Philbky

And as Britain doesn't build airliners any more I suppose its better to have something representing British technology in its wings and various systems than a model of something out of Seattle, even though Boeing's products have a percentage of UK parts.

Once upon a time it was possible to walk through the tunnel from the terminals and climb up the grass to sit by the runway fence - a wooden structure about 3 feet high! Even in those days the walk through the tunnel was a smelly experience. I'd hate to do it now.

I've been through the dozens of easyJet photos I've taken over the years. A good number show one side of one engine and the opposite side of the other. No Airbus types have the name on the side of the engine nearest the fuselage. The B737s are the same but I didn't manage to catch the B757. What I would do if I were you, because there's always an exception to prove the rule somewhere (this is known as The Law of Sod - which is regularly seen in aviation!) is to find a photo on the Net of each aircraft you want to model and finish it as of that date. That way you have proof you are right.

There's an interesting contrast here between the brilliance of the modelling and the ineptitude of the full size original to do what it was designed to do! Many aircrew would have been delighted if the designers had put as much thought and effort into perfecting the original (and many modellers would wish Airfix had done the same!) as being shown by Nobby in his superb effort.

The shade of black is a difficult one. Night fighters, both Beaufighters and Mosquitos, were rarely photographed due to secrecy. I've had the same problem on my 1/48th Tamiya Mosquito NFII I'm currently building. Early Mosquitos, and as far as I know, Beaufighters built as night fighters were painted Special Night Black. This was a rather vile concoction which was rough, shaded badly, rubbed off on the hands of maintenance crews and has been likened to lampblack. It soon became apparent that the paint slowed the aircraft (de Havilland claimed by up to 20 knots on the Mosquito, tests by the Air Ministry showed between 3 and 10 knots). As it had no visibility benefit over other blacks, the paint was replaced by Night Black, which had acted as the undercoat, certainly on the Mosquito. This was a smooth, matte black, but not dead matte and not as shiny as semi gloss black, rather it had a slight sheen - and it didn't look as grey as some artwork depictions that are around on the net. If you can find colour pics of RAF aircraft with black undersides from the later war period - most of the heavy bombers and a range of intruder aircraft were so painted - you'll get an approximation of what you need to look for. One suggestion I had for the Special Night Black was to mix ultramarine blue with matte black. I tried that with no real success so settled on using Vajello Model Matte Black - not the best to spray as it requires far too much thinning to get it through the airbrush - but by spraying randomly in splodges and odd patterns I've pretty much built up the effect I'm looking for. I will post some photos within the next week once I have the decals on. I'm a little concerned as to how the decals will go on as I don't want to gloss anything, so Future is out.

Had the same book, dates from around 1958/9. In those days the industry, indeed the country, wanted people to have an interest in aviation so people would want to work in the industry, aircraft building, join the RAF or just buy tickets to travel. Men and boys interested in aviation (or railways for that matter) weren't considered as "anoraks" or "nerds" and many who started loking at aircraft as a hobby became leading lights in one area of aviation or another. Treating such people today as potential terrorists or just oddballs will eventually prove counterproductive.

Suggest you look at this thread. http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.p...&hl=philbky

As everyone said when I posted my version of the same kit, you can either have the rocket rails or the torpedo, not both. Otherwise a great model.

Re underwing pylons, I've never seen pylons either in life or in any photo on a Canadian Aurora. The aircraft, to quote Canadian sources, "may be fitted with air to surface missiles" which may point to the wings being fitted for pylon hardpoints along with the necessary internal equipment and wiring.

Be careful regarding the blue. The blue on the latest scheme is certainly lighter than that on the Landor scheme but tends to "shade" in different light. Compare the two ATP photos taken at roughly the same spot in similar light. Can't help with a suggestion re the correct colour, perhaps others can.

Looking at the BA promotional model of the 747 in the World tails scheme that I was given by BA and at hundreds of slides I took of the colours tomprobert is correct. The following is in the "interim" scheme where the aircraft has been repainted as normally scheduled in the months before the launch. The pearl grey and the red fuselage flash were done away with, the new colours were applied in the correct proportions and the company name applied in the new position. It just awaits the new tail scheme and Speedmark. The next few pics show the colour in different lighting conditions and different amounts of wear For comparison here is the Landor scheme:

Great build and finish. The aircraft was built in 1952 and spent time in Kenya and Pakistan before coming to the UK in the 1960s (1961 IIRC). Currently operating under an exemption certificate as seen here:

It's what you might call a DC3 and a half! There sa lot of DC3/Dougls Sleeper Transport in the design and the tail is roughly based on the original DC4 prototype.

