Giorgio N

Hobbyboss, much better in terms of detailing and not too bad accuracy wise

Have to agree ! Lead foil is brilliant for a lot of uses and IMHO is the best material for belts and similar things.

My VII has narrow bulges too, but it's clearly unrelated to the VIII kit, as it has different wings with extended tips and moulded on radiators while the VIII has standard tips and separate radiators. Must say the VII is the only one I actually completed... Not sure what was in the various IX/VIII boxes: the fuselage for my VIII has part of the aerovee filter moulded on, might be that other versions did not have this. Must check the rudder: the VIII has the pointed rudder moulded with the fuselage, but might also have the rounded rudder included on the sprue, will check later.

The Starfighter is like a beautiful woman: looks good in any outfit and also with no outfit at all ! So I like the good old natural metal finish, as shown in the USAF A and early C aircrafts, but I also like the light grey and white scheme used on the spanish and early danish aircrafts. Of the camouflaged aircrafts, I particularly like the Marinefligeer scheme The one I like most ? Probably the early italian white over natural metal scheme, as shown in this picture: http://www.916-starfighter.de/Large/Stars/wA4-5.htm Unfortunately this scheme was carried by very few aircrafts and only this one carried unit codes.

Hi Graham, I remember we had discussed this a couple of years ago or so, and I had compared a few fuselages based on the Monforton measurements, with the airfix being maybe half a mm too long and the others several mm short. However I've been told that the CMR kit is shorter and is claimed to be based on original measurements too... as I don't have a CMR kit can't comment on this, but would be interested to know more. Speaking of Ventura's spitfire IX, apart from the usual difficulties of building a Ventura kit, my main gripe is that the wing has the broad gun breech covers (typical of early IX/VIII) with an insert for the later (and more common) narrow bulges. What's worse is that the VIII kit is moulded with the pointed rudder, so any VIII needs some surgery, be it replacing the gun bulges (for a late VIII) or replacing the rudder (for an early one). What I've not mentioned before is that Ventura also did a VII. This is not as good as the IX and its canopy is not really correct for a VII.

Looks very good ! You're doing a good and fast job on that beast. Looking forward to see it painted

He was: Zizka was a bohemian general and is best known as leader of the Hussite army in the early XV century. My understanding is that he's a very important figure for the Czech people.

It is a filler monstruosity, but I have to say there are a lot of parts in the Italeri kit that look bad. The radiators for a start, that have weird sloping walls. Or the propeller, that is IMHO so bad that on mine I replaced it with a KP one. Not to mention that the nose is quite short, there's no wing-fuselage fairing and the fuselage sides around the cockpit and forward are straight instead of having an oval section. On the plus side the interior is nice and so are the gear legs. It also has some very nice decals. Of course it can be made into a nice model. Mine ended up being converted in a Seafire III because of the radiator and short cowling issue though.

If I can add my 2 pence worth, here's what I think of the various 1/72 kits: Mk.I/II: the new airfix kit could have been the best, but it has no proper tridimensional representatio of the wing-fuselage fairing, with just a scribed panel line instead of the shape of the real thing. It's something quite noticeable to my eyes so this absence is to me a bad omission. Apart from this, it is more accurate than the tamiya kit and has good details, although a bit chunky. The old airfix was good too in shape, apart from the cowling that is probably too narrow. It also had no details. I've not built the AZ spitfires, so can't comment on them. Mk.V: the sword kit is the best overall and is probably the best spitfire in this scale. It's a Vc only though, so if you want a Vb you need something else. The old airfix Vb was quite good apart from a couple of errors (like the aileron chord) but again it's very little detailed. The tamiya kit is well known for its shape problems (while being a great kit) and the italeri is IMHO rubbish. I don't like the revell kit either shapewise, short behind the canopy and with a bad loking cowling Mk.VI: choose a Vb and add the parts specific for this version Mk.IX: the new sword might be the best, but I've yet to see it (must buy it soon). Of the others, there has been a lot of discussion on the length of the hasegawa, ventura and airfix spitfire IXs, so I'm not yet sure myself which is correct in length. The airfix kit has an excessive wing chord but mainly it has very little details and some crude parts. The ventura is the most accurate according to some measurements (that rate airfix's IX as too long), the airfix is according to other measurements.... now if I say the airfix kit is little detailed I should say worse about the ventura kit, but the little that is included in this is correct, something that can't be said of the airfix kit. Mk. VII: convert a suitable IX Mk.VIII: same as above, although the hasegawa kit can be easily built into an VIII. AZ has announced a Mk.VIII for this year. Mk.XII: Xtrakit, no other choice Mk. XIV: the AZ is probably the best. The fujimi kit is not bad either.... still I believe that the best fuselage is the one aeroclub made in vacform many years ago. The problems of the academy kit are well known and the frog offering is better left on the shelves. Mk.XVI: I believe Sword, but have yet to see it. The heller kit is not bad but needs something to be done to those huge radiators ! Mk.XVIII: again, AZ and again the aeroclub fuselage with the hasegawa wings and a resin propeller might be the best PR. XIX: fujimi. The airfix kit is really too short. Again, the aeroclub fuselage is probably the best Mk. 21: guess AZ again Mk.22/24: Admiral IMHO over the MPM/Xtrakit offer. The ventura/Jay kit might be good too.. but if we call AZ/admiral/sword kits "short run kits", how should Ventura's be called ??? The forthcoming airfix kit looked very good in the pictures, might be worth waiting for that. For the seafires: Mk.Ib: Admiral, or convert a Vb Mk.IIc: sword. HiPlanes did a short run kit that looked good to me, but the sword kit is easier to find and to build. Alternatively convert a Vc... but as the best Vc is sword's anyway there's no point. Mk.III: Hi-planes probably, unless sword has made this version and I missed it.... Mk.XV and XVII: ventura in plastic, otherwise CMR in resin 45: Admiral 46: CMR 47: ventura in plastic, CMR in resin. I might have forgotten something, and have not mentioned the PR versions, but this pretty much sums my "feelings" on 1/72 spits

