Tiger331

By my recollections (4 years at RAF Valley) and numerous other exposures to the RAF Hawk fleet, the airbrake interior pretty much mirrored the exterior colour...certainly, I believe this to be true for the major scheme changes....for example, when the fleet went Black the interior surfaces were also finished in the same colour. The vast majority of the Reds aircraft never changed hands so their distinctive Red colour scheme also applied to the Air Brake interiors. The only machines I am not certain about are those that sported the old tactical Grey/Green scheme. I seem to recall the Airbrake interior was another colour....possibly Light Grey but I would need to check my references. if I get more Ill let you know. Mark

Personally, I think to say "the wings are completely the wrong shape" is a bit f an exaggeration....there is nothing there that a little TLC with a sanding stick or some plasticard and filler, if you prefer to "build the kink out of the wing", will not fix....all it requires is some basic modelling skills or have we all forgotten to use these as we desire more "shake and bake" kits. As others have stated, there have been several great looking builds of the KH kit on this forum and others. I would totally agree with the comments regarding RAF stores however. kH have missed a golden opportunity here to provide some good stores but took the quick, easy and cheap route by just including the French stores and they should, justifiably, be pilliored for it. If you want to reproduce a protypical RAF Jaguar you will need to rob from an Airfix kit or search for some of the rather nice, but in some cases, pricey resin accessories. I would not hold your breath about the Italeri kit either. The company have a habit of dropping previously announced projects if the opposition beat them to the clock. It may appear but Im not counting on it being anytime soon....we had to wait for years before they finally released their version of the BAe Hawk and even then it had its own issues when compared with the so called 'inferior' Airfix offering. The KH kit is still a nice kit (in spite of the comments from those willing to bash anything that emanates from China) and, with some effort, can be made into a nice replica. its modular design makes it a challenge to build in some areas but with care and attention it goes together well, as some on this site can attest. If you have the Airfix kit to hand, this will make an excellent donor for the stores, pylons etc. expect lots more AM resin for the KH kits though. HTH Mark

Been following this with great interest across on WIP since I have one on my own project list......A GREAT Job and true inspiration......Well Done Mark

FANTASTIC Job !.........A great finish and just goes to show that you don't need a mountain of resin to produce a museum quality replica.....Well done !. Mark

Looking good......may I ask where you are going to source the decals from ?....I'm thinking of doing a RDAF aircraft, to compliment my RNoAF pair, but I'm not sure where to get the decals.....though I seem to recall Aeromaster or Eagle Strike doing some for a single-seater RDAF machine a while back... Mark

Melvyn, It's been a long time but we did the Harrier book together and I now also have your Hurricane book for several 'to do' projects. I do also recall you telling me the 'guitar book' story in a PH in Northwood many years ago..... Nuff said, I'm sure you will be fine.....I suspect you will turn out to be another 'Fritag' of Chipmunk fame here on BM so I will watch this one with interest !. As others have said, there's plenty of friendly advice on this site so it will all work out well and I look forward to seeing the end result. Good luck Mark

Olivier, Marvellous photo. I have seen this scene portrayed in model form before.....It was the subject of a great diorama, in 1:48 scale, at Scale Model World Telford about 5 years ago IIRC....it was the inflated life raft in the foreground that jogged my memory. The diorama was quite amazing, what with that exposed engine and all the open panels. Mark

Agree 100%......some people clearly have nothing better to do with their time. I recall the truly ridiculous debate on here regarding the Trumpeter HU-16 Albatross box artwork........anyone ever heard of artists impressions.....not everyone has Hasegawa or Tamiya budget for box art and I would rather the manufacturer gets the contents right as opposed to the box art. Mark

Bought one yesterday......very nice and makes a change from the 'standard' USAF examples that we will see....thinking about doing it in the later, low visibility scheme that the ROKAF adopted. Mark

