Pat C

Thx John _ interesting that WJ866 (859) kept the RAF fin flash even though it appears to have been repainted from silver to LAG whilst with FRADU. Pat

In Lindsay's booklet on the Javelins Mks 1-6 he says that the T3s were marked as per their regular squadron counterparts unless otherwise described. He then goes on to set out the T3 marking schemes for a number of the squadrons operating the aircraft. For 3 Squadron he just notes the two aircraft serials mentioned by Seahawk. So you might infer from that the green bands were present. Sadly no pics of 3 squadron T3s to prove it definitively! Pat

John - sorry me again. Any idea where I can find out what the top of the wing looks like in terms of roundel placement and day glo strips for the RN T4s? I can see underwing the roundel is situated towards the wing tip and sits on 4 day glo strips than run front to back. Does the top wing roundel do something similar I was wondering? Pat

Thanks John - much appreciated. That's the scheme for my S&M T4 decided then! pat

Would I be correct in thinking that the FRADU Canberra T4s were painted in all over Light Aircraft Grey? Was looking on the FRADU Canberras website and one of the machines appears much lighter than the others (almost white) and wondered if this was just due to the lighting conditions or if it was in fact, a different colour. Pat

That looks really nice - you were too hard on yourself in the WIP!! pat

They were home printed using a USN style font found on the web. The pic I used to base the 2P on was in one of the Naval Fighters series -will try to dig out which one later. Pat

In fact I chose the Rareplanes kit over the Emhar one Tommy despite having no vac experience - I got as far as putting the main airframe together, lost the tailpipe, and then lost the will to continue! The canopy is a nice orange tint but I did get a replacement vac (probably designed for the Emhar) which looks like it would fit. The white metal parts are very nice and might be worth using on the Sword kit.

Hell Yes!! Just when I was debating whether to go another 10 rounds with my half finished/ started Rareplanes vac.

Recently discovered this sheet from Microscale - wonder if the 6" numbers would do the job? http://www.microscale.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=MD&Product_Code=AC72-0024&Category_Code=AC72

Another vote for the Aeroclub/ Hasegawa conversion! aew2

Nice Maryland and thanks for sharing your tribulations which will be valuable info for all of us with this kit!! Do you have a Baltimore planned next? Pat

Thanks for the comments guys. That I would like to see Tony - don't see too many jets from you! I was tempted by the RCN options for the Banshee (I think there is a Canadian decal company that do a sheet which allows you to model any RCN Banshee squadron) but I feared that when the XDSG paint went on, the urge to do it as an RN WHIF may have been irresistible!! Pat

This is the Academy 1/72 kit of the big Banshee F2H-3 with decals from the Skylancer sheet which is very hard to come by and I must thank HansReggelsen for helping out with this sheet. The Skylancer sheet also has many tips for adding detail to the fairly basic Academy kit and also Tailspin Turtle's blog site has more valuable information. ban10 The main alteration I did was to the nose landing gear which in fact is more suitable for the F2H-2 Banshee, but not the later models. I cut away everything but the wheel and then using plastic rod reconstructed a fairly basic nose-gear but at least it more closely resembles the look of the real one now. I also cut away part of the main gear in order to get them to sit further into the wing and thus helping to give the aircraft a slightly nose high attitude compared with the nose down stance of the F2H-2. The cannon troughs also needed some Milliput in order to avoid potentially being able to see through into the fuselage. ban7 ban9 The Skylancer decals were a bit fragile even after adding decal film and I also made a catastrophic mistake by putting one of the yellow arrows for the VF-151 "Vigilantes" scheme meant for the nose on the drop tank. By the time I realised, it was too late to remove the decal without destroying it - in order to recreate the arrow on the nose I made a mask, sprayed the yellow and then edged the arrow with thin black decal strips. The end result wasn't too bad and pretty much indistinguishable from the decal on the other side of the nose. ban12 ban5 A couple of pics with its older sister the Airfix Banshee F2H-2P. Hope you like!! ban1 ban2 Pat

Not sure how I missed this! Lovely display - how did the Hunter come to be in two halves or was this always the plan??!!! Pat