Giorgio N

Using the XIX fuselage would not work as this is longer than the XII and the canopy are is quite different because of pressurisation. From the kits listed above my plan would be using the nose from the spare Mk.22 fuselage in the AZ Mk,21 kit (at least mine came with two fuselages) on either the Eduard or AZ Mk.IX. Must be a IXc and an early one, that is with the short intake. The AZ kit is not as accurate as the Eduard one but allows the modeller to build an early Mk.IXc easier. I would probably use this one. So chop the spare griffon engined fuselage to the length of the single stage Griffon cowl (the Mk.22 cowling is longer), chop the Mk.ix engine cowling and replace with the Griffon one. Fill the area on the wing below the oil cooler and add one from a Mk.V or aftermarket. Then add the various parts required for your build from Eduard or AZ parts (elevators, tailwheels etc.). Of course the magneto fairing on the top of the cowling must be added. In my old KP/Fujimi Mk.XII I made this from a small bomb. Since you have a Jay Seafire XV,. you may also cut the cowling from this one, or see if you can adapt the whole Jay's fuselage to the AZ or Eduard wings. From the Jay's kit you can also take the propeller, that otherwise has to be made modifying parts from the other kits. If using the Jay's parts you'll have to rework the lower cowling area a bit as these kits have part of the longer carburetor intake moulded with the fuselage while the Mk.XII had a Mk.V style short intake

We may say in a sense that tension started even earlier, like 1918 The number of small and less small conflicts that afflicted for example Eastern Europe and other areas of the world since the end of WW1 are generally very little known in the West but several of them played a part in the events that led to WW2. Sometime I feel that WW1 and WW2 were just the first and second half of the same game..

Great pictures once again, thanks for sharing !

Now that is something really out of the ordinary ! In any case, another great model, really impressed !

Luigi, maybe I misunderstood the locaton of the navigation light... on the F-4J(UK) the only white navigation light I can see on the tail is at the very top. Then there's a red light on the fin leading edge. I see that on the FG.1 and FGR.2, but on the J ?

I have the Valom kit that is the one today sold by AZ with a few differences. Plastic parts look very nice in the box with good interior and exterior detail. Fit may not necessarily be the best side of this kit though... The original Valom kit was known for having ill fitting transparencies as they were a tad wider than the fuselage. The AZ kit corrected these parts and they now seem to fit fine. IIRC AZ removed the various photoetch parts included in the Valom kit but today I'd probably buy the AZ box even without PE rather than the original Valom. I've been often tempted to start this kit but I've never done so, maybe it's time to give it a go

So if I read correctly a single seater aircraft would be eligible as long as served in a training unit... I recently managed to buy a G.55 for cheap, that itself was not a training aircraft but was the basis for the Merlin engined G.59, for which I have an old resin conversion... all single seater G.59s in Italian service were used for advanced training only, so one of these would be eligible, right ?

Inteesting subject ! I have the same kit so will sure watch this with interest.

Very nice cockpit ! I'd say that you've already answered the question "was it worthy" ! The cockpit looks very nice and in jets the ejection seat is a detail that draws a lot of attention when the model is completed. Some other details like pedals may not be that important but a nicely detailed seat IMHO makes a lot of difference, so much that today I very often replace the seat in my models if the original part is not good enough, even if I then leave the rest of the cockpit OOB

Nice choice ! Will watch with interest. I started a similar project for a previous GB here, unfortunately never managed to finish... The Airfix kit is a nice one, but has a few features that I hate, removing some parts takes care but detail is pretty good and a nice result can be had looking forward to your build !

The vision of Connery/Hammond making one of his jokes with the cathegory name sprung immediately to my mind reading this...

Did they stop including the basic Silhouette Studio software with the Portrait 2 ? This can be used to draw any shape, although my cutter is an original Portait. I've seen the software for free download on the Silhouette Italy website, may be worth thrying it. Personally I only use the Silhouette software for simple shapes as I have more experience on other softwares to draw more complext stuff. I generally use Corel Draw to draw the shapes, then export them to DXF format. With Silhouette Studio I import the DXF file, resize if needed (unfortunately it's always needed) and save as Silhouette proprietary format. If the software you have allows to import and modify DXF or other formats, then any drawing software that can export to such formats can be used.

Pity that Model Master have been hit and miss lately, in the past their line of FS matched enamels was the best in terms of colour accuracy. What I found in the days was that the bottle was impossible to seal properly once open, so I knew that many times I had to use a bottle for one model. Since Model Master paints are not imported in Italy anymore, I have lost track of any development of the range

Avoid the Smer kit, it's a rebox of the old Heller offering, seriously inaccurate and with detail that was good in the '70s but not adequate today. It is IMHO inferior to the Airfix kit in all aspects apart from the cockpit details The Tamiya kit is not too accurate in shape but it's a Tamiya kit, nicely detailed and engineered with a very good fit. Mind, the inaccuracies of the Tamiya kit are evident to a Spitfire enthusiast but others may not notice them. The Revell kit, assuming you mean the most recent offering, is the opposite: the basic shapes are not bad but several details let this kit down. Oil cooler, propeller, canopy, gun bulges could all do with replacing. On the plus side, this kit is generally much cheaper than the Tamiya kit.

The two incarnations of the MiG-21 had very different fuselages and some other parts were changed. The original PK-19 represented something like a late PF.. I say something like because the fuselage was very inaccurate. I remember converting this kit to a more proper Mig-21 shape following an article on a local modelling magazine and this involved chopping the fuselage and removing 10 mm or so.. Canopy and tail also reflected the version they tried to represent. The later PK-41 was meant to represent an MF and was much better, not too accurate but not as wrong as the previous kit. IIRC the fuselage lacked the bulges for the wheels or they were too small. Of course nobody would use this kit as a basis for a MiG21MF model today.. even then the KP kit was a much more accurate representation of an MF but was not easily available everywhere IIRC the sprue with wings and horizontal taiplanes remained the same and these parts were not too accurate either The MF came with some interesting decals, but the Finnish markings were actually for a Bis, reason why I applied the Egyptian ones on my model. The Finnish roundels were also not very nice but the rest of the markings were useable and I remember using them a few years later when I converted a KP kit into a Bis.. those were the days when building the various variants of this famous fighter required a lot of work.