Pappy

Yes thank you, that is what I meant, EDSG in the roundels woul look weird! cheers, Pappy

G'day, Dark Admiralty Grey is the official cockpit colour. I used Tamiya XF-54 (Dark Sea Grey) as my approximation. I think WEM make the exact shade. The ejection seat was a lighter shade, I used Medium Se Grey. The pre-painted PE colours are way off . As already stated, the upper EDSG was used to overpaint the white areas including the intakes and the white portions of the roundels. This meant that most of the stencils were also overpainted, exceptions werthe nozzle and tailpalne position indicators. Depending on which carrier, the EDSG was applied with sprayguns or rollers,. The overpainting left a slight but perceptible tonal change to the overpainted white areas which I replicated on my build, cheers, Pappy

Yeah there are deffo a few unique features apart from the big 'football' on the tail. Don't wait for me though, I will be working on my other build for a while so you may end up being in front, cheers, Pappy

G'day people, I was going to wait until my other GB entry was completed before starting but this kit has been in the stash long enough so I have decided to get into this one as well. AS I said at the start, this kit has a good shape but lacks detail so it was time to start doing something to remedy that. This is what comes in the box, There is also a stick and panel which are equally featureless. Luckily I have some resin and PE which can fix this. First step is to prepare the fuselage by removing these bits To be replaced by these bits The tub also got some love cheers, Pappy

G'day people, A little more progress today. I had glued the wings together. The destructions required the wing speed brake external actuator fairings to be removed. I wanted to make sure this was a thing before I hacked into the plastic. Yup, it is! I don't know if the actuator fairings are a feature unique to the EA-6A because the A-6A and A-6E both have them I did one wing at a time so that I could use it as a guide to re0instate any lost panel line details. Fujimi supply the slats as separate items which is a nice touch but as far as I know the slats operate in concert with the flaps, so if the slats are deployed, so are the flaps? Its looks weird anyway so I decided to cut the slat guides off and just attach the slats in the closed position. The problem is that you can get them flush with either the upper of lower edge but not both so I opted to get the upper side flush and bogged and sanded the lower edge It was then just a simple matter of scribing in the lost lower edge, cheers, Pappy

Dunno, I don't have the KH kit! IIRC the KH kit splits the fuselage into four parts (forward and aft fuselage halves) so you can display the included full length dpnk. That was the main reason I decided to buy the Kinetic SUE instead Pappy

G'day people, If I had to guess I would have said no as well but clearly this is wrong. I think the reason for the inner doors opening is to help create an ' air dam' to create a ground effect cushion by trapping additional air underneath the jet when it gets close to the ground. I ddn't think FOD is the great concern as it is mainly a danger to the engine which in VTOL mode would be ingesting air from the top of the fuselage and the deck would be swept for FOD regularly. There would also be a post flight inspection in any case, cheers, Pappy

G'day Bertie, It is definitely a product of its time but there is the potential for a good kit in there, cheers, Pappy

Yeah I know what you mean, I built their Etendard IV M a while back. It was a slog at times but they do look good when done, cheers, Pappy

G'day people, Not sure how wise this is but I will attempt to complete a second build, something with a Gallic twist, This is the Airfix issue of the Heller kit. it's old and has lots of thick, poor fitting plastic with scant detail which has long been superceded by the excellent Kinetic family of SUE kits. The construction sequence is pretty straightforward and is comprised of only 13 steps, three of which deal with stores, In any case, if I don't get to it there is always the Dassault build which follows not long after, cheers, Pappy

G'day people, Wow, all the way from the the bowels of page 4, this is proving to be a popular GB! The starter's gun has fired (well in Oz anyway) and the clock is now running so it is time to crack the bags on this one. The destructions assembly sequence starts with assembling the cockpit so who am I to argue? The side consoles and instrument panel feature some really nice crisp and delicate details. Although the kit includes decals to overlay on the side consoles and instrument panel it is just too tempting so I think that I will have a crack at painting the details. I don't think that the IP is super accurate for an EA-6A but I think that i will live with it, The other bit carried out was to drill out the lightening holes in the fuselage speed brakes. I think it is a simple thing that makes a big difference to their appearance These were later changed to a 'solid' version of later variants before eventually being de-activated but as the EA-6A was a development of the A-6A these were very much still in use cheers, Pappy

G'day Rob, Lovely job on an unusual subjetc cheers, Pappy

G'day Jari, Thanks for ttranslating the pilot's account from the FFA site it has been very useful. Ref the jettisoned bombs, it is not unusual that the carrier landing weight (the 'bring back' weight) is lower than than the TKOF weight. If the jets were landing at a land aerodrome it would not have been an issue and the same article states that the jets took off and then hit their 'nannies' O buddy refuel equippes SUE's) to top off and reach the target. It was also because they would not have to dump as much fuel prior to landing in an emergency. Most carrier jets dump excess fuel prior to oanding as well. cheers, Pappy

