Tarkas

Ookin' brilliant!

Looks good enough to shoot at! Where's that laser pistol...?

The big problem with the different figures would be that they'd also have to do a complete new inside for the TARDIS. The existing one is only right for the ninth and tenth Doctors (Ecclestone and Tennant) -- Art directors and SFX teams will insist on putting their own stamp on things -- so any other version would be close to a new kit, with only the outside of the police box being common, and even that went through several variations on the exact paint scheme. I doubt they'd thnk it would be worth the effort. Be good if they did, but I'm not holding my breath. BTW, brilliant work so far, and I look forward to seeing more of this.

Excellent! Just what I was hoping for. And on to the workbench! Thanks a lot.

"Why, Mr Meredith, have you lost weight?" Seriously, that is a -- nay, an excellent job, and could not be mistaken for anyone else, but my first reaction when I saw the photos was, "he's so skinny!" Dunno if it's me, or my expectations are based on later comic, film and animated versions, but ISTR the Penguin being distinctly thicker around the middle. Still, he looks good enough for a classic Bat-fight, so again, well done.

Anyone know details of the flight suits and helmets -- in particular, the colours -- worn by the Blue Angels pilots during the time they were flying the Grumman F11F-1 (aka F-11A) Tiger? You can guess why I want to know. The kit in question doesn't have a pilot figure (a thousand curses on the manufacturer's hide for that lack!), so no help there, and on-line resources are ambiguous, mostly involving B&W photos of the crew, and most of those are in meet-the-public poses with forage caps rather than helmets. If anyone has official data, I'd very much like to know. I'm kind of hoping for blue flight suits with yellow helmets, but I've also seen yellow suits and blue helmets (not together), and that's just in recent years; Finagle only knows what they did back in the late 50s and 60s!

Wot he sed. Brilliant stuff. As for the palm trees, C21 publications of the 1960s (TV21, annuals, etc.) had it that the palm trees were planted close to runway in order to disguise it, i.e., not give the impression that it was wide enough for something as big as TB2 to use. The Tracy family jet, fine; visiting small aircraft, no problems; even a Tiger Moth (aka TB6)... but not a huge transport the size of a 747 that's hidden in an underground hangar. For that matter, as an airfield, the runway wasn't very safe. It really only had one direction in which you could take off -- out to sea -- and you had to land in the opposite direction, and there was no over-run or touch-and-go ability because there was a cliff at the landward end! Dunno what the wind patterns were like during the year (or even the day), but I think I'd want VTOL capability on any aircraft I flew in there -- which, of course, the Thunderbirds had!

They're not connected. The Keaton-Kilmer-Clooney Batman movies have no relationship with the current DCEU films, any more than the Reeve Superman movies or the Bale version of Batman (with yet another Joker who dies) do. AFAIK, the series of which Suicide Squad is part currently only consists of 3 films -- Man of Steel, Batman vs Superman and SS -- with more presumably to come. DC/Warner are trying to do what Marvel have done with the MCU; it's just that the films aren't as good because they keep trying to make everything grimdark all the time.

Many thanks for the info; it's just what I needed.

Anyone know details of the colours used on the aircraft of No 34 Sqn RAAF during the 60s and thereafter for aircraft like the BAC 111, HS 748, Boeing 707 and Dassault Mystere (aka Falcon 20)? I'm particularly interested in the blue used for cheat lines, as it varies widely in photos from something like a slightly dark French Blue to a metallic-looking dark blue of indeterminate shade. If anyone knows references for the blue and grey colours and/or suppliers of suitable paints, it would be much appreciated.

...but how many engines would the Sunderland Mk. Z have? Okay, 2 on each of the outside wings, but how many on the shared inside wing? We need to remember that the He 111Z had five -- 1 + 3 + 1 -- so what would the Sunderland have?

Good to see that the Smithsonian is doing their research in order to restore the E to the glory of her heyday in the 60s, but they do seem to be setting themselves up for criticism by not being consistent about what version they're aiming for: first, they say they intend to restore her as she was in August 1967 and thereafter, but later they say that they are going to recreate the very first paint from the first pilot episode, which their own research indicates was under at least two further layers of paint by 1967! Of course, they're on a hiding to nothing anyway, as any choice they make will be decried by all sorts of people -- as may be seen already on their website, where writers are complaining that the first pilot scheme will be wrong with the later bridge and nacelle modifications, and that the new LED lighting int he forward nacelle caps won't look right without using motors as the production crew did, etc., etc., etc.. Frankly, they have my sympathy, because if there was ever a case of "You can't please everyone", this is it. Heck, I'm prepared to bet that someone will complain if they restore her starboard side on the grounds that it wasn't like that during filming! I just want them to restore and preserve her properly, so that we can continue to see her for many years to come. There are certain things I'd like them to do, like not weather her anything like as heavily as they did in 1991, but that seems to be happening. Make her look like the beautiful ship we saw (and can still see) on screen, and I'll be happy. Good luck to them, and I am totally envious of the people who visited the Udvar-Hazy Center and saw her at the end of January.

Lovely bit of work. I won't ask how you did the drag chute but will say that if it's still fully inflated with the aircraft on the "piano keys", that Rhino is not taxiing, it's about to come off the end of the runway!

Looks fine to me -- with the possible exception of the teardrop fairing over the cockpit, a classic 125 feature, but did the -700 still have it? I have this vague idea that they'd revamped the forward fuselage of that model, but without checking, I could be wrong. Regardless, it's a nice piece of work -- so nice that I'd like more details about the build. What did the conversion involve? Where did you get the markings? What do you consider is wrong with the model -- 'cause I can't see much, if anything! Enquiring (and admiring) minds would like to know...

