Head in the clouds.

Thanks for all the replies, even old tools can still be useful. That is a beauty Jonathan, your chine worked a treat. The colours of aircraft of that period were a photographers paradise, so much variation and colour and variety.

😮I can't escape that word but know your pain well, for me getting everything as aligned as much possible was key but even then the odd line went on a drunken wander, some were corrected but others I left due to the amount of work altering other lines around it. From what I can see your scribing looks good. Great work so far

Cheers Jonathan, that is priceless and confirms several question I had but no concrete images to answer those questions, in particular the prop tips, astro dome being fitted, some stencil locations and style of white cockpit roof area shape. I am so glad my build has helped you to some degree, my methods can sometimes be a bit unorthodox but as long I reach the destination I am aiming for then job done. Do you have any pics of your C130 A model, we don't get to see many of them. Gary.

Cheers Amos, I will use that last photo to 'Snoopy' to do a bit of weathering on what was generally a clean airframe. With regard to yellow prop tips I have been looking through my research material and came across this from Alan Kidtson's excellent little book; 'The C130's at Changi were rotated often and at the time that RAF Changi was closing in 1970 XV208 was sent back for conversion to the W2 configuration we are all familiar with'. As far as I know the red/white/red prop tips came about in the early 70's so XV208 would have been in conversion at this time and took it's first flight in March 1973, I am therefore confident that 208 had yellow prop tips. Thanks. Gary

Apparently Microlights have changed from a hang glider with engine behind pilot under aerofoil to this; No need to worry about air temps. Great flight over many disused airfields including Saltby, Bottesford, Syston, Cottesmore on which C130's no doubt visited ( still on topic) Wolfox Lodge ( Bloodhound MK1) and finally Twyford Wood. Touch and go on weather but picked up OK. A lovely little plane(Microloight) to fly, so much so I am considering (very carefully) learning to fly.

Indeed Pete, great film, great actors and great music. Ah! thanks, of coarse it is, 'horns' not a word that is in my everyday vocabulary 😁 Looking outside the wind is building and the clouds look angry so not filled with hope, luckily it is only at Saltby so not too far.

In the words of Robin Williams; I am in no way a heat lover, anything above late 20's and I am done, whatever happened to those lovely 25 degree summer holidays and swarms of Ladybirds? Luckily the cave is fairly cool as it is on the ground floor, we live on one of those upside down houses with kitchen and living on 1st floor and bedrooms on 2nd floor. In this weather that is not so good. Anyroads, enough hot air Keeping with the control surfaces on the empennage the pictures threw up another slight inaccuracy on the kit, not a criticism of the kit just an observation, but while working on them I may as well sort it. The elevator tip that is pointing up is too short on the kit by about 50% so I put elbow to action and removed the tip. Two halves of semi circular Evergreen were glued together then fitted to the elevator and then shaped to size. Accordingly the same amount was removed from the horizontal flying surface. You will have noticed that the elevators too have the hinge points visible when the aircraft is at rest so these were done as well. Also, by doing this simple correction I have tightened the gap up as seen in the pic above so it looks more to scale. The last thing done to call these done was to drill 4 holes, 1 in both the flying and control surface that are visible in the end of the said surface, if you have the Duke Hawkings book you will see what I mean as I can't find any pics online. Picking up another old job I decided to start spraying the propeller assembly. Now, on the box art it shows silver/grey propellers with a yellow tip, the colour given in the instructions states Silver . I don't know how long this scheme lasted but most pics of the'Crud and Custurd' scheme show a red;white;red bar on the propeller tips. Good pictures of XV208 are to my knowledge are non existent but a few grainy and small pics are in Alan Kidtson's superb little book on '208' and using my 60 year old Mk1 eyeball optics I think it had this early scheme of yellow on the tips. The red/white/red would be more distinguishable in the pics and it is not. So yellow it is as per box art. Initially I used Mr Hobby metallic silver but this was too much like a glitter ball so I resprayed them in Tamiya Titanium Silver (bottom one). Although it looks a bit more subdued I am still not sure, I may give it a mist coat of a light grey colour, can anyone confirm the colour please. That's it for now, off to stick to the sofa for a short while then hoping for my Microlight flight this afternoon but the wind is building so may not happen. That will conclude my 60th celebrations. Thanks for following folks.

