John B (Sc)

From the comments written earlier, this appears to be more of a proprietor level issue, not at editor level. Perhaps the owner of the magazine company is the one who needs to provide the explanation. There was some comment about printing problems a while back I think?

Having, quite unexpectedly, got one of these kits I drooled quietly over it before deciding to have a look to see what fellow modellers made of it. Hmm, interesting. Personally, since I go back to the original first issue Airfix Mosquito - the bagged 2/11d in Woolies kit, I think this is magnificent. I don't think I ever built the second moulding, though I may well have an unbuilt one deep in the older parts of he 'stash', possibly a Swedish variant? Certainly made the Matchbox kit, which came up well with some adjustment, in PR colours. I have built a few larger scale Mosquitos over the years as well. This is a great kit to tempt me back into more 72nd scale modelling. Sure there are minor 'oopses', mostly easily fixed with a bit of wet and dry and some Milliput or filler, or left as is for the inevitable TT35 variants. The provision of several canopy variants, the internal bomb bay detail and cockpit detail, the superb and well thought out exhausts, cast in separate parts for better detail, these are terrific. As also is the thinking behind the undercarriage assembly. Well done Airfix. Incidentally unlike some I'm not convinced the undercarriage is too thin or spindly. I think we get accustomed to somewhat overscale u/c gear in 72nd scale, because otherwise it is too delicate. This seems to me quite close to the look of the real thing - and certainly appears to build up to an impressively busy assembly. The mudguards need thinning at their edges, of course and yes the tyre detail is a touch too prominent. You will note some pages back on here that the designer specifically sked for more prominent detail because at first it was too faint. Easy to sand down, much simpler to remove excess than to build up more. As for the tailwheel, is it really that much too slim? It seems to me to have moulding in the tyre which hints at the anti-shimmy pattern. In this scale, probably enough to allow us to bring it out with some shading - tyres are seldom uniformly dark grey nor all black, especially with some runway dust around. Yes, the wing skin panel overlaps are a touch OTT, but again a little careful wet and dry sorts that - almost all recent 72nd scale models seem to have slightly too heavy surface detail, but for an old style modeller that is easier to reduce rather than having to add. Oh - and someone commented about the rather slim pilot and the lack of a navigator. Ignoring the obvious point that people were generally slimmer then and pilots often smaller - especially those flying a/c which were a tight squeeze - perhaps the crew here is intended to be one of those slim young ATA ferry lady pilots who flew without navigators in all sorts of complex aeroplanes. A terrific kit and one which I am going to enjoy taking my time over. My thanks to all of you who have pointed out minor glitches and hiccups. Like many I used to have to use balsa, talc and dope to modify my older kits, so this one looks a breeze. Whee ! (And at least one will have to be modified to look like the 633 Sqn Mosquitos I watched contour chasing up in the Highlands years ago)

Thanks junglierating. So if not in active use forget it. Your post suggests to me that our forces must be in way worse shape than I thought. Depressing. Interesting stuff Moggy, thanks also. Wasn't aware of the links with Brazil - though that is not exactly a well run country itself right now ! Also interesting are your very negative views on the JF-17. Is that based solely on the press speculation ? That also sounds as if Argentina is being rather careful with presumably limited cash. Cheers, John B

Some very useful pointers Mr Blievers, thank you. What do you think of the rivet detail on the wings? I thought it a bit too prominent; a little gentle sanding seemed enough. John B

I quite agree that withdrawing/scrapping these early airframes now is not clever. They may not be as capable as the later machines but will still be effective fighters surely. Even is held in reserve they would be available relatively quickly if required, for a small outlay in preventive maintenance. I fear the senior officers involved in these decisions are perhaps thinking rather more about the political push to cut costs and their own short term career aspirations than about the tasks likely to be asked of the Air Force. Of course the loss of confidence in the Air Force's ability to maintain airworthiness in its fleets may also be a factor. The deep engineering understandings, background and traditions of the past have been allowed to wither away sadly, as several fairly recent efforts have shown. John B

Do we have spare Typhoons available for such a purpose? I rather doubt it, given the way numbers have been run done already. Perhaps this is a use for those Phase 1 Typhoons the RAF senior mob want to scrap ! If those 12 aircraft come with any BVR weapons - and why would you buy them without that? - they could pose a significant threat. A quick feint by something less capable to lure the QRA birds up towards the East, then a possible BVR threat from several machines to either flank. They could simply wait till they have enough serviceability, then cause some embarrassment at least. How many machines do we have down South? That said, there is no reason to presume the Argentinians want to cause trouble just now.

