JWM

Many thanks, that what I also saw on your model (more grey mottles over more blue background ) and it confused me Again - beautiful beast! J-W

Great that it comes back, I have in stash a short tail Merlin-Hawk, but I started to think that I'd like to do a FFAF one, for which I need a long-tail - and bingo! - it is back! Cheers J-W

Great result! I have it in stash for years, the paintings schemes making me not sure a bit. I am waiting for a better day to start it... Your result is inspiring... Just for my curiosity - how it was - mottled 65 over 76 or vice versa? The WW2 German bomber should leave the factory in 70/71 and 65 on bottom. If it is 65 over 76 it mean that they factory livery was 70/71 and 76 on bottoms and sides? Regards J-W

Hi After using CA glue to solve surface problem after another cycle of putyy and sandings I applied Humbrol 125 (thin layer) to see if the surface of top side of wing is OK? I think it is OK now I have still some minor problems on a bottom side but hope to sort them very soon. I sanded coarse excess of Milliput from floats mask all windows with Tamiya yellow tape and cover all surfaces of floats with Tamiya putty. Then I will go to sand it and to build the upper nose sides of floats, which are more difficult then other places... I made also a rear parts of booms. I paited them also with Hu 125, just to see how the surface looks like. The machine will be in Grigio Scuro on top and Ivory bottom. I hope this is a correct interpretation of scheme from w book on transport machine, former passengers, imposed to Italian army in WW2... I am not sure if Humbrol 125 is not a bit too dark...? Regards J-W

It might be a first one of long series of boxes of Fokker Super Universal - look at the users here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fokker_Super_Universal Like it was in case of Fairey III F family and with most of recent releases by Kora. Regards J-W

Hi, I found in my camera (what I already forgotten) that I heve photos from the very beginning of the work on Savoia S 66, it was on 7th January 2024. Here is cut of wings And those thin sheets as a base of extension, glued with pieces of wings of Savoia S 55 This was not a perfect way - now I have problems, when sanding sometimes the problems with surface appears. I have to fight with it now... I was going on with floats. To make proper shape of hull I glued on the middle of each float a piece of Tamiya sprue (2x2 mm squar), but it was glued on its edge, not flat side. Then I glued two more pieces on its sided to stabilize it. Prior to it I trim the clear side to proper height making room for gluing wing in future I put a lot of Milliput on bottom it will be sanded till the depth of the Tamiya sprue. A small difference in profile behind the step I will get by padding some Humbrol putty and the sanding , The S 55 is now getting shapes I do not like PE metal parts, especially on outsides therefore I used here self made plastic parts - the rod which connect all three fins, the plates on the end of booms and the strut in a central fin. I noticed, that riging of booms frame was a bit changing with evolution of S 55 variants, and photos shows that there are doubled cables and in early they were single... , The SM 73 on yesterday photos has engines put on without glue, so do not worry if you see some need of further sanding. Anyway I started to paint yellow, then I will put the exhaust pipes... Please note, that I am not using a nice cylinders engines provided by Italeri, since they looks more like a Wright Cyclone, with double camshaft rods in front of each cylinder not with single like in Bristol Pegasus. Instead I used resin copies of Italeri Bristols from Sunderland,. The forms I prepared when I was constructing my Short Empire (from Airfix Sunderland, perhaps some might rememer with Andrian MF vacu fuselage...) To be continued Regards J-W

Interesting.... i consider usually Kora as not a whatifer company. How sure is not existing ? This is a classical philosophical question...

Hi, Lets go for moment to Savoia SM 73. They were using six different engines, since originally it was a passenger the companies preferred that or another engines. I am going to build this machine: It is with Bristol (Italy licenced) Pegasus engines and Hamilton props. I have use one of cowlings provided in Italeri kit but I modified their shape. I wrap around two (wider (8 mm) and more narrow (2 mm) belts of 0.25 mm plastic sheets and add some filler, then sanded to a bit bulged shape (barrel- like) . I uses also a modified props from Wellington Mk I by MPM which were as spare in Mk IV kit. So it looks like here: or here Nothing happened today with S 55. (By the way - those flying boats are sometimes called SM 55 or SM 66 for "Savoia-Marchetti" but in other sources only S. 55 or S 66 for "Savoia" alone. I know that Italian companies put the name of the main constructor into given type, but I am not 100% sure which is proper in that case...) With S 66 : Current view on wings (I cut out the ailerons and made another approach of using filler and sanding paper) In the background there are two drawings, I am not sure which is more accurate. Comparing with photos some details are better replicated in one and some other in the another. For example the lighter one show the middle engine shifted a bit forward, the dark show them all in line and photos show it moved forward. But the floats are on this light drawing a bit too wide. Anyway, I am using both and comparing with photos. But the photos reveals also some differences between individual machines, some show four portholes on front of float and on some other there are five of them... I started to construct enlarged stabilizer (tailplane). I prepared it following the shapes on dark drawing, but now I think I have to correct it a bit in directions of light drawings... The floats. I drilled the holes on nose sections- they are just to connect better the Milliput with plastic. And with Milliput The booms of S 66 look like in a middle of the way between S 55A and S 55X in their rear part. I put some Milliput there as well to do the fairing but there is no fairing of the joint between stabilizer and boom on contrary to S 55X, where it is present... To be continued Regards J-W

