Pappy

G'day Mish, Thanks mate, up to my elbows in Milliput slurry at the mo. I am sure that there is a lightning kit in there somewhere.... Pappy

G'day Graham (Big Bear) Thanks for the pics, very helpful indeed, cheers, Pappy

G'day people, I added a couple of pieces of Milliput to the tail area between the engines. Whilst waiting for the Milliput to cure, I continued on with the ejection seat and pilot. I splashed some paint on, and this is how it turned out, I will add the ejection handles after the seat is installed, cheers, Pappy

G'day JB, That is exactly hat I needed to know, cheers, Pappy

Cheers, I was thinking a dull silver. G'day JB, Thanks for reply. A few more questions. I am building mine as an F6, so silver it is, though gold sounds different! I want my red tops (RT's) live, so fins on at this stage, but I like the idea of green fins. Did the green fins include the little trinagular fin in front of the large middle fins? What colour green, olive drab?, British Racing green perhaps? What would be a good match? Also I have seen noses painted white and some painted black with a section immediately forward of the engine nozzle also painted white. Is the black a removable protective cover? Were the noses solid or did these have clear section. I think I have some pics of RT's with clear noses, are there different flavours? cheers, Pappy

I have found the kit to be a good cheap alternative to the Hasegawa kit. I have also managed to fit the Hasegawa cockpit tub into the Esci kit with a minimum of fuss. The only problem I had was that the instument panels sat too low, so I raised them by mounting of a bit of plastic stock until they met the instrument coaming. If you know of someone who is using an aftermarket resin cockpit ie CE, Aires Black Box etc, perhaps they might donate the now surplus kit parts - everybody wins The seats are terrible and the cockpit is also pants, even with the canopies down. At the very least I would replace the seats. I also noticed that every time I have built the kit (three times) that there always seems to be a sizeable gap where the forward edge of the lower wing meets the forward fuselage/intakes. I added section of plastic card and send to shape. cheers, Pappy

G'day people, A small update today. I was playing around with the seat. Since my kit will be depicted with the donks running, I will need to fill the seat. Before that though I decided to busy up the seat, especially around the headbox. I added a drogue chute flap using some lead foil, and added a representation of the barostat assy as well as some other spurious details using scraps of card, lead foil and copper wire. Now for the driver, I have always liked the Matchbox jet crew figures as the heads were well moulded. I had a quick rummage through the spares box and found what I needed. The next issue was to get the little guy to fit into the cockpit. The major sticking point is that there is not enough room between the feet to clear the centre pedestal. A few minutes work with a file and I had that issue sorted. I have a question with regards to aircrew equipment for the era. Did Lightning pilots wear a life preserver yoke (LPY) type life jacket over their flightsuits? Also, what colour were helmets? I plan to do a grey schemed F6, so I guess that would be mid 80's? I am thinking white helmets but perhaps a green one... cheers, Pappy

Hang on, You started before me, I blame Greg! cheers, Pappy

G'day Zeke, How long is a piece of string? I don't know how they could make such an obvious error, although but I guess that if you are not familiar with post-war British jets and you rely on bad drawings, a mistake could be made? As for the markings, I rather like the grey schemes that the F6's wore towards the end of their careers. The decals include a grey scheme but I am waiting on one of the Xtradecal sheets, cheers, Pappy

G'day, I intend for the cockpit to be manned, so hopefully people will focus on the pilot instead of the poorly detail cockpit. I noticed that a lot of the surviving Lightnings seem to have drooping doors, but worn springs would explain why they would droop without an engine running, cheers!

G'day people, I ordered this kit a little while back (luckily before the Aussie peso went through the floor) and it has finally winged its way towards me. I have read about the kit's shortcomings and decided that the kit is still worth buying. My first impressions are the really nice detail and engraving that will pop out nicely with a wash. I have begun naturally enough with the cockpit. I thought the side consoles are well done and the instrument panel is okay, but a little simplistic. No rudder pedals are included for the tub. I added a few scratched details to busy the office up before heading off to the paint shop. I have decided that the belly tank, although too deep doesn't bother me enough to correct it, though this is just my decision to expedite the build. If I build another, I may well correct this. I added the forward belly sections for theF6 version. Prior to doing this however, I opened up the gun troughs using a small pin vice and a set of jeweller's files to clean up the holes. I added a small strip of plastic sheet behind the vertical joint to add a little strength and prevent the join moving during handling and sanding. In the course of doing my research, I noticed that there are two panels aft of the cockpit, just above the wing root that appear to be open when the engine is running whilst on the ground. I think that these may be some type of auxiliary air inlet doors? I decided to show this on my models so these doors removed and small replacement doors added to fuselage interior. In order to prevent a tail sitter, I will add some nose weight to the intake bullet. Trumpeter have moulded a small bulkhead internally to the bullet, but I cut mine away in order to open up more room to add nose weight, effectively doubling the volume available. I painted the intake trunking/bullet silver and added a wash to the compressor face, but not much will be visible once installed I read that the APU exhaust opening is a little too large, which I agree with, so I have added a chunk of plastic sheet into the recess which will be smoothed and filled before a new, smaller opening is made. I have painted the cockpit and it has turned out reasonably well, hopefully the addition of the seat will busy things up nicely! cheers, Pappy

G'day fellas, Thanks that was quick! I have been trawling through the net looking at pics of the Red Top missiles. I want to do my Lightning as an F6, in the late period with the grey camo. The Red Tops all seem to be different colours, however it looks like a grey or silver body? with white front and rear fins/engine nozzle section and white or black seeker section. Can you clarify if the missile body was grey (if yes, what grey?) or silver, or either, it is a little confusing, cheers, Pappy

