Brizeman

Hi. Whilst I don’t pretend to be an expert on the Hawk , the rear fuselage is just one thing to consider if you are going to build XX154 as it first flew. The wing fences changed position and shape, the ventral strakes around the airbrake were changed and the Martin Baker Mk 10 seats would have had the original head box. If you look at the photos of 154 as it appeared at Farnborough you can see the original shape of these items. Regards John

At one time the whole of the RAF strategic transport fleet aircrew flew in light blue shirts and blue trousers. The only time they would wear flying suits was during station exercises. The VC10 tanker aircrew on the other hand always wore flying suits.. Eventually it was decreed that all aircrew would wear flying suits so the Tristar and VC1O CMk1 crews had to conform.

Hi Regarding the photo of XV250 with the sharksmouth, the aircraft was one of our aircraft based in Malta with 203 Sqn. The mouth and eyes were painted on with normal enamel paint by the groundcrew whilst it was on exercise Midlink in Masirah. What you cannot see is that on the port side ASV21 panel on the forward fuselage, it has a list of the ground crew also painted on. When it returned home our sqn boss W/C Tony King thought it looked absolutely brilliant and had great plans for all of the squadrons aircraft to be painted like it but unfortunately the powers that be decided otherwise. Regards John

And British Airways have no aircraft in the fleet with PI as the last two letters of the registration. John

Hi Its also hard to believe that the first Voyager is coming up to 10 years old and the first A400M was delivered to the RAF 7 years ago.. Like somebody else said ,where has the time gone? John

Hi Just got back from my local newsagent and nearly fainted because on the shelves were the latest issues of SAMI and MAM. Both are combined August/September issues.. John

In A400s defence and believe me, I am not the aircrafts biggest fan, the C130J also had problems dropping parachutists when it was first introduced. PTS would always use C130Ks for the Para courses. Unfortunately C130 availability is limited these days by only having 14 aircraft in the fleet. Of those ,some are on deployment and others are in maintenance leaving less than half of those available. The days of 60 plus C130s are gone. Even the RAF Falcons jump from a Canadian registered civil Dornier DO228 these days. John

After a quick e-mail to David my March and April magazines arrived on Thursday. Many thanks to David for sorting this out and hopefully the subscription problems will be resolved . John

Hi I took out a 6 month subscription in February for both magazines to commence from the January issues. Mid March I got a package with Dec, Jan and Feb issues. So far no sign of the March or April issues so I was surprised to see the April issues of both magazines available to purchase in my local newsagent. Maybe they will arrive next week. John

Ray If you are doing a grey VC10 then the grey you should be using is camouflage grey or Barley grey as it was previously known. The Titles, serials and codes are Dark Camouflage Grey. John

Hi The other thing to modify are the engines and stub wings if you are going to model it as a C1K. The C1 had the engines and stub wings from the Super VC10 which are wider and set at a slightly different angle to the Standard VC10 which is what the RAF C1 is based on. The kit is also missing the APU exhaust at the rear of the fuselage which was only fitted to RAF VC10s. Regards John

Hi It also depends on a few variables such as fuel load etc which will all have an effect on the height. As an indication I am 5 ft 10 ins and could reach and open the fwd freight door from the ground. Also fwd of the freight door in the belly of the aircraft was a plug hatch which you could remove from outside and climb into the aircraft. With the hatch removed and standing up the top half of your body was inside the aircraft. Hope this helps you. regards John

Looking at the art work for the Arma AC130 conversion it would appear to represent an AC130J and the zvezda C130 is going to be a C130H so I suspect it is aimed at the Italeri kit.

Steve/Tony As ex RAF and now MOD contractor it is very noticeable how standards have slipped. The beards thing doesn’t bother me after all most NATO countries dress standards have been more liberal than ours for many years and it doesn’t appear to have affected their ability to fulfil their commitments however please do not get me started on the Scampton dog grave. As regards the painting of anniversary aircraft, they are all done by contractors. The RAF got rid of the painting trade a few years ago and contractorised it. All of the aircraft sporting the 100 years stickers were applied by a team of contractors except the Voyager which was applied by AirTanker and is different to the rest by not having the white outline. Tony, loving the Valletta. I have one to build but mine will be the Malta aircraft. a country very dear to me and an aircraft I saw on the fire dump at Hal Far during my tour there. John

Hi Ref your colours for RAF transport aircraft ,the VC10 was painted overall Camouflage Grey with all titles and serials in Dark Camouflage grey. Regards John

Hi Just a small correction. 203 Sqn was the first unit to leave Malta. We disbanded on 31st Dec 1977 with the aircraft leaving for the the UK during Jan 1978. Our last task was to take AOC NEAF back to Cyprus following the disbandment parade. 13 SQN returned to Wyton in 1978 and the last British forces left by the 31st March 1979 when the military agreement ended.

