JWM

Hi, Finally (in a last moment I guess) I decided to buy a Special Hobby Sunderland Mk V. I just did it... It was not easy to find a shop, which still posses it in offer. We will see if it came. I am interesting if it is possible to do it with a SEAC markings, so with blue-blue markings. And I am not talking about What If... (when I always can do such machine...) The photo from machine at Coco Island, which is from 205 Squadron RAF seems to have a standard C roundels on fuselage and I guess a a late-war roundels with narrow white on the top (I do not remember what was their code...). It suggests, that machines from 205 were operating at far distances from the battle area and were not suppose to meet US fighters which can be as friendly as friendly fire is, therefore they can retain red on markings... My question is - has anybody seen (or even posses a photo of Sunderland Mk V wearing SEAC roundels? Or it never happened? Regards J-W

Very nice work and result! I'd like to tell you, that some 20 years ago I was trying to do both Wapiti and Wallace Mk II - I posted them on BM as one of my first post here ten years leter... Some things I will do now differently, with some others I am still happy... I hope you enjoy them Regards J-W

BTW -since the Sunderland GR V was in use since June 1945 by 205 Squadron at Coco island - was it the only use of Mk V in WW2?

Here is photo pf Mosquito PR 34 of 684 squadron The article: https://www.key.aero/article/mossies-over-jungle Some more photos also of B24 and Spitfires are here https://picryl.com/topics/cocos+keeling+islands+airport The Catalina is seen in background of that photo https://c8.alamy.com/comp/2T1KA27/royal-air-force-operations-in-the-far-east-1941-1945-short-sunderland-gr-mark-v-rn293-j-of-no-205-squadron-raf-detachmentand-a-consolidated-catalina-mark-iii-probably-of-no-321-squadron-raf-detachment-moored-off-direction-island-cocos-islands-2T1KA27.jpg

I will do it in 1/72 by a home made scratch conversion. Interesting, it is named MTO tank, so it was a in-field modification. likely made at one of the MTO air base (?).

Indeed, last time I have watching this photo on a smartphone and have not seen the difference. On computer screen it is obvious... Sorry for mistake.

For me the bottom is white, since I cannot notice any shade difference between it and the color of star. So upper side can be a gull gray. The Atlantic sheme gull gray and white is the only one with such high demarcation line, so this is another observation for such interpretation...

Hi, I just tried how it will like in Ivory on floats of SM 66 I am not decided yet, to do overall white ambulance or grey/ivory rescue machine?,,,, SM 55A: I painted yellow elements Progress with SM 73. I have painted on top as Giallo Mimetioco 3 Humbrol 63, but my bulb together with camera make it yellow It is not that color in nature, believe me... The props: To be continued Regards J-W

Here is the exact SM 73 which I am trying to do: It is machine imposed to RA, not obviously from Italian company, The engines looks like a Bristol (original or licensed) the props are a bit unique with the angle regulation. The logos are well seen and they recalls to me Hamilton one... Regards J-W

Nice result, I know what you mean about the working on each part. Regards Jerzy-Wojtek P.S. I you interested you may find my Amiot 351 and scratch conversion to 370, both available on RFI ....

It is often like that! When I was advanced with scratch work on Miles Martinet (conversion from Frog Master) - Pavla kit appeared, when I did Lancaster - Mk II Airfix kit appeared, when I did Airfix Hampden - Valom released it, I hope you are right and it will go! On the other hand sometimes it work differently - I started Caproni 100 as a scratch conversion from Frog Gypsy Moth, there was an announcement, that both Caproni 100 and 164 will be released by I think Fly. Nothing like that happened, but I suspended my work and never finished Ca 100...

Many thansk, some of them are the same as in the link I found recently. However here is interesting belly drop tank http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii120/Duggy009/1st Brazilian Fighter Squadron/P-47D-25-RE 42-26766 B4 1st Brazilian.jpg At first moment it looks like a standard US drop tank like those carried by P40s or P39s, however the halves of this tanks are separated by a metal belt, which makes that the cross section or frontal view on it is of a stadium shape: two half circles and a straight lines between them. Do I see it correctly? I think it must be a field modification since it was not quoted on any known to me drawings of drop tanks

Actually I am doing now SM 73, and I've noticed something like Hamilton logo, and here akso, therfore I asked. Do you think, was it Hamilton or Piaggio on Savoia?

On the third from top photo the prop blade has a logo, the oval recalls Hamilton, was it a Hamilton prop or if not - whose logo it is?

