sroubos

Bought this kit recently, you've set the bar rather high! Beautiful build. I love the subtle weathering.

Thanks for the reactions folks! It was a lot of fun to build this model for obvious reasons. I appreciate the kind words! It is quite big, I usually build single-engined fighters and small twins. It's 30cm by 45cm wide I'd say.

This is a report of a very personal project I started on about a year ago, and which I recently finished. It is a tribute to my great-uncle, Willem Pieter Adriaan Ditmar, and a gift to his nephew, my father, Eric Willem Roubos. Historical background In the very early morning of 26th of February 1942, Catalina Y-63 was flying over the Banka Strait, north of Sumatra. The PBY had been flying through the night on a recon of the area and its commander, Willem Ditmar, had to decide to turn back to base or continue the patrol and risk an almost certain encounter with Japanese forces. Ditmar chose the latter. The PBY was part of the forces of the MLD (Marine Luchtvaart Dienst) the Air Force of the Royal Dutch East-Indies Navy which had been involved in a struggle with the Japanese for a number of months now, since a Japanese invasion of the Dutch colony was imminent. At 6:40 in the morning, while the plane was flying just under low cloud cover to avoid detection, the PBY was jumped by two groups of three Ki-27 'Nate's' of the JAAFs 12th Air Brigade. A fight ensued, during which the gunners on Y-63 succeeded to shoot down two Ki-27s. However, the numerical superiority of the Japanese proved too much. Co-pilot Noë was hit, the plane went into a dive and was only with great difficulty brought back under control. Severely damaged the plane landed on the water, where Ditmar ordered his crew of 6 into the life boats. Y-63 sinks within seven minutes, raked with bullet holes from continued strafing. The Japanese fighters disappear and Ditmar and his crew, with the injured pilot, manage to reach the Noordelijke Gebroeders Island and eventually, on March 3, Sumatra. From there, with canoes rented from the locals, they reach Anjer on Java on the 6th. To their dismay they learn that the Japanese have landed on Java and control most of Java, including the area they have just arrived at. Ditmar and his men leave the injured pilot with a local official for treatment and continue their journey to Batavia, hoping to avoid the Japanese troops. The remaining six men split into two groups. One group is captured by locals and all three men are murdered. Ditmar's group is spared this fate but is betrayed by locals and handed over to the Japanese. Willem Ditmar was sent to a POW camp in Siam (Thailand) to work on the infamous Burma railroad. He survived the war and rejoined with his wife and his two daughters, who had been detained in Surabaya not knowing for more than three years if Willem was still alive. After the war he became the most decorated Dutch officer in the East-Indies theatre and returned to work for the Royal Dutch Navy and later for the Dutch government in South East Asia in various capacities. He died in Bangkok in a traffic accident in 1982, remaining a legend in our family. This story is based on several post-WWII publications, especially the report by mariner Gerard A. van Schooten, crew member of the Y-63, and on personal communications from family members. The Kit Academy’s PBY-5 has been around for quite some time. I think it’s still a fine kit and the only serious option if you want a PBY-5 (Revell has an antique molding which is out of production). The lines of the PBY-5 are captured well, the fit is generally excellent and the recessed detail is quite good, if a bit soft in places. The fuselage is covered in rivets, but they are quite restrained and look good under a coat of paint. The kit does disappoint when it comes to the finer details, a general issue with Academy kits of this vintage: Interior detail is minimal, the engines are very basic and the propellers are nothing like the real thing. As this was to be a special project I decided to shell out the extra cash on some aftermarket parts to correct these areas. I acquired the QuickBoost replacement engines, props and cowlings, Eduard’s photo-etch (for PBY-5A, but many items are of use) and MiniWorld brass .50 machine guns for the blisters. Construction Yes, it starts with the cockpit! Eduard’s photo-etch really improves this area as it really is quite bland. The cockpit floor requires carving up to make the parts fit and the I substituted the horizontal bar on which the yokes sit by an n-shaped piece of wire that more accurately represents the real thing. There is a gap behind the bulkhead which allows you to see into the void of the fuselage, but nothing can be seen with the cockpit window in place so I left it. The observer position has a few PE parts to spruce up the machine gun supports. After installing the six small side windows I closed up the fuselage. Fit is pretty good with the exception of the area behind the cockpit. I had to use some Mr. Surfacer 500 here and rescribe the lost detail in the area. The wing assembly consists of six pieces which form a middle segment containing the engine nacelles and two outer segments. They go together very well with just a hint of Mr Surfacer 500 required to remove the seams between the segments. I taped off the area to avoid losing the fabric detail while sanding the seams. The nacelles require a bit of filler as well and a few swipes with a sanding stick. The triangular pieces that form part of the float