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this is great news and the first time I've ever pre-ordered a model kit. I love the colour schemes of PR spits - I can see my poor wallet being yanked open for all of these releases.

sorry for resurrecting a 4/5 year old post however I'm in the middle of building UF-Q - I know the various debates on this aircraft however I've gone clipped wings, aluminium rather than silver, camo top for anti-glare (I just can't see logically that these would fly with no antiglare in the med) and black not red code letters. My only outstanding question relates to the mast (or what appears to be a lack of one in the original photo). I'm definitely no Spit expert and I can't find any other pictures of spits flying without a mast (however I have seen a couple of drawings of PR aircraft without a mast). I know the lack of a mast on this aircraft has been questioned before but have failed to find any debate on the subject. Any spitfire experts have a view on this aspect of the aircraft in this picture ?? I just can't see a mast in the above photo - but my eyes are like the rest of my body and starting to show their age !!! thanks for any feedback neil

surely a stash of 200 is called a model shop, anything more is a model wholesaler, even a stash of 30 models could be called a toy shop that seels some model kits. I worry I'm hitting hoarder definition with 15 unmade kits in my model room 😀

that's enthusiastically priced - those tariffs are helping 😀. I'll pass, way too heavy for my poor wallet, I can get a squadron of alternative brands for that price !

Looks really good. Does anyone know the background to Redpill, are they a company from Turkey or USA, trying to work out where the cash ends up and like virtually every product nowadays it's impossible.

oh b*&&£$@s, that's bad news - I want to build each one of those schemes. This will cost me ££££££££££££££££££'s

take my money now - how do we orders these by the way ?? Looks so good, I might have to have 2 neil

I hate bi-planes (my rubbish building skills are at fault) but this one has a tug on my heart - one of the first airfix kits I built in the 70's - this will be a must have for me

I'm currently building Hornet, basically the same kit with a few small differences. Having looked at the few reviews and builds on line I decided not to spend anymore money on aftermarket - the kit is detailed enough for my liking with a lot of PE included. I'm an aircraft builder dabbling with ships (needed a mojo restart) and finding the build really enjoyable. I did buy extra aircraft (I'm not building Hornet for Doolittle raid) and did as much research as I could - ignore the kits colour call outs as they are inaccurate, at least for Hornet. It's a big kit, took me a while to work out where an how to build it. Do lots of dry fitting as it's fiddly in places, especially the hanger deck sides. Hope this helps neil

I've really enjoyed this build, the 1/200 kit is amazing out of the box and it's enabled me to learn a lot, both with regards to the build and to the actual ship. I've still got so many unanswered questions three of which I was hoping someone would know the answer for certain, both relating to equipment colour, neither being specific to Hornet I guess. The first one concerns the colour of the tractors on the ship - I assumed yellow but the black and white photos I've found don't help as they show different shades in different pictures. Or would these be camouflaged like the aircraft ? I'm also adding some interior stuff to the large hanger deck and thought the would be firefighting equipment scattered throughout the ship but I can't find any info on what was used and colour of said equipment (I know WW2 aircraft fire extinguishers were bronze not red, is this the same for USN ships). Adding a few small items of colour on a largely white and grey background would be nice. Finally, the pictures I've seen of the Hornet prior to sinking shows what appears to be a very weathered painted white wave at the front of the hull. However I've also read that this was just heavy weathering of the hull blue paint so I'm uncertain what this is and therefore how to approach replicating it (I would take a different approach if it's just weathered hull blue paint). Any expert views on this three would be really helpful thanks neil

Never built a printed kit before and this looks like it would be a good one to start with which is a shame as I won't but thanks for sharing.

hope this helps neil........ Plating The shell of a ship was made up of a large number of steel plates. The classification societies made no particular rules about their sizes, except to state that 'if the breadth of plates is excessive, compensation will be required'! The plates were mostly of 15lb steel, though that was reduced to 12lb just aft of the bows and forward of the stern; the bows themselves needed strength to face the possibility of ramming a U-boat, and were of 15l steel. Thicker plate was used in selected places: for example, the area where the forecastle ended needed 24lb, as this had been identified as an area of weakness in the original design. According to Admiralty instructions, either the plates or the frames of a ship could be joggled' at the discretion of the builder; this was a method of dealing with the overlaps necessary in riveting. In the older system of 'in-and-out' or raised and sunken' plating, one row ('strake") of plates was fixed directly to the frames. The next one was raised slightly by a 'liner' fixed to the frame, so that its edge was over the first strake. A third strake was also fixed directly to the frame, with the edges of the second strake over its edge, and so on. The more modern method was to bend or 'joggle' the edge of each alternate plate, so that all would lie directly against the frames. It needed no liners so it was cheaper and lighter, but required specialised machinery to do the joggling. Another way was to joggle the frames themselves, and the builders were allowed to do this as an alternative. Bilge keels were fitted to the outside of the plating. As was found with the modified Flower-class, they could provide a large amount of resistance to rolling. Those of the Rivers ran from frame forty-five to frame eighty-two, less than a third of the length of the ship. Because the cross-section was already quite square in that area, they could not be very langs without causing problems in launch and docking. They were 18in. wide and made from 20k plate, with a bulbous section on the outer edge. Though the ships were not armoured as such, protective plating was fitted in cera. areas to defend the crew from small-arms fire. These areas included the bridge, wheelho and signal deck, the gun-crew shelters, and the zarebas around the Oerlikon guns.

I've got Brian Lavery's book on the river class (my uncle died on HMS Mourne so I have a personal interest in them), there's a detailed section on plating I'll dig it out when I finish grandkid duty this afternoon. neil

thanks Jamie, I think that's what I plan to do. I have to say I'm really enjoying focusing on a ship model, I'm learning loads, not just about the specific ship and it's history but also ships in general. I'm still at the porthole drilling out stage and now thinking about how to display once completed - I think I need to do some early prep work on a stand of some sort. Really appreciate the input.

Thanks Graham, the lack of decent reference material drives you into all sorts of worm cans ! thanks Vlad, the official orders are a bit open to interpretation I think which is why I'm seeing different approaches. Given the forecastle and rear deck (not sure of the proper name, I will need to find that out) are under the flight deck, the official orders say there's no need to paint deck blue. There are no clear photo references that I can find so I'm now starting to look at other carriers to see how they were treated in these areas. thanks for helping both of you, much appreciated. neil