skippiebg

Mitchem and Skodadriver, I'd have a go at using Milliput, but I'd be nervous when shaping it with files and sandpaper afterwards. I've had bad experiences of lots of it coming off, despite being "keyed-in" as suggested. Any other filler -- nah... Mitchem, I also remember the Air Rhodesia Viscount shoot-downs with sadness. --- Another thing to remembver with Viscount 800s is that some (of the last 810 Series incarnation, and then only with more powerful Darts) had assymetrical tailplanes: http://s258.photobucket.com/user/jh5speed/media/G-BMAT.jpg.html.

KiwiRho, there were three Viscount noses: 1. The radarless, rounded one -- http://www.dhc-2.com/G-AOHH_Viscout_Nose_EGPF_1280.jpg http://www.findmodelkit.com/sites/default/files/viscount_instr_str1small.jpg 2. The 745D-onwards radar one (a "thimble" grafted onto the original nose, with complex fillets, deicers, and extra skinning) -- http://img.planespotters.net/photo/109000/original/G-CSZB-British-Air-Ferries-Vickers-Viscount-800_PlanespottersNet_109783.jpg, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Vickers_Viscount_-_8967302679.jpghttps://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6c/Vickers_Viscount_nose_and_engine.JPG 3. The neat and compact radar one originally retrofitted to BEA 700s (a flattish cone) and then factory-fitted to all BEA (and successor, notably BKS/British Air Services) 800s -- https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/38/BEA.Vickers_Viscount.Duxford.JPG https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/Vickers_Viscount_806_G-AOYN_G-OPAS_c-n_263_nose.jpg I'm afraid I don't have dimensional data on how far noses 2 and 3 projected ahead of 1. Kits tend to represent of the least common radarless nose (1) because Vickers issued a rather neat modelmakers' drawing of the Viscount in the early 1950s and, in the nature of those things, it got taken as Holy Scripture and reproduced ever since. The pictures you sent links to are all of the "thimble" nose (2), which is the most common of the three. Attempting to model it with filler (even an expoxy filler like Miliput) might give rise to adhesion, integrity and shrinkage problems due to the relatively great area of plastic covered by the filler and the relatively great amount of filler needed. I haven't tackled this myself, but it might make more sense to 1. cut off the nosecap; 2. insert a sheet of flat plastic in its place; 3. cement the nosecap onto the sheet of flat plastic; 4. file and sand the nosecone down to the desired shape using photo references. The pointed BEA nose (type 3) would be "doable" with filler due to the small area covered by it and the small amount needed.

I remember seeing one or two faded 748s (America had the 747, but Britain did one better!) in the pure Skyways and later Dan-Air Skyways colours over 40 years ago, and would venture the vaguest guess it was a pale electric blue. Don't know what paint you use, but in Vallejo terms, you are looking at 70.906 Pale Blue (though it might be a tad too green), while in Humbrol acrylic terms, at 47 Sea Blue Gloss (though it contains less than enough green). Sorry can't be more specific... --- edit: the non-Dan-Air colour seems to be much greyer than the temporary Dan-Air Skyways cheatline. I cannot honestly say these 748s made any impression on me at the time and so I failed to remember them if I saw them. The above refers only to the later and short-lived Dan-Air scheme. There is a timetable image that might help on here: http://www.timetableimages.com/ttimages/sky.htm --- second edit: frankly, the Burgundy bit seems more like Swedish Red to me -- less blue and more yellow than Burgundy in it. Can't begin to guess the paint spec... --- yet another edit: I take it you've seen TwoSix Decals' excellent 1/144 decal? Ray might well print it out for you in double the scale for the S&M kit if you ask nicely...

Sorry, my error on the Perso-Arabic script front: the script is not Kufi, but a Nastaliq hand. You can set the name ("Hawapeymaiye Jumhuriye Eslamiye Eron") using a free true type typeface from this site: http://alefba.us/free-arabic-persian-farsi-urdu-kurdish-fonts.