areas on the wing tips were another matter: They left huge gaps with the wing tips and needed quite a bit of filler to get a smooth result. At this point I had to start considering the build sequence. I usually put as much of the model together before I start painting, but the floats and wing supports were rather fragile pieces and I estimated their chance of snapping off at some point during later construction work was 100%. They also got in the way of masking, so I decided to paint the wings and fuselage separately and put them together only after decaling. I drilled some holes for the antennas and aerial wires ( I always forget to do this and end up having to do it after painting – the pine vice will slip and…), then added the PE corrugated ‘shield’ in the nose. After some fettling I pushed it in a it just stuck – no glue required. To the paint shop! Painting First step was to do the preshading. I have only used this technique a few times and I find it a very easy way to add some interest to a model. On a big kit like the Catalina it is a great way to break the large surfaces, so I set to work and an hour later I had a rather patchy and fearsome looking amphibious creature (I know, the PBY-5 is not amphibious…)! On towards the real painting then. All my references on the Catalina indicated that the MLD planes had ‘milky white’ undersurfaces. Unfortunately, this is not a color any brand carries in their range, so I made my own by taking a fresh bottle of Gunze flat white and adding a few drops of yellow to it (my thanks to FlevoDecals for suggesting this). My milky white needed about three thin layers to cover the preshading just enough to shine through (I’m afraid it doesn't show up very well in the photos). This was followed by masking off the white, and it was at this point that my references started to fail me. Although there are many photographs available of MLD PBY-5s, I have been unable to find a picture of my subject, Y-63. This wouldn't be such a problem if the MLD had been consistent in painting its Catalinas, but my references showed they were anything but. Among the differences are the demarcation between white and grey, the color used to overpaint the orange triangles, the color of the prop hubs, the exhausts, the antennas and the painting demarcations on the floats and surrounding areas. Almost no MLD Catalina is exactly the same, and without photographs it is impossible to know which combination of options Y-63 featured. However, it also meant nobody could prove me wrong if I were to guess, so that’s what I did. Undoubtedly someone will sent me a photograph of Y-63 after reading this and prove me wrong on all counts! After making my choices, it was on to painting the upper surfaces. My references told me to use ‘Dark blue-grey’, the MLD description of the color. I hit the internet and the consensus was that Dark Blue-grey was actually identical to the well-known Dark Sea Gray, so that’s what I used. On removing the masking I was unhappy with the demarcations on the fuselage to I spent quite a bit of time remasking and respraying, but the end result was very satisfying. I left the finish slightly patchy to allow for the fact that these planes were used in tough conditions. Next up was masking the overpainted orange triangles on the upper wing surfaces and the orange rudder. I sprayed these with Dark Sea Gray with some black in it (yes, I’m aware this is cheating – I should have used lightened DSG on the whole plane and ‘fresh’ DSG on the triangles…). The little V-shapes on the fabric area of the wing were masked and sprayed yellow. On Revell’s PBY-5 kit these are supplied as decals in red but on a number of my photographs they very clearly have a light color that really contrasts with the dark color of the wing, so I decided on yellow. I think it looks goods, it adds some color to the plane but at the same time blends in pretty well. I polished the surface with a 6000 grit micro mesh cloth, then applied a few light coats of Future on the areas that would receive decals, which are few. Both Dutch Decal and FlevoDecals have sets that include the PBY-5, but FlevoDecals very importantly adds a full set of serial numbers, so it was easy to go beyond the included versions and create Y-63. These are some of the best decals I have worked with; there is virtually no carrier film around them. I only used some MicroSol and they settled beautifully into the panel lines and rivets. The horizontal stabilizers were also painted in this stage. Test fitting had shown they fit very well, and as they are large I decided to leave them off until the end of the build so they would not get in the way. I neglected to attach the cowlings before painting the wing assembly. Silly, as I had to respray the demarcation a few times to get it to line up exactly with the nacelle that is attached to the wing. While I had acquired QuickBoost’s cowlings, I ended up not using them as their diameter is about 2mm smaller than the nacelle! Photographs clearly show they are the same width. I don’t know how an aftermarket part can get it so wrong. I ended up using the kit parts, rescribing the very soft detail on them and they ended up looking perfectly fine. In future I will do a bit more research before buying what is supposedly a ‘direct replacement’ upgrade part… Construction continued With the main assemblies completed I returned to the smaller parts. Still lots to do! The floats required a lot of clean up: The idea is that you insert the thin supports before