TheLurker

Heads up. B-52s at Fairford until the 16th of June. Don't know how many. Usually no more than 3 or 4. Wilts & Glos. Standard - Don't expect usable detail.

Definitely.

If the u/c is unfixable sounds like you've got the makings of a "wheels up landing" diorama. Bit of gentle heat to bend1 the prop. blades back and sorted. Hope it's fixable thobbut. 1 - Mind you if you modelled a wooden bladed version it's going to be a wee bit more challenging modelling splintered prop. blades.

Looks very good to me and you won't catch me putting photographs of my "return to the fold" build up at any price. Oh dear me no.

Ahh. Thank you. I remember it being a couple of years and I particularly remember that they really stuffed up the traffic management the 1st year back at Fairford..

It was moved because of major runway work at Fairford (2001/2002 ish?) and my (aged and unreliable) memory says it was somewhere in Lincolnshire, but Dr. Goggle isn't being terribly helpful in my attempts to pin it down. Scampton? Anyone got a better memory than me?

Umm... this is "how long is a piece of string" country. At an absolute bare minimum? My tuppence worth... To build: Tweezers or some other tool for gripping and placing small parts. I use fine haemostats (artery forceps). Available on-line for about a fiver. Scalpel or other fine and very, very sharp cutting tool. Available in most art shops and in hobby shops. Swann-Morton is one name to look for. If you can afford a sprue-cutter get one. It can make the difference between getting a fiddly, delicate part off the sprue in one piece and not. A cutting surface. Any old flat bit of wood will do or you can buy specialized cutting mats in sizes from A5 up from art supply shops or hobby shops. Jakar is a brand I favour; a good compromise between cost and quality. Blu Tack, clothes pegs, low tack decorators masking tape. For holding parts together while the glue dries. You can buy specialised modelling clamps, but I'm assuming you're working to a budget. Consumables: Liquid glue. Revell and others. Don't use the tubes. They still go into strings and smear everywhere. Very fine sand-paper/glass-paper. Filler. Milliput is one brand name, there are many others out there all with different advantages and disadvantages. Brush cleaner, see below, if using enamel paints. Acrylic paints can usually be cleaned off using water, but they too sometimes benefit from something a bit more aggressive to get the brush really clean. Lots of paper towel / tissue. Decoration: A range of brushes. Get the very best you can afford. Revell & Humbrol both sell packets of brushes (4 or 5 per pack range of sizes from 00 up) for about a tenner. I wouldn't buy anything cheaper unless it's a branded item on special offer. Art supply shops are also an excellent source. If you are using a mixture of acrylic and enamel paints I'd get two sets. One for each. Brushes are made (marketed?) as being particularly suited to a type of paint (oil, acrylic, water-colour etc). Modelling masking tape. I prefer Tamiya's, I have found the edges on Revell's to be a bit wobbly. And the things you won't find in any shop, anywhere. Bucket loads of patience and the ability to accept that sometimes, despite your very best efforts, the build will go horribly wrong and will have to be written off. Having said all that you can build models quite well - if you are very careful - with a toolkit that contains nothing more than pair of nail-scissors and some disposable nail files - nick them from your wife's toiletries kit - and a single small paint brush, but don't expect a "professional" result. Have fun! Lurk.

Am I allowed to hate you even though we haven't ever met? That's brilliant.

I sent the link for your build to some of my colleagues who served on 23s during their careers. I thought you'd like a couple of their responses. "You can tell it's not real cos we never had such a good paint job ". That from a bod who served as MEO on Lancaster and another ex engineer said, "Cracking model, but I still think of 23s as new platforms!"

It's never really shut down. Ignoring RIAT activity I reckon on seeing B-52s in and out of there 2 or 3 times a year and the occasional U-21. You get other odds and sods as well at irregular intervals. 1 - Absolute jammiest sighting was a couple or three years ago when the Canadian Lanc. was over here. The BBMF & Canadian Lanc flew right over the house at lunch-time heading roughly southerly. Ten minutes or so later saw a U-2 on final approach. Edit to add. Gratuitous (and not especially good) snap of a couple of B-52s heading to Fairford. About 4pm one afternoon late spring or early summer last year. *Just checked* Early June. A couple more ropey snaps.

Brush painted? Naaahh, I don't believe it.

As Simon382 said, good to see a relatively rare bird and nicely done at that.

In FLICKR (damn silly name) go to the picture you want. You should see a down arrow overlaid somewhere to the bottom right. Click this and you should get a list of different size versions of the image e.g. "Download Medium A pixels x Y pixels. Right click the size you want, medium is usually a good choice, this should display a context menu with an option saying something like, "Copy Link". Click that. Paste the link somewhere (Notepad or a.n.other text editor) so you don't lose it . Come back here and click edit/modify to open your post. Click the [insert other media] button (bottom right of the edit window) Paste the copied link into the box labelled URL. Save the post. That should do it. For example : ETA - Nice build by the way, and good to find out about another oddball type.

Agree with all that's been said so far. Thought the flak damage patch on LM319 / Q was a particularly nice detail.

Both look lovely, but I think Phantom has the edge. The matt finish looks more "right" to me than the BBMF gloss.

Well if there are no photographs who's to say that the red spinner is wrong? A very nice build indeed.

Tres jolie. That's very, very nice

I think there's some sort of inverse proportion law affecting chocolate bars and the distance from the Cocoa bean's point of origin . The further east you get from the point of origin the better the flavour. It's also a, tiny, bit like that, "I know my place" sketch from the Frost Report (or mebbe TW3 - whatever). CEC "I am Continental European Chocolate, I look down on that because it is British chocolate. I am upper class. " BC "I am British Chocolate I look up to that because it is Continental European Chocolate. I look down on that because that is USA Chocolate. I am middle class." USAC " I know my place." Sadly I have to agree with those denigrating USanian "chocolate". A colleague brought a large numberHershey bars back from a work related trip some years ago. Almost all of them were left uneaten. Imagine that! Uneaten chocolate in an office full of software developers!

Umm, because most of are Brits and therefore all new things, including, but not limited to stuff from the Colonies, are automatically to be viewed with disdain and not a little sniffiness as really not quite up to snuff whereas the old stuff that we built is obviously far better. We like old stuff. After all it is old, which means it has character, and we're still using it1, therefore it must be good. The P-8 is new and it's from the Colonies. I rest my case. Post may contain traces of irony, sarcasm and a large helping of tongue-in-cheek. 1 - Well obviously not Nimrods, unless you've got some very special razor blades

Lovely paint work. Top notch build all around.

Very nice builds and agree with Woody37; especially nice to see the Czech B-36. Learn something new every day.

Running out of superlatives here. Very, very nice.

Excellent.

A good question, and no easy answer. I think we probably have to sit on our hands and hope those that are running Hornby have got a reasonably good idea because I for one haven't got a flaming clue. If they choose to fall back on a core range of "standards" with a proven market then that seems like a sensible short term survival strategy. How it would play out long term is another matter as it might drive custom to manufacturers offering a more eclectic range. I wouldn't want to see this. Whilst many dedicated kit bashers will happily fork out for alternative markings from third party suppliers or even print their own, casual and intermittent builders, especially those of us who abhor on-line shopping, are more than happy with the current arrangement.

A very fine piece of work and it's nice to see a familiar type wearing unexpected markings.