There must have been something affecting people this week with regards to contrails. Apart from the items above, a 737 on airtest from Shannon over Kerry, caused consternation resulting in phone calls to the local radio station and the Gardai on Wednesday. For much of the middle and late afternoon it circled, at altitude, over north and central Kerry. With good visibility that day the circles formed could be seen from much of the County. The radio station, next day, made quite a "thing" of this and whilst it managed to put out some correct info, added a comment from a listener about so called "Chem Trails" and almost went along with the idea. As it happens, airtests from Shannon happen many times a month. Generally they take place over the ocean off the coasts of Clare and Galway. On Wednesday much of the traffic off the UK and Europe tothe Atlantic tracks was routed over the normal airtest area due to weather patterns and no useful block of airspace was available for the test, thus the move south. As far as the UK events were concerned, one was a Sentinel on exercise, the other was an RAF AWACS on airtest.

The previous two posts have it pretty much spot on. Up to the time of testing the P1 and the Lightning, Roly would either wear an old pair of trousers of one form or another, a shirt and normally an earphones equipped helmet. If any VIPs were around, and at airshows, a white flying suit was the order of the day. The original prototype had a modified Mk 1 ejection seat but it seems the remaining prototypes were fitted with the Mk2 - if not when built then during the test flying.

Thanks Dave. Was just curious. As I said 1/144th is too small for me these days and vacform probably beyond me!

I built this around 1968 - some 6 years after an ATC camp at RAF Kinloss where we all got close up and familiar with the breed. The rivets are over done on the model BUT you can't get rid of them because a smooth Shack never existed. How to sand back just far enough is THE problem for anyone building this kit as an accurate representation. AVRO at Chadderton and Woodford must have entered into a Faustian deal with the rivetters' union when designing the Shack. These close ups show just how prominent they are, even under coats of primer and paint. In 1968 we didn't have the availability of as wide a range of fillers etc., so the other problems we encountered with gaps can easily be dealt with now.

Just what shade would you use to paint the special BEA blue? Haven't made an airliner kit in over 40 years and 1/144 is too small for me now, vacuum form could be beyond my skills. Cheesed off at present. My 1/48th Beaufighter has lost one of its wing edge light transparencies, presumably to the carpet monster which seems to have taken up residence in the 12 months since I resumed modelling and I haven't a clue how I'm going to replicate the complex curves and thicknesses from clear sprue and the odd spare canopy

The aerial in question may well be an HF aerial as European did a great deal of business connected with the owner's Formula 1 interests, taking the aircraft to some of the more remote areas of the world. Air Bristol was either under the same ownership or there was some tie in when the 1-11s were used. Shannonair was another closely related user. OK...... that's at Templehof but if you are wondering if this shows that 'VMO wore the "Speedjack" livery before taking up the standard IGS "Super One Eleven" livery, it didn't. The date in the header is May 1972, just after the termination of the Air France agreement. The new "Super One Eleven" titles have been applied to the engines and it looks as if the paintshop has cleaned the tail and applied the base paint onto which the "Speedjack" sticker will be adhered. As was common with the 1-11 fleet, the demand for aircraft was always high so 'VMO has gone into service half dressed! What the picture clearly shows is just how much light can affect the perception of colour as all the dark areas look like a slightly faded black instead of the specially formulated blue which BEA chose. BTW, its a shame Wiley Willie and his skinflint team didn't celebrate 65 years of BEA last year with an Airbus in the red flag scheme. That would have been something.

That was 1974.

Given the cockpit layout, I don't suppose this 1979 addition to the Manchester based fleet ever appeared in your father's log book. Leased to cover shortages due to D checks on the then 10 year old VMx series aircraft.

European obviously thought fitting the airstairs was worthwhile for at least one aircraft: and I seem to remember 'VMT was at least one other so treated. Do you know if G-BGKE/F/G had airstairs as, prior to them arriving, BA had a good few 200/400srs so fitted? I never got to fly on those late arrivals as they were generally Birmingham based. Again, as they were kept apart from the 'VMx series, were their cockpits as the earlier series or were they standard? Phil

If my memory serves me right, some if not all of the G-AVMx series 1-11 received integral stairs later in life. Not sure if BA fitted them or if it was during their time with European.

