Antti_K

Hello John! Do You mean this book: https://www.menec.fi/?sivu=detail&id=80393 Best Regards, Antti

Thank You James and John for the pictures Okay, it seems that the wings in my CA kit and James' kit are "different". Interesting... In my CA model one can see the other wing tip over the fuselage; the dihedral is that great. It completely ruins the looks. Also the nose underside is too straight when viewed from the side. It should curve upwards all the way from the nose gear well. But there was too little to work with. The PR.9 has different wing profile as the root chord is longer. So the profile should be different. But did Airfix get that right? I guess John has the answer I'm very excited about the idea of mixing these two kits. Best Regards, Antti

Hello Paul! The gray camouflage appeared for the first time between December 1983 and January 1984. Originally two airframes were painted. The colours used were Mörkgrå 033 (Dark Gray 033) and Grå 032 (Grey 032). Dark Gray 033 is "a little bit more grayish than FS 16152 and Gray 032 is a little bit more blueish than FS 16373. These colours were later used not only for JA37s but for S102 "Korpens" as well. This information comes from Leif Hellström's and Leif Fredin's book "Kronmärkt" ("Crown Marked"). Unfortunately I don't have equivalents for model paints. Best Regards, Antti

Oh dear, this is a very sad sight:( I'm glad that no one lost their lives. This is actually a PR.XIX (former PS890 of No. 81 Squadron, RAF Seletar). It is easy to "nose over" these aircraft by simply opening the throttle too fast. The elevator down force is insufficient when the aircraft is moving slowly. I finished an Airfix 1/48 scale PR.XIX as PS890 and it suffered an "unexplained" landing gear collapse a couple of months ago. Spooky... Best Regards, Antti

James, it seems I need to check Hannants and eBay and start all over again. This may become an expensive night Best Regards, Antti

Excellent info on the canopy John! When you compare the resin canopy with the drawing (and photos) you immediately notice that the curve at the front is too shallow and the highest point is too much forward making it look too "pointy" on top. The highest point should be behind pilot's head. I sanded the CA canopy down and more into shape as it looked too big and round. I'm tempted to switch the canopies between my B.2 and Tp 52. Hummm.... How about you John; have you noticed the dihedral on the outer wings of the CA kit? Best Regards, Antti

Thank You James It really was quite a job to finish this model. There wasn't a single piece you could use straight from the box. The canopy is badly out of shape, so I made a "collar" out of styrene to raise the rear edge. The side view is now somewhat correct but the lowest "edge" of the canopy should be further backwards when viewed from the side. I meant the outer wing dihedral. At the wing root dihedral is good but it is noticeably too great outside the engines. So you need to cut the outer wings off and then re-attach them. At least this was the case with my CA B.2. Best Regards, Antti

Hello plasticplanes! I've built both the CA and Airfix B.2 kits. I would use the canopy and some resin parts from the CA and all the rest from Airfix. For example the dihedral of the wings in CA's kit is too great. The nose conversion was simple. Cut the Airfix kit along the panel line and the radar nose fits nicely. Of course you should check it before cutting... Here are some "notes" of my Tp 52 (T.11) in Swedish Air Force colours. Contact John (Canberrakid) as he has original manuals, drawings...everything a Canberra fan needs. Best Regards, Antti

Hello John! I still need to do some scanning... and find a way to send the material for you. I have (somewhere) a copy of an article series "Flying the dream machine" (by Flt Lt Mike Retallack) which was published in Aeroplane Monthly in the 1990s. Well written and gives a pilot's view on flying the PR.7 in the 1950s. Best Regards, Antti

Hello! I had a chance to have a close look at a shot down bf-109E last summer. All wing and rear fuselage interiors were painted with RLM 02; OK as far as it was possible to see through open access panels. Very little paint was left on the outer surfaces (the aircraft had laid in the northern Lappland since it was shot down). Faded black "Balkenkreutz" and yellow theatre markings (RLM 04) were still visible. It seemed like no base coat or primer was used. Best Regards, Antti

