John B (Sc)

A sudden thought. If you use the F8 main kit and add the F3 tail feathers, that will leave most of an F3 with a Mk8 tail available. How similar to the PR10 wings are those of the F3? Is it possible to modify them to become a suitable emulation? Haven't seen a 1/48th PR10 to my knowledge. And going further, I think I have a Tamiya Mk1 kit tucked away somewhere - how similar are the F3 wings to the Mk1 ? I recall there was much angst about the Tamiya Mjk1, but I cant remember why now. Anyone? Maybe some old style kit bashing looms! John B

Thanks 71chally, and Wes. I knew the Mistrals had ejection seats - and of course it makes sense that the Swiss would also have ejection seats, given how long they used the Vampires.

Ah - yes, the 'one true scale'. Sorry, forgot that Airfix had produced a 1/48th F8. Fairly stupid, since I have two in the stash to build ! A favourite aircraft of mine too... And - I do have a 1/48th Mk 4 to build; from Classic Airframe, way back. Sorry folks, of course that's not available any more. (I wonder what happened to the moulds? Jules never did really come back after the 2009 stoppage as far as I know)

Didn't Revell, amongst others, produce a Mk 4? I'm sure I have a built Mk 4 model sitting gathering dust somewhere! John B

Superb cockpit photos, thanks. (kibbitzing in on Wez, guess why!) An immensely silly question - was the fitting of an ejection seat unique to RNZAF and possibly RAAF single seat Vampires? The picture of the machine at HOTAT has an ejection seat warning stencil and possibly a head box visible through the canopy, but the detail cockpit photos show what looks to me to be a standard fixed seat. John B

Very true. Really, a good modern set of 1/72 and 1/48th Hunter two seaters to cover both the small and large Avon variants OUGHT to sell, surely. I was surprised at Revell's comments about their 1/72nd Hunter selling rather poorly, though the 1/32nd one was surely a risky bet, given that Echelon had already kitted it.

As said by someone else, a 148 Scimitar would be terrific, as would a Swift. A 1/48th Hunter two seater would be really really nice - yes there are conversion options available. I have a1/32 Hunter two seater, in vac form. John B

I'd agree with 'dogsbody', broadly. The undercarriage bay assemblies in the new kit are a pain - though I've only built the new MkII variant. Wrestling those bay areas into submission was a challenge. The nacelle to engine cowling fit was also not great on the MkII, possibly due to incompetence on my part. If you can find a kit of the earlier issue Airfix Lancaster, I thought it fairly good, and easy to build, by (admittedly dubious) memory. John B

Cheers Terry. I did once manage to thermal a T31, by sheer luck immediately off a winch launch. Totally unexpece4td, just blundered right into it , but gave me the 15 minutes we needed in those days for a 'C' badge. I later flew that T31 with my instructor on an aerotow into wave. Scared the heck out of both of us, and he was an ex-RAF bomber pilot ! The way the in wings twisted in the turbulence - gulp. We never tried the T31 in wave again ! I didn't realise the Canadians used the Phoenix or Sovereign, which is what I think the later variants became called. (I wonder which?) A curious machine - was it Andy Gough who flew some aerobatics in it and then after investigating some odd noises found that a frame had been left out of the fuselage ? Rumour had it that even when properly built there were some very odd noises, making Blaniks and Pilatus B4s sound quiet. Mr B17's reminiscences on the Schweizer 2-22 and 2-33 bring back happy memories too !

Quite a time difference between them of course - and very different materials ! The T31 in particular was so much more a glider than a sailplane - needed good strong lift to stay up, while the T.21 or Sedbergh, aka 'Barge' would thermal at astonishingly low speeds and waft around superbly on hillslopes. The gentle 'hoot' of a thermalling Astir is still heard occasionally near here. Lovely models of fine aircraft.

Good point, 'Rob G'. I have in the past used a sharp needle , or even a pin with very thin plastic when modelling away from home. . Just pushed through, with the protruding edges then skimmed off with a sharp blade and eased out as required.

Thanks Dave 'pin vice' was the description I was struggling for !

Generally these additional holes are to allow you to add optional items, such as drop tanks, stores pylons etc. If you don't want to add them then the surface of the model is untouched. Typically I'd suggest a 1mm hole if not otherwise stated. Perhaps for 1/72 start with 0.8mm - small enough that its easy to cover up if you change your mind,. Generally easy to open out with large drills or a fine needle file. Hand drilling is better; plastic is usually quite soft. Theses small drills will break easily , so use a short shank and rotate slowly. Sets of small drills and suitable hand chucks (drill holders) are available from good model shops or online. John B

Sounds interesting and the completed examples look good. How extraordinary to require filing off 0.5 mm in several places and also to cut away or scrape away plastic to improve other poor fit points. I presume they felt it too expensive to modify the moulds. Rather suggests a quality control error at an earlier design stage. Still, none of the alterations look particularly difficult to do!

