The Tomohawk Kid

Red Iron have some really good tutorials on You Tube.

They are made to order, PM me and I'll give you the contact details of the maker - I hasten to add its not me, you will need Facebook tho'. It was £70 inc UK post but it is large. Tommo

Fantastic! The Red Iron kits are really great as you have have proved. I have their 1/35 Vostok with Interior. Pre Covid it took a week from order to the postie knocking on the door. Tommo.

Arrived today, despite being posted 2nd class on Saturday - I give you the UFO Moonbase launch sphere, gantry and Lunar Module kit. Tommo.

My kit arrived today, ahead of schedule it looks very good, but it will have to go to the back of queue for the time being - I however, bought some Halfords filler primer so in-between of projects I will therefore probably give the major components a coat of primer. Tommo.

Top banana! Impressive for a brush finished model. Tommo.

I forgot to mention in my original post that I did not use the 26decal fin decal as it is a one piece decal that covers the entire fin. and I'm not over keen on these as they need to fit perfectly over the whole area. Also I doubt the decals were designed to fit the Welsh Models kit so I decided to give it a miss. I masked and sprayed the fin gloss midnight blue and used the Airfix Olympic rings decals, equally I could have used the Amodel decal, but the Airfix ones appeared to have a denser colour, it turned out really well I think. Tommo.

Thanks. I kinda did that, but I was extremely cautious to the point of being paranoid of having white below the cheat line. We are only talking a mm and a bit - if I did not point it out I dare say most wouldn't notice, but it niggles with me. Tommo.

Thanks. I studied hundreds of photo to try and get the tailplane dihedral correct and its amazing how it appears to differ, dependant on the angle the photo was taken at. The good news is they are only push fitted so I can change them if needs be. Tommo.

For those considering building a 1/144 Comet here is the lowdown on the currently available kits, apologies as it replicated from the airliner forum, but more will see it here. As I mentioned up thread they all have noticeable issues, therefore there is room in the market for the 'ultimate' kit of the wonderful machine. Could I ask the mods to consider making the below a sticky over in the airliner forum as its a one stop shop on Comets kits - I hasten to add its far from my work and is a combined effort of those that contributed on the Comet thread, so feel free to remove me as the author as all I did was compile it. Here goes: Airfix: Comet 4B Injection moulded. The kit is rapidly approaching its 60th birthday and currently not in production Pros - Dimensionally sound - Shape fundamentally correct - Robust kit and a good basis for accurising or converting to other variants - Relatively easy and cheap to source secondhand Cons - Underside fuselage/wing centre section wrong/none existent - Sparse detail - Wing section over scale - Fuselage cross section slightly under scale - Engine profile both in cross section and profile not correct - Current decal option for the BEA Airtours and Olympic liveries, the cheat line colour for both options are questionable and the 'bright work' is overscale/over accentuated - Chunky appearance if not corrected Amodel: Comet 4B and 4C Short run injection kit with resin detail parts Newish kit and currently in production Pros - Generally nice engraved detail throughout - Overall profile correct - Well detailed and correct underside fuselage wing centre section - Wing profile and dimensions correct for 4B - Nicely moulded resin exhaust cans. - Freely available and with a bit of effort can be sourced for not much more than the Airfix kit. - Attractive box art: Olympic 4B Cons - Fuselage for both versions under length and cross section too narrow - 4C wing too short and pinion tanks wrongly located - Most examples suffer from a large/significant sink mark on the underside fuselage/wing centre section negating one of the biggest pros of the kit. - No tail bumper - No wing fences - No fuel dump pipes on the upper wing surfaces of the 4C. - Decals for the Olympic 4B livery not entirely accurate. Authentic Airliners: Comet 4B and 4C All resin kit Currently not in production Pros - Generally very well detailed and dimensionally accurate - Extremely well cast and engineered - Fuselage/centre wing section correct - Simple construction - Parts breakdown conducive for easy painting and finishing Cons - Nose profile is not correct. AA appear to have grafted a Caravelle nose onto a Comet fuselage. The mistake appears to stem from Sud Aviation licensed the nose profile of Comet for the Caravelle from De Havilland - despite this the profiles differed noticeably between machines. - No decals included in the kit - Relatively expensive - Despite being extremely well engineered experience working with resin will be useful - Currently out of production. Welsh Models: Comet 4B and 4C Vacform and resin & all resin versions available Currently in production Pros - Dimensionally correct - Shape fundamentally correct - Good decal options - Resin well cast and detailed - Vacform sturdy and well made/formed and easy to work with - Good wing/engine detail profile - Simple construction Cons - Underside wing fuselage centre section not correct (better than Airfix, but still lacking) - Fuselage lacks detail (not an issue in 1/144?) - Tail planes underscale - No tail bumper - No wing fences - Experience in vac and resin required, despite being well made - Relatively expensive

