bianfuxia

The mounts came in the kit! They just fit really badly. Nice work on the 135, but pics or it didn't happen!

Thanks! The kit has its ups and downs. I found the fuselage join between front half and rear half to be a good solution, but it needs a lot of putty and sanding to get a really good finish. I failed miserably at that (there's a few shots in the thread showing the mess I made). With more time and patience though, it'd be fine. Another modeller told me his build of 25 years back is still standing strong on its landing gear, though I wasn't convinced mine would, especially as the landing gear bay on mine got a bit loose (should have used super glue). The landing gear attaches to the inside of the fuselage as well as to that inserted box so it might have been ok. The fit of the missile pylons and wing tip tanks is really, really bad and would take a ton of effort to remedy. I just cheated and mashed them on there with a liberal dose of superglue on the very small area that actually made contact with the underside of the wings. For a wheels-up build, the u/c doors are all a poor fit too. But I mean if you want a B-52 in 1/72 this is one of the cheaper options - I found mine on sale and it was A$100 shipped. I've read here and there that there are "shape issues" with the newer more impressive 1/72 B-52 kits...though how much of that is speculative rivet counting and how much would be noticeable to the average modeller is anyone's guess. To me, this thing looks exactly like a monster B-52 out to destroy the Soviet Union. Side note - it includes the parts to make a later model B-52G - the distinctive twin chin mounts for the TV system, and a few other bits and bobs. And the tail came with the later -G model lumps and bumps (you need to remove those to make the 60s version). If I were crazy enough to do another B-52 in this scale, I'd certainly give this kit another shot, especially if it were 50 bucks cheaper than the alternatives. 50 clams buys enough spray cans to actually paint this monster!

thank you for all the great comments, everyone! I certainly feel like a 1/72 B-52 is something every modeller has in them...but for me one is definitely enough!

thanks! The pic was made in photoshop (well, in gimp, which is the same thing). I took a photo I'd taken from an airliner, I think it's over the USA somewhere, and then I just photographed the model at that angle, selected it in gimp, copied it at as a layer into the aerial shot. Takes about ten minutes mainly cos I am slow at tracing the line of the plane. I think the main trick is to find a background shot where the light is roughly the same as what you photographed the model in - in this case full Aussie sun. I also try to get the sun from the same angle - in this case the shadow of the tail is on the right, as is the shadow of the clouds in the background pic. But the model photo is just a snap with my phone. If one was minded to put in the effort, the result could be a lot better. That's good to know! Perhaps I should give it a crack.

Well, here's what happens when you try to build a 1/72 B-52 in the Christmas Blitzbuild ...that is, in less than 24 hours spread across three days. Before we go on, I didn't succeed. It took about 30 hours of work to get to here: This is the Italeri re-pop of the old AMT kit, depicting an early B-52G with the twin AGM-28 Hound Dog missiles. These were designed to give the attacking B-52s a stand-off capability against Soviet air defences. The inertially-guided Hound Dog could hit something with 3km accuracy after a flight of 1,200 kms at up to Mach 2 - not bad for something designed in 1959. Now, you might think "well, 3km accuracy isn't great". But remember, it had up to a 1.45 MT nuclear warhead (the Hiroshima bomb was 20kt). Crazy what we humans once thought made sense! All that to say, I thought the 60s B-52 of the Dr Strangelove era was the one I wanted to build - the height of MAD and the Cold War. According to the instructions, this one, named "La Forteleza" was based in Puerto Rico in 1962. I suppose that means it may have been one of the many B-52s on alert during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The main problems I found with the kit were: . the wings don't droop so you can't realistically display it wheels down (apparently a well-known issue with the kit and there are fixes, which sound difficult and time consuming). I wasn't convinced the u/c would hold the not-inconsiderable weight of this thing anyway . missile pylons and tank pylons have a terrible fit . the join of front and rear fuselage halves is pretty messy to fix up (I kind of failed at it, though it looks ok-ish in the pics) The biggest problem of all is just the sheer size of this monster: It dwarfs even the Victor (yes, I know the problem) and the unfinished Blinder, and makes even the F-111, F-105 and Mirage IV look positively wincy. The missiles are nearly as big as an F-104. For a hot minute I thought I'd get away with this: But I settled with this instead: To finish, here's another photoshop of it. Even with my modest skills at modeling and at photoshop, I think it looks the part. Thanks for looking!

