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Pigpen

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Everything posted by Pigpen

  1. The T1a was the version of the Hawk wired to carry a sidewinder that would be aimed using IR acquisition. This was part of the Mixed Fighter Farce concept which paired the Hawks with Tornado F3s that would vector them as missile carriers onto the Bears and Backfires over the North Sea with their Foxhunter radar. Some of the RAF's best pilots were RAFAT pilots or QFI / QWI at Valley, Chivenor, Brawdy so why not arm their mounts? This view is disputed. This was the 1980s and we were all going to die anyway so why not go out in a blaze of glory? And had Thatcher not made that call to Reagan saying that GCHQ realised that the Ruskies thought Able Archer was a precursor to a first strike we might have. Even the mighty Bulldog from the UAS and CFS had a war role acting as BDA and liaison flying civil servants around the country. Not sure the Grob is up to this.
  2. Ah so it is super dooper, that changes the game! 100/110 is only 10 percent. Just make sure the transformer is at least 50 percent overrated. At work I'd say no. At home I'd be happy as it would only be on while I was around.
  3. As you mention a transformer you are aware that simply replacing the plug or using an "adapter" is going to result in, at best a broken soldering iron, and at worst a fire. You can use a suitably rated step down transformer, and this would be safe, but one that I'd be prepared to have in the house is around £80. (I've seen cheaper ones but despite having a CE mark, the warning "do not leave it alone for a long time" is a bit worrying. So whether 100v or 110v that's how much they are. So unless it is some really super dooper bit of kit it's probably going to be cheaper to buy a UK spec soldering iron. Sorry.
  4. Pigpen

    Old Airfix Decals

    I think airfix are helpful when they can be within their desire need to keep stock to support their perceived moral obligation to mitigate faulty manufacture. Although of course the legal obligation lies with the retailer, something which seems lost on many purchasers, we modellers do have the problem that faults may not become apparent until we've invested time and effort into our purchases. A couple of years ago I took an expensive kit out of the stash to find the decals had somehow got damp and were ruined. I emailed Airfix explaining what had happened and asking to purchase a replacement it they had any. They asked for my address and sent a new sheet free within days. My suggestion would be to explain exactly the situation as you have done here, offer to pay and hope someone's in a good mood and sitting on some stock.
  5. Not over my house but the North Sea. Lots of Typhoons on adsbexchange practicing stern conversions with Chobham FA20s and a Voyager.
  6. My wife. "can't you make something different instead of tanks and airplanes" ? 😈
  7. Oh mate you won't! Job, marriage, kids - I'd say about 20 years and you'll be back in the hobby 😀
  8. It is a strange business. I got my 1 year qualified daughter £20 off her policy by adding my wife as a second named driver. She also had one quote for £28,000 (twenty eight thousand pounds) on a seven year old Toyota Aygo! Suspect they didn't want the business.
  9. I'm a complete tart when it comes to insurance and I always shop around for a few pounds. This last 2 months my wife's car, my own car and my how insurance all gone up by about 25% on the renewal notice. And after much searching of the internet for each of them the renewal turned out to be the best price available. Actually I could have got the house insurance for a fiver less but with a 40% flat roof it's not worth the pain of dealing with another company. I also noticed with house insurance that the sweeteners for new business are no longer there. A couple of years ago I paid a tiny little more than my renewal and got a £50 coop voucher but now unless you want to watch films or eat pizza in the company of meerkats there's nothing.
  10. Pigpen

