Skodadriver

Ah, that makes sense. Ray probably did the decals for the Welsh Models kit I mentioned.

There is something at the back of my mind that Welsh Models once issued their ERJ-145 in the later BMI Regional scheme (i.e. the wikipedia link). It's no longer in their catalogue and could be a figment of my imagination but it's all I can think of.

Although it isn't an airliner as such, this is one of the finest models I've seen and the article is a fund of information about getting the best out of the Airfix kit: http://irishscalemodeller.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=16

Gosh, I don't need to pretend any longer that buying books and kits is an investment! My copy doesn't have a cover price but from memory it was around £25.

If you can get hold of a copy "Silent Swift Superb: The Story of the VC10" by Scott Henderson is probably the definitive reference work. Hope you don't mind me correcting you but on page 58 of "Silent Swift Superb" there is a picture of G-ARVM in the BA "red tail" scheme so it's accurate for at least one Standard.

That really is a little beauty.

Thanks Alex. I'm a great fan of F-RSIN but limited run injection moulding has its limitations and you must understand that their kits need a lot more work than Revell or Zvezda. Anybody who expects to shake the box and have an F-RSIN kit fall together is going to be very disappointed. On the other hand F-RSIN will give you an accurate basis and if you put in the work you should be rewarded with a good model. The Trident was great fun and not particularly difficult but it did need care to ensure, for example, that leading and trailing edges were up to standard. Probably the trickiest part of the build, strangely enough, was the horizontal tailplane. The two halves were only an approximate match and required an evening's worth of fettling to get right. Not a big deal but a good illustration of the sort of work you may have to do.

I agree but it's very smelly. Lady Skodadriver rarely complains about anything modelling related but I'm only allowed to use P38 when she's out!

I've just noticed this thread. I recently tried this stuff http://www.biostrip.co.uk/paint-stripping.html and found it very effective. I used it on an old Airfix Boeing 737 painted with Xtracolor enamel over Halfords white primer. It shifted everything including the primer. It didn't affect the plastic although it did loosen some of the filler (Milliput) but that was easily replaced. I notice the mention of Modelstrip earlier in the thread. About fifteen years ago I was scrubbing Modelstrip off a partially stripped model. I'm still not sure how it happened but despite wearing glasses I managed to get a splash of diluted Modelstrip in my right eye. I washed it out with copious amounts of water and thought everything was OK. However a few days later I got excruciating pain in my eye and scary visual disturbances. I needed an emergency referral to an eye specialist and was extremely lucky to get off with "only" a scarred cornea. The two morals of this are (i) that ordinary glasses are NOT sufficient eye protection when you're doing ANYTHING with a caustic substance and (ii) complacency is downright dangerous.

That is an utterly wonderful piece of work and it has to be one of the very best models I've seen in more than 50 years in the hobby. I am lost in admiration and more than a little jealous of your skill.

Thanks again to everyone who has commented so generously. One thing I remember from my single Trident flight was how quiet the aircraft was inside. It was also very comfortable and stable on what was a rather gusty and turbulent day. In the early 1980s I used to spot quite regularly at Glasgow Airport, usually in a car park just off Greenock Road beside the bridge over the Black Cart Water and near the north end of the main runway. When aircraft were taking off towards the north they passed almost directly overhead and a fully laden Trident 3B with all three and a half engines at full cry was quite an experience. I also remember the crackle - it was unique to the Trident which sounded completely different from the pre-hushkit 1-11s even though they both used the Spey.

Like Mike I'm an F-RSIN fan although I haven't tackled the Comet 1 yet. It's looking good and I'm very much looking forward to seeing the finished model.

Yes indeed. I tried to replicate it on the model with plain white decal stripe but it looked wrong so I just left it off. If somebody comes up with a source for white dotted decal lines please let me know! I don't like to dwell on crashes or other mishaps but it does sometimes happen that you pick up useful details from pictures of aircraft that have had bad things happen to them.