Well, I'm calling this one finished. I lost track of the timing in the end but it wound up at about 30 hours total. The last steps were to superglue the wing tanks and missile pylons on - the fit of those was really terrible, so superglue was the only way to go (as it was too late, and I had no motivation, to do real remedial work on the joins which would have taken ages). The main problem with this kit, apart from the serious fit issues, is what on earth to do with it once it's finished. It's just MASSIVE. I mean, look at the missiles: I thought some of my other models were big.... ...but the B-52 dwarfs everything. (And yes, I know what's wrong with my Victor). At first I thought this might work: But it's way too precarious - especially as this is my garage and when the door is open sometimes the wind gusts in. So in the end, it's sitting on top of this cabinet: So the best way to appreciate it is via photoshop: Thanks to everyone who followed along and encouraged me to keep it going. Much appreciated! Now to build a 1/144 Spitfire or something!

Contains the English F-word, but pretty funny:

This Chinese sentence was reportedly written to prove that "Pinyin" - the romanization of Chinese characters - could never replace actual characters. Written in actual Chinese that sentence looks as diverse as any other. Even with four tones, there are multiple Chinese words that sound exactly the same but have totally different meanings and totally different characters. Plenty of room for embarrassing errors - as my brother found when he asked a waitress for a Sprite, or as you could do when telling a pharmacist you have "gan mao" (a cold). The word for sprite sounds to our ears very close to a really nasty curse (as in swear word) and gan can also be similar to the F-word in English if said with the right tone. Luckily Chinese people in my experience also kinda knew what we were trying to say - like every language it's context based - so if you're in a restaurant ordering the waitress is likely to figure you're after a Sprite rather than cursing her from pillar to post!

I would be, but in 23 we had the epic PPPR build which included prototypes and experimental/research types. Can we get away with it again so soon?

Welcome aboard! Glad that this GB may be your first armour experience!

Thanks everyone for the kind comments. Have a great 2024!

All the decals are now finished. I've decided, due to the clear lack of wing droop, that i will display this as airborne (despite not putting pilots in it - if Major Kong can leave his seat in the middle of a bomb run then my guys can leave theirs while cruising while returning from their Fail Safe Point). All I need to do, in that case, is attach the gear bay doors which, of course, don't fit very well. Then glue the engine pods on and a few tiny spots of touch up paint and it's done. I will figure out a stand for it later.

Welcome both of you!

Great work - some cool models but for me those two metallic finish Soviet monsters really take the cake - oustanding. The blue on the wingtip engines of the smaller one is incredible. Happy new year!