Hi, very interesting machine and nice work you do on this! I was constructing it in 1/72 few years ago (not in 1/48) and I wish the 1/72 to be that detailed as this one is.... In title you mentioned "colonial". However the scheme, despite the machine is from Indochina looks for me a regular, not colonial variant, so one designed to be based originally on ships. From I have read, I have some kind of a vague recall, that the "colonial" was different from a regular one with two main things: 1. The different rear "turret", which in a "colonial" was I think unarmed, higher and closed. 2. Some bigger air intake on engine The "colonial" turret looks like that The box of SH kit has name "colonial" but this refer to two other painting schemes, I think..... Regards and have a nice time modelling it! J-W

Thank you! I am looking on the proper colors for SM 73 in a typical brown/green mottle over light brown. The bottom is Ivory white, so rather unusual. Any suggestion for Humbrol for Giallo mimetico 3, Verde Mimmetico and Terra?

Hi, On my shelves I have now S 55X (SCW scheme) by Delta 2 (with some modifications), Airfix SM 79 and SM 79 JRS (scratch conversion) as well as SM 81 by Supermodel from SCW. Here they are: However I have also nine kits of Savoia machines in my stash: 1. S 55A (Dora Wings) - to be a Romanian one 2. Another S 55 A intended to be a donor in a scratch conversion to Savoia S 66 3. SM 74 by Broplan 4. SM 75 by Broplan 5. SM 79 JRS by Frrom intended to do a Iraqi radial bimotor 6. SM 81 Italeri intended to convert to SM 73 7. SM 82 Italeri intended to do OOB 8. SM 84 by Aviation USK 9. SM 95 by Broplan I am going to build all of them, I hope in a two years horizon, maybe longer because I will do some other kits meanwhile... Some time ago I started three of Savoias. No 1 - S 55A to be done as Romanian WW 2 machine No 2 - S 66 to be converted from another S 55 A No 6 - SM 73 from SM 81 Lest start from the last one. The main work is about the fuselage, since the SM 73 and SM 81 are like Super Electra L 14 and Hudson: passenger and bomber developed out of it. So I blinded all turrets and gondola, and sides of fuselage replaced by a sheets of clear plastic with windows were just masked. I was not doing extend photo documentation so far, so I will skip to more advanced view: Lets forget this one for moment... The Romanian S 55 A. I am not sure if it is not a S 55 M, since the floats required some corrections. Anyway, It is here on a plan of S 66, just to compare sizes. The difference with floats is that Dora kit has two rised lines going around float and the original Romanian machine has only lower of them but three other reinforcing elements could be observed on sides. This lines are well seen here (photo shown only for discussion purposes): But the most interesting is I think S 66, as a rather massive scratch work will be done... The Original S 66 uses basic frame of S 55. The booms looks to be the same as, also the central part of wing has the same size and the distances between symmetry lines of foats are the same. The floats have very similar length, I am not sure if the difference come from inaccuracies of drawing or they should be different in length. In scale it is 3 mm. But the floats are certainly different: the cross section of all military variants of S 55 are a keystone, whereas the passenger S 55 is rectangular below wings - that is clear - to maximaze the space of compartments for passengers. Also the hull is different but dimensions are similar. The section of hull in S 55 is concave, in S66 is typical triangular. The main difference is in wings: the S 55 has wings of size of lets say Whitley (wingspan 24 m) , wheras in S 66 it is a Liberator scale (33 m) Technical data of S 55 (wiki) Crew 5-6 Length: 16.5 m (54 ft 2 in) Wingspan: 24 m (78 ft 9 in) Height: 5 m (16 ft 5 in) Wing area: 92 m2 (990 sq ft) Empty weight: 5,750 kg (12,677 lb) Max takeoff weight: 8,260 kg (18,210 lb) Powerplant (Romanian variant): 2 × Fiat A.24R V12 engines, 559 kW (750 hp) each Technical data of S 66 (Wiki) Crew 2 Capacity: 18/22 passengers (nine to eleven in each hull) Length: 16.63 m (54 ft 7 in) Wingspan: 33 m (108 ft 3 in) Height: 4.90 m (16 ft 1 in) Wing area: 126.70 m2 (1,363.8 sq ft) Empty weight: 7,450 kg (16,424 lb) Gross weight: 10,950 kg (24,141 lb) Powerplant: 3 × Fiat A.24R V12 engines, 559 kW (750 hp) each The difference in length (13 cm) comes from larger chord of elevators, this confirms hypo that floats have the same length. The mains task is to do new wings. I did it using wings of S 55 and adding extentions. I started with cutting each of 4 external parts along span. I cut out of 0.25 mm plastic sheet 4 parts of outer parts of wings having new desired dimensions I cut out 6 different ribs. I glued elements of S 55 wings on this thin plastic sheets, reinforced them from bottom side with ribs and two spars Then I was cutting the elements out of the 0.25 mm sheet and gluing them making the wing thicker. Each place got 3 such additional sheets, and the thickness of this surfaces became comparable with thickness of original wing parts. Then I started to use filler. Here you can see the drawing, the first approximation f new wing and for cmparison the S 55 wing. Then I use a resin filler (to avoid shrinking of normal putty, which will change the geometry with long time . After first sanding it looked like that Please note that the leading edge of course has different slope, so in central part of wing it is on sided covered with some putty as well... I started also to construct wider floats Again I am using here clear plastic sheets to sides, where large windows will be present. I have forgotten to add - some less then ten Savoia S 66 were in use by Regia Aeronautica as a rescue machine in 1940, during French campaign... This was 613 RA Squadron To be continued... Regards J-W

