The Tomohawk Kid

As an addendum to the above, I believe Roger at Whirlybirds is considering replacing the acetate fuselage halves in his HR3 kit to ones with clear resin halves. Also I understand a S-51 (including the Westland BEA variant) is on his radar too. No idea of times scales et al, if want to know I suggest any one interested contact Whirlybirds direct. Thomo

The Mach 2 Dragonfly is neither fish or fowl and is not correct for the HR3 or the BEA machines or come to that a S-51 either, the rear fuselage is a hybrid of both types.. The Westland (BEA Machines) were re-engined S-51s that were provided by Sikorski as part of the license agreement and retained the characteristic aerodynamic sweep from the fuselage underside to the tail rotor boom, the grillage and exhaust differed from the the US engined machine, but they were essentially a S-51. Westland loaned the re-engined S-51 machines to BEA for route proving and demonstration purposes. The Westland HR3 Machines had a different rear fuselage which was more "squared-off" to allow additional stowage and rear opening doors (for such equipment such as stretchers et al) and the differences are quite startling in profile. The BEA painted machine at Cosford, is a repainted military HR3 and should not relied on for reference purposes, for one of the three original BEA liveried machines. The Aerodrom kit is correct for the HR3, but wrong for other the kits in thier range. The MPM kit is an overscale S-51, with shape issues and will need significant work to convert into a BEA machine and probably not worth the effort, either. The Britavia/Airways/Whirlybirds kit is entirely correct for a HR3, but for no other version without significant modification. It is worth noting that Whirlybirds have recently signicantly updated thier kit with a whole host resin and etch extras and superb decals sheet, but it does retain the original Britavia acetate fuselage halves, which maybe a challenge to some, the link below is to thier current catalogue. http://www.whirlybirdmodels.com/docs/pricelist.pdf In 48 scale: The FM kit can be made in to pretty much any variation of the S-51 - including with some modest adjustment of grillage and exhaust ports the BEA Machines, major surgery would be required to convert it to either HR3/5 configuration - again would it be worth the effort? The Belcher Bits kit is the bees knees and is well enough engineered so that it can be pretty much made into any variant of the S-51 including the Westland BEA machines and the Westland HR3/5 configurations too. I hope that helps. Thomo.

The excellent Top Gun DH Dove is still available. http://www.rebell.com/vac-resin-models/de-havilland-dove-tp46.html Thomo.

This http://murdersville.co.uk/museum/parachute-toy-quintacetti/

Top build, the Vautour is an aesthetically pleasing aeroplane. Thomo.

The Wespe V2 combo takes some beating. https://www.wespemodels.com/index.php?route=product/search&search=V2 Nice Fi 103 BTW. Thomo.

Comet Miniatures many moons ago produced a resin and white metal repop/back engineered Airfix/Kitmaster Fireball XL5. I believe the very good Product Enterprise die cast is also based on the Airfix/Kitmaster model too. Thomo

I would suggest its a repop of the Budgie die cast. Thomo