melvyn hiscock

There is a separate thread on this now, and as the information on the aeroplane comes out, it will be written up for a German book, a UK magazine, either Aeroplane or Aviation Historian, and, of course, on here IN THE RIGHT THREAD (pauses to smack self around the head). It is a really interesting story that resulted in confirmation of identities of pilots and aircraft, photos of what is left of the real aeroplane and a couple more original photos that have been found. I am sorry I stuck it in here to begin with, but please follow it on it’s own thread. I am very proud to be a founder member of the Memorial Flight and this was what we were all about from the beginning. Restore and preserve the original stuff but also preserve the information around that. right, back to the Siemens that I find fascinating.

That looks great, nice rescue with the masking Now if only someone would come up with 8 and 24in series so that I can finish mine!

Do Fly do a Mk1?

I couldn’t find ‘delete the picture you put in the wrong place dummy!’ button.

Well, apart from the bits I hadn’t finished like trimming the rigging (all has to come out to paint the wings) and I think I forgot to paint the exhaust it was not *exactly* finished but it popped up in my Hunter thread for some reason. When I have included all the changes from the new research I’ll shove it in RFI. It was not supposed to be in this thread at all but the iPad ( no swearing Melv, no swearing....) and I have a relationship which is best described as a bit Eastenders’! thanks for the comment, it is going to get better!

Yeah, not bad. I bought some of your instrument decals to use on my models in the hope that some of the talent you have may rub off. It failed. It was the same when I followed Jeff Beck around for ages until I got the cease and desist order, none of the talent rubbed off there either. It is just not fair, this means I have to gain experience and skill, learned from years of making mistakes to stand any chance of being able to stand next to you with any sense of worth. I haven’t got time for that, I need perfection and I need it now! It was good to see we do have one, very important, thing in common. In post no 12, I see you were using a micrometer the same as mine and bought, no doubt, from the wonderful central aisle from that shop of shops, Lidl. I can recommend the screwdriver set too, well, and the cider and £13 champagne but that’s another story. i jokingly put ‘not bad’ as EVERYONE has room for improvement and I am sure you can see things you’d change if you could go back. Rest assured we can’t see them, so your room for improvement is clearly cupboard-like unlike my USAF Museum at Dayton hanger-sized chasm clearly marked ‘Hiscock’s no chance of ever filling this by getting better chasm’. (And if you’ve been to the USAF museum you’d understand just HOW big we’re talking.) My gob is, of course, well and truly smacked and I would still recommend reading Lopez’s book ‘Fighter Pilot Heaven’. It is one of the few books I reviewed for ‘Aeroplane’ that I ‘forgot’ to send back and I have read it three times at least and few aviation books make me laugh out loud, and in a world where some fighter pilot’s can be total ‘holes of A’ he was clearly a modest and good gentleman. now back to waiting for those great guys at Fantasy to print serials for my Hunter. with respect, Melv

Whoops, having just posted this in the Siemens Shuckert thread by mistake.... A little while back l built the Wingnuts Albatros DVa as they Prussian blue and white striped example. i have just been asked by the Memorial Flight (I am a member) to write on some new evidence of the identity of this aeroplane, the pilot and the colours. I will cover the changes to my model after the research is properly published, but there will have to be some repainting! so, she will be going back in for modifications,

Whoops

I am just involved in some fun work with the Memorial Flight and contacts in Germany about the blue and white striped Albatros DVa I recently made and new information that has come to light about it. The remains of this aeroplane are held by the Memorial Flight and it seems I am going to have to make some changes to my model...... There will be more information after the article is written (I am being a tease) and when I do the changes on my model.

Thanks John. I agree with what you sat about no one having a bad word about Neville and also Pete Brothers. i was not lucky enough to get Pete for FV, which could be tough to do. I needed to have a balance of pilot types and eras and it was often a day or so to go before deadline before I got someone. Tracking them down was my job and pre-internet was highly skilled work! Mick, the Aeroplane Head Hitter, and one of my best friends ever and 50% of the best men at our wedding was a great help, as was Dick Richardson at Popham, who held the Test Pilot lunch every year. I was late leaving the get to Dave Morgan, The ex-Supermarine Pilot, who was in Buckfastleigh in Devon and I lived in Basingstoke, when I got there we were chatting and he asked me how the trip down was, I told him I’d been late and made it to his in under three hours. (Old BMW 320i and no speed cameras) he said ‘you must have been shifting!’ and then laughed like a drain when I told him I’d had to start slowing down at Honiton. Geoff Worrall, from Gloster and I met up at Kemble and being a flash git I flew over in the Rearwin. After the interview I asked him if he wanted a go and he looked like a ten year old kid when he said ‘I was rather hoping you’d ask!’. Eric Brown, who I’d been warned did not suffer fools and could be a bit abrasive, was an absolute gentleman, great fun and at the end of the interview asked ‘would you like to join me for a wee sherry’. At one point, to balance things, I needed someone who had flown a lot in the fifties on things like Shackletons And I chanced across an answer on the Key forum (I had internet by then) and spoke to a nice chap called a Tim Elkington who had, indeed flown shacks. What I hadn’t realised was that he was ex- BofB and we were speaking 70 years TO THE SECOND since he’d been shot down in his Hurricane over Wittering, near Chichester, and he told me that his mother had actually seen it! Now, there’s a subject for a Hurricane model, I do like a link to the models I do. oh look at the time. There will be more stories about FV I am sure but I have a busy day waiting for Fantasy Printshop to make the serials for the Hunter! (Or anyone else for that matter) and just as a final, re FV, there is not a hole deep enough to bury (in my opinion) the one pilot I learned to hate in short order (and that is not CY, I wouldn’t have done him but a DR) - you can work it out, or ask me privately.

