malpaso

This plane looks amazing, it had loads of publicity at the time. Mag articles including plans and build articles, it appears in Aircraft of the Fighting Powers (trike undercarriage version YFM-1A) and several US and British wartime "solid" (wood) kits. In the 70s Rareplanes did a vacform. Looking forward to watching your build...

There were decals for Ltn Raben (German for ravens, hence badge) in the 1/28 Revell Dr.1 I built. Similar colour sceme to your box art D.VII. You may be able to adapt if you can get hold of a set, it was in a recent camel/triplane dogfight double boxing. I'm sure the D.VII must have been tooled before 1995. The other Revell 1/28 kits date from late 50s or early 60s. The Dr.I is from 1957! Presumably at that time the scale suited the box (normal rationale for revell then!) for the first, and they kept it for the other three.

Well I can't see it. When we lived in Epping (near NW) the police had to continually drive up and down the M11 to move people off the hard shoulder (from which one would have an excellent view of the airfield). They saw it as a problem then, I don't s'pose they'd be any more amenable post-Shoreham. On a related note I may be the last person to have been bounced by a 109* AND a P-51. Tootling round the local country lanes in my first Mini I was regularly "strafed" by pilots from NW, I assume they were told to keep the low flying practice away from the M11. A WW2 fighter zooming overhead <50ft don't half put the wind up, even if they're not shooting! Even if they came from a front quarter the noise was startling. Cheers Will * Ok, license-built Buchon, for the pedants

No, radio is always in black & white. And the pictures are better. I'll get my coat...

Not quite on topic but we once designed some offices for some solicitors, one of their partners was Rupert Bear!

Well I built the Airfix B-24 in my youth (mid-70s). I thought it was great. It looked the part, went together well and I was successful in getting all operating features to work before and after painting, including the ball-turret. It even has a fold down ladder that cured tail-sitting. As my only 4-engine type it was pride of my shelves until it met the usual doom from domestic authority dusting! I think it must have been a Christmas present. I may have been hoping for "a bit o' lace" (aren't we always) but a B-24 was nearly as good. Receiving Martin Caidin's "Air Force" at 8 or so, meant I was keener on US planes than the rest of my compatriots who think fighters start and end with Spitfires. As to the quality of the Airfix kit, I had no problem with it back then. I also built some Hasegawa planes and Tamiya too around that time - I remember they seemed slightly more advanced but NOT in a different league to Airfix.

That's gone and done it, now I've just gone and ordered a Fujimi Cooper!

Of course I loved my Minis as they were obviously better than my friends various Escorts and Imps. Only one person I knew had a beetle. But really all these cars were pretty terrible. All three of my minis had been well loved and serviced, reasonably lowish miles and single owners and yet...and yet. Weekends were spent repairing galloping tin worm ON CARS ONLY FIVE YEARS OLD. At this age they weren't quite bangers but we were permanently under the bonnets, not to improve performance but usually trying to make the blasted thing move. Try mentioning "DampStart", "Radweld" or the joy of changing an A-series bypass hose (yet again) to anyone under thirty-five or so, and they just look at you blankly. I still have the special spanner for the monthly brake adjustment when the pedal crushing the carpet more than stopping the car meant this fun activity couldn't be postponed again. No wonder we had to give up making Airfix in our teens, car maintenance took over our lives. Whether you liked cars or not. Will

I always think the Tamiya Mini looks a bit cross-eyed, the new Revell seems better. Something about the shape of the real Mini is very hard to define, most models and toys aren't 100% convincing. I think with all its curves, it's possibly one of those shapes that needs stretching from absolute scale when viewed as a miniature. I agree about needing models of normal minis. I'd like to build any of my first three - 76 850, 75 1100 clubman & 79 1000. Back then Coopers were as rare as hens teeth. Before Rover remade them circa 89 I only ever came across two, and both had been wildly modified. Back in my youth I built a 1/20 Cooper Mk3, Nitto or Nichimo maybe? Anyway it seemed to have "got" the shape. Will

I think the main criticism of the 2-pdr at the time was that it didn't fire HE rounds so was less useful against softskin targets. Though if it actually hit a truck's engine that would do the job. But there would be little collateral damage to the rest of the enemy column as would have been the case for HE.

