Sten Ekedahl

I've been tinkering a bit with the new Airfix Harrier GR.7/9 over the last couple of days. It seems to be a very good kit with several interesting options, both markings and configuration. However I haven't been able to find any good photos that shows what the aircraft looks like when parked. What is hanging down and what is raised; flaps, gear doors, air brake, that forward aerodynamic vane (or whatever it is called)? I know that the tailplanes usually drops and also the bleed air doors on top of the air intakes, but what about the rest? Hope someone can enlighten me on this.

Just a short question in preparation for my own Valiant build: What colour/paint did you use for that 'orrible green in the cockpit? And, come to think of it, a second question, more related to the Valiant service history: During the early years when painted in High Speed Silver, was the Blue Danube nuke in service? I.e. can I build a silver painted a/c with an open bomb bay with a Blue Danube loaded?

The single seat Venom is a strangely neglected aircraft in 1/72. Seems the major manufacturers doesn't know it ever exixted. To my knowlege there was once upon a time an old Frog kit from way back in the middle ages. The only "modern" Venom kits AFAIK, are the Aeroclub mixed media kit from several years back, and the recent excellent resin offerings from CMK. That's it! Airfix, are you listening?

Sorry I haven't kept my instruction sheets. But I congratulate you to having found a kit of one of the most gratifying builds I've ever experienced. The kit takes quite a bit of work, but the instructions are so well written that that it is a joy to follow them. Besides, the white metal parts in the kit are absolutely the best ones I've ever seen and very cleverly designed.

I was in contact with Maintrack many, many years ago with the intetion of ordering their Belvedere conversion set. It turned out they had stopped producing it since the vacformed canopy proved too difficult to manufacture. IIRC they stated that only some 25% of the canopies made were usable.

Very nice to see this one. I built the same aircraft many years ago long before the release of the Fujimi kits of British Phantoms. I crosskitted the Matchbox and ESCI Phantoms to get a reasonable looking Spey Phantom, and used the very good Modeldecal sheet for the markings.

Seeing a Spitfire model always makes me happy, especially when it is as well done as this one!

A very fine tribute to Alan Hall whom I had the pleasure to meet (and share a glass of whisky with) a couple of times. He had both his faults and virtues, but in the end I think the latter outweighed the the former by far.

Lovely little model! I especially like the wires, not many of them but superbly executed. Good to see a fine model like that as a warming up since I'll be judging aircaft models at our IPMS Nationals here in Sweden this comming weekend.

On some Eduard etched sheets, there are some teardrop shaped holes on the outer frame. These are meant to be used to make navlights and anti-collision beacons. The illustrated method is to heat the end of a clear, or suitably coloured plastc, sprue and then push it against the hole. After it has cooled cut off the, hopefully, correctly shaped piece and appy it to the model. I have never tried it myself so I don't know if it works as intended, but it might be worth a try.

Oh! The model even has true stealth properties!

IIRC the Aboukir filter existed in two slightly different shapes. Somewhere deep in my stash I have a set of resin Aboukir filters in 1/72 and the set provided two different versions. Unfortunately can't remember who made them... (Airkit Enterprise?)

Real modellers never read the instructions!

Quote: "Worst part is, I know there will be a tiny little gap somewhere that I've missed that will result in some red/orange creeping through onto the white - we'll just have to wait and see where it is, won't we?" I learnt a very good trick from a professional painter many years ago: After masking, first paint along the edges with the same colour as under the tape so as to "seal" the edge. Then proceed with painting the desired colour. By doing this the paint that might creep under the mask will be the same as the one under the masking tape.

Lovely Spit in God's own scale with a wonderful mouthwatering external load! When in Britan, I drink ale. When in Germany, I drink Weissbier. When in the Czech republic, I drink pilsner. When in Belgium, I drink trapiste. And I enjoy them all!!

Thanks for your answers. I'll cross my fingers wait for the SH kit then. My intetion is actually to build a pre-WWII aircraft in silver dope with the sqadron number in big red digits on the fuselage sides. I think it will look cool together with a camouflaged Mk.I and a post-war C.19.

While building a post-war Anson C.19 at the moment, I am considering starting building an early Mk.I for comparison. The only two kit alternatives are the (very) old Airfix kit and the Special Hobby kit. Unfortunatey both have the later more upright windscreen. I am looking for a source for the original sloping windscreen. Does anyone produce such a canopy or is it a case of DIY?

IIRC they (1&34 Sqns) were based on Cyprus. Although beeing a lot closer to Suez than from Malta, it was still at the limit of the combat range for these Hunters.

There are two photos of this a/c on page 9 in the 4+ book on the Whirlwind (excelent reference for building a model, BTW). One from almost ahead on the ground, and the other one closer up with several pilots standing in front of it. On both pictures you can clearly see the two white bands on both the upper and lower surfaces of the wings.

There was a very good build article on this original kit in an early issue of SAM. It might be usefull even for the CA kit.

It's not mist, they haven't cleared all the recent snow off the runway yet.

Finally!!! It's a bit surprising that none of the aftermarket manufacturers hasn't produced these simple and obvious conversion parts earlier. But I guess they all thought Revell would follow up with an early Hunter kit soon after the Mk.6, at least I did. Instead Revell released the Mk.9 and left all of us hoping for the earlier marks dissapointed. I'm very much looking forward to these parts. There are so many good looking squadron markings only found on the early Hunters, and several other air forces (e.g. SwAF) only had these early birds.

Thank you very much! The last one was very good (almost too good for my AMS ).

The other day I was inspired to take out my Aeroclub 1/72 Anson C.19 kit and see if I couldn't have a go at it again. A couple of years ago I prepared the vacformed fuselage parts, cleaned up the injection moulded parts and some of the white metal parts but didn't get any furher. The detailing in the cockpit is sparse but adequate, but the passenger cabin is totaly devoid of any details apart from a floor and a rear bulkhead. Since the cabin windows are fairly large, at least some detailing has to go in there. I have the Warpaint book on the Anson and there is one b/w photo of the cabin, taken from the cockpit door looking aft, showing what the passenger seats look like and also what appears to be a toilet(?) compartment on the starboard side at the far end opposite the entrance door. So this is what I will do: The angled tubular framework visible through some windows will be represented by plasic rod glued on the inside walls, passenger seats will be scratchbuilt and the toilet(?) compartment walls done with PC. However this raises a few questions that I hope sombody can answer for me. According my references the Anson C.19 had 9 passenger seats, arranged in a single row on each side of a centre aisle. I take it that it would have been five seats to starboard and four to port to leave room for the entrance door to the rear on that side. However I get the impression that the toilet(?) compartment was a later addition, and in order to make room for it the rearmost seat to starboard was removed, making a total of 8 seats, four on each side. Can anybody confirm this? Second question is about the colours used in the passenger cabin; floor, seats, wall and ceiling. From the b/w photo they look fairly light; greys? light blues? Final question: From what I understand the cockpit was typical for the era, i.e. black. This is an advantage since the lack of details won't be seen that well despite the cockpit canopy being both large and very clear (vacformed). However the rear wall behind the pilots' seats is completely devoid of any detailing and look unrealisticly bare. I suspect that there must have been some sort of fittings there, e.g. radio boxes, cables, fire extinguisher or similar things. Does anybody have a photo of this, or can point me in the right direction where to find one? A Google search didn't give me anything. TIA

Well it won't win hands down, IIRC the Heller 1/72 scale Alpha Jet is a also strong contender!