PaulR

Cheers Phil, green it is! Paul

Evening chaps! Right, cockpit photos. Not my strong point, and to be honest I am more of a camouflage and markings, canopy down kinda guy myself - normally as far as a I go is an aftermarket ejection seat. Anyway, the Revell cockpit and seats are pretty good, and all I have done is add wine bottle foil straps, painted a dirty linen colour, to add a little animation. The rest of it is just Tamiya XF54 for the dark admiralty grey and a burnt umber oil wash, and black and green for headrest and cushions. I used the a couple of the kit cockpit displays for the rear cockpit, but just dry brushed the rest of the instruments. Close enough for jazz, as the expression goes! Pics. Question: is the top of the seats a green cloth cover or is it grey? Can't find a clear shot. Any comments appreciated before I glue it all in and add the canopy! Cheers, Paul

Cheers for this link! I too am desperately trying to get hold of a Hasegawa spare part, specifically a canopy for their 1/48th scale F/A-18F Super Hornet. Hugely expensive model 85% finished and I had to drop the damn thing and crack just about the only part that I can't repair! Amerang can't supply one at the moment either! Aaargh! I'll see if these Rainbow 10 boys can help! Paul

Afternoon chaps, a quick update! Checked the date today and realised that I need to get a wriggle on if I am going to get this finished. A solid two hours of modelling peace and quiet last night, with the family all squared away in bed, an Ealing comedy on the box . . . it doesn't get much better! Well, it does, but you know what I mean . . . Anyway, have been bashing away at all the 'little' bits. I've put together all the ordance, tanks and pods, and assembled the landing gear. This latter part was something of a challenge without the instructions! I've painted up the Hindenburger tanks in Tamiya Buff as per a suggestion elsewhere on this group build. My photos do tend to show these tanks in a more yellow Desert pink than the airframe, and I am sure that I read somewhere that the tanks were painted in the nearest Dulux equivalent to Desert Pink in theatre. Whether or not this is true, the buff does a nice job of contrasting with the rest of the plane. Incidentally, I am planning to use Xtracrylix Desert Pink, but when I tried this out it was almost a flesh tone in its intensity. Xtracrylix (and Xtracolour for that matter) often seem very dark compared to photos; their Medium Sea Grey is a case in point. Anyway, I tried misting Tamiya buff over the Xtracrylix, and this toned things down nicely to match in with my photos. The sharp-eyed amongst you will notice there are three LGBs, when the kit only has two; it was handy having built this kit before! Next is a shot of the front landing gear. Revell supplies the leg at full extension as if coming in land; used as is it gives the model an odd nose up appearance. I therefore cut a section out of the oleo and reattached the end part; I've still got to replace the lower oleo strut from plasticard. I've also modified the BOZ pod to make sure that the flares go away from the plane rather than into it! Thanks to the chap who mentioned this earlier in this build thread. This was a simple case of cutting of the end and reattaching it to face the correct way. I'll tidy this up with putty in due course. Last but not least was dealing with the wing gloves. Revell, unlike just about any other company producing a Tornado, actually had a go at producing the wing glove seals, but inexplicably made them to suit a plane with the wings swept back. Building it with the wings forward leaves a great big gap. I say inexplicable because IDS tornadoes never have their wings back on the ground (Centre of gravity apparently) and the model itself doesn't come with any pilot figures. Anyway, I picked up a great tip on this very group build; wine bottle foil cut to shape, superglued on and lighly scribed with a scalpel. It isn't perfect - first go and all that - but I am really pleased with the result, and will be applying this to future tornado builds. It'll save buying expensive PE sheets when all I want are the wing glove seals! Right - all for now, but I hope to have the cockpit done by tonight, so more pics then. I also aim to get it into the forward fuselage, so that I can do final puttying and sanding ready for the paint shop! Regards, Paul

Hi all, am building a Gulf War 1 Tornado GR1 for the Tornado Group build, and was wondering if the inside of the intakes was also painted pink to match the rest of the airframe? I've alot of pics of pink tornados but annoyingly none show the intake colours. Any help would be appreciated. Cheers, Paul

Evening all, well, in between bouts of redecorating I've managed to make some progress with Foxy Killer. I've concentrated on getting the airframe together, so that this can dry out while I hit the cockpit and do all the fiddly jobs. I've also finished correcting the radome into something a bit more like the original, and refitted a Master metal pitot instead of the stretched sprue I used originally. Have to say that I am a total convert to the Master range - am using them for everything from Spitfire barrels to Hawk pitot tubes, and I find it amazing that something so small can make such a difference to the appearance of the model. Anyway, enough gushing. Two pics to show how far I've got. Not seen are the Hindenburger tanks that are primed and ready to paint, and the Boz and Skyshadow pods. What can be seen however are the four Skyflashes that are almost ready to go on my Italeri 23 sqn F3 to finish that off; am pretty pleased with that, so might post pics in the RFI section in due course. More in due course. Main airframe. Corrected nose with Master metal pitot.