you glue them together, catching them between the float halves. This I felt was a recipe for disaster, and in addition would make cleaning up the very obvious seam a major pain. However, my solution was far from perfect! I cut off the vertical main support from the floats themselves. This allowed me to clean up the seam on the floats, as well as the sink marks on the supports. So far so good, but it did leave me with a nasty butt joint to attach the two together again. They would break a number of times throughout masking and attaching them to the wing in the days ahead… On studying a movie I found of the PBY-5s in use with the MLD I noticed that they carried not the rather standard single .50 cal in each blister (which I had acquired already) but a dual .303 Browning setup. The .50 cals went in to the spares box. It was an opportunity to reuse some of the PE Eduard had kindly provided to spruce up the kit parts (in combination with plastic card), and I got some Master brass .303 barrels to make the dual setup more convincing. I used a similar combination of Eduard PE, card and Master brass for the front gun. The Eduard PE for the blisters is really meant to represent .50 cals but no one will know. Right? Right. Ok – there is no way around it – you are gonna have to attach that wing to that fuselage! I’ve never been lucky with models that feature spindly supports, and this kit would be no exception. It started off fairly well – the fuselage fits perfectly into the central recess in the wing. Pleased with myself, I forgot to do the obvious (can you guess what it is?) and went on towards the part I dreaded most: The supports. I started on the starboard side. Not a problem – perfect fit! Port side then, and that’s where it all went wrong: Both supports were too short by over 2mm. I slapped myself for not checking alignment after gluing the wing on top of the fuselage. I checked, corrected, checked, corrected, checked, measured, corrected, in the process breaking off all four of the supports again. After finally getting the right alignment I decided that it would be a good idea to let the glue set for a night before continuing. The next day I attached the supports again. Starboard, again, not a problem. Port? Would you believe it? Still a 2mm gap! I checked alignment again, and, satisfied that that was not the problem, proceeded to flood the gap between the supports and wings with a mix of superglue, Mr Surfacer and Tamiya liquid cement. My concoction created a permanent bond (probably the strongest on the entire model!), and after two days of sanding, cleaning, respraying, and more sanding, cleaning and respraying, I was very proud and happy with my now winged Catalina! Final Construction Quite a lot of this really. Main challenge were the cowlings – the use of the resin engine means you can’t use the mating surface on the nacelles as they are too deep and I had to rely on gluing the circumference of the cowlings instead. This, it turned out, was a lousy idea as the weight of the resin engines meant the thin mating surface did not provide enough strength to glue them properly to the nacelles. I decided to create a new mating surface using the back of the resin engine blocks. For this I had to remove the half-circle shaped areas on the nacelles, and by building up the layers using thin plastic sheet I finally got a nice, big, smooth mating surface. All my efforts had resulted in some spilled glue so some more respraying was required. A final piece of aftermarket I used were Red Roo’s fishtail exhausts. These are cast in resin and look quite good, although they are not as crisp as some Czech items of this kind. I had to sand the attachment points quite a bit to get a good fit to the engine nacelle. The fishtails are a bit of conjecture from my side again; I know from photos that some MLD PBYs had them, and they make the plane look a bit different, so there we go. Other bits and bobs went on quite easily; stabilizers, antennas, wires, machine guns, blisters, turret, fuel ejection pipes. I sprayed the entire kit with a mixture of 80/20 Vallejo matt and Future, and removed the Montex masking (great item, no-brainer on a kit like this) on the clear parts. The final items on the to do list were the PE wind shield wipers (attached with Future) and some Little Cars lights to represent the landing lights. They were taped over with clear cellotape to represent the glass. After some touch up I had a completed PBY! Conclusion Academy’s PBY-5 is still an excellent kit. With a bit of aftermarket it can be turned into a great kit, and it really has no significant vices to speak of. I really enjoyed this build from start to finish. After a long car and boat journey from Norfolk to The Netherlands, the revived Y-63 made it to my parents' house where it currently has a place of honor in the living room. I'm very happy with the result and so is my dad! References Bosscher, P.M. (1990) De koninklijke mariene in de tweede wereldoorlog. Part 3. Van Wijnen, Franeker, 490 pp. Geneste, W.J. J. (1992) MLD-er met twee bronzen kruizen. Mars et Historia 26(3): 57-61 Meijer, H. (2008) Voor dapperheid onderscheiden. Nieuwsbrief Vrienden Legermuseum 16(1): 12-13 Postma, T, Visser, G., Van Schooten, G.A. (????) De Catalina Y 63 door de Jappen neergeschoten. http://www.visser-maritiem.nl/Catalina%20Y%2063%20%20(1).html Womack, T. (2006) The Dutch naval air force against Japan: the defense of the Netherlands East Indies, 1941-1942. McFarland & Company, Jefferson, NC, 207 pp.

