Giorgio N

Honestly while I do find the CMR kits impressive, for that money I'd probably just buy a 1/48 one and have plenty of spare cash ! Sure I'd have to work hard to achieve the same level of detail that CMR provides, but with the extra cash I might buy some more revell hunters.. I agree that the airfix 1/72 kit is not too bad for the cost and that some great models have been built out of it, but I'm not really happy with some of the details. Some of the bits of the matchbox kit look to me actually better, like the main landing gear and the IFR probe.. The nose and tail too look better in the matchbox kit, although I'm not sure they are totally right. Giorgio

Never seen one, the only 1/48 one I can remember is the Monogram one, also reboxed by Revell. The only Hind-A versions I know were made by Hasegawa and Airfix in 1/72, the latter also boxed by heller (and I think best avoided anyway...). Scratchbuilding seems to be the only option. In fairness it might not be too difficult a task, considering that most surfaces would be pretty flat. Still it doesn't look like a quick easy job to me... Giorgio

After browsing through a few pictures in some old magazines, I'd say that starting from an olive drab would be the best choice. The colour is browner and darker than the Tamiya XF-61, maybe adding some dark brown to it would do. Otherwise a brown olive drab shade might do. Alternatively you might try some of the paints sold as RLM 81, that too is quite a dark and brownish olive. One thing I noticed in the pictures is that this paint seem to weather to an even browner shade. Giorgio

Hi Tony, it was indeed your article ! And well done for it, I really enjoied it. Made me finally decide to start building that Fujimi kit I had in the stash for some time. I was looking at pictures of the same Seafire on the Warpaint and noticed the black/green combination. This didn't really surprise me actually, as IIRC Typhoons and Tempests were like that too. As the black is mainly an anti-glare measure it makes sense to leave the areas far from instruments and controls in green. Non we have seafires painted in one way and spitfires that seem to be mostly painted in another way. Edgar, your comment about flying at night is very interesting, and together with the previous comment about the late 21s make me think that the FAA was stricter about their seafires having black cockpits than the RAF was about their spits.. Giorgio

Thanks Dave ! Interesting that you name the Seafire, just yesterday I was checking the instructions for the Ventura Seafire XV (the later model) and they state black cockpits for that. Giorgio

Malcolm, better not use the IPA with the games workshop stuff, they prefer simple water. The reaction with the alcohol is what often causes the blob. I only recently started spraying them and had decent results using tap water, but only disasters using alcohol. Some companies like Lifecolor have their own thinner for "water thinning" acrylics, this helps if you can't make it work with water only. But then, if you have good results with humbrols, let it be humbrol.. BTW, I have the same feeling about stripes like those, painting is often less painful than working with the decals.. Giorgio

That's strange, I thinned Tamiya acrylics with IPA many times and never had any problem. Then when my stock ran out I just used common household alcohol and again, no problem. Not only that, I've always rated tamiya flat white as the best white out there. You could try to thin it with some alcohol and then add a few drops of Klear/future, I do that now all the times and helps me in having a nice smooth finish. Tried IPA with Gunzes, but what I found was that the paint never dried so I stopped. Revells, humbrols, Lifecolor and similar acrylics are to be thinned with water, adding alcohol there just produces a kind of rubbery blob. Havent' tried the India Pale Ale with Tamiyas yet, but i think I'll keep that for thinning my dinner.. Ah, I miss ales here !!! Giorgio

Malcolm, good to hear you seem to be sorted with the canopy. Isopropyl alcohol seems to be a good thing to have in the workshop, I used this often to thin Tamiya acrylics and now I know a new use for it ! On the Spit 16 there's a low back in Hendon, here are a couple of unfortunately bad quality pictures I took last year: They also have a 24, unfortunately all the pictures I took seem pretty bad... Jon, very good explanation of the technique ! It's one of those posts that should be kept for reference !! Giorgio

