Bell209

The inevitable happened last night - I snapped the MAD Boom off. It's been broken before, so I knew I'd do it at some time. I repaired it with epoxy glue and a brass reinforcement rod - hopefully that's the last time! The windscreen also had to come out, as the co-pilot's seat had come loose. I took the opportunity to try to source some crew for the Flight Station, as it looked odd without anyone in the seats while it was airborne. My Airfix Sunderland offered up the Flight Engineer as it's really flashy and doesn't quite look like a modern RAAF aircrew figure. He'll be alright in the middle seat. The Italeri Dakota sacrificed her crew for pilots. All three figures needed their legs cut and repositioned to fit. I suspect they'll lose their feet, too. I'm not too concerned about their final appearance, as long as they look something like the way they should. You can't see too well through the windscreen, anyway. The windscreen coming out was also fortunate in that I need to drill the photo window out on the port side behind the pilot's window, too and the scrap plastic will be easy to remove now..

...and still more! Slowly getting there, though. Just the warp nacelles and rear of the Secondary Hull to go now.

So far I've removed the aft Main Landing Gear fairings and fitted the Hamilton Hobbies resin replacements, fitted the sonobuoy replacement panel (which has quite a few pinholes I've filled with epoxy resin), made a new main gear door from brass sheet and fitted it and spent a lot of time filling, sanding and shaping; particularly where the wing pylons were and along the poor fuselage joins (my fault decades ago). I took this photo last night after gluing in place, so there's been no seam filling done as yet. I also butchered an old ESCI 1/48 Mirage IIIC tailcone into shape to represent the IRDS turret fairing under the nose as the original kit part was a completely different camera arrangement. More filling and shaping to do on it before I'm done. I'll model it with the IRDS turret deployed. I've knocked a few drain masts and antenna off along the way but they'll be replaced later. I need to find a replacement pitot tube for the starboard side, too as I knocked that off when I was stripping the model and can't find it. Got to close the nose gear doors and make a replacement for the bottom of the cabin door, too. I've popped most of the windows out for painting and will make some new flat ones as the old ones are rather glue-affected.

Lovely work, as usual, Ray! I spent most of my weekend sanding, filling, cutting, etc on my P-3, too.

Ik vind het heel leuk!

That's a lovely build.

Coming along very nicely. I might do the same thing re the ejection ports on the underfuselage on my build, too. I also used a brass tube for the exhaust on mine but utilised the turbine bits from the Flightpath set. You can't see it now, anyway as the jetpipe's so long.

Love the finish and the Foliage Green oversprays, too. Great work.

Nice scheme, Ray. Look forward to seeing it (and my own!) complete.

You started it! Here's what the stand support looks like fitted: I'll be using a brass rod like the one shown inserted into a timber stand eventually. A long way to go before we get there, though...

Oh, yes, the masks are tedious but I've finished the initial part of the top of Primary Hull: Only the inner circle, outer edge and lower surface to go before I do the rest of the ship...

Now that is stupidly large but beautifully done. I like the bombload, particularly - though why you'd need two Grand Slam conventional bombs with what looks to be a multi-megaton special weapon, I don't know! Great work.

Now that's a phine-looking F-4! F-4S?

That's some very nice work - particularly in 1/72 and resin to boot.

I probably could've and should've done that but I'm too lazy! There's a fair bit of work either way. I've seen some of your other P-3s, Ray - I'm sure scratchbuilding won't be an issue!