Anybody knew that Kubrick wanted Sellers to play Pickens' role as well? For one reason or another (probably Seller's throwing a tantrum) that didn't happen. Pickens did more than alright though, although one cannot help imagining the madness that would have been when Sellers had taken on the part. Add another one to the list: By Dawn's Early Light. Rebecca DeMornay is so cute, Powers Boothe is good as usual and for a TV movie, it's got a pretty good story. Had to think of it a couple of times with all this bad business in the East...

Besides filling and sanding more holes and dimples in the fuselage, I did quite a bit of work over the weekend on the tail section. This was a horrible mess – for starters I broke of the last inch of one of the fuselage halves when I tried to straighten them out, so that had to go back. The part didn’t fit at all; either I lined it with the crack or with the other fuselage half, but no way it would fit both at the same time, so I did the best I could and filled the gaps with card and CA. When that had set, I checked the alignment – the whole thing looked like a banana L So under the tap it went, which didn’t do much – upgrade to boiling water, and this did the trick, the resin became very soft indeed and I managed to straighten it out. With the tail section itself now straight, this left the strakes which *should* meet with the horizontal stabilizers under completely different angles and different heights on the fuselage. After some test fitting I decided the port one was not too bad, so I sawed off the starboard one. I’ll replace it with more card after the stabilizer goes on. The actual tail then went on. It’s perhaps the best part of the kit, at least compared to the rest of the thing – no air bubbles in the resin and rather well defined panel lines. However, it did leave a huge gap on the front with the fillet on the fuselage, and at the back with the badly mangled starboard side of the fuselage, so out came the Evergreen strip and the CA glue again. After that the whole tail was smothered in filler, and sanded. Result is below, and I’m quite happy with it. It needs another round of filler and the very tip of the tail needs to be shaped into a very fine point, but it’s a long way from where it was. Another first I’m contemplating is to do plunge moulding (?). The air scoops on the engines are rather crude blobs, and I feel it shouldn’t be too difficult to replicate these myself. If anyone has some tips on this I’d love to hear them.

That's great info. The wheels are a no brainer, I will get some of these. I noticed that the SAC set misses the forked actuator part, I assume because the kit part is used. However, I found this as well: http://www.kitsforcash.com/nimrod-nose-uc-bay--metal-uc-set-168-p.asp Don't know these guys but this set is much cheaper, includes the actuator and as a bonus also provides a full undercarriage bay - which I just started modifying myself this morning of course

I've read Tom Cleaver's review on ModelingMadness and he also feels the Welsh Models kit is better, but that didn't exist when I bought this one and for what I paid, I will finish it as well Great result btw. This weekend I'll start on the wings; I read somewhere that the wing fences were added after initial problems with the aircraft, and since their scale thickness is terrible and I don't like the look of them in any case, I was wondering if someone can confirm this. I haven't found any photographs, apart from the prototype. Nimrod undercarriage - well that would be great of course! The wheels are rather crude on the kit, like everything else. I'll post a pic of them this weekend, if someone can point me to a suitable set of aftermarket I'd be very interested.

Just wanted to let people know I got this from HLJ for 800 Yen, that's less than a fiver! Shipping will likely double that but it's still a pretty good deal.