Hi The VC10 C1K is a combination of standard length fuselage combined with the wings and engines /stub wings from the Super VC10. Using the Roden kits you will need to shorten the fuselage but use everything else from the kit. The fuselage was lengthened in two places both In front and behind the wing to make the Super VC10 which is what the K3/K4 was based on.Also check the beaver tail fairings between the jet pipes as these differ between marks and having never seen the kit I don’t know which ones are in the kit. John

Hi Something that an RAF painter showed me when painting VC10s was to paint all of the markings first before painting the aircraft. This means that all of the paint ends up on the same level. Whether they would have done this during the war I don't know but it was certainly something that I witnessed on post war aircraft. John

Bzn20 Air day 92. Probably the best air day we ever had. We had. USN F18 and F14 in the static and an F18 to fly. All of the warbirds that Tony is stood by were from the OFMC from Duxford. One of the captains on 10 Sqn was a co pilot on the B17 so he could get Duxford warbirds at a good rate. Earlier on in his RAF career he had been a member of the Firebirds aerobatic team on Lightning’s but that is another story. John

Hi The garage outside gate 1 was Maryville which also ran car services who used to sort out cars that military personnel imported from overseas. Used them to sort out my Escort that I brought back from Malta. The garage in the village was Dowleys which had been a dispersed hangar during WW2. That’s the one that is now Aldi. The Osprey and all of the flats and houses around Upavon way have been flattened together with the garage next to the pub. The Eagle is back to being the Eagle after a brief spell as The Aviator. As Russ said Giles is now a bike shop with the sports shop bit next door turned into an Italian restaurant. There are no banks any more as they all got closed. The photo of Tony stood by the Buchon is interesting. I was on the organising committee that year and come The day of the show it absolutely poured with rain. That particular aircraft would later claim the life of Mark Hannah in a crash in Spain. Happy days and I still live in Carterton. John

Hi Freightdog also do a PRXI conversion for the Airfix PR19. Maybe another way to go. John

Russ It was the standard 4 month detachment. There were 6 people on each shift and two shifts. There were 2 riggers ,2 sumpies,1 leckie and 1 fairy. The work on 141 was carried out by 1 shift. The HDU change took us all weekend. Aircrew loved it as they got the weekend off as the aircraft was u/s.

That was one of the other gripes Russ. Never seen a 10 with a forestay on its nose leg . Crew escape door on the tanker had a fairing on the top which is missing but the fwd pax door on the BOAC example just looks wrong. Too square and too big. incidently we had ZA141 sent down to us in the Falklands straight out of minor. First trip and it landed as a no point tanker. One hose trailed other pod not working and HDU not working either. Ended up changing One pod repairing the other one and eventually changing the HDU as well. That was a pleasant way to spend the weekend. John

Like I said BZN20 I am totally confused as to just what mark of VC10 these are supposed to be. I know the RAF 1106 VC10s are a hybrid but so are these kits. Would be interesting to see if the low vis example has the HDU fairing because if it does it definitely isn’t a C1K. John

Hi Now I am getting a bit confused. The box for the low vis aircraft is serialed as XV107/X which is a C1K but the box is labelled as a K2. If it is a C1k it will require new wings and engine stub wings. My thoughts are that it is a low vis K2 which is perfectly correct as this was their final scheme before retirement. Having studied the made up kits on Saturday my thoughts are that there is something very wrong with the front fuselage shape from the cockpit forward. Also the nose leg is too long causing the aircraft to sit level where as the aircraft sits slightly nose down. Having spent over 20 years working on RAF VC10s I was looking forward to this kit butI leftTelford disappointed. John