Hello John! Nice project you have there. For some reason I like the "old" PR Canberras (PR.3 & PR.7) most. How I envy your reference library Best Regards, Antti

Very nice "Pylly Waltteri" as Brewsters were called here in Finland! A nice personal detail is the ground crew member holding a brush. We (still) used them to remove snow from BAe Hawks in the early 1990s. Best Regards, Antti

Reini, the cockpit looks very good! Nice building and paintwork. The An-2 I flew had a very dusty cockpit and everything was covered with a sticky tar from cigarettes (the Soviets were smoking all the time). And the smell inside the plane...words fail me. Best Regards, Antti

Hello Reini! An interesting subject and a good looking cockpit. It seems like this aircraft had the electric trim system. It was like an old telephone switch board behind the throttle lever: there was three electric cables with a plug at both ends. You then inserted the other end to a hole in the switch board and then decided to which hole the other should go for a certain trim setting. I had a chance to fly one of these (not the gun ship) back in 1987 or 1988. "DOSAAF Leningrad" visited our flying club and the Soviets let us fly with their aircraft. Of course 1000 hp radial engine was something I couldn't resist. My "Flying Instructor" was an elderly professor from the Technical University of Leningrad. He told me that his real salary came from crop dusting during his summer vacation. The money he made teaching was "useless" or "terrible". It was very interesting to see the soviet system. For example two ground crew members turned the huge propeller by hand before engine start. Then the Crew Chief entered cockpit and started the engine. Pilots weren't allowed to do that. It took ages before the huge radial came to life. The blue smoke, the vibrations and terrible noise weren't very assuring. When I opened the throttle it felt like nothing is going to happen; beside the even greater noise. But all the sudden the tail wheel lifted up and we were airborne. It was quite a feeling to fly at tree top level over the Finnish country side with a big olive green/ pale blue aircraft with big red stars on fuselage, tail and wings. Professor showed me some maneuvres he was using in crop dusting. One was a "flat side slip" between two barns. An-2 cruised 80 km/h no matter where the nose was pointing at. It was useless to touch the throttle. Turning into final my "Flying Instructor" used very simple yet effective hand signals: pull! Pull harder! I had the stick allmost fully back half way down the final leg. Then we simply sat and wait. What a soft landing it was. Enjoy the project! I will follow this. Best Regards, Antti

Hello Seawinder! The PR.XIX in the Linkoping Museum (in Sweden) has beige coloured seat belts. Shoulder belts pass through a slot in the armour plate. Above the oxygen bottles the two shoulder belts are sewn together and only one belt runs backwards. When viewed above the belts form a letter "Y". The tail end is attached to a quadruple metal plate. A simple metal wire is attached to this plate and the wire passes the rear pressure bulkhead. Some very good photos of this PR.XIX can be found on Spitfiresite. Best Regards, Antti

Warpaint series No. 31"Phantom" has a photo of XT595 (Port side). The caption says: "First flight of ... was made at the St. Louis plant of McDonnell Aircraft Corporation on 27 June 1966". In this photo the Phantom has only Roundels, serials painted on wings and fuselage and white "ROYAL NAVY" on the fuselage. No pylons were carried. In the book "Phantom - a legend in it's own time" (Francis K. Mason) there are two photos. The bigger one (Port side) shows a phantom with Roundels, under wing serials, white "ROYAL NAVY" on fuselage and white number 3097 painted on just under the fin cap but no serial on fuselage. An interesting detail is a long blade aerial under the port intake. This photo was taken above St. Louis. XT595 was transferred to Edwards AFB on 21 July 1966 for further testing. The plane carries inner pylons. There is no pitot tube on the nose. The other (also Port side) shows XT595 taking off from Lambert Field (St. Louis) with most of the details as above but with the white "No. 1 F-4K MCDONNELL" on the nose. At this point there is no red "MCDONNELL" text on the fuselage spine. Also the white number from the fin is removed. Peter R. Foster's book "RAF Phantom" shows XT595 with all the colourful markings, long pitot tube and Sparrow missiles. The photo caption says: "Here we see the first British Phantom on it's first flight". The same photo that is in the Warpaint book appears also in Peter Caygill's book "Phantom from the cockpit". Considering all this info it seems possible that XT595 didn't carry any special markings on her first flight. Best Regards, Antti

