Bonehammer

Nice idea, a trip into Yesteryears. Depending on how fast the paid work spools up, I could pick up one of those fast builds that I used to throw together in a weekend and paint with oils (I kept some spares and they are still sticky, 30+ years later...)

Reference for these is nowhere near rare, but if you're searching for a painting guide, I found this last February in the local riverbed: Whereas if you're planning to tackle a vacuform, this is the safer way I know of preparing the parts without removing too much material: ICM Mustangs are difficult to go together, kudos for your effort!!!

The Zvezda fuselage is a sound plan. I would not recommend using the Hobbycraft fuselage because it is not faultless, has a whippet's belly that has to be built up with Milliput. The Hobbycraft canopy is only good for the bin. I don't know what I used on my Academy 7 - a Squadron or maybe even a Medallion Models canopy.

I think a plastic shim for the fuselage, plus the vacform canopy meant for the Hobbycraft Lavochkin would solve the problem. Haven't tried it myself yet.

I have done some old Su-7 and Su-22 and cannot understand why KP didn't think of issuing the latter with the correct fuselage. The early swing-wings were much sexier! Following with interest... Bone

depends on what you're envisioning but icecream sticks and chopsticks would be a good starting material, both for the fence and shack. Both can be found on that online site for buying all sort of stuff.

Hello Ced, Perhaps this might be helpful? http://massimotessitori.altervista.org/sovietwarplanes/pages/la-7/la-7colors/27kozhedub/27kozhedub.htm The whole site ( http://massimotessitori.altervista.org/sovietwarplanes/index.html ) and associated forum ( http://massimotessitori.altervista.org/sovietwarplanes/board/index.php ) are a treasure trove for anything related to VVS before, during and shortly after World War T The Great Patriotic War.

I wonder why these aircrafts receive so little attention from manufacturers. The Cutlass is guaranteed to turn heads at your average exhibition and the Tiger, while of a more conventional design, carried some colourful schemes including a gorgeous sharkmouth. But what do we have? Old kits that in 1/72 (Hasegawa, Fujimi) are at least serviceable and in 1/48 (Lindberg - rivet fests, Hobbycraft - rarer than raw steak) are not. Demons and Skyrays demonstrate that there's a place in the sun for these early Navy jets, so does anyone know what's in the mind of the marketing departments?

Search for "B923R7" on Alamy and you'll get a closeup picture of a Mi-8 "Blue 05" in Chernobyl. I don't know if it's the same that ended up in the Rassokha graveyard together with lots of Mi-6s and a few Mi-26s. Mil helicopters had a rather standardized camo scheme and you could use the same paints suggested for Mil-24s - for example Xtracolor X604, X605 and X606.

I'd love a decent 1/48 Hampden. Each time I open the box of the FM kit, I sigh and put it away again.

And the Italian UXO sign mentions a (civilian) company which celebrated the 25th anniversary of its foundation in 1971... Interesting in its own right, but it's industrial vintage, not militaria. An identical one was sold on an Italian auction site for €40.

Hello all, I've stumbled upon a minor event in the war that was reported in the local newspaper some time ago. In short: twelve labourers working under the Todt organization and an RSI soldier were killed on 18th January 1945 when Allied planes were attacking bridges near Pieris and a bomb either fell or bounced into the bunker (a trench maybe?) in which they had sheltered. The railway bridge in question is part of the Venice-Trieste line and crosses the Isonzo (Soča) river at 45°48'32.3"N 13°25'38.7"E. A small monument has been erected on the east bank but I do not know whether it is in the same position as the shelter. The newspaper says that the attacking planes were RAF Thunderbolts but I find that unlikely. An educated guess is that the raid was carried out by the 12th Air Force, possibly the 57th FG which was based out of Grosseto at the time. I didn't much like the tone of the article, which does such thing as to put the word "mission" in quotes, and would like to know if a mission log exists describing the events from the opposite viewpoint. Thanks in advance, Bone

I know it was less capable but I always liked the look of the Havoc more than the Mitchell or Marauder. Excellent job on an old goldie!

If you were to do it your best bet would probably be to impress another corrugated surface (wing, aileron) on a "lasagna" of fresh Milliput. But yeah, this is clearly easier to do.

Aargh, 1/18 is even better than I hoped! Thanks, much appreciated. The hunt begins...