Ugh, yess... The "Airline of the ... " bit is set in a custom face very close to Times Roman Italic (say, a 90 per cent match), with a modified "I" with a loop swish and modified "P"s and "R"s with tighter counters (islands of white). (Or so it appears. Might be Plantin, but this is only 70 per cent likely.) The "Iran Air" part is set in a custom sans serif 'face. The Arabic lettering is unchanged -- Kufi style. It is worth being careful when setting type for custom decals as letterspacing plays a surprisingly big role in appearance. Just to add -- the Iranian flag changed some time after the 1979 revolution, with Quranic quotations set between the green, white and red fields, a Quranic symbol inset into the central white field, and the previously compulsory golden border being made optional. The 26decals 707 sheet seems (I cannot be sure) to have the earlier Shahinshah era flag.

Basic research ... http://www.iranair.it/ http://www.free-logotypes.com/logotype/Iran_Air.html ... shows the Latin parts (it's not "Roman," and it's not a "font") of the copyline "Airline of the (et c.)" to be set in Helvetica. The "Iran Air" part is set in a different 'face (of the Gothic or grotesk type) which you can discover at Whatthefont? The part in Arabic lettering is set in a Kufi 'face, as very typical of Iran and adjacent realms (Central Asia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and parts of India). 26decals make excellent 707 and 747 Iran Air decals. Draw Decal used (?) to make an extremely well designed Iran Air F100 decal, with all bits included, but for the all-over-white scheme, not the cheatline scheme: http://www.blackbirdmodels.co.uk/iran-air-fokker-100-144-806-p.asp Having said that, I cannot find any Iran Air ("Homa" is the airline's familiar name in Iran and adjacent countries) in the cheatline scheme. I think your photo might just be a Fokker publicity PhotoShop one, or else the cheatlines disappeared just about the time of F28 service inauguration, as you yourself surmise. Good luck!

This begs the question whether they were at all aware what authenticity actually means, let alone whether they cared for it. It also begs the question of how authentic (even once we take the engines and dorsal fin extension out of the reckoning) the 707-420 and Caravelle are...

Entex also made the Tu-144, incidentally. The VEB Plasticart Tu-144 is actually none too shabby and counts as one of their better efforts. Too-big windows, but apart from that a good 'un that is readily buildable into something decent and impressively huge. Sadly, both Entex and VEB show the prototype. Not sure if they are the same plastic...

Dave, the Entex DC-10 is indeed the same as the Nitto one. Don't know about Doyusha, but if they ever offered a DC-10 in 1/100 scale, it has to be the same plastic. The prototype was the same as the one Revell used for their DC-10, the same way as the 1/100 scale Entex/Nitto/Doyusha TriStar shared a prototype with the 1/144 scale Otaki Tristar. The Entex/Nitto/Doyusha 1/100 scale 747-100 also shared a prototype with the early Revell 747 in 1/144 scale. Collecting 1/100 stuff, you have little choice. The most prolific maker in that scale was VEB Plasticart or East Germany (since relaunched as something-or-other) whose quality's pretty rough to very dire indeed, but whose prices are very low. You can pick up evergreens like the Tu-134, Trident (in the UK only) or Il-62 for under a tenner. Exceptions are the rare Il-18, An-12 and especially the Il-14 which, sadly, are utter travesties of their subjects. The Japanese brands (Entex/Nitto/Doyusha) were not tooo prolific in subject spread and are uniformly expensive, making your 25 quid DC-10 a _very_lucky_find_ (normally two to four-five times dearer, depending on how well they have "kept"). There are some 1/96 British kits, FROG mostly, knocking around from 50 or 60 years ago that match up in terms of scale size, but they can be frighteningly expensive. Novo in Russia re-popped the so-so Comet 4 and Herald and most recently Eastern Express and another outfil re-released the Herald and the Britannia 100 (arguably the best-shaped effort for that type, and still none too shabby). The DC-7 is rare as hens teeth and fetches telephone number prices! Still, collecting's a good choice in that scale as opposed to building, unless you're after the nostalgia. Given that 1/100 stuff hasn't really been made in any volume since the fall of the Berlin Wall, shape fidelity is pretty hmmm, subjective... The expensive DC-8-62, for instance, compares quite poorly with the contemporary Revell DC-8-10 and DC-8-61. The Japanese TriStar is the best overall in terms of shape, plus the old FROG Britannia. Potential buyers abound in Eastern Europe, Russia and Japan. They were brought up on metric scales and VEB or Nitto kits and find 1/144 or 1/72 scales counter-logical. There are also VEB-fanciers strewn around Germany, willing to pay top dollar for rare finds.