G'day people, I have bought the 1/72 Trumpeter (I know it has 'issues') EE Lightning F.2A/F6 kit and would like to know what colour the intake and undercarriage bays are. Trumpeter state silver, which sounds okay, but I am a bit wary. Also what is a good colour for the cockpit, I am leaning towards medium sea grey? cheers, Pappy

G'day Bex and Seamus, I would like to pitch in with a 1/72 Anigrand XF10F-1 "Jaguar", It was real and it flew in US Navy colours. Pretty please.... cheers, Pappy

Why thank you! cheers, Pappy

G'day Dan, Thanks for the nice words. I also like subs, although I am mainly a fast jets guy. cheers, Pappy

G'day folks, Well, I have finished my 1/72 Finemolds "Kaiten". I managed to lose the props and could not find them so I scratchbuilt replacements using stretched sprue and plastic card (don't look too closely!) , and a simple scenic base was made to display the finished kit. The kit includes the transport dolly. I made the base using a sheet of cobblestone section that I found in the railway section of a model shop and added the two rails using strips of plastic, enjoy, Pappy

G'day Wolfie! Ahh, yes the addictive powers of French heavy metal is not to be underestimated. Production will resume on the M2k's in the new year, probably around February once my impending house moving exercise is completed. In the meantime, I will content myself to sit back and watch your build, so far it looks pretty inspiring. A word of advice to those with the Renaissance Resin bits. I have the Afterburner (actually two) and it doesn't match the rear of the Heller kit very well. the resin part is actually a smidgion wider than the kit fuselage at the bum and not perfectly round. Both of my examples are the same. I had already glued my fuselages together, otherwise I may have entertained adding plastic card shims at the rear fuselage joint to slightly widen the back end enough to match the resin AB diameter, cheers, Pappy

G'day Paul, Thanks but these pics are not mine. I don't remember where I found them originally, but I thought that others might find them useful, cheers, Pappy

G'day Mike, I don't know where I got these from, but I was going through my reference pics when I re-discovered these. Maybe they could help? I think that all the stuff except the orange/yeller LGB in pic Misawa 260b are available in the J.A.S.D.F weapons sets. I think the LGB looks like the English version of the LG bomb, or at least it bears a passing resemblance to one, cheers, Pappy

G'day folks, This is Finemolds diminutive 1/72 kit of the Kaiten manned torpedo. This was a modified heavy torpedo that was designed to be operated by a single man on what was essentially a suicide mission. Up to six of the type 1 could be carried on the mother submarine and these were launched from a distance of about 7000m from their target. In theory the operator could escape, in practice it was a suicide mission. The effectiveness of the Kaiten was low however. Of the 100 Type 1 deployed, only two ships were actually destroyed. Many of their pilots used the scuttling charges to detonate themselves rather than face a slow death in the middle of the ocean as return to the parent sub was not possible in most cases. The carriage of the Kaiten also limited the diving depth of the parent sub, making them vulnerable as well. In most cases the standard heavy torpedo was more effective. I have built the kit straight from the box. The kit provides three schemes, an all black operational scheme, a training scheme that has a white upper section and a test scheme, which I chose. The kit went together in an evening, included beaching dolly that actually has the same number of parts (13) as the Kaiten itself. I plan on making a small base for the dolly to sit on. The keen eyed will have noticed that I have not attached the twin propellers. There is a good reason for this, I have lost them!! I don't know what I will do to replace them. Most probably I will have to buy another kit as there are only two sprues in the kit and the cost of buying a sprue would actually be more than buying a complete kit I think.

G'day Mish, Thanks for the encouragement. G'day Ray, thanks G'day Dave, Thansk again. I have been on a bit of a submarine building trend of late.

G'day people, I would like to share some pics of my recently completed 1/144 Revell U214 class submarine in Hellenic Navy markings. I built the kit over a couple of weekends. There is a build thread in the maritime 'in-progress' sub-folder (no pun intended!), all comments welcome, Pappy

G'day people, here are the last pics. the kit is basically done but I want to add a name plate. In the Hellenic Navy, the U214 type is referred to as the "Papanikolas Class" so I will add a plaque to that effect at a later date. I added the three figures as I wanted to give a sense of scale. The figures are "N" scale railroad items, donated by a fellow club member. They are approx. 1/150 scale so not absolutely scale, but my excuse is that submariners are usually shorter anyway! all comments welcome, cheers, Pappy

G'day people, I am currently on a sub building odyssey following the 1/72 Fine Molds Type A midget sub. This is the Revell 1/144 U214, a new diesel/hydrogen fuel cell design that has recently entered service with the German, Hellenic (Greek) and Korean navies. The kit has a mix of finely engraved and raised panel lines. The conning tower has two options, a fully closed part and and one with everything open/extended. All the control surfaced are positionable and two entry hatches, one at the front of the conning tower and one on the right side can be posed open. I had decided to use the conning tower part with all the sensors extended. It is probably unlikely that all the sensors would be extended at once, but I thought that this would add interest for the viewer. I also decided to add the access tube that leads from the upper conning tower to the sub interior. I fashioned a tube using some sheet plastic. A ladder was built using plastic rod and this was attached. The entry hatch was removed and a new one built based on the kit panel lines. A small locking wheel was added as a final touch. The parts fit is good, but I still needed some filler to blend everything in. See if you can spot the areas where I used filler.... Well, that is the progress after a lazy weekend's effort, more in a few days, cheers, Pappy