Colin W

You could make a movie 'Herbie crosses the Channel'.

Cracking along now Stone masked and dark earth applied. Masked again for the black Gloss black mixed with a bit of German grey for the undersides and deicing boots done with Mr Colour 125 Cowling colour. Big un-mask later....

Hi Rene, you can add e to the list as well. South Asia usually extends down to Indonesia so your list could include Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam. Including these would attract the IPMS Asia Air Arms SIG who would probably make up the numbers. It's a bit away from India And Pakistan but more inclusive.

Cracking book about What guy, Good read but only half way through so far. Looking forward to the finished Jag.

Looking great. I remember the airshows of the 1980's with the RNAF Friendships traikling smoke, 10' off the run way on one engine. Happy days, taken for granted at the time. Colin

Looking great. The engines are crazy. Surely the rear engine exhausts would point towards the propeller, ie into the air stream rather than against? I have spent years looking for brass or PE strut paterial which you have for the center fin. I even looked in model shops in Rome when visiting the absolutely superb Italian Air Force Museum. This must have been in the kit? Looking forward to see the final shots in the gallery! Colin

Ahhh yes the smell of glue and paint. Keeping me happy for 40 years.

Well 1 month later; the masks arrived in 1 week rather than the 2 expected but I was pre-occupied with other activites so this sat for a few weeks waiting for the other things to get done. Some more filler was applied and some areas painted white got me to here. The stickers (not decals) are supplied to stick over the finished paint and in fairness they would probably work well, as white decals over dark colours is never a great solution. So I decided to use the stickers as masks and apply them over the white base coat for the greater accuracy. See later for how this turns out!? Here we see the white masks separated from the white film and applied to the white base. If that seems hard to say or see, then its even harder to do. National insignia will be from Ventura decals so have just been marked as white blank circles. I've printed my own in the past (see my C-130 Hercules) but commercial ones are a bit better if obtainable. The stone has now been repainted over the white letters used as masks so I am back to where I was a month ago and waiting on the dark brown. Thanks to Dave Stewart in New Zealand for the actual scheme and pattern I can get the camouflage correct. Be careful if you are following this build. There are only 4 x 0's and you have no spares. If building NZ7620 you need all 4 so if you stuff 1 up there's no help. This is strange as almost all other stickers are supplied with spares. Guess which one I stuffed up! You can see the almost finished props in the back ground of the last picture. Kiwi Andovers had yellow tips to the props rather then red and white which makes things a bit easier. Seems I might make the deadline yet. Colin

Excellent work for modelling and storytelling. The pictures look a little dark but it dosnt detract.

I just came across this in the gallery and it's a great little diorama with an interesting back story as well. Great job.

The trouble with these resin kits is they go together very quickly and once you're busy building them things like pictures get forgotten. Here's how the Bloodhound loked after assembly and a coat of Grey primer. I forgot the assembled and unpainted pictures! The engines were painted silver and metaliser then maskedbase coat of Green. I have pictures of missiles in Australia, Singapore, Duxford and Switzerland with all being different colours. This is based on the Duxford one but in green. I'm not sure whether to weather. Were these left out all the time or just fitted to the launchers at times of heightened tension? In the 'Britain on the Brink' account of the Cuba missile crisis there is much discussion about dispersing the V-bombers but no mention about loading the Bloodhounds so I suspect they were left loaded. However probably under a tarp or similar to keep off the worst of the weather. Probably I'll stick to some shading only. Detail painting and final assembly to do. Colin

Looking great after many years in the repair shop. Dont forget to restore the join/gap between the nose calm shell doors! Yours is looking too good.

Well not quite at the bottom of the list but certainly not much progress so far. I built a 'quick' Fuel tanker which took waaay longer than expected. I made a start on this over the last week and got to here over the weekend. Here's the launcher. All white metal assembled with CA. Its quite well detailed despite being completely wrong at the base of the missile. There should be a structure at the base of ehe missile with 2 supports at the bottom to hold the missile. The kit ignores all of this and provides a sturdy support to the rear of the center body. A bit of fettling required! The missile seems to be much more accurate. Location holes cut for the main engines and the fins but the boosters have to be located and drilled. Still a bit to do. Colin

I had also never heard of Tom Karen but I'll look out for his Autobiography as well. According to Wiki he sounds like a very interesting fellow.

I've had my eye on this kit for a while so interested to see how you get on>