Not quite, G'day Andre, I have had a perouse through the FFA site referred above. I used my schoolboy French to get the gist of a pilot account which he described a mission involving 15 jets. on a weapons dump. The strike force from the carrier Foch was conducted by aircraft from 11F and consisted entirely of SUE's performing the role of shooters (2 x GBU-12s) or designators, using an ALTIS pod to buddy lase for thre shooters. Some SUE's were also configured with buddy refuel pods to conduct AAR once airborne. The AS-30 mission was conducted previously against Ponikve airfield. Rafale was not involved in Op Trident, cheers, Pappy

G'day people, I have been trying to find mission loads carried by French Navy SuE's during Operation Allied Force. I have found pics of SuE loads for Afghanistan and of course heaps of Agentine Falklands war era pics but have come up empty for Allied Force. Can someone point me in the direction of pics of French navy SuE loads please? I would guess that outer pylons would be a BARAX/PHIMAT combination with perhaps a pair of GBU-12s on the inner pylons, but as the SuE ddes not have an integral laser designator it would require something like an ALTIS or DAMOCLES pod? cheers, Pappy

Still stopped Pappy

G'day Alistair, I have a mate who calls this 'modelling for God' since nobody else will see it. I also dd this sort of thing and it never seems to bother me as much as it does others. My attitude is that the kit is there to entertain me and painting stuff is part of that, even if the parts will be hard to see if at all. In this case lots of people have seen your engine (online), they just can't see it in real life. I am also liking the sow's ear to silk purse tranformation that you are performing, cheers, Pappy

Grandad's axe! I am sure it will turn out great, cheers, Pappy

Geez, will there be anything left of the original tractor? Loving the work, keep it up, cheers, Pappy

G/day Amos, Thanks very much, cheers, Pappy

G'day Stu, I agree that the Airfix K2 boxing is a better detailed kit and crisper in general but the Matchbox (MB) kit is a good shape, includes the HDU and external refuel pods. The Revell re-box also includes Cartograph printed decals and supplies the Hemp scheme. The areas where the kit falls a little short is in the finer details like the undercarriage and cockpit. I have both kits and despite having greater detail and the addition of PE etc, the cockpit interior is mostly invisible! As Electrosoldier (ES) mentioned the MB kit has two big drawbacks, one is that all the panel line detail is represented as fine raised lines. You may not be put-off by this and may even decide to use these as a scribing guide. Or you could juts ignore it. The second issue is the fit. The kit goes together very well for the most part but as ES also mentioned, the intakes have their guide vanes moulded integrally with each wing half, which results in a truly awful seam that goes through the middle of each vane. The easy option here is to fit some intake blanks. These are simple shapes and could be made from some plastic sheet very easily. Airfix was very clever in this area and designed the vanes as separate items with drop into place after the intake duct is assembled making for a much neater join. Flightpath make a set of one piece resin intake plugs but this involves major surgery, requiring you to cut the corresponding section out of each kit wing assembly, install the resin inserts, then sand and fill the resultant seams. The Flightpath PE set will go a long way to improving the detail level of the MB kit, cockpit, undercarriage and speed brakes but when you add the cost of the PE set resin intakes you are now approaching or surpassing the cost of the Airfix kit, plus all the extra work and complexity of folding brass and using different media (styrene, resin and brass) which makes for a longer and more comlex build. Before the Airfix kit became available, this was the path chosen by 'serious' builders. In summary you get what you pay for, the MB kit is an accurate shape but lacks recessed panel lines, but it looks the part when completed and as you say significantly cheaper than the Airfix offering (when available). Airfix has better detail and generally fits better but costs a lot more. Cleaning up the MB intake seams will be your biggest hurdle, it is annoying and tedious but can be done. Adding intake blanks would make life much easier. If you just want a shelf sitter as opposed to a comp table entry, it is not a bad option and as long as you don't suffer from AMS, it could be a cheap, fun and quick build. The Airfix kit offers better detail and more complex engineering which makes for an easier build in this respect and that is reflected in the price. Head on over to the Scalemates review site, there should be some scans of the instructions from each kit which may help you decide, cheers, Pappy

G'day Jure and Lee, Thank you both very much for the prompt and helpful responses, exactly what I was chasing, cheers, Pappy

G'day people, I have a couple of questions regarding the Fairey Swordfish ('Stringbag') Mk.II and as I am mainly a jet guy cluelesss with regards the prop stuff, I thought to seek to collective wisdom of the BM massif' Wikipedia informs me that the Mk.II had metal skinned lower wing undersides to enable the use of rockets, Q1. Does anyone have a picture or drawing of what this looked like? Is it just a section of metal where the doped skin over ribs would be? I have noticed the the upper wings have some form of a slat device Q2. Were these deployed mechanically by the pilot as required or operated aerodynamically such that on the ground and at zero airspeed they would be deployed/drooped? Thanks in advance, Pappy

G'day Mark, I have read that lead can react with PVA over time. This may just be a rumour but the issue has been discusse3d on this and other fora previously I always use CA or epoxy, cheers, Pappy

Got it, cheers Dave, Pappy