Looks good so far. Do you have any information regarding what other changes need to be made to model the E prior to the '79 refit? Specifically whether or not anything major needs to be done to the hull? Thanks in [hopeful] anticipation, Phil

The important thing is not whether it's snap-fit or glue, but does the kit make up into a decent model? If it does that, i don't give a rusty half-credit piece (© I Asimov ) one way or the other. The only reservation I have about snap-fit kits is that, because they're are usually intended for younger modellers and/or are made to be low-cost, they're more likely to be distorted to simplify moulding, include toy features like firing missiles, or be sized to fit the box rather than to any sort of scale. Doesn't mean that every snap-fit kit has any or all of these problems, but there are plenty that have in the past, and SF models seem particularly prone to that due to the "spaceships are for kids" marketing mindset. Show me a snap-fit kit that is also a good model of its subject and I'll be very interested.

I have that still to look forward to...

Hmmm... Thanks for the help, guys. Interestingly, if you look at the Corgi Aerodrome blog, there is a photo of a paint chart for their forthcoming die-cast model of ZK349, and it gives what looks like an FS number for the radome, etc. Unfortunately, the resolution is not that good (or my eyes aren't) and I can't quite make out the number. The best guess I can make is FS36751, but I can't find mention of any such colour in references to FS.595c. The mystery continues... [Later] And according to the nice people on the Corgi site, it's actually FS36251 Aggressor Grey. Thjat's what they used, anyway, and it doesn't look too bad. I shall think on it more until the Hasegawa kit arrives...

Just been looking at the latest Xtradecal sheet (RAF & FAA Update 2014-5 Pt. 1 -- quite good, though the red roundel centres are slightly off register) and I noticed quite a lot of references to a colour called Medium Grey. However, unlike the majority of colours mentioned, there is no BS381C reference for it, nor even an Xtracolor reference. I went looking and had no more luck elsewhere. Plenty of references to Medium Sea Grey, and a zillion other shades of grey, but none to Medium Grey by that name. Later, when checking a thread on Typhoon paint schemes on this site, I noticed a reference to BS381C: 374 as Medium Grey. Of course, other posts in the same thread also mentioned the areas supposedly of that colour (mainly the Typhoon's radome and fin tip) as being differently weathered Camouflage (Barley) Grey, so I'm confused. Anyone know more, especially a suitable paint match? Thanks in advance, Phil

Interesting backstory, and I look forward to seeing the models eventually. One minor problem that I don't think you mentioned was that the F-16 would require an upgraded (variable) intake and the associated control system (plus possible changes to the engine control system) in order to go faster than the current top speed of the Viper of M = 1.6. In fact, there was a proposal at one time for just such an intake that would allow a standard F100-engined F-16A to reach Mach 2 with no other changes, but nobody was prepared to spend the money to get the performance boost.

Try the latest issue of SFX if you want bigger pictures of the revised Thunderbirds (1, 2, 3 and 4 at least; can't remember seeing 5). Overall, I am not impressed with the new versions. One is the best of a bad bunch, with at least one of the original's serious flaws fixed, and Four is very reminiscent of its original if it had put on weight, but Two and Three are just plain dire, IMO. They're blocky, ugly and look like the designers couldn't find their French curves when sketching them, so they had to use straight lines instead of the elegant curves of the original -- which is odd, because the new TB4 does the exact opposite! Oh, well, let's see if the writing and acting can make up for the lousy vehicle design. I hope so.

Now we wait and see if: a -- everything still works when it's powered up; and b -- if the lander can successfully touch down to do its stuff. Ever so slightly nail-biting in its own way...

Brilliant work! Looks good enough to shoot at. And the photography is excellent, too. Could wish that you had a seascape against which to display it.

Sorry, no pictures, but I was there and saw the Britmodeller stand, which was excellent, as ever. I recognised some of the exhibits from threads in the WIP and RfI folders. Would have liked to get a closer look at some of them, but no such luck. Look forward to seeing anyone else's shots, though.

More to the point, the computers allow the aircraft to remain under control despite natural instability. And I have proof -- in the form of three wrecked wind tunnel models which show quite clearly how they failed -- that TB2's body generates quite a lot of lift at supersonic speeds (even fairly low ones), thanks very much. The fuselage could be better shaped -- say with a taper to a sharp trailing edge behind the pod, and perhaps by getting rid of the step immediately ahead of the pod -- but it certainly produces lift, to the point where it could be argued that she doesn't need the (in)famous forward-swept wings. Mentioning the "stealth bomber" is appropriate because the B-2 was the inspiration for the 2004 movie version, which, like most of the vehicles in that film, was a mixture of improvements of the original versions combined with utterly mad features that showed at best ignorance and a lack of thought about what the craft were supposed to do. The new series looks to be no better. I know that TV/movie craft design is based on Pratt's Law, but they could at least make a gesture towards reality. With maybe one exception, the TAG craft are steps backwards in terms of looking the business, and it's all done for reasons of ego and the second part of that old saw: "There are two kinds of fool: one says, "This is old, and therefore good"; the other says, "This is new, and therefore better." They could have improved the Thunderbirds while paying homage to the originals, but they didn't. Yet another strike against the new series (how can you have Thunderbirds without Jeff?!?). I'll watch it anyway, assuming ITV makes that possible -- fans still remember the travesty that was the initial broadcast of New Captain Scarlet), but the more we hear about it, the more it's looking decidedly dodgy.