A neighbouring thread has more on the subj. I have to disagree that the kit is somehow a Comet 3 or 4A that got mislabelled along the way. It is a properly proportioned Comet 4B (fuselage length fore/aft of the wing stations) which is simply very underscale. Actual scale is not the advertised 1/144 but almost precisely 1/150th (1/149.26 to be pedantically exact). Other defects include wing sweep that is noticeably (a good 2 degrees) greater than it should be, and wing chord that is well short of even the 1/150th true scale (probably 1/160th in that area). Other than that, a neatly detailed kit and much better than Airfix or even the great extinct Hawk kits in terms especially of the very complex shape of the centre section with its buried engines. There Airfix fails miserably, showing us fatter outboard engines (top) and fatter inboard engines (bottom). --- Edit: please ignore my wing sweep bleatings above -- just measured it and, while marginally greater, it is only insignificantly more than Airfix, kind of fits drawings, and is certainly not 2 degrees greatrer which would be stand-out noticeable. Other carpings stand...

Looks clinical, frigid -- and green. Suitable for a pharmaceuticals concern, a flying medical charity, or perhaps a secularist Musim national airline. (Let's hope it never becomes the latter. A-hem...)

Yeah, so was the One-Eleven. An amusing book by a BAC salesman of the period recalls the American Airlines sale. They famously had all-metal aeroplanes and BAC had to make a very special exception. The engineers, however, would not agree to the centre fuselage being left bare. So the designers came up with... adhesive foil to cover the offending primer! Just like us Interestingly, when American sold-on their One-Elevens to Allegheny, they all got painted conventionally. Later, Allegheny became USAir and most One-Elevens got stripped down again (more foil, I should imagine). Later, though USAir painted some of them grey and others in silver paint... If one looks closely, American One-Elevens do have a shinier centre fuselage, where the foil was applied: http://www.airliners.net/photo/American-Airlines/BAC-111-401AK-One-Eleven/0762917/L/

Not sure, but seem to remember that clear polystyrene tends to cloud (whiten) when vacformed (or bent/shaped otherwise). I seem to recall clear acetate being used for this purpose. Perhaps others can add to this...

Airliner VC-10 wings leading edge color, natural metal or light grey ?? Light grey (similar to Boeing Gray and Airfix Grey). The VC10 was primed this colour all over, including all parts of the 'frame exposed to erosion and anti-icing, as part of corrosion protection, and seeing as the fleet has now had 50-odd years of use, it's fair to say it has worked.

I was reserving judgement until my Comets arrived, but you're not far wrong! The kit is uniformly underscale. An utter shame, given that it is very nice in terms of skin detail (though some has begun eroding even at this early stage, and the moulds have seen some unsubtle repair work) and fidelity. The fin is unattachable to the tailcone without some sort of DIY prong(s) and the dorsal ahead of it is just a sliver that's bound to fall-off at some stage (like the next day). Decals are a joke. Some bits might be rescuable to tart-up the Airfix which memory tells me is rather austere.

my mistake! Blame it on the Christmas spirit

Happy New Year! Silver and all other natural metal finishes always look better if applied over black or near-black. The shinier and blacker the subtrate, the deeper and more relistic the natural metal over it. This basically means that applied over white it won't look anywhere near as good. Though natural metal finishes are a huuuuge topic of controversy and debate in modelling circles, you can get a good-enough finish from a simple spray can quite easily, given a good primer and base coat, a clean working environment, and the patience to apply several light sprays with good rubdowns with toothpaste between them and a soft cloth burnish over the top coat. As to Crystal Clear (or whatever the brand name is), it is basically office PVA (polyvinyl acetate) paper glue which is a milky white goo kept in tubes or dispensing bottles. Get some ordinary PVA glue and test it by applying a blob and a smear of it to some unwanted surface. If it gradually grows ranslucent and then completely clear, it's your friend!

Oh, dunno... The Vanguard is a wonderful kit all in all, considering its age. The nose needs a bit of flattening and the rest is a doddle. Nice to have it available after more than a decade! The Comet's a hoary old kit and for all its flaws the new Amodel one looks more workmanlike (got two in the post!)