I can only agree with Jon, the Falcon canopies are really great quality stuff ! And they can be cut from the backing plastic very easily even for someone who has no experience in vacforms. I have a few in 1/72 and have been surprised when I first used them by the difference they make on a small cokpit like that of a spit in that scale. BTW, the squadron canopies are made for them by the same Falcon, so they're very good too. The catalogue shows that they do have a vac replacement for the Airfix Spitfire 22/24. On the matter of having the same canopy as the XVI, while there have been XVI with the high back fuselage, there have been also many XVI with low backs. Giorgio

The 1/144 kits sound very interesting, seems that the small scale fans will have fun with those ! I like the addition of the Italian ASW in the UH-1N boxing, these are very interesting machines ! I've seen the Hobbyboss listed on the IPMS germany website, hope they'll do a good job here. Other helicopters were kind of copies of italeri (H-34) and fujimi (V-107) kits... I hope they'll introduce all the correct differences between the versions. And if then they make an AH.7 then I'll be very happy !!! Giorgio

Wasn't stated somewhere (IIRC the warpaint) that the extended intake actually decreased the max. speed by almost 10 mph ? Giorgio

Thanks a lot Edgar, this seems to clear the matter on the cockpits. Green it is then ! Giorgio

Should be from what I know... although now this brings another doubt: as the planes were repainted ar unit or MU level, would they retain the original colour in the area or was this repainted as well ? Doesn't look too difficult to disassemble the sliding canopy from the rest of the plane so maybe they were repainted with the canopy off. Should they have been repainted with the canopy on then that part would be dark green / ocean grey... Giorgio

Don't have my own pictures but a few can be found on the web. From Hyperscale here's a picture of the later An/ALQ-119: http://www.clubhyper.com/reference/f111indetailjr_9.htm It's the green one, actually a QRC-80 but identical to the later -119. I think that all the ones you can find in plastic kits are of this version. The "bump" on the bottom you can see at the end is the Compass Sail modification mentioned by Dave. Oh, and in the picture the pod is seen from the rear... Another good picture can be found here: http://www.checksix.de/assets/images/RK05G...mmingPod_xl.jpg By contrast here there is a picture of a -101 under a Jaguar: http://sepecat.info/images/61-briggs/ By comparing the latest picture with the ones of the 119 you can see that you can make a 101 out of a 119 simply by trimming the compass sail addition. Guess the search on Hannants gave as a result the Airwaves one. If it's intended for a Jaguar I wonder if it's already a 101 shape... Hope this helps ! Giorgio P.S. edited as I realised I said twice the same thing...

I read the article on Model Aircraft Monthly about the FR.18s in Palestine, that found very interesting. I knew the facts before but the picture of the destroyed planes were totally new to me. Then read with equal interest the modelling section of the article and here I started to think about a couple of things... first of all is the colour of the cockpit:the modeller states he used black as per late mark spitfires. Yet the pictures seem to show that at least the rear armour and bulkhead are too light to be black. They rather seem interior grey green to me. Were the cockpits on the FR.18 black or green ? Would it be possible to have black cockpits with rear bulkheads in green ot would these have to be in black too ? I'm planning to build one of the dark earth/light slate grey planes in 1/72 starting from the same fujimi box of the article and I'm trying to nail all the details... I found the very interesting thread about the 19 tail on this forum, I hope I nailed the wing (e wing with no .303) and found on MAM the pictures of the camera fit... now I hope I just need to find about the cockpits... Thanks in advance ! Giorgio

There are a couple of techniques that can be used in general to build the vortex generators. If the ones you need are big enough to be handled, you can do more or less what is done in real planes, that is make them out of metal plates bent to have an L section. Best way is to find some thin metal sheet.. depending on the scale it can be an old can of beer (that is a great way to justify another drink..) or you might want something thinner. In that case it's possibile to find brass and copper sheets of several thicknesses in art shops. Once you have your metal sheet it's a matter of cutting the vortex generators including the part that goes on the fuselage or wing, bend them and you'll have a good reproduction of the real thing. You can then glue the short arm of the L on the part with superglue. If the generators are small that the thickness of the arm attached to the model would be excessive, then you need to use either plasticard or again thin metal and cut them to the length of the protruding arm only. You can then butt-join them on the model. It can be useful to etch a small groove where the generators will go, althoug you might have to use filler after attaching the parts if the groove is too long. Watching at the pictures it seems to me that the vortex generators on the B-1 are big enough to be built using the first technique, while if I had to add them to a 1/72 harrier I'd use the second. Can't help with the sleeve unfortunately, when I built my B-1B I was still young and happy enough to put together whatever came in the box without worrying about improvements.. Giorgio

