MajorClanger

Stills from a recently-released North Korean video show a novel approach to ejection seat head box covers... http://theaviationist.com/2015/08/05/nk-su-25-headrest-cover/ Now waiting for Eduard to do this as a 1/48 detailing kit, presumably also including tiny bust of The Glorious Leader to go on the cockpit coaming.

I like it! There's a story that during the design of the Saturn V there was an argument as to whether or not the fins on the first stage were really necessary. One school of thought was that they provided essential stability in the event of a guidance failure to allow time for the launch escape tower to be fired, whereas the other was that the abort system was pretty robust and would get the command module away from even an out-of-control booster, and the fins were so much dead weight that were there for little more than show. So the story goes, someone asked "Well, what does Wernher von Braun think?" To which the response allegedly was "Of course Von Braun wants fins on his rockets - where else do you paint the swastikas?"

That is one stonking Tonka - and the cockpit is really impressive!

I asked Mel Bromley about the 1/32 Bulldog kit at the Midland Expo yesterday and he suggested it would probably be out at the end of next year on current plans. I explained my keen interest was on the basis I'm looking forward to building a model of an aircraft I've actually flown solo!

Good heavens! That's not so much a model as a very small instructional airframe!* (*What we used to call retired aircraft used for technical training of engineers.)

If anyone asks, say that you have depicted it making a low-level flypast of Rockall! (For added accuracy, you may want to weather the rock with some white to represent the, er, guano.) Very nice model! I really must finish my 1/48 one...

Time lapse video of the paint job: See, it's just the same as the way we do it, only with bigger bits of masking tape...

Very nice! This is actually my intended plan for the 1/48 Gnat I'm currently working on (not much done in the last few weeks due to a house move, but I have a much better Man Cave in the new place!) so now I have a standard to aspire to :-)

Lovely model! One tiny nitpick, but not about the model itself: WAC Corporal wasn't solid-fuelled, it was a small liquid propellant rocket in its own right: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WAC_Corporal

I recently did an Airfix 1/48 Hawk in Red Arrows markings, using two coats of Humbrol 238 airbrushed over white primer, finished with several coats of Humbrol Clear: http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234977980-148-airfix-red-arrows-hawk/#entry1919320

A few years ago we drove round the Rossfeld scenic road loop at Berchtesgaden (location of Hitler's mountain retreat). In the circumstances I felt it only appropriate to plug the iPod into our rental car's stereo and dial up the theme from Where Eagles Dare. If my wife had rolled her eyes any harder they'd have ended up on the dashboard...

I met a number of Harrier pilots during my time in uniform and I don't think this would have been an issue! (Even more true for Lightning pilots; I don't think I ever met one who was more than about 5'9". Big aircraft, tiny cockpit.)

The latest issue of Air Clues, the RAF's in-house flight safety magazine, is now available online. As well as being of general interest regarding current RAF aviation, it also includes some good pictures of both current aircraft (Tornado GR4, Hawk T1A and T2) and older ones (Whirlwind). Previous issues of the current (2009 onwards) run of Air Clues can be found here.

It was indeed an Urgent Operational Requirement. I was running a couple of UORs myself (comms network upgrades) and at one point got sent a list of UORs so that I could check the details of 'mine' were correct. Being curious I scanned the rest of the list and my eyebrows rather went up when I saw 'Fit ALARM to F3'. I don't believe any were actually employed from F3 though.

Very nice!

Straight from the jar. I did the first coat by airbrush, but I then found that simply painting it on worked fine - Humbrol Clear self-levels very well. That's about three coats in total. The only thing I'd note is that when you put a fresh coat on you seem to get this temporary bloom appearing; I at first thought it had all gone wrong but after a few minutes it fades to transparency.

Ah, I did some research here and found the easy way to do that: http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/2607-hawk-canopies-made-easy/

With some trepidation, my first RfI... I got back into modelling fairly recently; this is my first 'try and get a reasonably decent result' build, as well as an opportunity to try out airbrushing. I had a lot of trouble with the decals. Not long after doing them I saw a post from someone else here building this kit (or what I assume is the reboxing of it with the Gnat) who commented about how bad they were, so I was relieved it wasn't just me. Thin and fragile, and came out pale and rather speckled, and the less said about the ones for the underside arrow the better. Efforts to patch up with white paint only showed up the problems more... Other lessons learned included making sure I had a proper fit. I ended up with slightly down-bent wings that needed straightening, but that left me with a lot of problems getting the intakes to fit. Built OOB, except for two Pavla Mk 10 seats as I wanted to build without aircrew in the cockpit. Oh, and the pitot tube is replaced by a pin - even that is far more realistic looking than the plastic part supplied! Painted in Humbrol Arrow Red and finished with several coats of Humbrol Clear for the right gloss finish.