Many thanks! I also have a kind of soft spot on the Devastator, it has very elegant lines. Many thanks for support exactly! I am happy that I could left some paint on certain elements not touched (for example spinner, u/c legs, engine, insides) so it is still like they were for last 50 years... My daughter told me that she is not sure about the such restoration - to restor I have to destroy what I did once... Therfore I was trying to keep some thinkgs untouched at all. Thank you ! Many thanks! I love Devastator too. It was in fact a low-series rare machine (was it that some 150 build?). If you compare with other WW2 US Navy birds, so how many of them you can have in a WW2 airplane collection? - just one! I decided to restore this old Airfix one with my private history related to it instead of buying a Valom one to replace it... You are right. I have a life-time project since about 1990, when I restricted my interest o years 1935-45. I wanted to reproduce all types from that period exluding only prototypes and not-realized designs, with some kind of proportion (not linear!) to number of build. It makes that majority are rare birds. I have currently for example 7 Ju-88 family members (A1, A4, D2, G6, S1,188E, 388L), four Lanscster famili (Manchester, Lancaster Mk II, Mk III and York), but types produced in series below 1000 I should have only 1. The main problem is with Gladiator, which has so many options that I will not end with only one for sur.e. I have to construct some better algorithm for desired numbers of models of given type... Thank you, for me it is indeed a piece of my own modelling history, so I am happy that I was able to get Pavla canopy, Techmod decals and do thiis work.... Best regards Jerzy-Wojtek

Indeed, however He 46 was in the time of writing that past post only in secret plans of RS company, it was hard to anticipate it... On anticipated stuff, I can tell that I once corresponded with owner of LF company about possibility of release of injected WM 21 as a development of Fokker CV in their long series of very nice Fokkers, and the answer was "yest, we want to do ALL development variants of Fokker CV, including the Swiss and Hungarian one, but we need time for doing this..." Those were plans some year ago, I am not sure if those plans are still actual, the LF is doing now series of small first helicopters. However I am not buying Kora resin kit, nor starting the scratch work for it. I am still waiting for WM 21 Solyom (Falcon) and EKW C 35 as injected short run kits by LF - perhaps also there will be WM 16 Budapest? Regards J-W

The separate nose suggests option for "D" in future, I hope. However the wings-engine way of tooling is suggesting no planned option for early Liberators... The field for scratch work remains open, what is nice on one side! J-W

Hi Small progress with SM 73. I made landing lamps, glued flaps (I have not seen any of them parking with flaps down), glued tailplan struts, and painted with white, just to see any problem if it will be: With SM 55 a pause... With SM 66 The proportions are more or less kept I started to do the surface details. All lines I do by masking and adding some putty between masks. Here it is: In the end of the day I put some green and grey to see the surfaces... now - dome corrections.... To be continued... Cheers J-W

You are right. However, me and my bother ( @KRK$m ) were a special case. My mother bought Devastator kit for me in .... London! My grandfather lived after WW2 in London and the communist allowing my mother to visit her father for a week or two since mid sixties, at the beginning in 2-3 years period and in 70-ties was some kind of opening and it was once a year. The Grandpa died in 1989 in age of 101... In seventies I was accompanying my mother four time visiting him and then I was once in the eighties... But our "infection" with airplane modelling started (as I already wrote it on the "Nostalgia..." thread here from a stipend visit of our father in the Manchester University in early sixties. He is astronomer and was doing his PhD this time but this is another story. Anyway he was consructed few scratch and one paper models as a student in fifties, and from this stipend he returned with some set of kits which he constructed in next years: Airfix 1/144 Comet, Vanguard and Caravel, Revell 1/72 F4U1D, Frog 1/72 D520 and Airfix 1/600 Queen Elisabeth.... So the isolation was not that perfect like in North Corea... This D 520 I restored few years ago using old Esci decals. - but I had to use old canopy... The Airfix (as also most other western and Japanese) were available in Poland in limited number as a private import. It was tolerated by rulers. However the exception happened - for example in mid seventies suddenly almost whole range of Heller kits appeared in the scaut-equipment shops (!), also some Italian kits by Polistil (for example P40) appeared. Some Novo were sometimes available (but not Novo-export, so with very poor or with lack of decals and with very poor general quality) as well as of course Kovozavody, VEB Plasticart, some other Soviet (rather not 1/72) and Polish... It really changed after the collapse of empire, and became normal in the second half of 1990s... Cheers J-W