You're right Dave, I had forgotten the modification. On the RAF ones, I've seen them often designated as -101-(V)-10, and considering that the 119 evolved from the 101 I wouldn't be surprised to find that it's a 101 shell with some of the 119 features... Giorgio

The Heller Mirage IV is definitely worth buying if you like the type ! As others have said it features delicate raised panel lines and is not a tamigawa shake and bake kit at all. The one I built needed a lot of work in aligning everything correctly and still filler was required in a few areas, especially to blend the rear fuselage part to the rest. I believe the moulds are pretty worn and this creates most of the fit problems. If you're using aftermarket decals anyway try to track an older boxing ! Of course the fit problems mean that a lot of panel lines will be erased, so rescribing is better anyway. Detail is not too bad, although the resin cockpit makes a huge difference. Mind that with the cokpit closed there's not much that can be seen apart from the seat in the front cockpit.. and pretty much nothing at all in the rear cockpit. The landing gears are ok and the wells decent enough but there's plenty that can be added while I liked the engine exhausts cans. The kit can be built as either a IV-P armed with the ASMP missile or as an older IV armed with the semi-recessed AN-22 bomb. The ASMP missile has recessed panel lines, that are unfortunately very heavy. The latest boxings I've seen came with decals for a natural metal IV, a camouflaged IV and a camouflaged IV-P, the latter with smaller roundels. The decals in my box were excellent, unfortunately it's hard to tell if this was constantly the case or not... but as you've seen there a few aftermarket choices around. All in all a decent kit of a very good looking plane ! And it's not small but not too big either, kind of like an F-111. Giorgio

I think that externally the AN/ALQ-119 is quite similar to the older 101. Now I've seen versions that are more and versions that are less similar. The 119 that can be more commonly found in kit boxes has a deeper front end but it's nothing that careful trimming can't sort. Said that, there are both a long and a short version of the AN/ALQ-119... Giorgio

A very interesting discussion ! I just wonder if wrapping the camouflage pattern over the LE has anything to do with the role ? While Hunters in the '50s don't show this, pictures of the Swift FR.5 show it. Although Venoms don't... Giorgio

Only built a Novo boxing of the Frog kit and have to say that it didn't go together very well although in fairness the moulds must have been pretty worn, as the quantity of flash to remove was terrible. Kits sold under the Frog label might have been better. I agree with comment that the kit's details are quite bad.. and the traling edges were something like 3 foot in scale.. Funnily enough the decals were very useable ! And I think the afterburners are better sizewise than the airfix ones. Guess the conclusion is that I add my name to the list of modelers interested in a new tool Javelin !!!!!!!! Giorgio

If memory doesn't fail me the T.3 has a longer front fuselage to compensate the lack of the radar weight, a different canopy and no afterburners. I also think it has no missiles. It was the version of the original Heller kit. The FAW.9 has a standard length nose and has afterburners and missile pylons. Airfix kitted this version. I remember an older Hawk or Testors kit of the FAW.4, or was it the FAW.1 ? Don't think it would be interesting though, it was a very old kit. Giorgio

If the kits from the 3 companies will all be good, then no problem: as I need at least an F.1, an F.2A, an F.3 and 2 F.6 then I will buy a few of each !!! Giorgio

Wasnt' sure if the new weapons thread was the right place, anyway some interesting info about US guided weapons can be found in this website: http://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/index.html It is a generic missiles list, so not all of them are air launched. The website also deals with other aero related materials, including bombs and so on, as seen here: http://www.designation-systems.net/usmilav/index.html Hope this helps ! Giorgio