Again, this is moving slowly. One of the reasons is that I'm trying to finish the Mustang I' building for the STGB and that is giving me plenty of troubles.... Fortunately the hasegawa Cat is a much better kit than the Italeri P-51 although some parts are not perfect. For example the pilot instrument panel is not 100% the right shape, being narrower than the side consoles while in reality it overlaps them... anyway, I'm not going to correct this on this build. Some of the PE parts in the cockpit are also larger than where they should go. The Aires cockpit set will solve this on my next tomcat, but for this one I just trimmed the two panels behind the WSO seat. Work done during the weekend involved painting the grey on the cockpit area using lifecolor FS 36231, lightened with some 36440. Tonight I hope to paint some details. I also started attacking the exhausts: Iin the picture above you can see that the inside of the exhaust cans were painted white and then some dark streaks were drybrushed on. These streaks follow the position of the afterburner nozzles... and two will go over the junctions between the two halves, hopefully hiding this. A washwith black and raw umber il paint will follow after the halves are joines. The rear part of the turbine was painted with humbrol polished steel metalcote. I love this paint for exhaust areas because if not polished it stays dark, almost opaque, but a bit of polishing reveals a nice dark metallic tone. I'm not sure this can be seen in the picture, but seen from real it looks great. A black was helped give a sense of depth. The compressor faces were painted with olished aluminium metalcote and then received a black wash. As I was moving books to a new shelf, I also took the chance to take a picture of some of the books I have on the Tomcat. They are not that many, but still quite a few... Some distraction was caused this morning by the postman that brought two hasegawa tomcats, a decal sheet, a verlinden detail set and an Aires exhausts set, all 1/48 scale. I'm tempted to start one of these too, but I have to keep focused on this one first....

As usual, progress only comes over the weekend.... after having sorted the areas requiring filling, it was finally time to start painting ! I deced to spray over the yellow areas first. This because I don't want to mask over the metal painted surfaces. Then I masked the areas supposed to stay yellow (front and rear fuselage and wingtips) and decided to lay some black paint as a base for the following humbrol metal-cote paints. The red streak is just an effect of using a flash to take the picture. Unfortunately I noticed that the lower surfaces were not smooth yet, with a couple of quite deep scars caused by the sanding... so I had to sand again, and now the model is waiting to have the lower surfaces repainted in black... I hate these things !!! One thing that can be noticed is that I glued the spinner without the propeller. I decided to cut the prop blades individually because I was sure that the spinner would have required sanding, something impossible to do with the blades in place. It is something I do on all my models of prop-driven aircrafts, and I was right in doing it here: the spinner needed a lot of sanding to look good !

And the wheel well, that need to be built completely as there's nothing prvided in the kit. The propeller is also less than ideal and so are the gun barrels. All can be fixed or replaced in resin, but at that point the Sword kit becomes comparable in price. Problem is that the Sword kit only represents a late IXe, although I'd expect other versions to follow.

Great stuff Andy, and very interesting tutorial. Must say I'm learning new bits from every post here.

God job Freezer, you are a fast Tomcat builder !

Good to see you're progressing ! Looks good, and I like the way you glued the beaver tails to the fuselage before joining upper and lower parts.

Some very interesting stuff: Spit VIII, CR.32 and Orao from AZ Models and early recce Lightning from RS, all things I'll likely buy !

Unlikely: the Mirage IIIc is a new mould for Italeri but is really an Esci kit, and this has no "new mould" label. So there's real hope it's a totally new mould. If it's a repop or a revision of an existing mould, it's more likely it will be of the esci kit rather than the airfix one.

Ale, I've yet to test the resin copy of the Revell D gun, sorry ! Do you still need it ?

Small bit of advice to mask the wheels: go to your nearest DIY shop and buy a leather punching wheel, that is this thingy: http://paulssupplies.com/index.php?main_pa...products_id=231 This is a great tool to punch accurately a number of materials and I use it often to cut circles from masking tape. These circles can then be used to mask wheels and any other round shaped area. With the legs of the tomcat being white, I'd paint everything white, then select the right size on the wheel, cut a round bit of tape and use this to mask the rim. After this is masked, the tyre can be painted in black or very dark grey

Nice job ! I see that you sorted the fit issues of this kit very well. Good choice of paint too: Lifecolor's FS 36440 is a very good paint IMHO, I've used this a few times before and will use it again for the Tomcat in this GB.

Interesting stats ! Good to see most squadrons are being built, I can see a lot of colourful models coming !

Are you interested in the building instructions or in the markings ? If in the markings only, I can scan the sheet for the Esci 1/48 kit, might help somewhat

There seems to be only a very few on the web. Googling "tf-104g 20 gruppo" (20 gruppo was the unit that had all the 2-seaters) only showed a couple of pics. I have several on old magazines though, is there anything you're particularly interested about ? I can see if I can find something on these magazines.

There's a picture of 5R-Y (serial not known) taken in 1949 in SAM's RAF Fighters 1945-1950 Overseas Based. This is in overall aluminium paint

The grill thingy is the airbrakes well and the structure and interiors are red, as are the inner faces of the airbrakes themselves. The airbrakes operating pistons are white wth steel rods. The tailpiece to use for your Tomcat is the one without the ECM bump, part K2. When this part is used, do not add the ECM bumps under the fixed part of the wing