Love watching planes in the movies as much as the next guy here My favs: - The Final Countdown. Love the concept of going back in history and changing things, and this film has it all in spades. I keep hoping the thunderstorm won't show up at the end every time I watch it - Always. Great A-26 shots, shitty movie apart from that, probably Spielberg's worst. But it does have those A-26s and Audrey Hepburn so I give it the thumbs up - Empire of the Sun: The P-51 'Cadillac of the Skies' scene is still amazing to watch, the slo-mo flyby moment where the pilot waves at Jim is simply fantastic. Also love the cinematography earlier in the movie around the night work at the airfield, and the scenes near the crashed Zero at the start. - Ashamed to say it, but for pure eye candy and realistic looking planes (I know, CGI) Pearl Harbor is pretty damn good. That is, as long as there are planes on the screen. When it's not the case, it's one of the most awful things I ever saw. Still want to watch Red Tails, I'm prepared for it being a bit like Pearl Harbor but that's ok as long as it has nice plane action. Also need to see The Sound Barrier, The Right Stuff, The Bridges at Toko-Ri and Tora Tora Tora!

Small update. It's been a busy week so I didn't get all that much modelling time, but I did pretty well with what I had available. Yes, I got the ill-fitting fuselage halves together! Fit was really pretty bad, but by taking it a couple of inches at a time, it came more or less together. I used medium thickness glue to get it together, then filled the major gaps with thick CA. I'd never realized how bad the fumes of this stuff are, if you use it in such quantities it hurts the eyes and nose I'll be wearing safety specs and a mouthcap next time I... safety first! After applying yet another layer of CA I took a huge file (the kind you really should not be using on a model aircraft) and starting sanding off the excess. This was followed by slathering vast quantities of filler across all the seams, doors and windows. After letting that harden for a night I sanded it using a large sanding pad (hoping to remove some of the bumps while I was it) and this is where I am now. I must say the seams have cleared up rather nicely in most places, but a second helping of filler is required almost everywhere, especially around the windows, as you can see that area is still very patchy. All in all pretty good progress considering the time I managed to put into it, I'm happy so far This is useful stuff, thanks!

Would love to see a Joypack of this.

Bit the bullet on this one and ordered it from HLJ for about Y2000, Y700 (about 4 quid) cheaper than the Academy. I'm really not interested in building it with all the bays opened anyway and the price difference settled it for me. I've got a nice decal set from FlevoDecals to build a Dutch test machine and if the Academy is really that much better, I'll build a production machine with that in a few years (if we ever get round to ordering the damn thing...). 'Pilot of the seated posture. Figure comes with one body.' Only one? Typical Hasegawa!

That's possible, my versions date back from a previous rerelease at least 15 years ago, goodness knows what happened to the molds since then. They must sell loads of them to unsuspecting buyers for them to come round once more.

I referred to this kit in the Ta-152 topic. Compared to that, this one has even fewer redeeming values in today's market.

I would agree with that to some degree; the problem with Revell is that it's often impossible to tell what you're going to find in the box, especially for the smaller kits that do not include pictures of the completed model on the side. If you've been building kits for a while or hang around on the interwebz you know how to find out what's in the box, but when I bought this kit in the mid 90s neither applied to me. Back then it was basically a gamble for me whether I'd get one of their nice new molds (P-47, 109G) or one of their many re-releases, like this one. In al fairness I still think this is one of the more buildable ones, the Tempest, Ki-61 and Airacobra kits that ended up on my shelves in those days are still gathering dust and will most likely never get built.