Nice rendition of a great scheme! Paul

Cheers for the photos mate! Will use these for my own 1/48th scratch building effort. I wonder if anyone on the Britmodeller forums could cast some in resin if we supply the masters? Don't know much about casting myself, but perhaps we could set up an informal Britmodeller cooperative, not-for-profit aftermarket effort! Best regards, Paul

Cheers for all replies chaps! I'll have a ponder. . . Paul

Hi all, was contemplating getting either the Guideline Publications or Model Alliance/On target book on Hurricane camouflage schemes. Can anyone comment on which might be better? Seem to remember that the Model Alliance had loads of different profiles, but am put off a little by accuracy problems in several of the Model Alliance decal sheets I have recently bought - don't want to get the book specifically for paint schemes and markings and find that they are in fact wrong . . . Cheers for any comments. Paul.

Calum, I'd like to second this - I'm dying (well, not literally, but you know what I mean!) for a complete set of the missing typhoon pylons - centre, inboard and ASRAAM launcher for pylon 3 and 8 for all three major scales. I know Two Bobs have done the inboard pylons, but I am increasingly really surprised an aftermarket producer hasn't got round to doing the set yet, perhaps including a 'right handed' Litening pod as well to save chopping up an Isracast job. There must be a whole bunch of RAF modellers who would appreciate the effort . . . For the time being, I'm looking at using a 1/48 Hasegawa F-16 wing pylon - using the mark 1 eyeball, this seems to have roughly the same front end and depth so could be a good kick-off point. It would be very handy to have a dimensions or a drawing or both; can anybody oblige without infringing official secrets? Yours in hope, Paul

Oops - been a bit lapse with getting stuff posted! Pressures of work and all that . . . and now off for a week's hols! Anyway, have gone for one of the new Master metal pitot tubes after good experiences with them on 1/48th scale stuff - have to say they look amazing. Pics to follow next week when I get back, plus updates on the cockpit and airframe. One thing though - I was wondering about what armament to put on the model. Judging by the nose art it looks as though there were a couple of JP233 missions, which would make for an interesting model, but would I be right in thinking she wouldn't have had the nose art in the early days of the war? Any comments would be appreciated. Otherwise it's going to have to be LGBs - at least I've got photos for that! Some cracking work on the group build by the by! Regards, Paul

Hi all, was rummaging through the Hannants website and it suddenly seems like there is a shedload of new 1/72nd Hurricanes. I have a half-built Airfix effort on the shelf of shame, but am gripped by my annual Battle of Britain obsession, so was wondering if there is something 'betterer'! Cheers for any comments. Paul

Thanks guys! Paul

Afternoon all. am just contemplating the 1/32nd Revell Hawk and the possible colour schemes lurking in my cupboard. The only thing is the rear fuselage, which if I have understood correctly is that typical of an early build aircraft. I've seen fixes for it, so I can have a bash at that; what I was wondering though was how many aircraft were built like that, what the serials were and whether they were updated in line with later production aircraft? Are there any of the early fuselage aircraft still in service? Would be grateful for any info! Paul

Hi there, was wondering if any Spitfire experts might be able to help me out. I have recently built Hasegawa's Mk 1X Spitifire as ML407 as she would have looked on D-Day, using the Aeromaster sheet (the one with full D-Day stripes and pink elephant motif under the cockpit) I've built it with a C wing, but I've just noticed that Aeromaster have shown her with E wing armament, i.e. with short cannon barrels outboard. From what I've found out on the web, ML407 was built as a C wing, but I recall reading that some of 485sqn's Spitifires were field modified with E wing armament. How true this is I don't know, or whether she retained the outer .303s or had the 0.5 browning installed inboard of the cannon. The thing is, I haven't been able to find any wartime shots of ML407 to check against. Anyway; does anyone know what armament configuration she did actually have on D-Day, or if there are any wartime photos of her available online? I've done the usual Google searches, Grace Spitifre website etc. Also, do I take it that Errormaster incorrectly showed her with no stripes above the wing?! Grateful for any help, Paul.

