Eric Mc

A lady who endured the worst possible news in her role as an astronaut's wife passed away only a few weeks ago (4 October). After Gus died, she never remarried. https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/10/10/us/ap-us-obit-betty-grissom.html

It would be great if the NASA SIG had a special 50th anniversary display at Telford in 2019. I'm a member of the NASA SIG although it has all gone very quiet on that front at the moment. I've not heard anything about Telford 2018 so far. I certainly plan to build at least one 1/72 Lunar Module for the anniversary. I built one in 1979 for the 10th - a model that I still have amazingly, having survived numerous house moves and even a change of country.

Thanks for the correction and the explanation. When these VHF only 720s were sold on, I presume they must have been retrofitted with some sort of HF aerial as they were used on overseas routes (I remember seeing some of them at Dublin where they sometimes turned up for maintenance). If they were, where were the HF aerials installed?

Given the state of the art of jet engines in the late 1940s/early 1950s, I'm sure that a jet powered Brabazon would be just as much a dead duck as piston powered or turboprop powered versions.

Great builds pf great classics.

I wouldn't agree with that - unless the ignorance on display is "willful ignorance". People can be ignorant simply because of lack of education. The obvious answer to that is to educate them. The problem is when some people don't want to be educated.

Very nice. Regarding airliner windows - in 1/144 decals are actually more realistic - especially if you want to show the metallic surrounds that many airliners feature.

That looks great - although I wouldn't like to be engaging a V1 at such low level. The prop effect is great and to me is the best way of achieving a rotating propeller. How did you do the blurred terrain?

Welsh Models produces a more to scale set of Pratt and Whitney JT4 engines. I recently bought a set of these so I could build one of these Roden 720s as an Aerlínte/Eireann/Irish International 720. One thing to be aware of with Boeing 720s - most 720s had the 707 type tail fin which featureda large pitot tube mounted on the top of the fin. A small number of 720s did not - chiefly those supplied new to United Airlines. The "Ceaser's Chariot" and "Spirits Having Flown" Roden boxings of the 720 are ex-United and don't feature the fin mounted pitot. The Pan Am 720B produced by Roden DOES feature the fin pitot although being a "B" it has turbofan engines rather than turbojets.

The most recent kit I actually finished was a vacform (Welsh Models Handley Page Herald).

I'm surprised nobody told you that there was no "F" in "France".

The appearance of the "Korolev Cross" looked decidedly asymmetric compared to normal with lots of other bits flickering and tumbling away. It certainly looked like something had burst or exploded and the notion that one of the strap-on boosters had clouted the core stage (and possibly ruptured something) did cross my mind.

The moral of the story was, NEVER upset Chris Kraft.

Yes, Apollo 17 was his last chance - and he nailed it.

At the end of the day, if the model looks reasonably close to the real thing I'm generally not too bothered. Problems arise if you place models of the same subject from different manufacturers next to each other on your display shelves. However, in 1/144 these differences aren't always that noticeable. One major change to the current issue of the Airfix Comet compared to its earlier iterations is that the passenger cabin apertures are no longer included. The passenger windows are now included in the decal sheet. This is not a problem for me as I prepare decal window representation in this scale. I built the re-released Airfix Comet 4B a few months ago and was generally pleased with the result. The things to watch out for are - The flight deck windows are the only clear parts included in the kit and don't fit very well. I just glued them in place, faired them in, painted over them and used decals for the windows The letters "BEA" are on a white backing, which caught me out. As a result, there is a slight difference in the tone of the white of the decal compared to the white pain of the upper fuselage. It would have been better if the BEA lettering had a clear backing. As mentioned earlier, the Avon jet pipes are crudely depicted and unrealistic.