Well, it's been sitting on the shelf for a few years but I've finally mustered up enough courage to start my build of Fliegerhorst’s 1/72 Comet. I find the Comet 1 to be the most beautiful aircraft ever built, period. I still find it hard to believe how incredibly sleek it looks, it must have looked like something out of an SF-movie to those who first saw it in the 1950s. Of course, apart from being an attractive aircraft, it also a milestone in aviation history, even if it’s a rather tragic one. In that sense it’s strange that is has been served so badly by mainstream kit makers. There a few short run 1/144 kits out there I believe, and Welsh Models apparently also make a 1/72 kit, but that’s it. So if you want to build a Comet 1, these are the choices you have. In fact, Fliegerhorst is now defunct (I wonder why…) so I suppose this kit is now hard to get a hold off. Some words about myself, to put what follows in context: I generally build WWII 1/72 kits, and I generally prefer to build the best kit I can get my hands on of a particular subject. This is why my shelves are stacked with relatively newer, mainstream kits, a lot of them from Japan (shake ‘n bake, baby!). I generally build out of the box although I do tend to do some minimal scratchbuilding when the kit is really lacking in detail or on short run stuff. One important thing to note is that while I have built my share of short run kits, I have NEVER built a vac or resin kit. So, Fliegerhorst’s Comet is a resin kit and since I do have some resin kits on my shelves waiting to be build, I can state with certainty that this is not a very good one. Hmmm… so no experience with resin and a large, crappy kit to cut my teeth on? Perhaps not the best place to start then? Ah well, if I complete this one, it can only get better going forward. What’s in the box? Not all that much actually, the parts count is relatively minor at around 40, 4 of which are alternative cockpit window inserts. The fuselage halves are made of a strange, soft resin which is akin to the plastic used on toy soldiers. The parts are warped and twisted. The other parts are of a more traditional hard resin and these are in slightly better shape, although the surface detail on the wings is indistinct in places and will need rescribing for the greater part. This is nothing like the resin we get out of the Czech Republic these days. Detail is soft on the smaller parts and there is lots of casting debris. Fit is almost non-existent: The parts only line up very roughly and I have already ordered some gallons of CA glue, a few tons of filler and a number of square miles of sandpaper – they will be needed. Instructions are text only and very brief and do not contain schematics, but there are so few parts they are not really needed anyway. Some photographs and technical drawings are provided for complex areas like the gear, which only adds insult to injury as the parts for these areas are very basic representations of what’s on the photographs. An ALPS printed decal sheet is provided with BOAC markings. All in all, a pretty poor effort for 110 euros. I’ve started construction on the fuselage halves earlier this week. I tried straightening them out under hot water which worked to some extent, but when test fitting, it appeared they would never line up due to shrinkage. I decided there and then that my usual approach to minimize the use of glue and filler in order to save surface detail was not going to work and that brute force would be the secret to success here. I sawed, hacked and broke some of the bulkheads as well as the outer fuselage itself to allow the parts to straighten out. The next step was to tape the halves together, line them up and then ‘set’ the broken fuselage half by taping a strip of card along the bottom. I then split the halves, put some new supports in the cabin area to prevent the roof from sagging behind the cockpit (it looked like a 747) and started filling the gaps with thick CA glue. This gave me two relatively straight and solid fuselage halves. I also decided that given the condition of the kit, I would never get that windows to look good, so I proceeded to fill these with plastic card. These were then also glued over with CA glue, and sanded (quite roughly). This highlighted a few thin areas around the cabin windows where the resin was extremely thin and bent inwards, so these areas also received copious amounts of CA glue. There are other such areas in the fuselage which still require a similar treatment. Fliegerhorst has been nice enough to supply open cabin doors and even baggage hold hatches. Why they’ve done this I can’t understand for the life of me, because they are essentially ill-shaped holes with ill-fitting parts one needs to contend with. I suppose a stronger man than me would use the opportunity to create a full interior but I’m picking my fights carefully on this build and this will not be one of them. They had to go, so more card and CA glue was required. This is where I am at the moment, and needless to say, this is a topic that will continue to run for a good long while. It will involve a lot of firsts for me: First resin kit, first substantial rescribing effort, first high shine natural metal finish… first airliner when I come to think of it! Any advise will be greatly appreciated as I continue my battle with this kit. On toward a gorgeous model of a gorgeous aircraft!

This was one of the first kits I built when getting back into the hobby again some years ago. It was an easy build, perfect to get back into it or for AMS. The mottling was more of an issue, I didn't really get that right at the time...

Would there be any chance of backdating this to an F-16A MLU, or does the Revell kit remain the only game in town for this? It looks like there is the potential for Tamiya to do a lot of differen versions of this kit.

Unless you speak Japanese, good luck with that I bought stacks of Hasegawa and Tamiya kits while I was out there, very good prices on those, especially 'in production' kits. Back catalogue was considerably more expensive (like the Beaufighter) but still cheaper than over here. Other (European) brands, they are as expensive as the Japanese brands are over here.

I did see a Beau when visiting a hobbyshop in Tokyo in 2010 but it was considerably more than 2400Y... in fact I got mine off ebay in the end.

To my eye the Academy I've built looks like the windscreen is squashed, it seems too low and flat. It just looks odd.

I do find that MicroSol is one of the weaker solutions for getting the decal really conforming to recesses and sharp angles. Both Mr Mark Setter and medium DACO are stronger. With (older) kit decals, I tend to go for one of the latter.

Older ones do this. They also tend to be out of register more often than not. However, recently tried one of their newer kits (72nd scale 262) and these performed quite well. Now where is the cut-off... I have been buying Academy kits quite steadily over the past 20 years...

Tried it with Gunze, no problems whatsoever.

Hannant's prices are never decent