dnl42

Bravo! Very nicely built, tremendous masking and painting effort!

Wow, this is excellent work! I completely agree with the @Martian Hale, those ratlines look quite good! I'm glad you're going to turn those flags around!

The tank is done! The kit provides butt-joined plastic struts. I made up metal struts from Albion 1.0 mm tubing and 0.5 mm rod. The tubing formed the main struts while the rod formed pins let into holes I drilled into the tank and fuselage and the sway braces. I was able to drill holes into the side of the forward tubing for the sway braces. I'll be better able to attach this during final assembly. Contemporaneous photos show the nose is glossy while the rest is matt/satin. Next task is to attach and fair the landing gear struts to the fuselage.

Bravo! That's quite fine work.

Bravo! This is one of my favorite load outs! Another is the kitchen sink. The midwaysailor site has a lot of photos of this event, including one clearly showing the starboard wing load, which is a little different than what is readily visible in the famous reference photo you've shown. @Tailspin Turtle also has an article on the load out.

I've built a new cowl scoop, well, three new cowl scoops. From left to right are the Gavia scoop along with the three scoops I built. The first one I built was a solid stack of Evergreen strip stock in the approximate profile of the scoop. I then shaped the outside and routed the cavity using a router bit in a Dremel tool. I wasn't really happy with the routing exercise, so I built another scoop using 0.01 in sheet for the top and bottom of the cavity with a "U" shape to form the cavity sides and back. I shaped the outside as before and use a round chisel to shape the cavity sides. While I was happy with this new method, I lost my head and made it the same size as the Gavia part, which is actually under-size per the Wylam drawings. The final version was built the same way, but sized per the drawing. And here's that right-most scoop mounted on the cowling. And the cowling and engine On to the external fuel tank mounts!

Thanks @Gary Brantley! The model is Monogram's 1/48 AT-6 in the "Miller SNJ" boxing. I've got various other AT-6 boxings in the stash. The cockpit was quite nice, I replaced the seats, made harnesses from flattened solder, and used a vac canopy. Those are smoked beef ribs and Alton Brown's Better Than Granny's Creamed Corn.

Hey! Model aircraft and barbecue. What could be better!

All-around fabulous work!

Nice work! As @Corsairfoxfouruncle demonstrated, reference books and Google are both your friends. The slats on the Storch were apparently fixed, so match the photos best as you can. The flaps are your choice. As for the Lysander, the slats were retractable. They automatically deployed as speed decreased (per the Pilot's Notes, they started deploying below about 85 MPH). Also, the flaps were linked to the inner slats. So, on that aircraft, slats and flaps would always be extended after landing.

I stumbled upon this photo of a Vichy D.520 in 1941 Greece. HTH -- dnl

Nice work! And quite the good looking aircraft, just like it's older sister, the XB-70!

Bravo

Here are the 15in 60-spoke wheels you are looking for. The DB4 had the 2-eared knock-offs. Edit: Oh, never mind. You wrote tyres, I read wheels.

@Hewy and @Robert Stuart, thanks! I'm quite happy with the color. I had used Alclad Exhaust Manifold for a model of the PZL P.11c, which mounted the same engine, but it seemed quite dark. Judging by various photos, particularly a contemporaneous photo of my specific subject, I think I got the right shade. I finished the spats. The first thing I noticed when looking at photos, and especially the Wylam plans, was the Gavia/Eduard kit positioned the wheel in the in-flight position, not with the strut compressed. Here are the relevant details from the Wylam plan. Elsewhere, the plan indicates the strut compression is 5 in. Both the Gavia plastic wheels and Eduard resin wheels use the same mounting method, a stub axle attached to the wheel fitting into a hole in the outer spat half. A 0.0325in stud was epoxied in place above the kit position. A vee slot in the top of the wheel allows the wheel to be painted off-model and attached during final assembly. The original position is on the left while the modified position is on the right. I used Gavia's plastic wheel to test the mounting. The fit of the spats halves was very crude. Careful filing got them more or less aligned. The landing light reflectors were the next problem. Eduard oddly suggested the light reflectors were to be installed from the outside. Odd, because that is entirely inconsistent with the part shapes. I ended up chiseling the spat interior to get a reasonable placement from the inside. I also used Evergreen 0.035in plastic rod to fill in the muzzle hole from the spat-mounted MG, Quite a lot of filling and filing finished the spats off. I'm happy with the revised wheel position.. Edit: those dimples at the top of the spats are for the struts. Good thing I didn't fill them in...