John Glad to hear you are doing ok on that b*stard disease. Melv

Chatting to Jon, or Biggles 87 Yesterday we spoke about the Spitfire (Neville’s of course) looking a different scale to the Hunter so I nipped upstairs to the ‘will you clean me’ room to take these. I know I’ve not painted the exhausts on the Spitfire but, I think they look about right when photographed differently to above. I would have used my Nikon but it needs an overhaul and, as with many digital cameras, the overhaul costs more than the peanuts the camera is now worth. whilst upstairs I also grabbed these. As you may know I did the ‘Flying Visit’ series in Aeroplane for 11 years and I chased Neville for some time. Here are two letters, just over a year apart. They are going to get framed together and added to my collection. Firstly, polite and formal speaking to him at Popham he’s said ‘give me a year’, so..... a little later and by this time we know each other a little better. The tongue in cheek ‘can’t find another excuse’ still makes me smile and I like his reference to Diana Banarto Walker. I still have his hand typed answers to the visit questions, and a letter with a couple of corrections. Fantastic stuff to have. Really my aviation hero.

Thanks Chris. they were I’d a different generation, that is for sure. The magazine work I did meant I got to meet quite a few. A real privilege and only one I really didn’t like!

Honestly, do you guys REALLY think you have a problem https://shop.guitarpoint.de/en/gibson/1958-gibson-les-paul-standard-ronnie-montrose-burst Only €295,000 then there is this lot.... Andy Summers 1958 V on the left, probably about 3-500,000, Eric Clapton’s 1958 Explorer in the middle. Sold in 1999 for £120,000, you could add a nought to that now at least and on the right , Paul Kossoff’s 1958 Les Paul (one of at least three he had and fully documented) sold privately, thought to be over £1m. the most I spent drunk was £400 on a Gibson SG. I listed it on EBay as ‘brand new condition, bought Due to an accident involving my addled brain and a very nice St Emilion!’ I have been very lucky in my career to play some truly iconic guitars but never *quite* drunk enough to part ex the house for one!

I definitely found they carried slightly in size. 18 in ‘May’ have been specified but MTF (making them fit) was also used and can be seen in photos.

I have at least one friend that would look at that, tell me it is impossible then go away for a few days and comeback with a prototype counter rotating mechanism based on watch pieces, stuff he’s found in his workshop and the odd bit he made on his home made CNC machine. People like that make life SO much more interesting!

I am still waiting for my replacement parts for my DVII despite both Hannants and WNW promising to send them.

Oooh, how do they get the prop to counter rotate in 1/32?

I *think* I have just worked out (for fun only and casting no aspersions against the Hunter that I believe to be accurate AND without showing my maths which is highly suspect) that the thickness of the lines I was using in my multi expanded drawings would allow for 1/32 and 1/35 on the same drawing! when I have had my breakfast I’ll go and take some pictures with the Hunter in front of the Spit. My money is on distorting camera lens!

Thanks Jon it may well be perspective as all of the pics are mobile phone. The Spitfire is the Tamiya VIII so few doubts about accuracy there, however given the drawing I was working too and the thickness of lines this could be anything! Look at how fuzzy thus one was... the lines on this one are about 2mm from one edge of the fuzz to the other, but at least it is consistent inaccuracy!

Mmmm, PVA May have been the answer, at attack with a file some wet n dry of dubious parentage and we get.... now, that’s a bit tidier, unlike the workspace..... apart from some minor paint touch up it is time to find somewhere for it to sit but she has some company (that also needs some finishing) along with the markings. the question is now, where are they going to be displayed (with relevant memorabilia) and what next?

