Sten Ekedahl

That's right, it was Ray who did it. It inspired me to try doing the same conversion myself. When I came to the stage of grafting the Frog nose to the Airfix rear fuselage, I found the diameter of the two differd by at least 2mm. Never finished it. A couple of years later I met Ray Rimell at Donnington and asked him how he had overcome that problem. Turned out he didn't remember how he built the model!

I'll second that!!!

Sad to see you leave this place, but I can see your point. I will definitely continue to follow this build over at The Aerodrome and continue saving all your pictures and comments on my hard disc into a "build book", as I have both the kit and the Part photoetch in my stash waiting to be built. It will be invaluable once I gather up enough courage to start building it. As the saying goes: "Good experience comes from learning from others's misstakes". One thing is for sure though, if it eventually turns out just half as good as yours, I will be extremely satisfied! Best of luck with the rest of this wonderful project. I will be following it closely.

IIRC there was a camouflage drawing in a US IPMS Quarterly magazine from the early 70's.

The Falcon vac formed canopy is sold separately under the Squadron label. Item SQS9187 at £3.42 at Hannants and it is intended for the Revell kit.

Interesting project and nice going so far. Concering the engine nacelles, you could possibly check if any of the replacement nacelles in the Quickboost range would be suitable. Without being able to the the nacelles properly on your photo, I would guess the choice would be between Catalina, B-25B (including engines) or B-17 nacelles from their range.

Sorry, just a non native speaker trying to use irony and be funny. British cockpits up to the late 60' have always been known to be anything but user friendly to aircrew and mechanics. Or as someone put it; "Every installation looked like an afterthought." All Swedish Air Force Hunter pilots I've met said that the Hunter was wonderful to fly - a real pilot's airplane - but the cockpit was a terrible working environment.

"What do you mean? Human engineering? What is that, and what's the purpose of it?"

I saw that model at Telford several years ago. It was a stunning beauty!!!

The Quickboost fuselage spine is for the original high spine version of the Mk.XIV (and the PR.XIX) and therefore of no use for the kit you're planning on building. Using the Quickboost tailplanes and radiators is a matter of taste - not really necessary in my opinion. However the Quickboost engine cover would most likely be a good investment since I remember the kit parts in this area were very tricky to fit correctly. You can view all the Quickboost parts here. Quickboost parts are by nature very easy to use - hence the name. All the ones I have tried simply replace the corresponding kit part(s) with no cutting necessary. The casting of Quickboost parts are second to none, at least all the ones I have bought (and that's a lot!). They are the perfect thing to use if you want to get your first experience of using resin parts. Have no fear!

IIRC these air scoops were also fitted to some Mk.14 airframes. At least I have seen a photo of a Mk.14 flown by the CO of 60 Sqn. when based at Tengah, fitted with these scoops.

And while you're still at it, don't forget the 1/72 Pavla resin cockpit set for the Mirage IV. It certaily beats the kit parts!!!

As you might have noticed there has been several resin conversion parts released lately for the Draken. I was told by xxx ...a fairly reliable source that there will most likely be a convesion kit for the two-seat SK 35 Draken released in a not too distant future. So keep your fingers crossed...

Absolulely top marks! Superb painting and weathering, especially the Liberator since a realistic looking white finish is among the most difficult to achieve!

If you find him, shoot the cat!!!

There was a very good article about how to convert the Airfix kit into the standard production version, in Scale Aircraft Modelling, Vol 5 #1 (Oct '82). It is well worth looking for.

NO!!! Real modellers build in 1/72 scale only!

If you have questions about the SwAF Gripens, don't hesitate to ask them at the IPMS Stockholm English language forum. There are a couple of guys with very good knowledge about the Gripen (i.e. working on the actual aircraft almost every day) active there. They will be able to answer almost any possible question about the Gripen. One of them BTW did all the research for several of the latest decal sheets for Gripens and Drakens from Two Bobs.

No need to go to the doc. The best remedy is a very nice tasting liquid, made in Scotland! Besides, the Alizé is actually a far better kit than the Valiant. The only things it badly needs, apart from some modelling skill, is a vacformed canopy (available from Aeroclub) and new decals (available from Model Art).

Ahh, you need to have lots of laughs in order not to break down from working on a Mach kit! I know from experience - Valiant 5% done (after reading the latest posts, more likely only 2%) and Alizé 25% done.

My best guess is that you are in for some serious masking and painting!

You will probably not be able to print those decals with an ink jet printer since a lot of the items are white - one of the colours not possible to print with this process. For this you'll need an ALPS printer or a similar type of printer, which by today is almost as rare as the proverbial hen's tooth.

Say that you want something that looks very sexy and takes photos!