I think the black is a Base coat as they will later put a BR or LNER green finish on. This while they're doing early tests and running in, the black with NE markings is sort of authentic WW2 livery for some Pacific's. The "German" style smoke deflector plates (either side of the smokebox) stop drifting smoke obscuring signals and were fitted to A3s in the 60's; I think FS carried them when she was first bought by Alan Peter from BR so they are OK with either green livery. By the time of the BBC film, 1968, the deflectors had gone and she had a second tender as water was less available round the system. Cheers Will

1967 Eagle Weslake is advertised in latest AMW. It's 1/12 scale and presumably expensive, but maybe in the future someone will hear your call. It's a nice looking GP car, I ran the Airfix/MRRC version on my Scalextric - in the late seventies there was a toy shop in Walthamstow still sold that range! Cheers Will

Unsurprisingly it was the 1/72 kit, but I think I'm happier than if it had been the Spit!

I signed up for the Airfix Model World subscription with the free Spit XIX (no choice of Gladiator as earlier ads). I came home today and a parcel had arrived. Inside was the Hawker Typhoon IB! My wife pointed out I didn't need any more Spitfires anyway! Dog really like the cardboard packaging! Cheers Will

That is an absolutely fantastic model of an amazing plane. It looks like it's going 1000 mph just sitting on the tarmac.

Blimey, to think the UK public are impressed by a Vulcan. If a V-bomber was introduced to a Tu-22 I think the V-type would go and cry in the corner! Just as well the cold war stayed cold! Cheers Will

This will good you a good laugh, from the 1940 "scale Plans of Military Aircraft". To be fair its probably from one or two photos of the prototype. And this is one of the better drawings in that book http://smm.solidmodelmemories.net/Gallery/displayimage.php?pid=5727&fullsize=1 Later all redrawn more convincingly in the 1942 edition http://smm.solidmodelmemories.net/Gallery/displayimage.php?pid=7499&fullsize=1 I think this one is probably the same as that in Aircraft of the Fighting Powers, and probably later traced and redrawn for the Book of Bristol plan above (the later AFP books have much higher "line density", i.e. more drawing but not necessarily additional useful detail; all these drawings are from the Aeromodeller / Harleyford stable. Or just make your own kit out of wood using the USN plans! http://smm.solidmodelmemories.net/Gallery/displayimage.php?pid=1006&fullsize=1 http://smm.solidmodelmemories.net/Gallery/displayimage.php?pid=1007&fullsize=1 Cheers Will

Cool. I have a Grace B17 to build. I only identified the make after a couple of years by the style of the writing on it. I also have another makers Whirlwind kit as well as several built "solids" to restore, including some Skybirds. At one time I had possibly the only known Frog Penguin Series 9 Dakota (in the world!) but passed it on to the chap running frogpenguin_dot_com. Frog made wood kits for three months in the winter 1945/46 so the whole wooden series 9 is pretty rare. It's good fun working on the wooden models, gives a great sense of achievement even if the shape and detail are a bit old-fashioned. Cheers Will

I would imagine the whole tailplane would have been re-engineered (at least on paper) to some degree. As well as the increased span loads, the larger endplate fins and rudders of the "lanc"-type would give different (presumably larger) side loadings and moments. Will

I was planning to use my Pegasus BE2E wings on the Airfix BE2c. I figured this should be a better build. Of course then I'll have Airfix 2C wings to go on the Pegasus fuse so I won't be any further forward really...

Their P-40E Aleutian Tiger has lovely box art but the plastic is for a P-40K! Two sets of decals for K-model. I have a couple of others in the stash which have issues...

Hi, I think that plastic lathe / mill set up is the Unimat1. I think they're still available though probably more than 150USD. They were fairly heavily advertised in Railway mags when they came out, but the sort of people who wanted a lathe for railway modelling really needed (wanted) something beefier. But for working on materials used in static models it might be ideal. Cheers Will

Roy, Round here Revell enamels are available in toy shops and hardware shops. I find their enamels better than new Humbrol. Mind you I still have some tins of Airfix and Humbrol Authentics, both of types which are still excellent! Will

Obvious really, he uses the Force!

The Code on the side is Fok.FI.102 so the film shows one of the three F1 triplanes, preproduction versions. It would be the standard streaky olive over base colour, not sure if the baron had red bits on his. One of the two F1s was used by Werner Voss and in the same streaky finish. The Baron and Voss were given the two planes to try out before main production got under way. Production planes (Dr.1) had different tail planes and skids at the wing tips. MvR used several Dr.1s, finally dying in Dr.1 17/425 whereas Werner Voss died in F1.103 during a famous epic dogfight with 56 Squadron.Will