Evening all, thought I'd better update my build with a staggering single picture, specifically, my go at correcting the radome to the correct ogival shape. I included a picture of the original earlier; here is the scraped, sanded and smoothed version with stretched sprue pitot tube and milliput to blend in. I still need to sand the milliput, but it's basically there for my purposes. I happen to have a side photo of a forward fuselage that happens to be almost exactly 1/72nd scale; putting the radome against the photo shows a very pleasing similarity! Anyway, here it is for what it's worth. More updates this weekend where hopefully I'll be able to forget about work for a few hours. Paul

Hi Dermot, not to my knowledge. I actually picked the sheet I have as a second hand item from Hannants - just happened to be browsing at the right time I guess. I shan't be using all the Tornado options, so if you PM me with your address I'll send you one of the options. I'm using Foxy Killer for this build, and Mig Eater for a future one, but there's Anna Louise, Amanda Jane, Hello Kuwait Gbye Iraq and How do you want it if any of those interest you. Regards, Paul Cheers for the tip Tim - will correct when I get to the stores part of the build! Paul

Yes . . . and no, to quote Blackadder. The replacement wing leading edges fitted very well but the Aeroclub exhaust pipe was slightly too small around the circumference where it joins the fuselage. I suppose I could have added a shim of plastic card, but that would have meant it would have been too long; I ended up getting it centred as best I could and blending it in with milliput. This wasn't as difficult as I thought it might be. I have a nagging suspiscion that the conversion set might have been designed for the Airfix hunter, although I am probably wrong; I am sure that Heritage or Odds and Ordance or somesuch company do a conversion set as well that might be designed with the Revell hunter in mind. I'd like to use the 118 sqn marks on the decal sheet, the one with the PRU blue undersides, so might have to try it out! HTH, Paul

Time for a long overdue update . . . airframe masked up and pre-shaded . . . . . . now up on wheels with most of the masking removed. I've left on the masking covering the metal areas until after the final varnish coats. I've used Tamiya NATO black for the RAM coating on the wing and fin leading edges, Mr Color Barley Grey for the top coat and a mix of Tamiya white and XF-80 grey for the undersides. I tried Xtracrylix Light aircraft grey for the undersides initially, but this was too close to the Mr Colour barley grey. The radome is painted Vallejo medium sea grey; photographs show a very wide disparity between aircraft radomes, but 23 sqn airframes seem to have very dark radomes in the 1993 time frame. You can also see the mix of camouflage and desert pink tanks. I am intending to get back on schedule with this build asap, so next steps will be the pylons and detail painting.

Evening all, have got a bit of a thing for 50's RAF at the moment. Must be all those colour schemes and bright squadron markings! Anyway, the kit is the Revell FGA9, with Aeroclub F4 conversion and Xtradecal early hunter sheet. I should like to thank Glen on these forums for his help in getting hold a copy of this sheet. Anyway, here are a handful of shots. Have to say, love those 98 sqn marks - would love to see it come back as a squadron, but don't think there's much chance of that . . .

Evening all, thought I'd better post the obligatory sprue shots, plus accessories, in this case Modeldecal decals and an Eduard mask set. Am making a concerted effort to build out of my stash at the moment. Luckily, the Revell kit doesn't really need much. The one thing that isn't particularly great is the radome on the Revell kit. As has been commented before, it is a cone, whereas the original is ogival in shape. I've built one of these kits before as a 13 sqn GR4, and I scraped and sanded the front part of the radome to try to replicate that elusive shape. Here's a shot of the part as supplied; I'll update in due course. Onwards and upwards!

Nice job! And exactly the same build (bar decals) that I am finishing at the moment! Hope to get it online soonest - your build is good motivation! Paul

Oh, I think suitably dirty don't you?

Evening chaps, well, rather excited about this group build! Was going to build 111 sqn's Boss Bird circa 2005 from the Italeri 1/48th F3 kit, but I haven't even finished my 23sqn build of the same kit yet, so have decided to go for something a little more straight forward! As it happens, I realised it is 20 years since the First Gulf War (remember vividly sitting in the TV room of my hall of residence when the news broke! Still got the handwritten notes I made on the boxes of model kits I had there . . . ) and coincidentally I recently picked up second hand a set of Model Decal Gulf War decals with a pair of shark mouthed GR1s. I also have a rather battered Revell boxing in my bulging stash, so decision made! Thought I'd choose Foxy Killer on account of the fact I like the light blue/pink shark mouth . . . don't know why, just do! Link to a pic of the real thing . . . Anyway, photos of kit and decals to follow when I can find my camera . . . Best regards, Paul