Sabrejet

Thanks Steve. Yes the HK500 is my favourite of the lot: the Excellence had a reputation for bending in the middle when both doors were opened. IIRC Ava Gardner had one. Many thanks: the chromed kit parts are a bit too 'bright' for me so I sanded them smooth and Bare Metal Foiled them. Hopefully it works a bit better. I made the FV II many years ago and it's due a re-paint: the HK500 is quite a rare kit nowadays and as with the Excellence, it needed a new screen - front and rear in the case of the Excellence; just the front on the HK500 kit (which has crystal clear screens (strange), but a big crack in the front screen). Luckily it would appear that the Excellence and HK500 front screens are the same, so the mould I made has already done its magic for the second kit. I've seen a few HK500s and FV IIs in recent years but never an Excellence: there's a car museum on the Isle of Man that has three!

Though I usually concentrate on race cars, I am also gradually working through my "favourite car" list: probably not a Top 10 (more like a Top 50), many of which are indeed race cars. But occasionally one of my favourite cars isn't a type that ever raced, so I've done a Cord 812 many moons ago, and if I can find a Cord L29 kit I'll be on it like Mother Teresa at an all-night rave. Which brings me to this: Provence Moulage's 1/43 Facel Excellence. It's a yonks-old kit, so the screens had to be crash-moulded after the kit items were found to be very yellow, and cracked. The rest is pretty much as per the kit. Colour is a Zero Paints metallic which is actually a Pagani Huyara shade, but I think it looks good. If I ever own an Excellence, I shall have it resprayed this colour. I also have a Facel HK500 in the stash (another from the "favourite car" list), and that's a type that never raced either (though one or two did drag race), so another 'plain Jane' on the way sometime...

From memory, there was only one T51 among the Bugattis at Goodwood: Tim Dutton's black/red car. All the rest were T35 or T35B.

Hopefully this schematic will show the detail a bit better. The various hydraulic filters, reservoirs, actuators and accumulators are all anodized aluminium, so a dull silver in colour. The gauge in the RH speed brake well is black-faced and housed an a fairing box which is usually interior green.

Every day's a school day! There I was assuming these things were ubiquitous and always available on the well-known auction site. But no. And those "recently released" Cutting Edge decals - 2002 they came out!!! So they are already more than 20 years old at best. So apologies for being so flippant: I have suggested an 81st FGp scheme so we'll see. If not, I have the research data ready for an enterprising decal manufacturer to do. I have in fact done a 92nd FIS F-86A in 1/48, using custom decals, so that's another option.

81st FIW F-86A decals have been done in 1/48 by Scalemaster and, more recently by Cutting Edge on sheet CED48173 - F-86A/E Sabres Part One. However, IIRC only 116th FIS has been covered so far. There are MANY lovely F-86A colour schemes out there which I hope the aftermarket will catch up on once the Clear Prop! schemes have been finalised.

Good work! Can't wait to see the F-86F

I did a rough assemble of the seat today (8-part plastic + PE to be included in the kit): looks pretty decent.

This is the kit: And the real thing (schematic):

Yes.

Bear in mind that the vee-screen on the real aircraft is two flat plates of glass, butted together in the middle with a flat armour glass part aft. The kit pretty much mimics the real thing.

Well the list of necessary recipients is getting shorter too!

And also don't forget "Come fall, we'll be revealing a new modification of the F-86, developed using advanced 3D scanning technology. As for specifics, that's a secret for now."

LC2 vs R18. Mmm. Tough choice.

Several Clear Prop! announcements due at this weekend's Moson Show. Not sure if this kit will be among them, but worth a look.

Love Karaya kits: have made a few. Good job!

One should never say "never", but I'd think that if the 34th FDS gained a rival squadron commander's aircraft, they'd have painted over the fuselage band before applying a badge. Or an alternative might be that applying the squadron badge was easier than changing the fuselage band colour? Some of these squadron badges were actually decals (very large, but still decals), so it's an interesting hypothesis. These things need to be ironed out for when the 1/48 F-86H kit comes out!

Another version, but not this one...

*sigh* ...or Airfix, or Academy. Or just wait til someone does an early F-86E and criticise that. Or possibly not bother.

I've yet to try, but I'm thinking that a Hasegawa rear fuselage might fit the Clear Prop! forward fuselage. I need to get a profile gauge and see for sure.

Because there have: we have short memories and the Korean War schemes have been done by Matchbox with every release of its 1/72 F-86A caricature kit; ditto Lindberg in its 1/48 or 1/50 rendition. Cutting Edge did it with their decal sheets, as have others (Scalemaster for one IIRC). Thankfully there are also a number of really nice F-86A decal sheets out there too (Dekl's being a manufacturer that has done more than one imaginative F-86A decal sheet), so it doesn't have to be black-and-white striped. My point being that there are many wonderful F-86A colour schemes that have never been done in kit or aftermarket, which would make for original-looking and interesting modelling subjects. Mind you there are some interesting Korean War colour schemes that haven't been done too!