Hi, The Airfix Douglas TBD Devastator. This model has a very long history on my shelves... This was one of my first ever build 1/72 kit . It was AFAIR my fist "bigger" (box, not plastic bag), second series kit. I made it when I was in a fifth or early sixth class of primary school (sometime 1970-71) . It was done without any painting in inside and using an old style Airfix paints: the small glass vials. The top was a mix of blue, white and black (without any thinner I presume, so some massive layers) and bottom was mix of white and black. After few year, (still in school days, but the secondary school) . It must be about 1976-77. I gained some experience and was not able to watch on it any longer. Since I am not able to throw away any kit/model I rebuild it. To do this I gently broken it back to the pieces, put it to sodium hydroxide solution for some weeks, what results in removing of all paint. The models were those days so precious that such rebuild was very common my experience, however I am not remember any case, that I was deconstructing some model twice. This time I glued it carefully, use sand paper and painted it with Humbrols. I applied decals by ESCI, which were said to be of machine from Coral Sea battle (now I know, hat it is from training time in Feb. 1942) Of course the main problem was with canopy, it required some sanding to remove scarfs from glue, so I painted it with some gloss varnish, but what it was I do not remember, anyway it became yellowish and with time it turned to deep orange. So for many years I was again not happy with it. Oce I noticed, that Pavla was producing a vacu canopy to TBD, so I bought it. When it came it was obvious, that it is certainly too wide for Airfix kit. This stopped me and the canopy was in a drawer for next some 10 yeras... Recently, after completing NA O47, which is a similar machine I decided to do something with my old TBD. This was how it looked like in early January 2024, after likely 53 years from first build and 47-8 years from first restoring. The canopy went off rather easily Then I washed it using brush and pure ethanol. This removed besides 50 years dust also all decals. The gluing was done not badly I was stopped on such deconstruction only. I did small corrections inside and installed the Pavla canopy. Despite that I squeezed it a bit it still required a massive use of a putty to make fuselage a bit wider at top. As consequence I removed almost all riveting from fuselage, to diminish the difference in look of area around the canopy and the rest. I painted it back with a thin layer of Humbrol paints (144+89, 3:1) on top and on bottom (64:129, 1:1).Then I applied new set of decals. I have use the Techmod decals for machine from USS Lexington of Lt.Cmd. James Brett, VT-2, May 1942 (Battle on the Coral Sea) https://techmod.pl/72132-douglas-tbd1-devastator-p-325.html Here is the result: Comments welcome Regards Jerzy-Wojtek

I have just bumped on it : http://www.steelwork-models.de/ And it works. However, from what is on this page I cannot understand, do the offer currently any kits or not? Especially, that on YT you can bump on a review of new kit Macchi MC 41bis. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwvUsgv5kiY

"the bad thing" I is not exactly what I wanted to say - the Schneider trophy was a exiting filed of development of airplanes. I just wanted to note the context of this airplane...

Yet another Schneider races participant....

Today I fiund a large set of photos of Brazilian P47s (among other Brazilian aviation photos) here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/damopabe/2751645976/ On none of them I noticed the Brazilian insignia (painted without whiata US bars) on both wings, thay are always present on one, like US machine have. The decals https://www.mojehobby.pl/products/Republic-P-47-D-Thunderbolt-Brazil-Air-Force-in-Italy-1945.html#gallery_start suggest 6 position markings, if I understand them correctly. Anybody knows he photo with all six position insignias? Regards J-W

I am doing now SM 73 from Sm 81 and I confirm engraved lines and really deep changes between them. Looks that each individual part was a subject of a study and correctied, when needed. Few additional parts also appears, for example front fairing for GR engines (three rounded parts between one set of cowlings and stabilizers visible on grey sprues set at Chris's photo and much more of them on the frame withe fuselages. I regred, that Italeri did not decided to add 14 cylinder engines since the cowlings to them are included. Those fairings most likely cover almost totally visibility of engine, and that was the reason I think... The bigger difference is in separate flaps, which allows you to d machine with opened flaps. Also the bomb bay region is tottaly reworked, it is possible to do with opened doors, whereas in Supemodel they were simply closed. . The tires are also deformed, like in a airplane on ground should be. Even much deeper are differences between CANT z 506. I have both Supermodel and Iteleri and I am going to use Supermodel kit (and Broplan conversion set) to do the passenger Z 506 C machine which is much less outside detailed then the bomber Z 506 B... Regards J-W