Apart from the various temporary Iron Maiden schemes which are probably the most exotic, if you are looking for something unique, there are/have been plenty of America West/US airways special schemes, schemes on private or government aircraft and the easyJet scheme only appeared on the type for one summer when they hired in aircraft . In terms of regular schemes, the first Airtours scheme on the 757 was neat, Ethiopian Cargo's first 757 scheme was a classic and there are plenty of airlines, no longer in business, such as Odyssey of Canada, Eastern Airlines or the Northwest Airlines Bowling Shoe livery which you could look at. A visit to the photo pages of Airliners.net will yield hundreds of possibilities.

Hi John, If you go back to post #54 you'll see I said "'VMS to VMZ were delivered between January and August 1969, only VMS, delivered in January having the "half Jack" livery. 'VMT and VMU were delivered in March in the Super 1-11 livery, the remainder, including 'VMR which was retained for autoland trials and not delivered until May 1970 were all delivered in the Super 1-11 scheme." BEA's 1-11 500srs were oddballs in so much as the cockpit layout was totally different to other aircraft off the line. Whilst all airlines specify variations in equipment, BEA went the whole hog and aimed for cockpit commonality with the Trident which meant that the type certificate endorsement for crew trained on those aircraft was different to those of crew trained on "normal" 500srs aircraft of other airlines Such things as switches designed to operate in the opposite direction to that intended by BAC, an autothrottle arrangement and eventually an autoland system (though not as complex as that on the Trident) plus a Smiths Flight Director and compass were the main differences. This caused crewing difficulties when the BCAL aircraft were fully absorbed into the fleet - in the early days they were kept separately at Gatwick - and it must have caused problems for European Airlines when they took examples of both airlines' aircraft when BA retired them. I have previously stated that the first visit of a 1-11 500srs to Templehof was on September 1 1968 as Berlin wasn't used as part of the certification trials. The second part of the statement is true, the first part isn't. It has come to light that BAC used G-AVMI to demonstrate the aircraft to the West Berlin public in BEA red flag colours, with the participation of BEA, at the USAF Templehof Open Weekend of 13/14 July 1968. It is believed the aircraft flew in and out but was on static display during the weekend. Interestingly various publications ignored this visit pointing to the September date as the first visit. In the early 1970s the aircraft rotated on and off the IGS by means of an 07.30 departure from Manchester to Glasgow, returning to Manchester and then to Dusseldorf and Berlin. Rotation off the IGS was in the reverse direction starting in the afternoon and ending up back in Manchester in the early evening before heading north to Glasgow, returning to Manchester for around 21.45 if on time. There was a time when the gates on the domestic pier at Manchester were renumbered and the temporary signs would vanish overnight as work was done to improve the building. No fewer than four identical 1-11s were due to leave within minutes of each other to London, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Belfast and whilst boarding cards were taken at the head of the stair on the pier the inevitable errors occurred and head counts wouldn't tally leading to pursers announcing "this is the XXX flight to XXX. Passengers for AAA, BBB or CCC please leave the aircraft and return to the gate to join your flight". I saw this no less than three times in two weeks, each time passengers had to swap aircraft getting coats down from overhead racks and insisting on putting them back on before having to step out intothe inevitable early morning drizzle.. Given my frequent trips to Glasgow and Heathrow in the early 1970s and my trips to Berlin in the early 1980s it's quite possible your father was up front on one or more of my trips. I have great memories of freezing take offs for Glasgow with the de-icer streaming past the windows on rotation and the windows only clearing as we gained altitude, of great views of my homes in Bolton and later Rossendale as we climbed out towards Pole Hill, followed by views of the Ribblehead viaduct. Normally Edinburgh and Glasgow were both visible on turning towards Abbotsinch but one morning Edinburgh was cloaked in fog whilst Glasgow was in bright sun and the Edinburgh 1-11 we had sat next to on the ground at Manchester was below us in the hold and beat us into Glasgow! I remember a trip back from Heathrow on a June day which could have been imported from India in the monsoon. The 1-11, VMM according to my logs, was rock steady as we wove around some interesting CBs. The Berlin trips down the corridor were always interesting. Landing westerlies at Tegel the approach off the corridor from Dusseldorf was over East Berlin with good views of the Berlin Wall and often a parallel MiG on approach to Oranienburg. It's all a long time ago now and what used to be viewed by many enthusiasts as the most common and boring aircraft at Manchester would now have the Viewing Park and car park roof pack if one were to suddenly appear.