Almost certainly an Airfix kit in a bag, 1/11d from Woolies. Maybe a Spitfire (yawn) or a Hurricane from their first mouldings - I certainly made both of those. The first I really remember and treasured for years was the 1/48th scale Revell S-55 helicopter on floats, with opening clamshell doors and an engine. Mt father helped me with that.

Following up on the comments by MikeC and from Jon Kunac-Tabinor, as an occasional review and article contributor I was clearly told by editors to make constructive criticism when required and I have tried to do so whenever necessary, If a kit fails badly, it should be called out as such, for everyone's benefit, manufacturers as well as modellers. That is all we can do. At no time have any of the editors I worked with sought to change my writing to influence such critical comment. My grammatical errors, yes... I'd hope that my occasional blunders and sometimes deliberate (honestly!) changes of build order have helped a few readers, either with their purchase decisions or their own builds. John B

Unpleasant as it would be to leave groundcrew behind, I would have thought that in war saving the (frequently rare and slow to train) aircrew and their fighting aircraft might have to come first. Presumably that would also be a matter of orders, so the aircrew would have no choice? Just like some poor sods have to provide the distraction attack and quite possibly die doing it.,

Was this not similar to the case of the Hunter two seater? Slightly better aerodynamics after much tweaking resulted in lower drag rather than higher for the two seater. I believe EE were given the canopy & spine lofting information from the Hunter two seater and use that as their basis - any confirmation of that, can't recall where I read/heard that? John B

EE had the first induced flow wind tunnel in the UK running by the end of 1949. It only went to Mach 1.07 initially, which was enough. Reading some of the development story, it is impressive how little was known, in so many areas including inlet design, how much was done on best principles and good reasoning. With a fair degree of luck !

On many early Lightnings it was easy to see that the front of the shock cone was fibreglass. You could see the yellow-greenish colour and the weave. Fibreglass to be as transparent as possible to radar. Is kevlar transparent to typical radar frequencies? I have no idea. Apart from the fact it was a much later development than the LIghtning, why use expensive kevlar when cheap fibreglass will do? It is also worth saying that at the time the P1, then Lightning, was being developed, understanding of supersonic flow characteristics and jet engine inlet and requirements were still fairly limited. Few good wind tunnels (if any in Britain) operating in the right speed ranges, little modelling. It is easy form here to assume all sorts of things, all sorts of knowledge which simply did not exist. A good deal was 'best guess' engineering based on experience and gut feel, backed up by testing - 'suck it and see'. A lot was learned and there were many surprises along the way. Keeping it as simple as possible reduced the number of variables and unknowns and the risk of failure. Good engineering practice! So, no moving bodies. I suspect if more work had been needed, Giorgio's suggestion of bleed air extraction for shock wave control might have been tried. Simpler & lighter than moving bodies. Mr Petter was involved in the early design, a great believer in simplicity and lightness.

Good luck all, John B

Thanks 'bigbadbadge'. I shall look forward to hearing more in due course. I do know what you mean, sadly. I too used to get SAMI regularly, but have little inclination to do so again, which is a shame. I see the 'new' company publishing SAMI, Triple Six Media, says on its website "We are currently contracted to produce International Best Selling magazines in the hobby industry for MA Publications." Quite an interesting way to describe it, given that the officers of Triple Six Media appear to be the same people who are listed as the officers of MA Publications. Like you I still enjoy SAM, though its a while since I had a subscription. Used to get it from my newsagent for the first few years ; I still have Issue 1 somewhere. Hopefully it and other good magazines will continue to fill the gap for me!

Wow. I wonder what is in it, and who the editorial team is?

True. And one of our modelling magazines is edited by a keen railway enthusiast; real crossover in the enthusiasms.

To the best of my knowledge the Lightning shock body was immovable on all variants and I don't think the geometry was changed for any of the operational marks. The original English Electric PI had no inlet body, but much lower power engines, The P1B did have a central shock body and higher power engines, I think. Presumably the necessary trials were done to attain the optimum compromise during P1B flight trials? Given the low fuel capacity of the original Lightning, possibly the thinking was that a movable body would add much complexity for very little return. Short duration dashes only.