My darling wife has released me from home improvement duties so the last 4 days I have manged some time in my not so secret cave. My time is taken up with several builds at the moment, an Airfix Hurricane to go with my Airfield Rescue set , a 1/144 Typhoon FGR4 for the club tribute build, repairing my Airfix 1/32 London bus after it went through a tumble dryer after taking a corner too quick in the car and the not insignificant 3 Herc build. And talking of which; my self induced period of excess work and colourful words has come to an end with the chin window now in place in the cut out fuselage which itself is now back where it belongs; A little polishing to finish it off and Bob's your uncle. It is far from perfect but it is a save and once more bling is on the kit you probable won't notice it. While I was working on getting back on track I also did some other work on the old girl and what I often do while waiting for glue to set or paint to dry is to sometimes go through my reference books. Looking through the Duke Hawkins book I came across some pics of the vertical and horizontal stabalizers and noticed 4 gaps on each of the control surfaces, these become visible when the C130 is at rest and I presume the hydraulic system that controls them depressurises. They rudder then sits of center left or right and the horizontal surfaces drop. This is where the tapered hinges sit and support the control surfaces and are very visible once you know they are there soooooo...out with a file. Jobs a good un as they say, more soon but cheers for now.

Cheers, it is only the dim's I need, what it it does is for the wizards. 👍

That is indeed the pod but finding anything else about it is proving hard.

Thanks @DaveH you are correct in what you say and that is about as much as I know. I have seen one of @Ascoteer old post which gives more info on this pod but no dim's. No, sorry, not I but it seems to be flavour of the month at the moment.

Would anyone have any information on the dimensions of the above ESM pod that was fitted to a few RAF C130 Hercules from after the Falklands to the late 90's/early 2000's? Internet search's come up with everything from Navel Oranges to seed pods on plants to crop tops but very little on what I am after. Any help appreciated. Cheers Gary

The old girl is putting up hell of a fight, withdraw and regroup then go again.

I am indeed and one is on my shelf awaiting it's turn. A lot of work will be needed to knock it into shape so I am holding out on an injection moulded offering but not holding my breath. If I have to order another One-Man Models kit then so be it.

I am not aware of this aircraft so always nice to stumble into something new. nice job your dad has done on both the build and bringing these lesser types out from the shadows.

A job well done on an old kit.

Stunning .

All the way from the Australasian continent I ordered a couple of sets of these although I only have one kit of the Andover, I live in hope of another coming to market. They are of superb quality and also include many of those smaller decals often missing from AM sets.

Positive forward motion Amos.....nice.👍

I never thought I would see a model of this very peculiar aircraft so I shall watching attentively. If I may, could you give some narration please on the build as I would love this in my collection and knowing how you work would help me achieve that and it will be interesting for others too. Cheers Gary.

