Jonners

I think the forward (ie cockpit) area of the fuselage pod was plywood whereas the rear engine section used aluminium...but I’m not a Vampire expert! I remember being quite surprised, as a plane-mad teenager many years ago, to see plywood under the peeling paint on a Vampire that was on display outdoors at Fort Klapperkop in Pretoria. Jon

Before you start foiling, wasn’t the Vampire fuselage pod skinned in plywood?

Looking great - with that nose, it could only be a Dart. Keep up the good work!

Nice one. I'm sure that I remember seeing G-HUEY on the airshow circuir in the late 1980s with, IIRC, multi-coloured paint striping.

Great photo, Moa. Definitely looks to me like an 'aircraft horizontal' reference. Useful in turns, especially with windscreen that slope at the bottom, but particularly for referencing pitch attitudes at various speed/power settings. An engine failure in a HP42 could produce a pitch asymmetry as well as a yaw asymmetry, so I imagine the reference bar would be useful when testing that aspect too.

Ah, sorry - missed that. An external artificial horizon? Or an external framework for visual attitude reference against the horizon, as the aircraft nose would not be visible to the pilots? I would have thought the latter to assist with setting flight attitudes in a new prototype. I imagine it would have had a turn-and-slip indicator on the instrument panel in the days before widely-fitted vacuum-driven artificial horizons. Intriguing!

Fantastic clip there, Wlad. What an amazing sight and sound! And as for the old-school ‘received pronunciation’, well... The aircraft in the clip has an unusual framework ahead of the cockpit, clearly visible as it taxies out. Any ideas? Jon

Blimey. This looks very smart. Thanks for the propellor tutorial - very interesting, and I hadn't considered the separate hubs bit. Every day a schoolday etc. I'll definitely be trying that method myself. Jon

Wow, those parts look rough! As you say, Stu, it looks like you're going to have quite a sanding job on your hands, but at least there seems to be plenty of plastic to work on. Not quite what you might expect from a modern kit! Jon

So they are. Oh well. Yours is looking great, by the way. Engraved markings aside, it seems to have the basics of a good, solid little kit.

Great project. I'm obviously too late, but I was going to suggest this Aero Commander 680 as an appropriate subject: (Photo taken from Tony Chater's excellent book 'The Falklands'). Owned by the Argentine newspaper Cronica, it crash-landed just outside Stanley, near Eliza Cove, in the Falkland Islands during a British ministerial visit in 1968. Any attempted political protest was quickly quashed by the rapid attendance by the resident Royal Marines and Falklands police (seen in the photo above), as well as, reportedly, the Governor and Minister armed with a rifle! The registration can be seen in this pic from John Smith's fascinating 'An Historical Scrapbook of Stanley': A quick internet image search for Aero Commander LV-JGE will find a superb colour photo of the crashed aircraft that clearly shows the colour scheme. As an aside, also obvious in the second photo above is the piston-engined Whirlwind helicopter from HMS Protector. One of these remains in the Falklands at Salvador settlement, where it has remained since suffering an engine failure, and another is preserved by the Yorkshire Helicopter Preservation Group at the Aeroventure museum, Doncaster. Anyway, as you're already well on the way to modelling a totally different aircraft, I thought I would post this for interest's sake. Jon

Very little time available for fettling plastic lately, unfortunately. As well as the usual domestic routine I've fitted electronic ignition to a Citroën 2CV, started to board a loft and practiced search procedures in Europe's biggest offshore windfarm. Variety, they say, is the spice of life... Anyway, I really wasn't happy with the Vildebeest cockpit footboards - the ones that will be scarcely visible - so I lowered them and added a rudder bar: The instrument panels for the pilot and gunner have been added. They aren't works of modelling art, but you will have to look very hard to see even part of the one in the cockpit, so they will suffice: So, that was as much as I was prepared to do for the interior. A few extra tabs were added to try to reinforce the fuselage join line, as the plastic is quite thin: The fuselage halves have now been joined and will be left to cure for a good while. The join under the fuselage seems quite vulnerable to splitting, as it's long and flat with quite thin plastic, so I'll have to take care with it: I think that should be enough tape to hold it together... The internal detail should look okay once the model is finished (!): Righto, back to more real-life fun and japes for a while. Lower wing next, I think. Jon

...but she's from the Federal Republic of Yorkshire, so she must be pretty close.

I built one of these a number of years ago - it's a fine little kit. I really ought to dig it out of hibernation in its storage box and refurbish it sometime. Jon

"Like" - lots! Quite superb, and the prop looks fantastic. Nice one.