Eric Mc

I had pre-primed most of the major components and am nowregretting doing so as I'm having to spend an inordinate amount of time scraping the primer away from areas where cement is to be applied.

After a bit of a gap because of other commitments, I made it back to my workbench last night and spent most of the evening working on the engine nacelles. Because Matchbox allowed you to build two quite distinct variants of the Halifax, they supplied various permutations on the engine nacelles, such as different exhausts and different air intakes. Some cleaning up and filler will be required.

That is truly nice. I have the Revell issue in my stash.

So THAT'S what the song was about.....

Brilliant. The old ways still work.

The stealth characteristics of the Gannet are rarely talked about.

Airbrushes are extrtemely good value compared to the past. You can get a decent airbrush and compressor set up for under £150 these days.

I'm sure it's not perfect but those vents are so obvious that I can't finish my Hasegawa build until I find some way of depicting them. I decal would do, to be honest.

A lot better than mine.

That is a cracking looking F-105D. I had a go at the Hasegawa one but it lacks the vent slits in the nose which are so prominent on the real thing. I might search out the Trumpeter one now as it looks really good.

Lovely. I have a number of these in my stash (thanks to Aldi's cheap Airfix deals - and I even won one in a raffle 😀).

Nothing a bit of sanding can't sort. One thing I did was add wingtip navigation lights from clear polystyrene. These things are the bane of my life now as many kits (especially 1/72 ones) don't iclude them and I feel I can't really feel that a kit is properly completed if they arent't included.

I noticed that too. Not an issue with me but rather strange.

I built one not too long ago. It's a lovely little kit and probably my favourite Airfix build ever (and I have built a few over the decades 😀).

Progress slowed down at the moment due to end of month work deadline pressure. I hope to get back to my bench after the end of te month.

Some images from the Halifax at Hendon - You can see how deep the right hand side of the canopy is compared to the left.

Because the Halifax was designed with single pilot operation in mind, the nose to the right of the pilot sloped down more sharply to give him a better view to the right on take ogff and landing - a bit like on the long nosed Blenheim IV. Matchbox didn't quite get the nose shape right, apparently. They also did not include the metal bars that lie underneath the two perspex hatches over the navigator's and radio operators position. At this juncture I'm not too sure if I want to bother spending too long trying to correct these areas. I just want to finish the build.

Although I made a start on this build over five years ago, personal circumstances at the time brought the buiild to an early end and I have only just resurrected it. The model is of its time (1980 or so) and does have its shortcomings. However, the Halifax is such an interesting looking aeroplane that I think the various inaccuracies are a bit lost under the various lumps, bumps and other protuberances of the design. I am building the early Mk I option in the kit and will finish it as Christopher Cheshire's aircraft MP-L/L9530. Cheshire was the older brother of the more famous Leonard Cheshire. Progress so far involves lots of fit issues and filler. This is chiefly down to Matchbox's effort to provide different versions of the aeroplane in the one kit, which results in separate nose pieces - which don't fit that well.

I'll keep an eye out for it.

Simple answer is, no I haven't. The next question is, is VMS Flexy available in the UK?

British aircraft of that era tended to have small coloured bulbs mounted behind clear perspex covers - so they didn't have red or geen coloured light covers in the wingtips. They are a bit of a pain to replicate in small scales i.e, 1/72 or smaller. I tend to cut out the wing tip section, let in a small block of clear styrene held in place by strong super glue. Once cured, you can sand the styrene block to match the wingtip contours and then polish. The problem is that it is very easy to dislodge the glued in styrene during the sanding and polosihing process - which is very annoying. In 1/72 I don't bother trying to drill out an aperture for the green (I prefer blue to be honest) starboard bulb and the red port bulb. As this method involves fairly vigourous sanding and polishing, I usually do this early in the construction process and well before main painting.

Thank you. It's nice to do something other than an aeroplane every now and then.

It's just arrived off the boat I actually have applied some weathering and toning down but I didn't want it covered in grime.

Ooh - that looks like one for the library.

Just had a look at the movie - excellent. It proves that Flying Fleas could actually FLY!!!