Silver Fox

I don't know if the following is any use, but an article in Aviation News Sept 1990 by Michael Young gave WA672 and WF820, coded U as the T.7s operated by 608 Squadron. I can find no photos of either machine in my references.

PM me with your address if in UK and I'll drop you a couple of spare sets in the post.

If it looks as good as the last one it'll be totally fab.

I can only agree with FZ6, the Classic Airframe kit is pretty fabulous. It goes together well, better than any other of their kits IMHO, and better in places than the Hasegawa kit. The only possible issue is that the nose is too narrow, but a fillet of plasticard to bulk it out solves the problem. The problem is that the kit is no longer in production and has become hard to find. There are two conversions to fabric wings version based on the Airfix model, one from MDC and I think one from Heritage. I have built neither though a fellow club memeber has done the MDC model and it looks good. Hope this helps

I still shudder when I think of the Sanger Oxford, none of the parts were the same size before cutting. I am glad it is in a land fill somewhere.

Looking godd mate, nice and grungy.

Looking good can't wait for mine to arrive. I also had a real problem with mixing the LAG on my single seater.

Built one about four years ago, generally a very good conversion ( I'm talking about fit not accuracy, which I don't feel equippped to comment on). I used the GR7 boxing of the Hasegawa kit which made some of the parts redundant, if you go from a US version you will use more of the detail bits. The canopy was a trifle thin and I was glad there were two. Go for it I say.

I found the best way for me to achieve a good outer to inner wing fit was to leave out the wing bulkhead on the outer panel and not to use the short spars. This gave a little give when assembling whih really helped. Looking good so far, the Ventura decals are really well produced and I like the roundel colour which possibly capture the fading prevelant in the SW Pacific.

I don't know about the sprues but with my experience of building the C, Eduards idea of a 'weekend' and mine are very different.

Oh yes pleeeeeeeeeeeease

White ferns from 1958, changed to silver in 1961. The red kiwi was instigated in 1970 but no NZ Canberras wore it. These is a realy good photo on one of the A4 websites of the Canberras and the replacement Skyhawks all lined up in early 1971 showing this. Try Ventura decals as they have recently brought out a set of Fern leaf markings.

Fabulous build of a neat kit, you don't see many about and those you do are never A-24s. Nice work

The one piece wing anf fuselage looks fabulous, I wonder what the price will be though?

Absolutely agree, come on John you know you want to...

The Hobbycraft Vampires as people have alreadt#y said are a POS. The Classic Vampire is buildable with care and with the Aeroclub bits is very nice, but the best of the lot is the Aeroclub vac-formm it has bits for a single seater, trainer and nightfighter so if you don't mind the dark art of vac'ing then thats the one to look for.

In his biography Nine Lives , the author makes a strong case for N3183, the aircraft he had his air to air collision in, having the Kiwi emblem on both sides of the fuslage, where as N3180 as portrayed in the Airfix 1/24th kit only had the badge on the port side. The PCM Battle of Britain sheet has markings for N3180.

I built this kit about ten years ago as a 616 Squadron machine after being given a photo of one outside Hanger 4 at RAF Doncaster. The model is now at the South Yorkshire Air Museum, which is actually in Hanger 4 of the old RAF Doncaster. I used photos of I took of the Shuttleworth machine, sadly I can't post them as they are prints. I found Aeroclubs plans to be a great help. Hope this is of some help.

Fabulous, after kit-butchering a Fujimi nose to the Hasegawa rear, then doing the Red Roo conversion/Monogram solution then doing the CA kit they bring it out! Still I likes Skyhawks I do.

They certainly did, I have one built. I was a painless build and provided white metal aerials etc which was nice after all the scratch building I had to do on my Falcon Vac-form. I think it was not that much more expensive than the Classic kit when it first came out but I don't know if they still do it. I passed on the Classic kit as I aleready had the two others in my collection.

Nick, I'm going by Michael Bowyer, he quotes DH hated the RDM2/a finish that took 15mph off the top speed of the Mosquito and replace it with Night i.e. Matt Black in mid summer 1942. 486 cetainly used Night on the underside of their Nightfigther Typhoons. Hopefully someone wiser than me will be able to give chapter and verse Andy

You may well be right but I thought that the RDM2 had an adverse affect on performance and was did not adhere well to the pre prepared surfaces. It also din't stop searchlights reflecting of it . Therefore it was decided to revert back to Night this time Smooth Night before the nightfighters went into grey/green. Happy to learn more. Apparently Harvey Sweetman was consulted over the paintings, but of course many years had passed.....

The aircraft in the the picture is a Mk IIb of 486(NZ) Sqaudron dated around June 1942 when 486 were practising interceptions in conjuction with a Turbinlite Flight. There are two colour paintings in the RNZAF Museum of Z3029 SA R which Harvey Sweetman used to shoot down a Do 217 of 5/KG40 on the night of 23/24 July 1942. He shot this machine down using MK 1 eyeball not in conjunction with a Turbinelite. These show the codes and serials in Dull Red and the Spinner Black. Around this time the RDM2 was changed to Smooth Night. Hope this is of some use.

[ Is there any hope ?? will the urge to build return ? will the day come when my patience returns or is that it. Have i finally ( after 49 years) grown up. Sadly for both of us the answers are: No. Yes. No No. I'm 54 and you sound just like me.