I'm calling this finished, tho' it's actually not! As there are a few detail appendages that need adding including the wing fences - neither the Welsh Models or the Amodel kit include the wing fences. I have a companion build (all will be revealed in due course) to the Comet and I'll complete the detailing of both at the same time, as that is how I work. But, given I don't know when that will be I thought I might as well post images of a 99% completed Comet. I have always liked the 'classic' Olympic livery, not only is it one of classiest to adorn an aeroplane, it suits Comet to a tee. It also conjours up glamourous images of the mid '60s jet set, particularly as the airline was owned by the flamboyant Onassis family with all their glitz and associations to the wealthy and famous. Comet had a relatively short service life with Olympic from 1961/62 - 1969/70 being replaced by B.707-320C, however, it was long enough to two have two livery variations to adorn it, the model depicts the later one from around 1965 onwards. The airframes at the end of their Olympic service were shunted off to Channel Airways as well being used for spares. The Olympic Comets were a joint venture/partnership between Olympic and BEA (hence the BEA 'red square' logo in the Olympic cheatline) it was therefore not unusual to have BEA crews operating Olympic machines and vice versa. Its a pity that Olympic don't exist as such any more and are just an imprint of Agean without a distinct identity. The base kit was the Welsh Models vac and resin one with a few bits and bats from both the Airfix and Amodel kits. It was finished in Tamyia acyrlics, the decals are laser decals courtesy of Ray at the ever excellent 26decals. The fundamental Welsh kit is accurate, the main shortcoming is the underside of the mid-centre section of the fuselage where the wings join it, which is devoid of detail and the underside profile is not so much wrong, as missing. But, given all the 1/144 Comets currently available have noticeable shortcomings of one sort or an other and when sitting on its u/c its not noticeable - I can therefore live with it. I was going to use different shades of bare metal finish to give a more realistic finish, but once the Tamyia bare metal silver was applied it gave a surprisingly realistic appearance including the appearance of tonal differences, so I left it. I would imagine in a larger scale one would have to consider applying different tones to avoid having a monotone finish. I'm generally very happy with the results, if one does not look too closely, the biggest niggle is, I didn't bring the base white far enough down the fuselage sides. I didn't realise that the white has to finish virtually lined up with the bottom edge of the cheat line to get the best from the laser decals. That is quite hard to achieve but I could have done had I realised at the time - but, its not too much of a distraction. Tommo.

I recieved some indcredibly useful replies up thread, like yours, so its safe to assume everyone knew what machine I was refering to. Ta. Tommo.

Ah! Everyone knew what I meant. Tommo.

Brilliant, just what I need - thanks very much. Yes, two maybe the way to go, the kits are relatively cheap and good VfM. Roll on the 1/48 version that has been in the works for an epoch. Tommo.

Ta. Tommo.

I hold no love for either seasons. I remembered when it debuted on Anglia way back in 1975, I watched the series opener with my dad - he at the time commented it was a 'poor mans' Star Trek. I vehemently disagreed with him being a huge Anderphile, not helped that I have never been keen on Star Trek. But of course with hindsight he was right. My interest quickly dwindled in S1999 because of a combination of poor stories abject acting and its broadcast slots being shunted around the channel from its original prime time slot, then there was S1 repeats mixed in with the S2 debuts on Saturday mornings. I know some hold it in high esteem, but I don't. I bought the S1999 series1 BD box set when it was released just to see if in the years inbetween I had changed my opinion, I watched 20 minutes of the first episode and put the disc back in the box and have felt zero compunction to dig it out and watch any more. On the other hand UFO is the dogs cahoonas particularly the UK BD set with with 600 page Andrew Pixely book. Tommo.

WW2 military subjects are not normally my barra however, I have always held a soft spot for the SB-2 and have fond memories of the Frog kit. I have had the ICM kit for some while and I have no got to the point where I plan to build it and I'm at an early stage of research. One question I have does anyone know the interior colour? The ICM colour out says 'Ghost Grey', is this correct ? I don't know which version I'm taking forward, part of me fancies a Russian machine with skis but on the other hand the colourful Spanish civil war aircraft appeal too. I have the excellent Print Scale decals and camo for both options, but I don't need to make that decision quite yet. Also if anyone has any links to websites with reference pictures/material that would be a help too. One last observation I don't think I have seen a 1/72 kit of this size with such a high parts count, to the point I venture it is over engineered, that said the detail looks absolutely excellent. Tommo.

I think it is wise, so yes please. Thank you. Tommo.

I believe its only fair to say those links are extremely dubious and almost certainly constitute a breach of copyright. Neither UFO and S1999 are public domain programmes. Tommo.

A couple of classic promo shots to whet ones appetite. I have been informed my kit ships this coming weekend. Tommo.

Some pics of the forthcoming (to me at least) Moonbase and LM kit. This is a tad of a grail kit for me wanting something like this, from when I first saw UFO back in 1970! Tommo

Etihad as widely predicted are to remove their A 380's from service starting Sept, this initially is a temporary move but if traffic does not improve it could see them withdrawn permanently from some or possibly all routes in the longer term. Tommo.

Yes it is. Tommo.

Pretty much the same for the cheatline on the 'Welsh' Olympic 4B I'm currently finishing off. Given that I doubt the decals were meant for Densil's kit, another shout out to Ray's wonderful decals. Tommo.

Looks great John! I must put the finishing touches to mine, whilst I ponder moving it over the finishing line due to me becoming sidetracked - all will become apparent shortly. One area where I have found the Amodel scores over the other kits is the nosewheel undercarriage, I'll update the composite pros and cons post accordingly. Therefore, I'll be using the Amodel parts alongside the Welshmodel's main gear. Tommo.