About two weeks have passed since my last post and not a lot has happened, the hip/sciatic nerve or whatever is afflicting me is not abating, I have still been going to work but it is not easy. This has meant that the model room door now has a spiders web on it but this have given me time to ponder my Albert problem. So today was the day that the spider was evicted and I stood at the bench (still hurting to do so) but I needed an uplift. How do you solve a problem like Maria Albert? Trial and error, that's how. I dove into my transparencies spares box and saw an old Airfix model stand, the old kind. That got me thinking; it's wide enough make the glazing out of and it is about the right thickness too and the bonus is it will match the awful transparencies that come with the kit. First job was to mark it out a little larger than required and then cut it out. I then spent 30 minutes or so gently fettling it to the right size, after which a test fit. Yep, not bad but as the world wise amongst you will know the window has a curve in it and my effort is as flat as the Fens that surround me. Now this is where I did something radical and I really was not sure if it would work, in fact, I thought it would end in failure. After a couple of trial runs on the rest of the stand I fired up the Rothenberger gas torch and applied some heat to my little piece of plastic, not direct heat but just a waft in a left/right motion from a good distance away. This meant the heat built up gently and when I saw it move I removed the heat. As it would stay malleable for about 15 seconds, as proven by my previous tests I picked it up with tweezers and applied a little pressure to the relevant corner. It only worked didn't it! The perfect pick me up I needed. All that was left to do was a little polish up and it was there. The bottom right corner is the one that was bent downwards. As you know this window is in fact two frames so I will just mask it when painting and form the frame cross member simply by painting it on. It is now fitted into the portion of airframe I cut out drying nicely while I watch Clarkson's Farm with a beer in my hand . Have a good weekend folks.

Great choice of build Gondor, These planes are part of our history so nice to see one being built. The kit looks rather nice quality wise so I see one in my stash one day.

Thanks Pete, the hand is back to normal, the hip I can work through now but poor old Albert, well, need to have a think on that. I am glad to hear that @Marklo, sounds like I am being a bit whimpish...😊 and thank you for you kind words regarding my build. I can say with certainty that 8 years ago it would have become airborne even without wings but age does have some positives, my frustrations are now tempered by a cuppa and a walk.

A very quick update from a disastrous weekend that is still creating havoc with me now. Following on from a friends idea about how to add the weight needed to make sure we do not have a tail sitter I woke up Monday morning with nothing to do but work on this project and the first job seemed simple. I altered my friends idea a little by putting a hole on the underside just in front of the front landing gear bay, this I felt would be easier to repair. So far, so good. This made it easier to drop the ballast in which is nothing more than lead shot and also to drop diluted PVA (Aka Canopy glue) in via a narrow pipette, and it all went swimmingly for a while. This was done while I held the kit nose down in a vertical manner but for some reason I twisted the airframe in a way that allowed some of the PVA solution to run over the inside of the starboard chin window. I now had to remove the PVA while still holding the airframe in a vertical manner. Access was very limited and I tried several methods to remove it with limited success. I had enough as the PVA seemed impervious to my efforts to remove it so there was only one option as there was no way I was having a foggy window spoiling the build. Out with butchers saw; The whole lot was removed and then some to allow me to fix it in later. You know what; I thought I had it licked but oh no! I popped the glazing out of it's framming and started to polish it after removing any PVA with isopropyl alcohol. I scrubbed and polished but nothing was going to bring it back, it just refused to be polished up, I don't why but it just wouldn't. Now comes the insult, while polishing the glazing it split in two and one half vanished into a sub space void , great! Oh! Nearly forgot, while I was sawing away merrily still holding the old girl in a vertical stance I did it again, rolled it one way then the other....drat and double drat! PVA all over the other glazings....FOR CRYING OUT LOUD...what next! Luckily, ( I can't even believe I am saying that in this post) there was more room to get a brush in to clean it off with copious amounts of water on the brush. I have in one fell swoop increased the work needed to get back on track and I have to now figure out how to make a curved transparency. And can you remember that hole in the first pic, well, where do you think all the now thinner PVA went, yep, straight out the hole onto my slipper and the carpet. Isn't this hobby supposed to be enjoyable? Fast forward to today and while at work I smacked the back of my left hand between forefinger and thumb and ended up with a hand that was useless for ten minutes and painful. An hour or so later while using a breaker to break out some concrete (hand still throbbing) my bloody hip went and I now couldn't walk upright or carry anything without being in more pain. What a couple of ruddy orrible days. I am off to bed before I do any more damage...

Superb work John, it shows what can be done with simple kits and the way you have presented them works very well indeed.