Retired Bob

I think I would be tempted to use some thin sprue gloop and once dry, carefully sand keeping the fabric effect intact.

Brown sauce, I don't touch ketchup. If I was out of brown sauce then Branston pickle is an allowable substitute.

Strangely with this bug there is no vomiting involved, it keeps everything in to make a satanic yellow liquid inside which it releases in small amounts I'm stumped as to why it's yellow, all I know is I've been floored by it. Over a week without eating anything, I'm starting to fantasise over a bacon butty or a slice of pizza.

Once the engines were shut down and the hydraulic system lost pressure the various control devices would tend to drop with gravity. Here are German Phantoms parked up for an air show, as can be seen the airbrakes have started to lower.

@rtfxwp is correct about the Skyflash details, I tried looking for a photo of a live weapon but the only ones I could find on line are inert missiles in museums. This one best shows the warhead just behind the wings, as it is inert, there is a 2 inch blue band but a live missile would have a 2 inch yellow band in the same place. The 1 inch blue band further back from the warhead is the blue warning band for the inert rocket motor, on a live missile it would be a 1 inch brown band. Any black bands or markings are where to support the missile when being serviced or being loaded. Hope this helps Bruno.

No problem Bruno, you are making vast improvements to this kit, it's just a pity they were not done by Airfix when they made the molds. The sidewinder covers were made of a yellow plastic material and were not painted, they have always been yellow, the colour only slightly faded with age and any grime they picked up.

An amazing job of this rather poor effort by Airfix. Bruno. I am looking forward to seeing how it looks with the tanks, pylons and undercarriage attached. I'm not sure what time frame you have for your model but the yellow colour for the aircraft ground equipment, including the ladders had been replaced by dark green in the late 70s. The original idea behind the yellow colour was to make it easier to see in dark conditions and was changed to what was referred to as Infra Red Reflective (IRR) green, though to still help see ground equipment at night, there could be strips of yellow tape attached to the edges of equipment. The built in aircraft steps were used a lot for the pilot. This photo from the early to mid 70s shows the ground equipment in green, the power unit on the right shows well the strips of yellow tape. My era!

Hope yours were OK, I cooked some caramelised onion sausages, mash and onion gravy last Monday. Absolutely lovely, but they gave me food poisoning. I haven't been able to keep anything in since then, just existing on fluids. On the plus side.... I'm now well below my target weight of 12 stone (75 Kgs)

Always a problem with any of the Harrier family, their lack of range and the knock on effect of trying to carry a useable weapon load very far. They did a superb job in the Falklands conflict, but the difference if Phantoms and Buccaneers had been available would have been immense.

That looks OK to me Stef, trying to move or cutting the rear idler might give you more problems so I would leave it well alone. Just for the record, when I was having trouble several years ago getting burnishing fluid, I did try giving my set of KT Fruils a good clean and sprayed them with Mr Surfacer 1500 black primer. It still rubbed off, the metal links look too shiny and bright for track wear, just in case you were thinking of that method.

Just had a better look, not just an Iron Cross, one with oak leaves and swords, I think only the diamond encrusted one was higher. The kit looks really good, nice progress so far.

Hopefully you'll be fine, never had a problem with them before. That's life, one minute you're enjoying some bangers and mash with lots veg and gravy, a couple of hours later you're making an urgent dash for the loo! (I say dash, at my age it's more like Douglas Bader doing the quickstep) Try a length of 46 pairs of links, if they sag nicely, job done. If not, there's adding or removing a paired link, but if either of those don't work, it's saw time.

The two part cross country tracks used the 9 toothed sprockets like the kit supplies, that picture shows the last type of track used, single part track with an 18 toothed sprocket, that, or the narrow transportation tracks could be used on 18 tooth sprockets.

I remember someone using a silver paint marker pen for doing this bit, easier than a hairy stick. They only seem to like sticking to flat surfaces.

I've been laid up sick for the last few days, damn food poisoning. They looked such harmless caramelised onion sausages, who knew what harm they contained. Anyway back to the important things. Fixed rear idler, that's going to make things awkward to get the track correctly fitted and sagged, Perhaps cut them off, then drill and pin them using a nail or similar, something that can take the weight of the Fruils. As for burnishing, fluid, I had trouble getting some, be careful, I got some AK burnishing fluid but it is for p/e material/brass and doesn't do a thing to white metal tracks. I eventually ended up buying some VMS from Poland, that worked fine, but do follow the instructions, you don't want to dissolve the pins.