We'll have to agree to disagree.....I've been working in the decal industry for some time and we do our level best to collaborate with the others decal manufacturers to try and avoid duplication (unless we are able to provide a better product based on improved or new research) so why should it not work for the kit manufacturers ?. I would agree that we have seen some modest growth in the number of people entering the hobby in recent years but this can be transitory and is still, IMHO, not sufficient to really support multiple releases of the same subject from the growing number of manufacturers, particularly the new ones. To take one example, Avantgarde are a brand new manufacturer who took the brave decision to market a highly sought after and quite complex kit for their first subject - The IAI Kfir C2/7. I cannot imagine they will have been entirely happy to have seen another brand new Kfir kit, in the same scale, hit the streets at almost the same time from another manufacturer (Kinetic) who are also relatively new. Thankfully, the former seem to have recovered from this setback and are set to launch two new kits of other highly sought after 1:48 subjects, the L-29 Delphin and CM-170R Magister but I dare say their initial income predictions from the all important first issue will have taken a hit, particularly given that it was a quality item. Zoukei-Mura are another firm that appears to have fallen foul of this duplication - 3 out of 5 of their first 1:32 kits have been almost simultaneously duplicated by other companies, in most cases for considerably less cash. I appreciate (as the owner of two of their kits) that they take a rather novel approach to their kit design and production but I suspect this has a limited target audience and they will have been hurt by sales figures in the wake of the cheaper and arguably equally good quality kits from other, more established players. I do not believe that any new manufacturer can really afford this during these challenging economic times. Mark

Take the majority of paint shades (particularly for non UK subjects) quoted on Model Alliance decal sheets with a substantial pinch of salt. I have been caught out several times with spurious colour callouts (along with 'Available accessories' lists) on these sheets so check and double check before committing paint to model. Mark

An interesting debate, particularly given the fact that at least two carrier-borne fighters (read - all the difficulties of flying a jet fighter AND taking off/landing from a heaving deck) did not have two seat conversion trainers. Both the F-8 Crusader and the Super Etendard were single-seat aircraft, and although LTV did develop a so-called and short-lived 'Twosader' twin-seat variant, pilots went solo in these jets right from the get go. I'm sure there were others but these are the two that instantly spring to mind although they both 'enjoyed' alarming safety records in Service. Tiger331

Yet another 'own goal' from the Hobby Industry.......Its a steadily shrinking market so now they 'compete' by bringing out duplicate kits....We've recently seen the IAI Kfir, H-34/Wessex, A-6 Intruder (not two but THREE manufacturers), 1:32 Skyraiders, Raiden, P-51s, and now two T-38s......all very expensively tooled kits.....when are the manufacturers going to start collaborating more on projects so they avoid this and focus on bringing out more of the many subjects that are crying out for newly tooled (or even first ever) kits.....I despair......I have two of the Wolfpack T-38 kits and I very much doubt that the Trumpeter one will be a). any better and . any cheaper than this excellent kit so whats the point ? Mark

Two on order.......This is the first fast jet Cockpit I can recall sitting in.....my best friends father was working for Airwork in Seletar, Singapore at the time (1971) and the Ex-Tengah Wing Javelins had been donated to the embryonic Republic of Singapore Air Force as instructional airframes pending the arrival of their first refurbished Hawker Hunters. We got to climb all over them for a memorable afternoon and I have always looked forward to a quality 1:48 scale kit turning up after wrestling with the Frog and Heller versions in 1:72......the day appears to have arrived Mark

Arrived to this late but I have read everything so far with eager interest as this very project is on my 'to do' list. Model Alliance have very kindly included ZF118 on their Sea King sheet which is the very aircraft I was permitted to fly on a transit between RAF Turnhouse and Strathallan many moons ago. What makes the project even more appealing for me was that the airframe had large Union Jacks applied to it at the time that break up the overall green colour scheme quite nicely. Well done, sir, on what is without doubt a challenging build