I sometimes get dewy-eyed about previous cars, but in each case I remember what a pain they were too: 1. Humber Super Snipe Series III: I had three of these. They were massive, looked awesome and went well. Each had fold-down picnic tables (burr walnut, obvs) in the back and they made for a special impromptu picnic at times. However. They did 18mpg at best, cornered like the Ark Royal and usually smelled damp. The windscreen wipers were atrocious, the heating/blower virtually non-existent and they rusted. A lot. 2. Humber Sceptre 3 (Arrow): my pride and joy until some muppet drove into the back of it while parked. It had a Holbay 1725 with the whole works, including a brace of Webber 40 DCOEs, overdrive in 3rd and 4th, lots of comfort, a handbrake on the correct side (right-hand side of the seat: a hang-over from bench-seated cars) and did 115mph on the M25 that time. All for 2500 rpm at 60 in overdrive/top and 40mpg if you kept it quiet. It had estate springs and adjustable shocks at the rear, 185 tyres all round and looked the business. But it too rusted a lot!!! One time my rear suspension towers collapsed in unison - while driving!!! The fronts did too, but you could at least get weld-in replacements, which then rusted-out too. Then the bottoms of the front wings would come adrift and one of the final straws was an electrical fire on the way to the Brighton Speed Trials. It was really quiet and comfy but there was a lot to not like too. 3. Smart Brabus Roadster Coupe. An amazing little car. I think Smart lost money on all of them and relatively few were sold in the UK. I had a 'standard' Roadster Coupe for a while but when I heard that production was ending (never to re-start, sadly), I took the plunge and spent a lot of my RAF retirement lump sum of the Brabus. It was an amazing thing: lots of turbos stall chatter (not as non-turbo drivers think incorrectly, "wastegate chatter"), 50mpg at times, electric everything, flappy paddles, heated seats, automatic headlights and windscreen washers, electric roof and many more. All in a tiny roller skate that did 120mph on the M4 near Bristol that time. I kept it for 10 years. But in the end, a 7500-mile service interval started to get annoying but the main one was COUNTLESS bent wheels and/or punctures caused by minor potholes and the Roadster's mad wheel/tyre combination (225 rears combined with major wheel offset on alloys). I think I had maybe 3 new wheels during ten years (£150 a throw at the time), and Mike the wheel repair guy on speed dial every time I went out. He managed to repair my wheels and fit new tyres on countless occasions. I the end driving was a nightmare, undertaken in daylight and always while constantly monitoring the road and doing a slalom all the time. That was 20 years ago (when new): the roads are soooooo much worse now and I can't imagine what it's like to own a Roadster now. Tiring I imagine. 4. Mini. I've had two and driven many. A proper Mini I mean. Usually 1275, round fronted (but I like Clubman front too). They are tiny and uncomfortable. They rust like crazy, they are impractical in many ways and the 'mid' production cars with wind-up windows are a pain because the windows usually don't wind up. The brakes are a joke and the windscreen wipers pointless. The headlights make things darker and you can't read the instruments at night. And they rust. I think I may have mentioned that. Oh and the steering is painful at parking speeds, and often the engine will cut out if you go through even small puddles because the distributor is right where it shouldn't sensibly be. But I love them!!! When you see a real Mini you also realise how pointlessly bloated modern cars have become. The Mini was trying to save the planet 65-odd years ago and we still haven't got the message: I'd have another one at the drop of a hat. The greatest car ever made? Quite possibly. I'm proud to have been an owner. 5. Fiat 500e. OK not mine but the wife has one and I wish I did too. It has a cracking range (nearly 200 miles, despite the manufacturer claiming LESS!), is comfortable and was cheap (ish) to buy. If the future is electric, it is in cars like this, not ridiculous SUVs and other EV oxymorons. I absolutely adore this car! I honestly think it's the best car I've ever driven - it just does everything very well, is airy and quiet, no fuss at all, we never visit a petrol station (except for coffee) and never have to stop - we charge at home. It also has some lovely quirky bits that show someone has taken time and thought on its design. And somewhat strangely it looks better than the Abarth version too, which has inexplicably replaced the in-bonnet crescent-shaped lights with blank plastic inserts (tacky!), among other things. In fact its only downfall was in having only one cup holder, but after a recent Amazon purchase the car is now PERFECT! So they do exist - mainstream modern classics-to-be. The future is bright.

I wouldn't hold your breath. Sadly.

A dodgy sideview, copied no doubt from the Matchbox kit (which got it wrong too). Arizona ANG F-86As were trimmed in copper (the snake is the squadron's copperhead emblem), not yellow.

Muzzle doors were incorporated way into the 49-FY production batch up to about 49-1200. They were still in evidence of aircraft which served in Korea but gradually replaced in the 1951 timeframe.