Looks very good indeed... Seems that the items made in a 3D printing technlogy starts to have enough smooth surfces. The canopy is vacu if I see correctly Cheers J-W

Very nice result! I have experiencre with this kit and I share you opinion. You did more corrections doing colonial variant with different rear turret, as the scheme is from Indochina, Vichy period... Regards, Jerzy-Wojtek

Now RWD-13s, PWS 33 Wyżeł, PWS 10 and much more appeared in the same shop. Currently 25 kits are available. https://www.martola.com.pl/pl306/produkty38825/rwd_13s Well, the prices are not low....Anyway, the quality was excellent. Is the company returns back to life? It would be great. Anybody knows something official? Regards J-W

About year ago I bought one from a well known Netherland shop for some plus 120 euro (inc. PP). It is still in stash and now it cames about four or even almost five times less... Oughhh...

Pat know it already, I PM him, but to all interested: two photos of S 23 Empire "Clio"/ AX659 (the sole one with turrets, for short time): https://ww2aircraft.net/forum/media/short-c-class-flying-boat-ax659.6752/full https://www.armedconflicts.com/attachments/217/sunderland-9.jpg The second take suggests the Bolton Paul type "A" turrets in both position https://ww2aircraft.net/forum/attachments/1-jpg.77428/ So one needs to buy two Defiants and then convert them into TT machines... Regard

Here The arrow is exactly in shade of a maple leaf. https://assets-global.website-files.com/60d3c6d0e106af90561564f7/60fabd4823c2cf6fe234396b_Grumman-Goose-Mk--II--RCAF--Serial-No--3-----2-July-1948---MIKAN-No--3584148.jpeg It is red, isn't?

I thought that initially they were vacu and then it became an injected. Then I have to measure carefully what I have.... Regards J-W

Thanks - so I put it on "trade" section...

When I looks at the photos from Danube delta, there is a lot of green and blue rather not grey present. and especially the lake Siutghiol, where was main Romanian base So I think the color on the camouflaged SM 55 is rather some short of light green more likely then grey. Any comment on that? Better motivated? Regards J-W

Regarding Wikipedia 14 out of total produced 22 of them were taken over by RAF https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_Scion Are there more data on them available?

Pat, I think with some efforts the parts of Contrail Maia could be helpful to convert Airfix Sunderland into Empire - so you will need more Sunderland then Maia parts to do this job. The rear half of fuselage looks more or less similar, the front is very different and indeed Sunderland and plastic plates and a lot of putty will solve the problem... Prior to getting a chance to use @AdrianMFfuselage (what was a great help) I was considering a heavy surgery of Airfix Sunderland fuselage. As I remember the hull step is a bit shifted to wings between Empire and Sunderland (because the latest has a bit swept back wings) what force you to do a cut the fuselage along its length. The canopy part can be shifted to the nose (it is surprising, but the canopy itself is identical or nearly identical between Empire and Sunderland!) and you have to do out of scratch fuselage between canopy and wings. And of course you need a new nose as well (maybe some part of Maia can be helpful here. Nice Empire drawings are here https://paintingvalley.com/download-image#rc-drawing-2.jpg Regards J-W P.S. Pat I know, that you know this thread, but for others readers let me just recall that some particular differences between Empire and Sunderland were discussed here

Hi, I am not sure how available are now clear parts for Hampden by AZ. In a case of difficulties I have spare one of it, since I bought it in parallel to the Valom Hereford few years ago, but the Hereford came already with styrene clear parts in box... Regards J-W

Pat, many thanks! BTW, what about our Savoia project? Currently I am finishing with SM 73 from SM 81...

I tried different stuff but from some well above 5 years I love the E-Z. You might look at my biplanes on recent yearbooks i- I am rather happy with it even with such complex rigging as it is in the case of Vickers Valentia (from Contrail...)