Steve Arriving late to this one after an enforced absence....looks to be every bit as good as the 'Chipmunk story'......I've moved on to 1:48 scale now but feel sure I can apply some of your well founded knowledge to my forthcoming build of the Fly kit of the JP5. Keep up the excellent work. As an aside I got 'distracted' on You Tube the other day (having been referred to it by someone on Pprune) and ended up watching the entire series of 'Fighter Pilot' from 1981.....Obviously there was quite a lot of reference to the JP3/5 towards the middle of the series (and one or two faces I remember too !)......brought back some memories for sure. Looking forward to seeing this pair progressing Cheers Mark

Not sure what the subject will be.....odds are that it will be a subject that another mainstream manufacturer will release just before Zoukei Mura do, which either costs considerably less or is superior in quality !. I like their kits (recently acquired their Ta-152 after a long search) but they do not have a good track record for releasing something ahead of the opposition.....pity, with so many subjects out there desperately in need of kitting in 1:32......Typhoon, Mosquito, Beaufighter, P-51B/C Malcolm Hood, Macchi MC.202/5, F6F Hellcat, DH Vampire, Meteor, etc etc. Mark

Yep..........some of us are looking forward to the arrival of this kit (hopefully this week) with some excitement.....since 'we' have the only surviving example of the He 115 sitting in a freshwater tank next to our museum (and clubhouse) here in Sola-Stavanger....fished it out of the local fjord last year and it was in remarkably good condition. We also understand one of the decal options in the kit is for the Sola-Stavanger example which also makes it very interesting !.

I'm very much of the "if it looks right, it's good enough for me" brigade that does not go overboard on accessories but I would seriously consider two additional items....the Ciro Models correction set for the air intakes and air brake sections of the fuselage are well worth the effort (Ref No C433) and the Eduard Brassin wheel set is also very nice (EDB648089). The Ciro Models set is on restricted distribution...I bought mine from them direct...great service.....just a suggestion HTH Mark

What a beauty and as others have said, a really nice tribute to this wonderful aircraft.....I've spent literally thousands of hours in the back of these aircraft. First, as a 'scaley brat' in the 1960/70s plying between The Middle and Far East and the UK and then, later, after I joined the Mob deploying all over the world with the RAF ATF. Those approaches into Kai Tak were probably the most memorable. Can't believe my last VC10 trip was almost 10 years ago on an AAR sortie out of Thumraiyt, Oman and that they will ALL be gone by the end of this year. GREAT JOB !....Well Done

Its really nice to see one of these great kits actually built (rather than fetching astronomical prices on auction sites). Well done, Oz on a superlative build and finish....they are not easy......... Mark

Jonners, How stupid of me to forget about the wings....Dohhhhh !.....Thanks, though, for the reference to Mk 5 vs. Mk 7 ejection seats...I'll need to check my references since I'm planning on two F-4B projects and I think one of them is pre-1969 so the seat issue may have a bearing. Thanks again Mark Hi everyone...and thanks for your information/inputs.....How stupid of me to forget about the 'minor' wing issue !....Doh !....Picked up some useful information though and had not considered the F-4J option from cross-kitting (once the F-4C/D comes out). Thanks again.. Mark

Lovely job on the Wessex. I like the colour scheme in particular........Don't see many in this scheme although it brings back childhood memories for me, seeing these racing over the tops of the Palm Trees in the gardens of our Military Quarters in Singapore in the late 1960s !....Thanks for sharing this with us. Mark

I am no great expert on the earlier USAF variants (F-4C/D) but suspect there are sufficient extra parts in the new Academy kit to complete one of these variants, judging by the number of additional 'chin' fairings, fin tips and assorted aerials etc that are included with the initial issue. I understand there is a USAF/ROKAF F-4C/D variant on the way but do I need to wait, if I already have a suitable aftermarket decal sheet ?. Grateful if someone who has either built or extensively surveyed this kit could enlighten me accordingly. Thanks Mark

Lovely Lightnings !......pity about the markings (only joking)....I'm a 74(F) Sqn fan myself !! I do like the 92(F) Sqn jet though Well Done !