Well, not a bumper year for me, unlike last year which was record-setting. I got off to a good start but in about March work became very time consuming, and at the same time we decided to move house and fix up the place we were moving into. So....I didn't get much done. But I'm pleased with the ones I did finish. And here they are. 1. The Revell 1/144 Super Constellation. This had sat around nicely spray-painted since 2018, and I finally finished it off this time last year. I grade this as a SOD - Shelf of Doomer. It has plenty of flaws but for me, by my standards, it's the best build of the year and up there in my top few ever. 2. YUH-61A 1/144 This is an Anigrand resin kit of the "bonus kit" family - small kits of wacky subjects that come with the larger Anigrand models in 1/144. I built it for the Prototypes/Racers/Record breakers GB. The YUH-61A was Bell's effort for the new utility helicopter contract ultimately won by Sikorsky's Blackhawk - when you consider how many Blackhawks and Sea Hawks there are, it was not a great contract to lose. The Sea King from a previous year is there for scale. I grade this as an FB - Fresh Build. That means I hadn't had the kit long, and I built it more or less in one go. 3. 1/144 Yak 28-64 This is another of those Anigrand bonus kits. The subject is a failed Soviet effort to turn the Yak 28 into a supersonic interceptor. Apparently this design was so flawed that the plane could barely break the speed of sound and couldn't outperform a bog standard Sukhoi 9. F-4 for scale. As above, this was done (I think) for that same GB and was also a Fresh Build. 4. Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner 1/200 This is the fantastic Hasegawa Dreamliner -9 kit. This one is part of my ongoing project to build one of each airliner I've flown in, from the airline I flew it with. Like most projects, it's more advanced in the concept than the delivery. But I do have a few of them sitting on the shelf rather than in the stash. I flew on an ANA 787-9 a few times in about 2015-2016 between Beijing and Tokyo. This model is a SOD - Shelf of Doomer. It'd sat basically painted since 2018, just wanting its decals, engines and wheels. It was a quick January finish. 5. JMSDF Sawakaze 1/700 This one was built for the Salty Sea Dog GB. It's the third ship of its Tachikaze class of guided missile destroyer, which served 1976-2010 in the Japanese navy. The kit is from Pit Road. I'll grade this as a FB - fresh build. It'd been sitting in the stash for a couple of years, but not so long that I'd call this build a Stash Basher. The ship was armed with ASROC, guns, and the Standard SAM (originally Tartar). 6. JMSDF Hatakaze 1/700 This ship was the lead ship of the successor class to the Tachikaze. DDG-171 came after DDG-170 shown above. Another FB from a Pit Road kit, also in the Salty Sea Dog GB. Unlike the earlier class, this one had a flight deck, and had its Standard launcher up front. It also has some Harpoons in quad-pack launchers amidships. Here they are together, showing how much broader, bigger, and generally more powerful looking the later ship class was. 7. Space Settlement My GB, Above the Karman Line, attracted some incredible models from some very talented builders. I encourage you to take a look at the gallery. I tried to build the giant Revell 1/144 International Space Station but while I made some good progress, I just didn't have the time to get it more than about half finished. So I whipped up this quick build so at least I had one model in the gallery of my own GB. It's an "O'Neill Cylinder" - a 70s concept for a large scale space station habitat. Inside the non-clear parts of that big tube are full-on cities and landscapes where lots of people live, enjoying the artificial gravity caused by the whole thing rotating on its axis. The big wheel at the front has farm space. The panels close at "night" and during "day" they work as monumentally large solar arrays. This was a cool little Japanese kit, from a brand called Wave Corporation, that snapped together as perfectly as a Bandai kit. I didn't use a drop of glue on it. 8. 1/72 F-5E - North Yemen AF This was a Stash Basher AND a short-term shelf of doomer - I'd had this kit since about 2018, along with the Bestfong decal set. It's the supposedly crappy but actually pretty good Hobby Boss kit (just ditch the wildly under-scale seat and pilot). I started it in 2022 for the F-5 STGB but didn't get it finished until earlier in 23. The short version of the story is that North Yemen, the west-backed country fighting the Soviet-backed South Yemen in the 80s/90s, got these F-5Es from the US. No-one there knew how to fly it, and the US couldn't risk providing American pilots to a proxy war, so some pilots from Taiwan (aka Republic of China) were roped in to do the job. This link is a good and interesting overview of that whole situation. It has some good photos, too. I really like the angular camo scheme. The pitot broke off as I took it off the shelf today to photograph...and fell deep into a box full of junk on the garage floor, never to be see again. 9. Ecuadorian Mirage F1 1/72 This is the old Hasegawa kit - an oldie but actually a goodie. Sure, it's not as good as the Special Hobby kits, but if you buy it from Japan it's less than one third the price. I built this for the Dassault GB in 23. It was a Fresh Build. That stuff on top is dust - it's been sitting in the garage since we moved here. I found a pic online of an Ecuadorian F1 armed to the teeth as you see above with Matra Magic and Python AAMs, and a clutch of Durandal runway penetrating bombs - looks like the dropped one on this runway right here. They came from the Hasegawa F-111 kit. I like this jet and its scheme and was pretty happy with this build. I still aim to put the two wing tanks on to complete the loadout. 10. Boeing RB-47E Stratojet 1/144 This is the lovely Academy kit, built here as a Stash Basher from a kit I bought in 2018. I made this for the Recon GB in 23. For fun, I posed it at a makeshift forward base... That's all I managed this year. I came very close with a big 1/72 B-52 - currently ongoing in the Christmas Blitzbuild GB - but there's a bit more to go on that so it's going to have to count as a 24 completion. I also have a lovely 1/200 E-4B sitting finished but for the resin antennae (lots of them). I guess that's an easy win for 24. And, not far behind, there's a 1/72 P-3C just waiting for a few more decals, some props, and some wheels. I hope to get to those this month, just as I finished the Dreamliner and Super Connie January of 23. Thanks for looking, and see you round in some of 24's epic GBs!

At 24+90-ish minutes I've done most of the whole left side of the decals: here it is, by way of size comparison, with that other giant folly of 2023, my International Space Station (which is 1/144, so it's twice as big as a B-52 IRL).

Great collection there, well done!

Good ones and big ones too! Well done and Happy New Year

Some great work there, well done!

Don't worry - I'll knock it off tomorrow if I can! I just realised today that this kit has a known flaw - the wings don't droop properly. I'll either have to put some pilots in and mount it on a hefty stand (it's quite heavy), or figure out another solution (one option is to not do anything of course - we'll see how bad it is tomorrow)!

Great work Ray!

Amazing collection - of course I recognise your two awesome builds from Above the Karman Line but the rest of these are really interesting and well done too. Hope to see you around in the GBs next year - happy new year!

Nice work! Have a happy new year!

Well done! Great collection. The Clipper is as nice as the others are saying but for me, wrangling that Airfix B-29 into such a good model is the more impressive task! Wish you a great 2024!

Great mix of really excellent models! Thanks Again for joining the Above the Karman Line GB too!