I know Gary, I know... been there myself. The Internet packed with photos and information makes you wonder: "is there somewhere the photo(s) I need...". I have further books about British Phantoms. I will check if I can find more information. Best Regards, Antti

Hello All, there is few good quality photographs of XT595 on Patrick Martin's book "British Phantoms". One of the photos is dated "August 1966" and shows the smaller white "No.1 F-4K MCDONNELL" text on the port side of the nose. There is no red "McDonnell" text on the fuselage spine. Two more photos only say "during early testing" and they show the port side with large white "No.1 F-4K" behind the British Roundel and a red text with white outline "MCDONNELL" on the side of the fuselage spine. I have (somewhere) a photo showing a line-up of brand new British Phantoms in their original paint. As you may have noticed the original blue gray on Royal Navy planes looked lighter than British EDSG. In the photo the colour looks exactly the same on both variants. That made me think that same blue gray was originally used for both F-4Ks and F-4Ms. Best Regards, Antti

Hello David, Perfect Skyhawk! Excellent paint work, decals and superb weathering! Best Regards, Antti

Mark, You are Fast Thank You for the Photo; now I can locate the undercarriage and other details make sense also. My mistake, sorry... Best Regards, Antti

Hello All, once again a very interesting topic as I have the Tamiya Brewster in the stash. The photo in Allan's post makes me wonder... Is it really a Brewster? Look at the wing: the undercarriage is missing and there seems to be no recess for the wheel either. Also the pitot tube is too close to the fuselage. The wing appears to be too thin. I made a photo comparison but can't get it downloaded to Photobucket for some reason. I will try again later. Best Regards, Antti

Hello occa! I studied Haze and Synthetic Haze schemes for my P-38 F5. I'm not sure if this information suits for a B-24 but here we go. Haze Paint: the whole aircraft was painted with black and then a over sprayed with special white paint. The pigment particles were smaller than an air molecule which caused the light to back scatter from the surface. Depending of the altitude and light it looked anything between black and light blue. The shadow areas were given a thicker coat of white paint. Problems with the Haze Paint were: 1. The painted surface was very delicate to all erosion and 2. It looked too dark above 20.000 ft. Synthetic Haze Paint was developed to replace the original Haze Paint. In this scheme the aircraft was given a coat of medium blue colour called "Sky Base Blue" and then over sprayed with light blue called "Flight Blue". Sky Base Blue is FS 15123 and Flight Blue FS 35190. Flight Blue was available in Xtracolor's enamel range. Both colour schemes were very difficult and time consuming to apply. This is why they were dropped and late F-5s went to war in NMF. Best Regards, Antti

Matchbox Javelin? ... More and more interested ... Best Regards, Antti

Hello cherisy! Looking at the photos of the kit (I don't have the kit) it looks that is a FAW.9/9R. This means that You need to: - remove the "bullet fairings" from the wing leading edges - remove the protruding gun muzzles - fill/sand the leading edges straight between outer gun and pitot tube (FAW.8 was the first with "kinked" leading edge) - fill the four wing pylon holes (unless You are modelling a trial aircraft with missiles) - drill holes for guns - discard the long air intake scoops on top of the fuselage (Re-heat cooling intakes) - re-scribe the details on Port intake side (Ground connection) - make new aerials for "Violet Picture", "FI.5", "Rebecca"and communications - build a new rear fuselage with non Re-heated engines Hope these help for a start. Enjoy the build as Javelin is a very cool aircraft Best Regards, Antti

Ouch! That's sad. I think that 30-35 years ago the photography books still gave you the theory in depth. Today people get easily bored if they need to study a few formulas or look at a page without pictures. I bought Langford's excellent books a couple of years ago from a book shop in Uppsala, Sweden. Then there is some very good theory books published by the U.S. Navy and they are also available online. Then of course I still have my study books about aerial photography (written by former 543 Squadron navigators and photographers). BR, Antti