Uncle Pete

Nice job and, as others have pointed out, a bit on the bulky side. I realise 1/72 makes modern airliners and heavy bombers a bit on the big side but to me 1/144 never conveys the feel of "beef', no matter how well it's built. I'd get a 1/72 BUFF if the wife had a better sense of humour.

144? A WW1 bipe in 144? You should be in a home!

Cheers, mate, but I'm not convinced that's such a good idea... More pics, more flaws! It's not false modesty, just knowing my limitations but I feel funny putting pics up on here anyway when I see the stuff that all you hot doggers put out but I figure, this is the only place I can show my kits without people thinking I'm slightly, if not completely, deranged.

I've had a look on the internet for jigs that hold planes steady during building and painting. Do any of you experienced guys use them? Are they worth getting or do they "catch more fishermen than fish"? So far I've been muddling through with blu-tak, knees, teeth and bits of bent wire.

Mine was a plastic ready-to-fly job. I built a few C/Ls and they all shared the same grim fate, never held up like the RTFs.

Nice one, really clean. G-George is my favourite kite and the first one I built on returning to the hobby last year. (My George doesn't look as nice as yours though!)

How about Dan Radcliffe? A bit too skinny, maybe, but the right height and age.

Nice one. I've always liked the shape of the Cobras. Had an .049 control line semi-scale Airacobra when I was a kid. Sturdy little blighter, as I remember... Took a lot of "unscheduled landings" and kept coming back for more.

Having just beaten a confession out of a Tomcat, it's time to give it an airing. Dodgy kit, I must say. I believe I can even lay half the blame for the dodgy build on the kit. The other half, however, belongs squarely in my backyard. Upon opening the box and seeing the size of the fuze halves I had to have a look at the box top to see if I'd picked up a 1/48 by mistake. It's big, innit! Fit was dicey all over the place and the usual Academy decal headaches prevailed but I went with the OOB sheet anyway.. The kit was never going to be built well enough for aftermarket decoration. You'll notice the paint job is a bit (ahem) "non-standard" but I allowed myself a bit of artistic licence (that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it) for the squadron on the USS Uncle Pete. There were four things that looked like little pitots but were the size of a caterpillar's kneecap that never got installed... There was no way I was going to get them on cleanly at my skill level (or should that be "lack of skill level"?) The kit came with glove vanes that deploy automatically when the wings are swept back which I'd first considered gluing in place for simplicity since I gather they were eventually found to be unnecessary and discarded. I decided, though, since Academy had gone to the trouble of designing them to work it would be unsporting of me not to give it a whack. I'm happy to report they work as intended despite my "gluing" one in place when applying floor wax. A bit of gentle persuasion with the old Xacto cleared the problem and the wax scraped off without any damage. How long they'll hold up is another matter. I don't think they'll take many sweep-unsweep cycles before giving up the ghost. There was no provision for showing it with the glasshouse up so i did a bit of surgery and, somehow, after cutting the crewmen's names for the bottom frame off the decal sheet, managed to lose them so it's being flown anonymously). Can't say I like the low-viz stars and bars, though. All in all, I'm not displeased with the outcome. A bit squint here and there, some dodgy paintwork in places but I'll take it. Not good enough to warrant building a display case for it but certainly okay to put on my "Air Force Shelf" in the workshop. Now for the obligatory, "Come on, then, if ya fink yer 'ard enuff!" picture... Thanks for looking.

I'm not too bothered about that, the paint job is way off too! On the USS Uncle Pete there's a certain amount of "jazz" involved when it comes to accuracy! As it is, it's looking more or less like a Tomcat. If I may quote a pilot I saw on a documentary about a carrier, "It's big, it's bad, it's honkin'!"

Probably but I ended up being brave (probably too brave!) and opting for the tricky route. Had I glued them closed I'd have had to cut a bit off the inside edge where the wing mechanism kicks them open. They're in and on the studs and have survived handling while I painted and applied decals. I said to the missus, "I'm going into the workshop with a sheet of Academy decals and I'm not coming out till one of us is dead." I found the decals a bit easier to handle by using very hot water (about the temp of a nice cuppa that's been standing for a couple of minutes), a long soak and floating them in on a glob of floor wax. They can be a bit squirrely for a minute till I mop up the excess but I find I get a bit more adjustment time out of the deal. They're just recovering from the first hit of Micro Sol (Sol? Set? The red one) and seem to be settling in nicely. Thanks for the input and sorry I didn't get back sooner... Didn't realise I'd got any responses.

@bar side @adey m

Wrightstown doesn't ring any bells. Played a lot of juke joints but it was 35 years ago and I was drunk. Played Camden and a couple of places along the shore in Joisey that I remember. Even did Asbury Park... Not the Pony, though, we were a sideshow at a custom car exhibition.

I lived in the US from 1975 till 2009. For a while I was on a travelling R&B band out of RI shclepping up and down from DC to Maine. I used to know every rest stop on the pike.

I'd dearly love to install retracts but of course the thickness of the plastic prohibits it. I don't have the skills but I can see how it wouldn't be too hard for a hot-shot (or perhaps a Swiss watchmaker) to install micro R/C kit and have features working all on their own. (Having said that, you can find a lunatic on youtube who has built a 1/96 P51, eight channels including retracts, landing lights and gun flash/noise and it flies!)