lasermonkey

I'd love to see Airfix (and Humbrol) freed from the shackles of Hornby. I may well be wrong, but it very much appears to me that they are run solely to prop up a failing vanity project.

Just listened to a couple of albums by Swedish duo I Break Horses, these being Chiaroscuro and Hearts. It ranges from slick electropop to lo-fi nu-gaze. Sometimes I'm reminded of labelmates Beach House or SPC ECO or The Besnard Lakes if they swapped their Jazzmasters for Juno 60s, but I haven't heard anything by them I didn't like. ..and the song that got me into them:

It’s just north of Huntingdon at the moment, angels 11. Too far north for me, unfortunately, but I bet those that get to see it will get a great view! I do really appreciate the heads up though. I did have an F4U over earlier though, which was unexpected and very welcome.

Having seen your model, I’m inclined to get one or two now. I’m quite the fan of Miles aeroplanes and while I’d much rather the kit had been more accurate, it’ll have to do. Anyway, you’ve done a lovely job there. I like that a lot.

Well, it just goes to show. Polly Scale/Aeromaster was the only acrylic paint I could get on with. Everything else (bar the “forced” acrylics) has been universally awful in my experience.

The last of the beautiful airliners, IMHO. Cracking photo!

Ten tins of Compucolor paint from eBay. A bit more than I would ideally liked to have paid for them, but the price of old enamels has gone up quite a bit in the past couple of years.

Nothing to add except I was thinking of doing the same with the Letraset and Blick dry transfers in my stash. And that I see no reason why it shouldn’t work.

I've never seen one, though my wife saw one a few years ago, resting on the wall of a local Aldi! She did get a photo. This evening I had a Spitfire doing a mini airshow overhead which then disappeared for a couple of minutes and then came back with a Hurricane for a lap of the village.

I'd be very happy with that.

I built the '80's vintage Lancaster for my best little buddy's Christmas present last year (he was eight at the time). I masked the canopy the old fashioned way using strips of Tamiya tape and masking fluid. It took bloomin' ages, but was worth it as, apparently, it was "the best present EVER!" I don't think I have ever been so happy with a model.

The current Humbrol enamel colour charts include nos. 116-120, the US greys, RAF camouflage colours and the RLM shades. I suspect we will be seeing these appear in due course. I hope the move away from MEKO and the adoption of a new anti-skinning agent means that we won’t have to accept just half a tin’s use before it dries solid any more.

Just had a look through the Sussex Moth Group sightings you linked to. Someone had an atlas moth in their garden! I saw a newly hatched one at a butterfly house. Probably the largest moth anywhere on the planet. My God, those are huge! At the time, I’d never had gone closer than a metre, whereas now I’d definitely handle one, given the chance. My wife is not good with moths unless it’s daytime and they’re outdoors. Weirdly, she really likes hummingbird hawk moths, cinnabars, burnets and tiger moths.

Although I have seen hummingbird hawk moths before, I had only ever seen one at a time. My wife was just telling me that this year is reportedly a very good year for them when I noticed that there was more than one flying around. Until this year, I had never seen one settle before. Once you know what to look for, you can spot them sunning themselves on the side of buildings. They look just like arrowheads. I’d love to see a convulvulus HM. A vey impressive looking beastie!

Huma was a German company (or possibly just the one guy) which made some of the less well-known German aircraft, along with some of the prototypes and planned projects. I had quite a few of the kits but ended up selling the more “out there” stuff and kept the pre-war and training aircraft. Although I haven’t actually got around to building one yet, they look pretty decent for limited run models, especially given the time when they were produced. I seem to remember the guy behind Huma retired a few years ago. That was a shame, but you can’t begrudge anyone their retirement. I wonder what happened to all the moulds?

I have seen the “stop the war” logo on the Russian-made items on their website. I hadn’t realised anyone else was doing it.

Saw a Spitfire and a Chipmunk earlier in the afternoon. Later, whilst walking around the local RSPB reserve, we saw six hummingbird hawk moths. That was pretty cool!

^Did you get those from Super Hobby by any chance?^

But they’re still twenty quid delivered for the latest kits, *if* you can find one. The Hurricanes and Wildcats are still a bit cheaper, but for how much longer, I don’t know. I think the Hurricane IIb is more expensive than the other Hurris, but I believe that’s down to the extra wing parts. I don’t know for sure as I don’t have one.

I’m getting the 500 error messages thick and fast now, so much now that’s it’s becoming really annoying. Almost every page I open has it. I know it’s not your fault, but you’d think that the provider would have found the issue by now.

I think that the new Arma kits are too expensive. Twenty quid for a single engined WW2 fighter? Jog on! But! But! Photo etch! (hate it) Canopy masks! (fair enough, *if* they’re Kabuki tape. Vinyl is worse than useless and I resent paying for it and I’m still paying for the PE I won’t use.) We’re always made to wait for the junior editions and they always seem harder to find. Ant it would still cost me over twenty quid to get it to my door, even with the best discounts. Nah, I’m out.

It seems that you guys don’t want it to be a Spitfire and I don’t want it to be a Spitfire though for different reasons.

Earlier on I heard (but didn’t see) what sounded like an vintage military jet tanking around at low level. Unfortunately it wasn’t showing up on either Freedar.uk or FR24. Possibly a Vampire?

I assume that “631st Fighter Group” is a typo, and that it should be 361st Fighter Group. The yellow trim would suggest so. Anyway, an 8th AF boxing would be very much appreciated here.

I know I said I was trying to be good and not buy any more kits for the time being, but I was offered an MPM Meteor FR.9 (still sealed in its original bags) for less than £9 posted. I couldn’t turn that down. I also snagged a few paints from eBay that were cheap.