72modeler

I would imagine after so many hours of flight time in the type being flown, if a pilot or ground crew needed stencils to tell them where to step, not step, put fuel, etc., they most likely shouldn't have been wearing the uniform! "Hier mit der klodhoppers, stompin' ist verboten!" might have been reapplied on Fw-190's, though!) I know- I know- back to the naughty corner with @corsaircorp! BTW, how're you doing, CC? Mike

Got this from an old friend this morning, and I thought many of you might enjoy reading about her history and restoration. What a labor of love! This one's for you, @tonyot! Mike https://acesflyinghigh.wordpress.com/2018/11/17/restoring-the-last-surviving-raaf-consolidated-b-24-liberator-2018-update/ Looking at the photos of the cockpit, it appears to me that this is an example of the bronze green known to have been used by Consolidated and other manufacturers that was later replaced by dull dark green. I think this is a good approximation of the color, because IIRC bronze green has a sight sheen to it compared to the more matte dull dark green. What do you think, @Dana Bell? Quite a testament to the quality of the original manufacturing process that you can take the wings from a B-24D and bolt them onto a B-24M! (They sure don't make Fords like that nowadays!)

Shaun, That is a beautiful Turkey- colors look very good, and you did a 4.0 job masking the transparencies. Well done! 👍 Mike

Well, you've done it again, my friend! That is a beautiful B2! I know what you went through to depict the stabilizers at rest, but they turned out great! I am soooo impressed! Keep 'em coming! Mike

Hot doggies! RS-T's famous DT-A! Sure wish the shipping wasn't so messed up, as I would really like to get this boxing, but I do have DT-A's decals on a couple of sheets, so I guess I can use one of my Arma Mk 1 kits to honor the man. @ptarmigan- thanks for posting the announcement. 👍 Mike

Here's the one I have. Overall it's nicer than the Monogram kit, but the Monogram kit fits a lot better and with the available resin detail/upgrade sets, you can crank out a beautiful model from the Monogram release. Throw in the Naval Fighters monograph on the F7F, and you can get as crazy as your skills allow! You should see one in flight- they are crazy fast and very maneuverable. In my opinion, the F7F and DH Hornet were the penultimate expressions of a twin engined piston fighter. Mike https://esm.fandom.com/wiki/Octopus_1/72_72018_Grumman_F7F-3N_Tigercat

@Brad Cancian Brad, Nice pair! I especially liked the job you did with 'Contrary Mary!' Gotta love a Mustang in 78th FG markings! See the link to an an interesting restoration and an excellent period photoi of the 'real' Mary. Can't believe you masked and sprayed the checkers! Mike https://vintageaviationecho.com/mustang-contrary-mary/

Plus, you can being amassing every serious modeler's most treasured resource- the spare parts bin! Mike

Medium green is a very good approximation of the dull dark green used on a lot of aircraft interiors and crew spaces- FS 34092. You can see it on the quilted panels used for insulation/soundproofing on many USAAF/USAF aircraft: B-17, B-24, B-25, B-29, C-54, C-119, C-124, B-36, B-47, among others. Mike

Pavla did a very nice F7F-3N; it is better than the Monogram kit due to having both cockpits and structure/details in the wheel bays, but if the single seat or the single/two seat F7F-2 are your favorites, you can always get the Monogram kit and find the Aries or Lone Star Models upgrade sets, which also allow you to do the two-seater. IIRC Airwaves/DB did a resin nose to do the-3N 'droop snoot.' Many years ago, I did the Monogram kit as an F7F-1 with the narrow, rounded fin; did some scratchbuilding in the wheel bays and cockpit and sanded off the rocket mounting stubs, as they were 'way too thick. If you use a Monogram kit, you will need to thin the prop blades quite a bit, as they are too fat! Either kit will need a LOT of nose weight, in the nose and the engine cowlings, as the real thing was notorious for sitting back on its haunches when empty of fuel or ordnance. I don't think we will see another new-tool, but I would like one, don't get me wrong! Mike Our resident oil/gas tycoon and vintage airplane pilot and collector, Rod Lewis, owns two of them! They fly over my house all the time... four R-2800's in very close formation! You can go to the Lewis Air Legends website to see them and the other aircraft in his collection.