Interesting thought. Looking at it , I'd say very little, if anything. There are several other obvious influences there, but I doubt that the JF-17 has any link to the Mig-21 other than that Mikoyan was involved in the design phase. The F-7, which originally was to be have been further developed by Pakistan and China was a slightly improved Mig-21. The plan to further develop that was apparently abandoned in favour of this F-17 design. The LERX style wing roots and the tail are somewhat more in the style of the F-16, F-18, Mig-29 etc. Bonny looking aircraft. John B

Thanks Sabrejet - I wasn't aware that those two specific aircraft were more colourful than others in their units - why was that? Neither looks to be the CO's aircraft. However I do also agree with Selwyn about the other 4 Sqn aircraft - I really like the colourful rectangles era of markings, and 4 Sqn has long been a particular favourite of mine. Ah well, whatever you do, someone will mump. Oops - sorry ! John B

Having just got hold of this kit, there is one very minor point which immediately struck me. A wee whinge follows ! It's a nicely moulded kit, will be fun to build, but why did Airfix choose two aircraft with such similar serial numbers? The XB series serials, fair enough. But XB984 and XB584 ? Come on, Airfix, if you are giving two examples why not choose numbers which give folk a chance to model a few other examples easily. That might even help encourage the occasional extra purchase. Having given use 9, 8 and 4 , why not make the other serial one from the numbers 0,1, 2, 3, 5, 6 or 7 ? It can't be that hard to find suitable numbers. A very quick search found for example XB640 of no3 Sqn and XB981 of no 4 Sqn., so not even changing the Squadrons provided. OK, aftermarket decal suppliers can fill in, but making it easier and more useful wouldn't hurt, surely? This seems to be a common failing - does anyone think it is deliberate? John B

How is the Harleyford book " Focke Wulf 190 - the Story of a Famous Fighter" by Heinz Nowarra rated?

While to a large extent I agree with Giorgio about undefined quantity and the challenge of more but less capable aircraft, I think there is potential benefit in looking at the results of some DACT exercises some years back. Several examples but one I recall is that the RAF in Cyprus used a combination of Tornado and Hawk aircraft against the US Navy. I believe the USN was still using F-14s at the time. The combination of the two dissimilar types was quite hard for the USN to counter. The Hawk was small, hard to spot visually or on radar and nimble. Although much lower in sheer speed performance, mixing it into a fight between two much more capable machines really made for tricky complexities. I know the FAA's Sea Harriers also caused much difficulty, being small, agile and equipped with missiles good enough that you couldn't just run away from the fight. If they got in close enough to start with, very hard to deal with. A mixed force has many benefits if you know how to use it. That said, Lord Riot is right - I hope we don't ever again have to get into that !

I agree Giorgio. No modern war will require the use of massed bombers - and anyway they don't exist. Sure there are some spare airframes stored in the desert. Getting any number of them back in operation would be a long slow task; they don't have the equipment required and I doubt if adequate spares exist. Attrition will be a major issue in any war. The days of Air Forces holding 75% to 100% war reserves are long gone. I seem to recall the Harrier force in Germany reckoned on having three days of effective action only before attrition stopped effective response, backed up the Jaguars and later Tornados for deeper interdiction behind FEBA. The idea was to slow down the 'Red hordes' long enough for the Army to get in position to defend the Fulda gap. Three days was thought to be just enough. And in those days we still had serious numbers of aircraft - not now ! Penny packet operations using precision weapons - that's all we could do now.

After looking at that other tread - wow. Head spinning (though I had some difficulty sorting through all the banter to get at the meat ! ). I think I may continue building my 1/18th Airfix Sea Vixen and at the same time build one of the 1/72nd Frog and Frog knock-offs I have 'in store'. That way I can use the excellent 1/48th kit as a guide to help me adjust & improve the 1/72nd one. I am not too bothered about 'total' accuracy - which sounds almost impossible with what is available in 1/72nd. Something that looks and feels to me like a Sea Vixen is sufficient. John B

The only other 'scheme' I have seen for a Lightning F Mk2 in natural metal is in AFDS colours - a red over black (or very dark blue) bar either side of the roundel, AFDS badge on the tail. F Mk 2 XN777 'N'.