    RIAT 2023

    Lucky you! I went last year for the first time and had the most marvelous time - on my own, doing my own thing, told family they would get in the way and cramp my style. Although my wife has suggested I go this year I've decided to leave it a few years between going so it is special. The carparks are onsite and you can get readmittance if you want to go back to it. It's a lot less to walk from the carparks than it is the length of the runway! Take walking boots. I walked 14 miles. Get there as early as you can seems to be the advice. I went in my caravan arriving on the Friday and leaving on Sunday. When I left the nearby campsite at around 11.00 on Sunday there was a huge traffic queue waiting to get in, and they were clearly missing half the day's show. By "early" many people seem to suggest 6-7am. Seriously. As for tips if you want a front row seat for the flying you need to bag your place and stay there which means missing the static park. I found a useful place was the taxiway about 2/3 of the way down the runway to the west. You can't place chairs there as it is emergency access which means it is quiet but they tolerate you sitting on the ground as long as you are away from the centre of the taxiway. You can then get up as and when you want to see the show. Toilets were plentiful and there was loads of fresh water on tap so just take a bottle to refresh. If it's sunny remember airfields get hot and the concrete reflects the sun up so plenty of factor 30. If it's windy and cool then airfields are the windiest places on earth so double whatever clothes you think you need! Hope you have as good a time as I did.
  11. Welcome Murray - and you stole my introduction from a few years back, well the music, beer, women, university work and family bit anyway. This is the best, friendliest and most diverting forum on the internet and just so happens to be about our hobby so you've chosen well. It's a great time to come back and you will be amazed at the tools, accessories and quality of kits that are now available. and the internet makes a huge difference to research and knowing what you are buying before you do so. You may also be astonished by the stuff some companies sell in a 25ml bottle for a tenner that can purchased from a DIY store in half litre containers for a fiver so beware of some of the the advertising.....
  12. Ah. Vesselfinder is coy about the actual vessel name while describing in detail the ship's class, position, speed and heading!
  13. Not over anyone's house really but there are two US Seahawks flying search patterns while moving south west in the Straights of Dover and a Spain based P8 has just rocked up. And by no coincidence whatsoever vesselfinder dot com says there is a US Carrier south east of Hastings.
  14. I have genuinely wondered if by primer Vallejo mean a paint the colour of primer. To be used as a base coat underneath a topcoat so you can chip and weather down to it rather than as a priming coat! Look at their sets of armour colours and it's almost as if they expect it to be used that way. I used their Africa Corps primer over styreleze primer but underneath the top coats with chipping and got a great result 😃
  15. Vallejo primer is a waste of time, peels off and cannot be sanded. I've tried "hot" primers from rattle cas but really did not get on with them. Styreleze branded as Ultimate products is brilliant. I keep a cheapo Chinese airbrush with a 0.5 needle just for it and spray at 30psi or higher in the winter straight from the bottle. Self leveling, sandable and maskable after 24 hours. I never consider using anything else now. I also use a respirator but we should be doing that for all spraying.
  16. I keep mine going by adding cellulose thinners which I buy in a 125ml bottle from Wilkinsons. It retains its "bite" which is useful. I know you can buy cellulose thinners much cheaper in larger quantities but it is something I'd rather pay more for and store less of !
  17. I'm sorry to say that unless it's got a switch that flicks it between 220 and 110 volts then it's not going to work. Well it will "work" as you've found out but it'll try to pull too much current, it will be overheating and die. And present a significant fire risk. Some devices, like hair dryers for example do sometimes have such a switch because they are designed to be taken around the world as luggage. The other stuff that has worked for you, like I suspect laptop chargers or even TVs, will likely be electronically based and are "intelligent" enough to cope with varying voltages and frequencies to provide what is probably a relatively low voltage DC for their "insides". As for rewiring it don't even go there. Even if it is somehow possible, if it ever catches fire then it would be a very entertaining conversation with the insurance company. However you can buy 110 to 220 convertors which given it's only 135w would probably work. Looking on the big river they are available for £50 - £100 but I'm not providing a link! Choose a good one, CE marked (or the US equivalent) from a reputable manufacturer if you do go down that route. That old fire thing again. Hope that's helpful.
  18. There is an Avro Anson over North Staffordshire. Currently circling Leek and passed just to the North of me earlier at about 3000'. Seems to have D-Day stripes on it.
  19. I got a 186 clone ten years ago with an expectation it would last five years and be replaced with a better one but it has proved an excellent piece of kit and is still going strong. Like much of the low cost stuff coming out of China I suspect the quality control is suspect and you will get a much higher proportion of duff ones. That usually means that they might not work out of the box or die in the first few months, the old bathtub curve for failure rate. So my advice is to spend a tiny bit more getting one from a reputable UK vendor who offers a real guarantee rather than the cheapest available through eBay or Amazon. If mine packed up tonight I'd replace it like for like.
  20. I agree. This is the kit that has the job to sell to make money now and to be enjoyed to sell other kits in the future. And that hopefully contributes to the success of both the business and the hobby. If that means us serious hobbyists don't get quite what we want, for now, then we'll have to suck it up.
  21. Rather like a painting in a gallery I spent time looking over the whole image to gather it all in. What a stunning representation of a finish on a beautifully made model.
  22. That does look lovely and I quite fancy one. But a starter set? Folding wings with a lot of stress on the joint and a big spinney thing on top of a lattice arrangement seems a good way make sure someone never buys another kit!
  23. It's very quick and easy to use but I always get the sense it's porous and a bit fragile. I brush Mr Surfacer 500 over it to fill the microspores that I imagine are there and polish it smooth with an IPA soaked cotton bud which itself is quick and easy . I then prime with ultimate primer and have no problems.
  24. Oh don't get me started. I was a hair's breadth from sending a recent copy of that new Phoenix journal back with all the mistakes annotated in felt pen. How hard is it to read a piece of copy out loud on a computer and notice the grammatical mistakes never mind using a spell checker? If you are paying attention to stuff being read aloud they feel like being hit across the face with a halibut. I've just sent 13k words to my boss for review and the expectation is that it should have zero mistakes. It will then go through another two stages of QA before it makes it to a website. And that's a government report that we are not expecting people to pay for. Grrrr. Mind you after all that quality control we still managed to publish "there were no facilities to allow staff to wash their hands between shits" (shifts) 🤦‍♂️
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