Superb Starfighter. I have the Kinetic CF-104 boxing of this kit which has one of the options this red tailed test aircraft, but with the earlier Union Flag on the tail. I'm hoping to get to build it like that as it reminds me of the old Airfix box art.

With the Dragon kit, it requires 46 paired track links each side for a full length, the movement of the rear idler allows you to get the sag correct, had you pre-glued the rear idler before starting to fit the tracks?

Was it for a Tiger Meet? Looks very good, why not finish it off, hopefully there's a Tiger head on the turret.

Thankfully those days are long gone.

I've been using Ronseal gloss white for all my woodwork, after I put in a new door frame and skirting boards, it is acrylic so dries quickly without a strong smell. That's why I'm getting on with my Tiger builds as quickly as possible before SWMBO comes up with some Spring re-paint ideas.

I thought that's what "the pointy thing "was. I moved on from loading all types of weapons onto Buccaneers, to just the WE177 weapon system. I recall an exercise where we had to re-role a WE177A so that it was able to be loaded onto a RN Lynx helicopter. Memorable days. Bob.

To help with painting the wheels and tracks, is it possible to assemble the tracks and inside wheels without the outside wheels in place, paint those parts then add the painted outer wheels. It's how I did my 1/35th Panther and also some other tanks. I find it's easier this way. On this build the inside wheels, idlers and sprockets were dry fitted to the tank hull, the individual track links were wrapped around, and glued in place. When dry, these assemblies were slid off to be painted (I used a black primer) After detail painting the wheels and tracks in their required colours, I then glued on the pre-painted outer wheels and the whole track assembly can be fitted when required.

Here is a photo of a Sea Eagle test missile (with an inert warhead) mounted on a Buccaneer aircraft. On this aircraft there was an interface adapter fitted between the pylon and missile, this was not a launcher as such because the missile was fitted with bail lugs to engage with an explosive release unit (ERU) The Missile was dropped off the aircraft, a short delay ensured safe separation from the aircraft, small explosive cartridges brought the missile to life. These cartridges blew off the aerodynamic intake cover, started fuel flow to the engine, another provided pressure to spin up the micro-turbojet engine. The missile was totally autonomous with it's active radar system, it would sea-skim towards the target, rise up to get a radar fix then drop down to prevent the ships defences getting a fix on the incoming missile. An impressive weapon system, it really improved the capability and survivability of the Buccaneer Maritime Squadrons. The grey colour of the missile looks to be the same shade as the live missiles that I serviced, all other markings are for filming purposes only. Its been over 30 years since I worked on the missile system so I apologise for any errors in my memory. Nice photo of a 12 Sqn Tornado carrying two drill Sea Eagle missiles This featureless 'shape' of a Sea Eagle at the Cold War Museum at RAF Cosford is interesting for showing the bail lugs I mentioned, they attach the missile to the Buccaneer or Sea Harrier (the Tornado used a different attachment system called Mace) Fitted to each side are rocket boost motors, these allowed the missile to be launched from helicopters. I can only recall that India used this system to carry Sea Eagle missiles on their Sea King helicopters. Hope this information has been helpful. Bob.

Totally agree, on my tanks, the p/e mesh and grills are the only way to achieve that kind of realistic effect. I don't mind larger aircraft parts like instrument panels and such but usually the multi-fold parts just fall apart. 3D decals are great, as long as they get the panel colour correct, nothing worse than trying to paint between the instruments and around switches.

I worked at the Martel and Sea Eagle maintenance unit at RAF Marham (was MSSU, Missile Servicing and Support Unit, it then became StCASMSU, Strike Command Air to Surface Missile Support Unit) I later served at RAF Lossiemouth where I loaded drill rounds onto Buccaneer aircraft. All live rounds were deemed to be only to be removed from their containers at operational units in the event of war. Therefore any photos of aircraft with any Sea Eagle missile fitted will be drill (inert) rounds or live test rounds, usually with photographic markings applied. The Drill rounds were gloss polyurethane to wear better, even the wings and fins had the word: DRILL in white, on an Oxford Blue rectangle. Selwyn's description of the live round colours is accurate.