Pat C

Nigel - Freightdog did an ECM6 conversion kit but I suspect it may not be available anymore. However PM me if interested as I have one and will probably never get round to using it. Pat

very very nice Voodoo.

Cutting lots of tiny triangles was strangely therapeutic!

Very nice Antoine - have always liked that sharkmouth Lightning. Pat

Some more USN from me. This is the old Hasegawa kit from a very ancient boxing which was very crisply moulded in hard dark blue plastic. A couple of minor improvements added were drilled out cannon barrels, some seat cushions from Milliput and some resin tip tank nav lights. I also thought that the main gear were of too narrow track (justified after a spot of measuring) and moved the location holes a couple of mm outboard on each wing which gave a much better look. Fit was pretty good but worth experimenting with the fit of the one piece lower wing and upper wings in order to avoid a potentially nasty step where the upper wing transitions to the upper wing stub attached to the fuselage half. The whole thing was sprayed with Gunze GSB from a rattle can to act as primer then given a coat of Xtracrylix GSB. The natural metal bits were from my dwindling stash of Citadel Chainmail and the red is Gunze Insignia Red. GSB finishes are quite difficult to weather convincingly and I experimented with using Flory light grey wash on this one. The idea was pinched after seeing how Navy Bird weathered a white TSR2 with a light grey wash and I thought it might work on a darker finish as well. The decals for this well photographed machine come from a combination of Microscale and Flevo decals sheets which both feature this aircraft but neither are wholly complete or correct and so had to be supplemented by other generic decals. Hope you like!! Pat

Very nice collection your Lordship! Airfix Sabre in the background?

Very nice Lanc - I'm jealous as your desk looks considerably bigger than mine! Yes I can just imagine in the new film the German AA gunners on the dams train their searchlights into the dark and see.........the Memphis Belle heading their way!! Pat

Very nice Fred - I have an Admiral Seafire F.45 that I really should make a start on some time. Pat

Thanks Steve - im basing mine on the aerial shot in the top link which is definitely not one of the ones with strips /checks on the rotors. May go for gull grey and hope for the best! Pat

How did I miss this - superb job - be good to see it next to a 2p piece to judge the size! pat

Fabulous stuff as usual Tony.

Thanks for the comments guys. Wash was just Flory Models Dark Dirt wiped off with damp kitchen roll. The crispness of the kit moulding helped a lot I suspect. Pat

Finally managed to get some photos done to show that I am still here! This is the Tamiya 1/72 kit of the Skyray which is a very fine kit and available for not much money. No fit issues to speak as you might expect from this manufacturer. The model represents the later "boat-tail" rear end (which was retrofitted) so check references if building an earlier version. The one mod I did was to fit a refuelling probe to the port fuel tank which was made up from some plastic tubing and a Master brass nozzle. Launcher rails were from the spares box.The colourful decals for VF-13 were from an old Microscale sheet with rs2man coming to the rescue when the wing stripes on one side tore off when a bit of masking tape accidentally came into contact. As always seems to be the case, the decals on those old Microscale sheets never seems to match photographic evidence when you can find it and having selected a machine to build not on the sheet I then had to cobble together the rest of the decals from various sources. The BuNos and smaller numbers were home printed, the italic "AK" on the tails were from the Xtradecal Skyhawk sheet and various other Microscale sheets were raided for the upper wing codes. What was interesting was that every Skyray in VF-13 seemed to have a unique set of markings with BuNos in different places, Stars and Bars at different orientations in the wings, different sizes of tail codes, different colour walkways and so on. Am fairly happy that I have got most of the idiosyncrasies right on this particular machine as there is a nice pic of it being winched onto USS Shangri-La. Quite pleased with this one and another addition to my USN collection - hope you like!! F4D3 F4D1 F4D7 F4D4 F4D9 Pat F4D5 F4D8

Steve - I have definitely seen some pics with the red and white upper blades but some also seem to be grey. I wonder if the ones with the Chobham titles on are the ones with the red/white blades? pat https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=zj966&client=safari&hl=en-gb&prmd=mivn&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiquvGp2IDbAhUKesAKHVKKCs4Q_AUIEigC&biw=1024&bih=661#imgrc=PW8QI5bFqfYTfM:&isa=y https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=aac+bell+212&client=safari&hl=en-gb&prmd=ivmn&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwixlI_w3oDbAhUCCcAKHXqzDGAQ_AUIESgB&biw=1024&bih=661#imgrc=ppF-ZlRlJyiquM:

Grateful for advice on the right colour for the rotors on the Army’s Bell 212s. I think white for tail rotor, Black for underside of main rotor and some kind of light grey for topside of main rotor but welcome confirmation particularly any guidance of what the grey would be. LAG maybe? Pat