PeterB

Hi John, I have always though this one of the best 1/72 biplanes Airfix ever made, though I have yet to get round to building their BE2c which must have been in my stash for getting on 10 years now and could be better? In fact the old Pup is better than the old Revell biplanes and as good as many of the more recent Roden IMHO. The Roden ones may be more accurate but the scale struts seem terribly fragile. Pete

Hi Tony, As I have said before both my wife and I are retired and for medical and age reasons have not been out very often since March. There is a limit to how much decorating we can do, and the weather and time of year mean the gardenening season is pretty well over, so to keep us occupied I build kits and my wife is currently going through a baking and jigsaws phase - sad! Actually, other than the canopy it is a pretty easy kit so far, which helps. If I had been using acrylics instead of enamels, it would be ready for decals by now. Pete

So, having masked the canopy I gave it a blast of rattle can primer and once that had time to dry I brushed on a coat of paint. Heller/Airfix suggest Hu 114 "Medium Grey" but my source suggests FS*5237 Dark Blue/Grey, and as luck would have it I bought a tin of that in Xtracolour enamel by mistake a couple of years ago - I should have bought Dark Grey/Blue for early WWII USN planes which is much bluer. I can see one or two places where a touch of filler is needed before the second coat. After that it has the darker grey pattern painted on the upper surfaces when I have worked out exactl

Right, having been distracted for a while with the Heller GB, I though I would make a start on this kit. It is pretty basic and as I recall from my 1970's build goes together fairly well except for the missile bay - which I built open as I was displaying it on a stand with the wheels up. This time it will be wheels down with the bay closed, which by all accounts is a real mess if you use the kit doors (all 6 of them), but as luck would have it I managed to pick up a set of closed doors for both this and the F-106 when John was clearing out his old Aeroclub stock a few years back.

The fit of the parts seems to be pretty good - I was impressed by the way the tail unit slotted together and into the fuselage. I have used a little filler on the intake lips and the front fuselage, and no doubt once I prime it there will be more work to do. However, as seems normal with older kits (and some new ones) there is always one part that is the exception, and in this case it was the canopy. With the bottom edge resting on the fuselage sides, the top was well over 1mm too high - usually this is due to a misalignment of the fuselage halves but in this case the design means that I could

Interior parts painted, IP decalled and both the stick and the IP glurd in - seat to follow once fuse closed as it interferes with the fit because of my blanking plates. I managed to get 3g of lead right in the nose so that should be mor than enough. Bit blurry but you can see more or less what I am up to. Did a bit of touching up, stuck in the jetpipe and it is now together. I filed the wing joint down just a little and the fit is pretty good - at least this method means that the anhedral looks after itself pretty much. I will leave that to dry overnight and then do any tidyingu

Hello again. When I first started this GB I thought I had just 3 eligible kits, and then I remembered the Heller AMX 30 tank kit. Now I have realised that the Airfix reboxing of the Super Étendard is also originally a Heller moulding first produced in 1984, and therefore eligible, as confirmed by Wez. Back in the mid to late 1990's my then teenage son was showing an interest in aircraft kits, so on a visit to Cardiff we went into the local Beatties (long gone of course) and picked up something to build. To avoid repeating existing kits I had built, we went for a batch o

And here is a group shot of the Mirage family. The F1C on the left is pure Airfix, whist the 2000 is an Airfix re-boxed Heller kit. The IIIE is a Heller kit that offered IIIE, IIIR and 5 versions but the only French markings were for the R so I used a spare set from the Frog IIIE kit. Unfortunately, all 3 have lost their nose probes in storage. Pete

Whilst I am waiting for some decent weather to get the final coat of varnish on, here is a comparison with my ancient KP Mig-19S. I can't remember if I mentioned this earlier but Western observers got a bit mixed up with the 19S. The original Mig-19 was called by Nato the Farmer A, and when the S was introduced shortly afterwards it should have been the Farmer B, but as the modification to an all moving slab tail was not obvious, they missed it for a while, so when the P came alomg with a longer nose they called it the Farmer B in error. Once they realised they called the S the Far

Hi, One for the mods @Wez - may have been answered already but is my Airfix re-boxing of the 1984 Heller Super Etendard eligible? I think it just sneaks in and will supplement Jean's original Etendard. Pete

Hi Joseph, Your post got me thinking - there are not that many kits that come with any form of "Nuke" AFAIK, though there are some AM ones available and I have an old Italeri "USA/NATO" weapons set that has a Mk 61 bomb in it. Of course in many planes the bomb(s) would have been carried internally so would not normally be visible. Thinking about it, as well as the Mirage IV I curremtly have my old Airfix Vulcan with a Blue Steel missile - I believe their newer Victor also has one. As these were carried externally they were obvious, but less so are the ALCM cruise missil

Hi Dennis, AFAIK from 1964 to 1996 albeit in decreasing numbers they were part of the French Nuclear deterrent - about 3 times the active service life in that role as the B-58 I believe, so not bad really. Pete

Apart from a little touching up, the Mig is ready to join the Mirage IV in the queue for a finishing spray of varnish. The undercarriage geometry is a little unusual on the real thing and this resulted in a rather odd layout to the gear doors, which Heller have only partly understood I suspect. They had the right idea but the excecution is poor resulting in over-thick doors of the wrong shape and with incorrect alignment. Fortunately the drop tanks hide most of the problem so I have not bothered modifying them - in an case I don't have any accurate plans just somewhat vague pics.

The silghtly sad thing is for all its sleek lines and high speed at altitude, after only a few years it was forced to operate low down where, if the figures I have seen are correct, it was no faster than an RAF V Bombers or Buccaneer, unlike the FB-111A - bit of a waste really. Mind you, I don't think the TSR-2 would have been any better low down - the swing wing on the F-111 and the Tornado apparently is a big advntage in that respect.. Pete

And here it is with all the bits on and painted. Just needs a coat of slightly glossy varnish and it will be finished - took a lot less time than I expected. And here is the underside. I will try and get a few shots in daylight as it is a bit lighter in real life. Cheers Pete