When I started this build I expected it to be really difficult, fiddly at least since I had, since coming back to muddling, made my first model I was actually pleased with (Eduard Spit IX). I then made the 1/72 Phantom that broke the sound barrier at Lee on Solent Airday in 1969 where I learned about stencilling! Then it was a Wingnuts Camel, my Christmas present one year, the Tamiya Spitfire IX in Neville Duke’s colours (still waiting paint touch up, exhaust painting and light weathering) a 1/48 Spitfire for a friend but I can’t get it to him as he lives in Jersey and I am NOT posting it as I want it in a display box, and finally the WNW Albatros DVa that we actually have in France and which I am about to write an article on (it’s about time I got back into writing magazine stuff. Regarding the Albatros, I found out last night the wings were not all white so I am quite pleased I didn’t finish off the fiddly bits and fill the rigging holes, which I did all the way through the wing, as I may have to re-rig it. I love it when people say you can only really be accurate if you have a photo. Try half a ton of original aircraft wreck to prove the painting instructions wrong - no arguing about orthochromatic film then! (I will write up the changes in the model that we have proven wrong, but possibly not in here until the magazine article is out as I will be getting paid for that one.) Of course, then it was on to the great Mr Duke’s Hunter. ( pause for hero worship...) It has surprised me how quickly I have been getting through it as I expected to be more flattened by the chemo, I did have a COVID scare, we have been on max lockdown, and I have had some more side effects that were unpleasant. LECTURE TIME Please excuse me doing this, but a colonoscopy that was booked and then cancelled ‘because my mum was ill and I was her carer‘ was feeble beyond pathetic, it meant mine was not found for an extra year and I can grow cancer very quickly, if I’d had that test I may not be terminal now. My fault. No one else to blame. Do NOT do the same and take every test offered, I lost 15in colon, I have 14 in scar where about half my liver was taken, I have further cancers elsewhere and my future is much smaller, I said way back at the start of this thread that I may nag occasionally and you’ve got away lightly! Like I said last week, sorry if the mention of it upsets people but, believe me, the tests hurt much less than the operations and the fear is easier when you know they have looked before they tell you that you are ok. There, lecture over. so, I was surprised that the chemo did not hold me up as much as I thought and we are now getting close to the fiddly bits and then markings, which may be the only problem, but Fantasy Printshop are on it, and doing their best. Among the fiddles was the wing trim tab which, on the prototype, are not inset and cockpit operated, but a good old bit of ali on the trailing edge that could be tickled to shape whilst on the ground. The tab was a carefully machined scrap out of 10 thou plasticard to the exact measurements we forgot to take when we had our visit with John Wright. the finger, chosen as being one of the least scabby - the mess is all paint and nothing with corpuscles which, in my case, is more of a roundel red - is pointing at the one thing that amuses me. Mr John Wright, of Tangmere Museum, have I got the radius of ‘John’s curve’ at the end of the aileron ok? over in the other wingtip, as well as this one incidentally, I scraped back the red paint and masked the wingtip light ready for touch up. Of course, I could have masked the tip light first but that seemed too easy (forgot) and gave me another chance to break off the pitot. I‘ve done this so often I am getting very close to having one machined out of kryptonite. Kryptonite is, of course from the Superman stories and, in the 1980s he was played by Christopher Reeve. Incidentally, and you may not know this AND it’s nothing to do with modelling, after Christopher Reeve fell off his horse and broke his back his medical fees were covered by his old roommate at Juliard. I collect autographs but only of people that really mean something to me in music and aviation. For example, I have a nice frame of Eric Brown, with signature, calling card and photos of the Mosquito and Vampire carrier landings but you couldn’t give me Chuck Yeager*, and you could not give me the overblown, over sentimental Charlie Chaplin whose ‘incidents’ with young girls have never been fully examined But I recently got my second holy grail (second only to a set of the Beatles), the man with the greatest comedy timing ever, Buster Keaton. I also have one of the greatest modern improvisational comedians and the man that picked up Christopher Reeves Medical Fees * I will not discuss Chuck Yeager in public, and any comments about him on here, positive or negative, will be removed. If you want a polite person to person chat with me over a pint, that’s fine. so, the main canopy was placed into position partly to mask the inside of the cockpit but also for painting the frame and the external windscreen curvy bit was glued on and masked. For some reason, I glued this and the front frame with Uhu as I thought it might be easier to control than pva....... I had already spent a few happy, nay delerious minutes cleaning up the snotty mess around the front canopy but will I learn? Nope, I had gone, as in the last post, and Uhu’d the front extension too. This was masked ready for the touch up paint. The whole model was painted in stages using my terrible cardboard box spray booth (extraction? Isn’t that what dentists do?) is it any wonder I break off pitot tubes? And this is the tidy end of the workbench. I got the slightly fiddly legs in place and also glued on the wheels. These jet things confuse me, the last things I glue on are usually wheels and prop And this one has thrown me, so I glued them in, thinking all the time of my good friend Brendan O’Brien (the most generous person I’ve ever commentated with and a true friend when the going gets tough), I always giggle at shows when an aircraft on downwind will drop the gear and Brendan will say ‘dunlops down and dangling’. You may also be surprised to learn it was not a tail sitter. Hiding getting on for 20 3.1g guitar pickup magnets all around the nose instead of 41g in the cone instead, worked and it almost works out to scale weight. it was then time to unmask the canopy and do a bit of touch up. it was now I realised it looked like if had been fitted by a blind worker using a 6 in brush of mastic. I tried cleaning it up but UHU is very stringy and very clingy. I also came across another problem. if you look at the picture in post 67, it shows a very ragged edge to the screen extension, this one here..... this was not, as i thought UHU residue or ‘Swarf ’ from the Perspex I used to mould the new canopy by the edges of the pledge (a pledge edge) and so next to impossible to remove cleanly. It turned out to be ragged edge of the canopy dipping I had done and was dried pledge. In at least one place the paint capiliaried inside leaving a reg splodge. You can see in the touch up picture how scabby the canopy is and it doesn’t look like I am going to be able to smooth them easily and also just how scabby my thumb is. I’ve tried to keep the more unpleasant Parts of my hands out of the pictures, so sorry about this one. If you catch it just right, it feels like someone has jabbed a sewing needle into the wound and it is quite swollen. All avoidable if I’d had that test. so, last night it was a case of grab the scalpel and hoik off the outer canopy. Clean up the edges and all UHU snot, clean off the pledge from inside and outside ( it just peels) and glue the moulding back on with pva (I know, I know, you were shouting at me and I wasn’t listening), there is some slight filling to do, and some more general clean up but it will be ready for decals within 24 hours, except I will only be able to use the kit roundels as there are no white serials available in the right sizes. Fantasy Printshop ARE working on them and they will be done in time. It is not fair to try and hurry him on here as he has a hell of a workload and we are (hopefully) coming out of a terrible time that has killed off a lot of businesses and if Fantasy can just keep going then they have a chance to recover, and that is great as they have dvdone some superb work. That is more important than my little Hunter so I’ll wait. all ready for pva and clearly fit some more tidying. not far off now.....

