Lootenant Aloominum

I certainly attempted to do that, but the URL does not look the same as that for the photo on my web site, so I assumed it made a copy. Maybe I got that wrong, in which case, my apologies for not understanding the complexities of URLs well enough. Here are the rest of the photos and text. (Duplicating text is so minor I don't object to that.) The finished model has a 9.5 inch (24 cm) span and is 7.5 inches (19 cm) nose-to-tail. This was before the 1940 summer combat over southern England that became known as the battle of Britain. At this stage, the undersides of RAF day fighters were painted black, white, and silver. The unusually small size and extreme wing-tip positioning of the under-wing roundels imparts additional character to these particular aircraft. On May 16th, 1940, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill flew to Paris, France, to meet with his French counterpart Paul Reynaud. Four Spitfires escorted Churchill’s De Havilland Flamingo on that occasion. The preceding photo shows two of the Spitfires and their pilots on the left. GR-U foreground and GR-S, the subject of my model, behind The edge of the transparent disc propeller casts unrealistic shadows, as do the hanging lines, naturally. Build Less than two centimetres separate the instrument panel from the seat harness. All this detail was hidden by the pilot when I decided late in construction to build it wheels-up with a pilot in the cockpit. Having said that, as you might discern, I had some trouble getting things aligned, so that fault at least was hidden. Like the Airfix Mk V in the same scale, I could not get the cockpit tub to fit without sawing off an angle from the bottom. Along with the cut off bits were the rudder pedals. The sawing operation caused the assembly to disassemble. I was unable to re-attach the horizontal strut at the top in the rear part of the cockpit. In addition, the reflector sight (visible in an earlier photo) hit the floor and is in kit parts heaven, as is the light that should go on top of the fuselage behind the mast. Paint masks come with the kit. The canopy paint masks are an exact fit and well worth the effort of positioning correctly. To be able to see the demarcations — to be able to peel them off the rectangular backing paper — I spread thin black paint over it, then wiped it off. Box e-painting by Piotr Forkasiewicz The box art depicts another of the seven decal options included in the kit, which also comes with several different canopy styles, both open and closed.

I am happy to comply with the rules where they make sense, but duplicating content unnecessarily seems to me a waste of World Wide Web space. Why should folks not look it up on my web site? I could understand the objection if I were selling something or making money from it somehow, but I am not. Here is another photo anyway: Hanging lines are edited out of the photo. I brush-painted it with acrylic paints from the Hataka RAF D-Day and Battle of Britain set in their ‘Blue line’ range, which is optimized for brush rather than spray. These paints seem to me to match the real colors more closely than others I have used.

Originally I intended to build this kit sitting on the ground, much as the real thing was photographed on the apron at Le Bourget airport, France, in May 1940. However, I felt that the main wheel struts’ attachments to the airframe were too dodgy. (Actually I did not understand how they were supposed to attach.) So I built it in flight mode with a home made transparent disc replacing the kit’s propeller blades and a pilot in the cockpit. The pilot came from elsewhere; the kit not being supplied with one. To see more photos and description, click the link in my signature and then click Escort to Le Bourget (indented under World War 2 plastic models part 1). That should comply with forum rule limiting links to personal web sites while avoiding duplicating content on different servers.

To create the bulged canopy I used an F-15 canopy from the Falcon Clear-Vax Canopies 1/48th scale (note that larger scale) set 52, USAF jets, combined with the kit canopy’s front bit, rear bit, and flattish top. To see more photos and description, click the link in my signature and then click Gunslinger helo (indented under Plastic models contemporary with Vietnam ). (That hopefully complies with forum rules limiting links to personal web sites while avoiding duplicating content on different servers.)

While I encountered more difficulty with this model than I had anticipated (so what’s new?) and, as with all large models, it took longer than a smaller airplane would, I feel that the result is impressive. There are better made examples of this kit on this forum (I see one beautiful example with motorized propellers) but I feel that my relatively 'quick and dirty' approach to model making has some merit too. To see more photos and description, click the link in my signature and then click Gunship: Spectre of death (indented under Vietnam war plastic models). (That hopefully complies with forum rules limiting links to personal web sites while avoiding duplicating content on different servers.)

Thanks guys. Interesting that the backdrop is perceived as a map. It is a plywood board spattered with paint from when I used to do paintings (pictures) in the late 1970s and early 80s. The 'roads' are where the edges of the art paper lay when I did the backdrop washes. Etienne du Plessis’ slide collection on Flickr is new to me. That is a fantastic resource. We have been so short of info about exact colors, in some areas anyway, that collection should go a long way to improving our feel for what the reality looked like. I assume he has restored the colors somehow. (I notice he has 3,222 photos in his Flickr albums, so I won't be short of something to look through today!)

Here is my second Airfix 1/48th scale kit of the Spitfire Vb. I finished this one in colorful desert camouflage using transfers by LifeLike Decals, obtained from Hannants. It has the dust filter under the nose, supplied with the kit (must have made it prone to yawing around, I speculate) and the canopy open. (The kit also comes with several open and closed canopies.) Like all my models, I built it in a hurry, so it is not of the standard of some on this forum. However, I feel it represents a good result without too much effort. More photos and build notes on the following page of my web site: (Link deleted to comply with forum rules.)

Thanks guys. A particular problem I have with small kits such as this one is that the photos, being larger than actual size when displayed on an average monitor, show up every flaw. Things that the naked eye does not notice (well, that I don't notice or I can ignore) show up in the photos. I get around the problem to some extent by binning the worst offending photos and by using a smaller size (typically 1333 wide) than I do for general photos. (There is nothing scientific about that figure, it is just what seems right to me.) I like to post at least one photo showing the model as a model, rather than trying to make it look like the real thing, if you see what I mean. The pic of it sitting on the table next to my tea mug is the example here. Another method I used is to take a selfie of holding the model.

I vaguely assumed that the dinosaurs all lived together until they died out 65 million years ago, so I reflexively imagine a Tyrannosaurus Rex jumping out of the giant fern bushes at them. However, I heard on a BBC Radio 4 science program that, by the time of T Rex, the brontosaurus had been extinct for so long it was already a fossil (collectively). T Rex is closer in time to the iPhone than to the brontosaurus!

I hardly dare to post this when I see some of the exquisitely crafted models on this forum, but this might encourage those who lack patience, as I do, but want an good result with minimum effort. More photos and build notes on this page of my web site: Vietnam Super Sabre

Yes, I read that real ones are very expensive. You can find out what those tubes are for over in the aircraft division: Scratch built standard Rogallo hang gliders

I added two more today including this, which shows up the problem I had with the flaps:

Many of them to me in the early 1960s (although my mum paid for them). Such memories of things and people now gone.

Rough and ready by the standards here, but I completed it in the equivalent of a weekend, spread over a week. More on this page of my web site: Early Corsair

Thanks guys. I too am impressed by the scratch builders. I never imagined I would be one! As for grass effect, here they are on a grassy hillside with big flowers...