For the magneto cover, you can pencil the outline of the cover on the upper cowling. Then using the white PVA glue of your choice, paint the outline of the cover, starting from the narrow back end to the wider front end. This may take a couple of coats, as the glue tends to shrink when it's drying. If you practice on a scrap fuselage or wing, it won't take long to get the hang of it. The surface of the cover or blister can be smoothed with a paintbrush dipped in hot water. When you get it like you want it, hit it with some primer, and you're done! Works great for nav and position lights, too- you can add a drop of red, green, yellow or orange food coloring to the glue to simulate colored light lenses- dries clear with the color of food coloring used. Neat thing is if you make a mistake, just wet it, wipe it off, and try again! Makes great flap fairings, too! Replaced the misaligned ones on my 1/72 Hasegawa Corsairs and they looked great! Hope this helps. Mike

Interesting questions, and I'm not sure I can give you definite answers to both, but I can share some observations about the B-26 control wheels: Flak Bait, a B-26B has two spectacle-type control wheels, as seen in period and museum photos The B-26G at the USAF Museum has a half-wheel on the LH side and a spectacle type wheel on the RH side; I will make a guess that the B-26F used the same wheels The short wing/tail B-26 in the Kermit Weeks collection has two spectacle type control wheels; I have seen a photo of a B-26 cockpit dated 1941 that also shows two spectacle-type wheels, but the version is not identified; I'm guessing a 1941 photo would be an early short wing/tail Marauder I have the William Wolf book on the B-26, and there are diagrams and photos of the seats. According to the photos and diagrams, the pilot seat is tall and has a rounded top; the co-pilot seat is much shorter and also has a rounded top. The radio operator and bombardier seats are both tall and have a squared-off top. The pilot, co-pilot, and radio operator/bombardier seats have different armrests. In the Wolf book and one other book I have that has both the B-25 and B-26, there are breakdowns by variant and block, but in neither book is there any notation about control wheels or seats fitted to each. Best I can do, but maybe someone who has better references or knowledge of the Marauder can help you. Mike

@canberra kid John, Saw this four part series just now and thought of you; just in case you don't already have them. Those black RB-57A's and B-57B's are soooo pretty! Some good footage for USAF Canberra fans. Mike https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAoA70dSsMk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JW60vHSNiA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWcGL4SQxTw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d12YJNvCT_c

Count me in, Ced! I will be watching the two Arma Hurri's for sure! I'll save a seat for @Corsairfoxfouruncle at the bar. (Nice to be out of the naughty corner for a change!) Mike

I have one, and it was a big disappointment, but they got the size of the codes right. I can't get anybody round here to buy it from me. From the glossy nature and hardness of the plastic, it does look like Sword did it. On mine, the cross sections of the two fuselage halves at the front didn't match and weren't even symmetrical. It would have been less work to take one of my resin Airwaves/DB Griffon engine cowlings, shorten it for the Griffon II or IV used on the XII, and put it on a Vc kit. Mike

Graham, I will have to respectfully disagree with your comment. If Airfix wanted to do a 1/72 Mk XII as a stand alone kit, they already have the C wings tooled up, which gives them the wings, radiator, oil cooler, and 20mm cannon. Depending on how they mold the wings, which nobody has seen yet, you can sand off the large cannon blisters if they come molded on the upper wing, or substitute the narrow blisters off of another kit if they give the large ones (either type) as separate parts. Don't understand your comment re the nav lights, as they aren't included on any clipped wing Spits for the most part, and if they are, you just paint over them as they were flush with the wing tip on the clipped wing versions. The rudder might be attached and it might be separate, but either way there are numerous alternatives out there. The only re-engineering, per se, would be the Griffon cowling, prop, spinner, and exhausts. The Vc had the same radiator and oil cooler, IIRC. Everything else in the upcoming Vc kit would be the same as the Mk XII, and I personally don't care if the fuselage is a flush-riveted Mk V, Mk VIII, or as riveted Mk V- I can fix that. (Cutting a Vc fuselage at the firewall to attach a 'short' Griffon cowling would be easier than some people who have sectioned the front, rear, and upper fuselag, or moved the wing and/or re-profiled the trailing edge to get an accurate Mk1 or Mk V from a Tamiya kit that I have read about some modelers doing here on BM.) Mike Limited production and fame? They did a Belvedere and DH 88. Easy? They did filleted and non-filleted Mustangs, I'm just saying, if they wanted to kill two birds with one stone, or in this case, an extra sprue, they could do a modified Vc as a XII. It's a relatively simple and cost-effective procedure to reduce a 1/48 kit into 1/72- Tamiya must think so, as look how many of their 1/48 kits they have re-engineered as 1/72 kits. A Mk XII is not an Me-209- it's a very famous, highly-regarded, and popular version of the Spitfire that served an important purpose until the Mk XIV arrived that has been sought after by modelers all over. Probably won't make a bit of difference where a new-tool XII is concerned; none of us have any way of knowing what the mindset is at the "new" Airfix," and I certainly do not have the reference library or vast knowledge of the Spitfire that you possess, but I figure I'm entitled to an opinion. I admit I'm very enamored with the XII, and would love to see a kit that does it justice released; if not, no biggie; I know how to make one.