Poor things .... I like your dad's photo and at least it shows them still intact. They nearly all ended up like this: http://www.airteamimages.com/hawker-siddeley-trident_G-AWYZ_british-airways_199141_large.html

Thank Mike. Tridents were, of course, notoriously dirty towards the end and I had to fight down the temptation to overdo the exhaust staining. In my experience less is usually more when it comes to weathering and I'm glad you approve!

Thanks everybody for your kind comments which I really appreciate. If nothing else I hope I can encourage more people to have a shot at F-RSIN kits. They've come a long way in the last few years and offer some subjects (like the Trident 3) which aren't available anywhere else. The good old days of the Shuttle! Good luck with the 1-11. Which kit are you using? I suppose it's a better fate than being ripped apart at Heathrow as happened to most of the fleet. I remember Zulu Juliet as the Prestwick fire trainer but I haven't seen her at Dumfries. Must make a trip sometime.

The generous response to my Lao Central SSJ-100 has encouraged me to post another RFI, this time the F-RSIN Trident 3B. I usually have five or six builds at different stages but for some reason I tend to finish them in pairs. The Trident was the other half of the pair with the SSJ. I used the plastic version of the kit which went together well. F-RSIN have really caught the character of the aircraft, particularly the kink in the wing and the various lumps and bumps underneath. The only accuracy point I picked up was the shape of the centre intake which was too sharply triangular compared to photographs. Plastic strip, superglue and Milliput plus a few minutes of carving and filing took care of that. To my eyes the cabin window decals look slightly too big but unless you take the expensive option of sacrificing a TwoSix sheet there really isn’t a suitable replacement. I sourced alternative “British” titles to align better with the windows but I'm still not 100% happy. They came from an old Flightpath sheet intended (I think) for a Tristar. The registration had to be G-AWZJ on which I had my one and only Trident flight (GLA-LHR) shortly before she retired in 1985. It’s also the only time I’ve flown in a rear-facing seat, a strange experience rather like being on an airborne train. Since I’d never previously been on a Trident I was unfamiliar with the aircraft’s idiosyncrasies and I still remember getting slightly concerned by the length of the take-off run at Glasgow and the looming possibility of a very large splash in the Black Cart Water. Needless to say Zulu Juliet unstuck in her own good time and the rest of the short flight was great. Happy memories! Thanks for looking and as always constructive criticism is welcome. http://SAM_0127 by David Griffiths, on Flickr http://SAM_0130 by David Griffiths, on Flickr http://SAM_0122 by David Griffiths, on Flickr http://SAM_0124 by David Griffiths, on Flickr

Thanks again for your support and encouragement. Much appreciated!

You don't. It's Russian only. Google translate worked for me.

A huge improvement on a pretty dreadful kit. Brilliant work! No sign of the cat this time

Excellent build - very impressive. I see I'm not the only person with a cat who is interested in modelling! As a matter of interest why did you use the Revell undercarriage rather than the BraZ set?

Thanks guys. Your support is much appreciated. It was one of John's wonderful builds which originally inspired me: http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234909274-sukhoi-superjet-100/?hl=sukhoi

Two beautiful models Mike - thanks for sharing. There is something satisfying about refurbishing an old model if it works well. I'm in the process of re-doing an Easyjet A319 which was suffering badly from yellowed white enamel. It's going fine but I've done refurbishments in the past which have ended up being more work than building a completely new model!

Thanks for your kind comments everybody. I reckon you'd have to be even more ham-fisted than me to make a bad model out of the Zvezda SSJ-100. If I live long enough to clear the current projects off my workbench I intend to make this my next Aerodeka model: http://www.airliners.net/photo/Moskovia-Airlines/Sukhoi-SSJ-100-95B-Superjet/2384100/L/&sid=7df802e67e2ccb66c7ebbfd82faa3f2c

Now in RFI: http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234971592-1144-sukhoi-ssj-100-lao-central/