Well, search me... All I know is it was on their books for a while, so it might, just, have been taken as fully painted up in full Channel drag. As far as I know, however, that particular 4C went on to fly elsewhere after its Channel days.

Dare I join the Channel Airways Comet livery sideshow... If memory serves me well (I've not bothered confirming this on spotter sites), Channel Airways _very_ briefly also used an ex-Mexicana Comet 4C alongside its ex-BEA and ex-Olympic Comet 4Bs. Mexicana Comets had lots and lots of gold trim on them. Could memory have played a trick by taking this particular example as being fully decked-up in the Channel Airways' gold livery? I mean, black-and-gold "Channel Airways" title stickers would have meshed quite well with the rest of the Mexican trim? Just wondered...

Thanks, Ray! Looks all skew-whiff length-wise... Sad! Considered making some FOF decals for a Capital Airlines Comet 4A? As it is, the Airfix Comet 4B is a smidgeon short...

Coming along nicely! A blob of glue should be fine, but if you have any heavy and otherwise useless object, do glue it in, too. Before applying the glue (with or without old blazer buttons, whatever), rough-up the interior surface to give it a "key". Otherwise, it might come dislodged and rattle around inside once the model is completed (as regularly happens to my models...) Another thing you might care to do before boxing-up the fuselage halves is to paint their interiors fairly thickly with dark grey (or black) matte paint (any old cruddy paint will do, no finesse required). This can have the subtlest of effects on the exterior by making it seem more solid and less toy-like, especially when the model is viewed against the light. It matters especially with kits made of white plastic (like the Revell A320 you mention), but I do it as a matter of course even with darker plastic. You don't have to wait for the paint to even dry before proceeding with your assembly, so it all takes 5 minutes. Just make sure paint runs don't foul the mating surfaces.

Vlamgat9, see below for salient info on the resin pinion tank conversion kit: http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234950851-comet-4-to-4b-wing-length-change-question/ Shots of the Amodel Comet 4B show a kit much superior to the 55-year-old Airfix one. Hardly surprising, really. The makeup of parts lends itself to a revamped wing with extra span and pinion tanks in the future. Why Airfix never got around to doing this is beyond me... https://cloud.mail.ru/public/fb3882ca4c2d/IMG_3677.JPG https://cloud.mail.ru/public/44bb9cb760dd/IMG_3676.JPG

Boeing 737 in Classic? Hmm-m-m... (Sign of old age on my part!) I entirely agree with Jessica: avoid fillers other than Milliput (or similar two-part epoxies). Once you get over the starchy/oily feeling, you'll learn they respond wonderfully to water and are incredibly dimensionally stable. They _do_ take their time drying, but are worth it 1000X over! Cementing sprue on the inside is an option, but I would go with Jessica's approach in preference. You might try taping up the outside with decorators' tape, or else (a finnicky technique) use non-stick plumbers' tape stuck-on with decorators' tape and backed-up with mode decorators' tape. You'll still have to tody-up the window apertures on the outside, whatever your chosen technique. The Airfix 737-200 is a good starter model, alongside the Revell A320 family models. A divisive issue in airiner modelling is whether to leave windows clear or use decals. You've chosen to do the latter, which is more than justified in 1/144 scale and with the 737-200 (altogether wrong shapes and spacing) and A320 family (only partly right) kits. As you advance, you might expore the option of clear windows, which many others do (though not with the Airfix 737!). It's 50-50, I reckon, and decals do look the part more and more, though some look awfully toy-like. --- On brush painting, I use only brushes which is why all my models look crap. Still, they look good enough to me (said he with fingers crossed behnd his back), so their function is entirely fulfilled! Massage each coat with toothpaste and water down paint as noted above (by the way, use only water-based paint for your health's sake). Sprays are great, too, weather permitting (use them outdoors).

A fantastic first kit! Show winners looked like that 30-odd years ago when airbrushes and stuff counted as exotica (me, I still use a hairy stick as the One Who Must be Obeyed -- and progeny -- cannot abide compressors, and we have a modest abode or I can jolly well go to Siberia). You've obviously got modelling on your blood, so all I can say is, go at it and _enjoy_!