Dennis, The one mentioned with the Watts prop and flat topped canopy is Airfix kit A02010. It comes with parts to do a Mk I or IIa: Rotol and Watts prop, bulged and flat top canopy, and Coffman starter blister. See my incoming email for box art and sprue shots. The Watts prop is very nice! You can find them pretty cheap on the auction sites- that's how I got my two. Mike

Maybe match to the green mold on their cheese? Mike

Hard to fly fast with a mask over its beak, I would imagine! 😷 Mike

They don't even have to do that. If Airfix released another boxing of their eagerly awaited. but as of yet not released Mk Vc, all they would need is a new sprue with the Griffon cowling, prop, spinner, larger chord, pointed rudder, narrow cannon blisters, insert for the retractable tail wheel bay, and a new tail wheel strut, and you can do a Mk XII from either batch of airframes. Doubt they would do this, as they have so far not been inclined to release a "special limited" edition kit like Hasegawa likes to do with their existing molds- for insane bucks, I might add! , (Airfix already has their 1/48 XII that they could pantograph down to make the extra parts sprue needed.) You engineer the cowling part to replace their Mk Vc cowling at the firewall, just like the factory did, and you also eliminate the bad part of the Airfix XII fuselage that I have read about in reviews and here on BM. Me- I'm sitting patiently on my Paragon XII conversion to be married to one of my Eduard Mk VIII week end edition kits, but I would love to see a dedicated state of the art kit, don't get me wrong, but I do have the conversion set just in case. As the capable modelers here on BM have elucidated, (Like that word, @Martian?) there are several ways to get to a Mk XII from existing kits and bits. @Graham Boak can check me on this, but according to the Allied Fighters monograph on the Mk XII, they were built in two batches, all coming from Mk V contracts but built as other versions. The first batch of 55 aircraft ,N221 to EN627, had fixed tailwheels, and the second batch of 45 aircraft, MB794 to MB882, had retractable tailwheels; all had the pointed, larger chord rudder, 'boat: fairing antenna on the lower rear fuselage. rod antenna under the RH wing, and no nav lights on the wingtips. Fer cryin' out loud, if Valom can do a Twin Pin. Wellesley, and a Harrow, it's a bleedin' shame that a mainstream kit maker can't do a Mk XII and Seafire XV, especially as I can't think of another single engined fighter that has been on more modelers' want lists for so many years as the beautiful Mk XII- I mean, if Jeffery Quill said it was the bee's knees, then what else do you need? Sorry for the extended rant, and I'm even on the wrong side of the pond to be ranting and raving about a Mk XII, but if my comments in previous discussions on this topic aren't any indication, it's my favorite Spitfire. Keep 'em flying! (I will now take myself to the naughty corner and sit with @corsaircorp until I feel better!) Mike BTW, Why would new tailplanes be needed? IIRC none of the XII's had the extended horn balanced elevators, did they?

There are others who have their kits who can comment on them much better than I, but I think they are an outgrowth of what used to be the KP kits of old that you probably remember- fairly accurate in shape and dimension, but fairly crude when it came to transparencies, detail parts, and decals. But for a long time, they had the only 1/72 kits for many Soviet aircraft. The "new" KP, which goes by the full nomenclature you listed in your original post, is light years ahead of the "old" KP; their latest releases have very nice panels lines, transparencies, and detail parts, and for the most part, are very accurate. While they are not of the same finesse and quality as some of the well-known mainstream kitmakers, they are not 'short run' quality, as we know that term. IIRC, they began in the late eighties and look like they are slowly replacing many of the old kits with new-tool versions. I have several of their new releases and they are very nice; not really that expensive, and you live on the right side of the pond to save on shipping! If you have some of their kits in mind, you could list them and if I have one, I can give you a review, if you trust a total stranger for his opinion, or one of our other modelers can do so, or you could go to Scalemates to see if they have any reviews listed for kits in which you are interested. Hope this has been a little helpful. BTW, welcome to the best modeling website there is! Mike

Erwin, Looks like you've gotten the hard part out of the way- the research! Going to be downhill from here! Can't wait to see the finished product! Mike

Yowzah- looks pretty darned good to me- beautiful Meatbox! Looking at all of the night fighter versions- that's a LOT of fuselage for not much wing area! I also agree with binbrook87 and billn3- the NF14 is the bee's knees! Mike

Pete, Definitely not my scale, but I think I know outstanding modeling when I see it, and I'll share with you what I really, really like about your T-bird: detailing of the canopy interior, wheel and speedbrake bays is outstanding; it's very hard to do a 1/32 scale model that doesn't look like a painted plastic toy, but your metal tones and finish are very, very realistic- the antiglare section of the tip tanks look like they were painted over real metal; decal work is outstanding- they look like they were painted on. Well done! Mike

Proof positive that the product is greater than the sum of all those unrelated parts! Wow! That's actually a handsome twin engined aircraft, unlike a lot of French designs. Truly a labor of love, and you should be proud of the finished model! 👍 Mike