Thanks Don, I’ve enjoyed it. Especially as it has gone pretty well perfectly every time I have dived headlong into something without a plan. Take the afterburner, it may not pass minute inspection with a Fine tooth comb (and, presumably a ruler unless combs have been standardised) but it looks the part. ive not been up to look today but the extra screen should have glued using the pledge, if not, I just clean it up and go pva glue. i only have the rear front gear door to put on, tidy up the main gear and paint the wells, stick the seat in the hole, oh add those two big round rubbery things, fix the pitot I broke twice yesterday (If I showed you my fingers you’d no longer why I am a bit og a Captain Klutz (5 points in anyone can give me the cartoonist who came up with him) And start fixing the very easily marked red paint and putting Plodge on it, then unmask the canopy (or before...)’ stick on the roundels that, at the moment’ I am assuming the size and we have discussed the DFA rule here before. then I, like all the rest of us, have to wait for Fantasy Printshop to starts making those codes. There is a LOT of work for them but it’ll be a great resource for all os us.

Well I never would... having been bunging paint around all weekend. I un masked the front of the canopy to see if the extra bit of the screen might fit and it does. It is not as clear as it could have been but will sit in the tight place with the help of the magic liquid. what’s magic liquid you ask.... yes, the ‘Doe’s evryfink’ liquid. i’m even thickening some up to see if I can use it as a fillet After I said this morning I thought I really should add in a photo of the front undercarriage doors, a bit out of focus, having just been painted I decided not to t and then thought ‘ah well, film’s cheap’ I am at the stage of nailing the smaller pieces now. Here is the basics of the wheels. There few wobbly bits to be careful of, but follow the drawings and give it time to set, and then don’t ignore the above and then grab it by the wing just where the wheels were just as the glue was setting. It will cause one of those streams of Anglo Saxon verbal naughtiness. and I used some Pludge to start gluing down the screen extension. This was actually done by dribbling it into the gap using a cocktail stick whilst Taped in place. of course I managed to break the nose wheel mounting so I bodged a repair so, some tidying up to do and I have to make the canopy extension look a but prettier, do some paint touch to and then pledge like I have never pledged to give me a good finish on the airframe so that I can start adding the roundels but sadly, not yet, the serials. as for them, they are coming and the list from Fantasy Printshop shows the days of Questions like ‘where can i get 18in codes in sky in 1/48’ as a question here on Britmodeller will be a non starter as so many sizes and colours. We just have to wait.

Si, if you are a player I have a bunch of stuff being cleared. Everything from completeness guitars to screws