Whofan

Bill, when I saw this pic I was proper confused. Because I sort of looked at it it quickly and I thought it said "Powered by Magimix" I had visions of it mixing dough or something while in flight! I have this kit in the stash - almost at the top of the "I must get this built" pile, but mine will be a standard Beaver as used by the Austrian Air Force. I am following your build with interest, hoping you will identify the nuisance points for me, however the first - the windscreen issue - is I think resolved by the IPMS Austria a/m Windows set.

I mentioned earlier I had seen this and kept thinking about buying it - I bit the bullet the other day! I’m currently about 2/3rds the way through Siege, by Ben Macintyre, which I suspect many will know as the story of the SAS operation to rescue hostages at the Iranian embassy. Some interesting detail about the people involved, and the mechanics of the operation.

@Corsairfoxfouruncle, thanks for the links. Fascinating stuff!

I get the quirky nature of it, but it was a dead end in the evolution of aircraft to me. I do wonder if they had put wing guns in it would the turret have gone? Overweight for the engine with the turret? And of course the gunner, who, when I was looking at the turret photos, didn’t seem to have much room at all!

I’ve looked at the test build on LSP and have been well impressed. One thing though, Peter, if I might be so forward, what made you go for the defiant? It’s not a plane I associate with great demand in the modelling fraternity, nor personally other than as a bit of a quirky job, yet the reaction here and on LSP seems more than welcoming - you must have done some serious research! Congrats on the kit and let’s hope it sells well and helps you develop more.

I found the picture of my guitar collection on flickr, so here it is again - All bought from different guitar shops in Denmark Street over the years --- and all about 10" tall!

John, I was in W H Smith's yesterday and idly looked at the new books, and I saw a new book on Sword Beach by Max Hastings! I was quite surprised, as - as we mentioned - there is a good book on Sword beach not long published. The maddening thing is that I will, almost certainly, buy Hastings' book as well as the Stephen Fisher one, when it comes out in paperback.

Loot from the IPMS Gloucester show last sunday: I thought I;d give these a try, chose 4 random colours, they seem to work well. And then these; The toon tank os for a specific little idea of mine, and the German midget U-Boat - why not?

David, probably a good thing that I didn't get this!

Milan, Thanks for posting your photos, it's always a pleasure to see photos from shows - especially from overseas shows! I particularly liked in your first batch of photos the fountain - the way in which the modeller has presented the water spouts hitting the water is very good! Now in your first batch of photos you show a Tsar tank. Was this model presented by Rafal Sikorski? You see, Rafal Sikorski won best in show at Scale Model World in November 2022 with a Tsar tank, and I am wondering if it is the same exhibitor and model at Novopacký šutrák? I also liked the model of the U - boat with the Enigma machine, and the sailing ships. very, very good modelling on display there!

@Gundylunch, And many thanks too from a visitor to the show yesterday, who enjoyed himself and who ended up spending actual cash with several traders! I always enjoy your show; it's compact, but friendly, and its compact nature means I can stretch out conversations with exhibitors - step forward the brave men of the Just for Fun stand and the Leicester modellers club, several of whose members chatted with me for quite a while. It's also one of the few shows where I find I have the time to browse among the traders stands, larger shows always seem to have crowds around the trade stands (that's a hooray!) but I can never get a lookin. And as the lady running the burger van looked quite forlorn and alone about 11am, I thought it my duty to go and buy a warming burger from her! I also indulged in cake and coffee from the stalwarts in the kitchen hatch at the rear of the main hall, jolly nice it was too. I saw quite a few spendid models, vignettes and diramas, and I thought I'd post a few of the more interesting ones I saw. Once again, many thanks for the hard work putting on the show! It's the battle of portaloo -

Supermarkets here will stick to the “standard” space size in order to pack as many cars in as possible. More cars equals more customers.

@AliGauld, I was at the Gloucester show today - very nice, compact show, btw, when on entering the show the trader opposite the entrance had this on his stand - I immediately thought of your build and @Heather Kay's build, too! It didn't have a price on it, and given I thought easily £100 or more for it, didn't dare open the box in case the carpet monster had travelled to the show with me! I don't know how rare it is, I know Hannants have some, but I shouldn't think it's that common.

Actually, I’m partially wrong! the increase in width and length is partly due to the addition of safety features like side impact bars, so I’m wrong to say it has nothing to do with safety features, but the article I checked on the subject says it has something to do (in the UK) with fewer cars being designed and built here (taking our narrow streets into consideration) and more to do with importing bigger cars designed for different countries. Whatever, I think we all agree that one’s (car or parking spaces) is too big and the other too small!

I read something about this recently, which - as you have done - confirmed that car parking spaces have indeed stayed the same for the last 40 years - if not more. I don’t think though that it is loading cars with safety features that’s caused to increase in height, width length or weight, I thought it was putting in more features, and the general increase in size of the population. I am quite likely to be wrong though, and please correct me if I am. Enzo’s assailant probably could have got into her car maybe 10 years ago, because cars then were that little bit smaller. Now the other thing that hadn’t grown in the last 40 years or more is single garage size. Garages today are still the same size as they were when we bought our first car, a mini in 1979! We haven’t been able to fit our main car into our (built in) garage since 2006, when we replaced our sierra sapphire with a Hyundai Tucson. I rather insouciantly reversed it into the garage, then discovered I could not ope the doors wide enough to get out! No matter how I tried, no matter how close I got to the wall on the passenger side, the driver’s door would not open wide enough to let me out. I’m sure you can guess what happened when we bought an Audi Q5 Quattro! Car park owners and house builders won’t put wide enough spaces and garages into car parks and houses because it reduces the number of parking spaces and reduced space in houses, so I’m led to believe. And Enzo, I am firmly of the opinion you behaved correctly and followed it up properly, though my goodness I‘d have been sorely tempted to give her a good wallop.