Ah, thanks Ewan. That sounds like it would have been a good one, like the old style BoB days and Navy Days. It was the norm at one time to launch a large batch of the based aircraft at the end of the display day - great to watch. The days when we had an Air Force with serious numbers and types of aircraft ! John B

I believe it was around then. There are a lot of folk locally who, while happy enough to see the RAF still around, reminisce fondly about the Navy days - and indeed about the 'Navy Days' - it is said RAF Lossiemouth has never had an open day for the local public, though they do regular 'Families & Friends' events strictly for their own clique. That is not particularly popular locally - the Senior Service really did know how to behave ! (The RAF will tell you it is because it is an 'operational base' and hence far too busy. Strange how few flights seem to go on compared to days past ! Ah well, modern security notions are different I suppose, and the old days of distant bases having more freedom to be individualistic are long gone.) Nice to see the Poseidons dropping weapons now. Where was that - in the Firth or further away ? I presume practice/dummy weapons. I wonder how the ex 'Kipper Fleet' folk now back in harness will affect the ethos of those Squadrons. The old MR units had a different style to most of the rest of the Air Force, perhaps because of the role and the need to talk to and understand sailors. John B

All the Lightning squadrons aircraft were in natural metal at first, including most if not all the F Mk 6 machines when first issued to squadrons. I believe the same was true for Mk2a machines- the rebuilt Mk 2 aircraft. The two RAF Germany squadrons, nos 19 & 92, went over to camouflage green over nm in the early Seventies I think. My refs suggest around 1973. As Giorgio said, only 19 & 92 had F Mk 2 and 2a. Early on, AFDS had an F Mk 2, and AAEE at Boscombe also had one and RAE had an F Mk 2a. RR had three variously assigned at times. Cheers, John B

I am glad to know I'm not the only one with the " which box and where the h** is it anyway? " challenge !

I have often been impressed by the athletic behaviour of the professional wingwalkers. We had them, when flying as Utterly Butterly, briefly based with us - and we helped out with some minor aircraft repair. The ladies were very lithe & fit, fast moving and sure footed. Regaining the cockpit quickly in an emergency was regularly practiced, so if possible they'd have gone for that. If the pilot reckoned he had more than around thirty seconds before impact that would be enough apparently. Being on the tip wing when the a/c inverted on water impact would be very unpleasant indeed and darn dangerous too (especially if the water was shallow.) I thought them impressively brave just in normal circumstances! The pilots said handling was quite different when a wingwalker was in place, as you'd expect - all that extra drag well above the centreline. Glad it all went well.

I gather that one of the wingwalking display' Stearman aircraft had an engine problem which resulted in a ditching very close to shore, apparently right outside the RNLI area (handy). The aircraft inverted on landing, both pilot and wingwalker got out OK. Not sure whether the young lady had had time to get back into cockpit before the ditching -think so. . Sounded like badly misfiring engine. The aircraft has been hauled out. Starboard wings fairly mangled and sea water will have seriously damaged the engine. Main thing is, both OK. God job by pilot putting down neatly, avoiding all the boats around, in a spot where rescue could be fast.

I have been tempted to use some Echelon parts on a Revell Hunter too. They were superb kits; Mr Brown did some excellent artwork to go with them, and also good background research had obviously been involved. John B

'Novelisation' of Hunt for Red October - that puzzles me a bit . It was a book, a novel before it became a film. Where in the book does that appear please? I don't recall there being a Harrier mentioned in the original book, though admittedly it's a long time since I read it.

Like 'rossm' I use small lead shot or old cut-offs from wheel balance weights like 'Tigerausfb'. Rolling them lightly in PVA means they stick well. No plastic reactions seen so far. This provides about t6he highest density filling easily available. John B

Funnily enough I have never had trouble getting in or out of Austers, though I have found Tiger Moths more of a faff - at least for front seat entry. Chipmunks, I agree. The only entry/start challenges I've found with an Auster has been that it is important to take care which way you do a full & free control check. It is possible in some models to knock the throttle open doing it the wrong way round, rather embarrassing if you haven't guarded it ! John B

Is the RAT the object hanging down just in front of the port wing root? What scale is this please - 1/72nd or 1/48th? Superbly done.