the roof area where the electrical gear was placed. At that point the pillars are thicker. There were variations - some London trolleys had just one thick pillar and not always under the gear. The Leyland 1930s multi entrance trolley seen earlier in the thread took the power down through the front of the body using the pillar between the top deck front windows. You have chosen to represent something that looks like typical roof gear from the 1930s/40s compared to the much less heavy looking equipment that was available by the mid 1950s. That's not a problem, Chiswick was contrarily remarkably conservative in some ways considering the advances it made with bus design from the RT onwards. The problem you have is the RM was chassis less and the body was an integral design with the strength in the body. Every change that the design underwent used standard components from the original production design, placed wherever they were required, with the exception of the midships small bay on the RML which was later used for the small bays on the FRM. Now you need a solution to transmit the power without using thicker pillars. At the time the RM was undergoing development, Manchester was replacing its prewar trolleybuses and ordered some rather elegant bodies from Burlingham which did not look to have the thicker pillars below the electrical gear. The cables still ran down the relevant pillars but in neat boxes which intruded slightly into the passenger space so, rather than thickening the pillar along the length of the bus, the pillar was a few inches thicker across the internal width and the seats were arranged so seat backs butted onto the intruding pillars. With regard to badges, whatever you put on the triangle, your single wheel hubs should carry the BUT symbol. By the mid 1950s British United Traction, formed in 1946 by AEC and Leyland, produced trolleybuses ordered from fleets that would have ordered from either. The Q1s were BUT products. The standard product by 1955 was based on the AEC Regent chassis but carried BUT badges and it is certain that the running units for any Routemaster trolley would have been BUT produced. The only quibble I'd then have about this magnificent piece of inventive modelling is the use of double rear wheels on each rear axle. Is it too late to use your spare front wheels on the trailing axle, thus representing an undriven, steerable axle?