Astel

I like loads of aeroplanes and I don't think I could narrow it down to one only, so here goes: Jet fighter: EE Lightning for me; my Dad was an engineer in the RAF and worked on them at Leuchars after being on Valiants and Vulcans at bases in England, his best friend was a Lightning pilot at Binbrook. Piston fighter/s: Hawker Hurricane, late-mark Spitfires and P51 Mustang (all variants). Piston civilian: My real passions are single and twin engine civilian aircraft. Can't choose one only; Pitts Special S2B (that would be my dream aircraft to own); anything by De Havilland and my all-time favourite twin, the Cessna 310. I was surrounded by Cessna 150/152 singles and 310 twins when I was young and my screen-name is the callsign that was used by the local flying school at the time.

Bought a copy of this today, really nice and lots of history about each aircraft in the BBMF collection.

What an amazing model RAS! Wonderful!

Beautiful model, absolutely stunning! I love Connies. Quite a few years ago I was very fortunate to have a day stop-over in Amsterdam returning from a work deployment; on that very day a Constellation came home to the Netherlands from America after a lengthy return to flight and flew over Amsterdam escorted by a Fokker 50 and an Orion. I will never ever forget the sight and sound of that beautiful aircraft. I love your model 🙂

Only a few hours in this week. Twin Otter fuselage halves are now together and I have a lot of filler work to do. The wings and engine pods are built up and some filler work done. Lots of work to do around the windscreen with filler yet. (I managed to loose the panel detail on the engine pods so I need to be more careful.) I bonded some fishing weights into the Twin Otter nose section with white pva. The Chipmunk wings are together, I made up a couple of joysticks from fusewire and glued them in, not great but better than not having any. I cut a couple of instrument panel plates and blanking plates that will sit behind the seats. Also on the Chipmunk I've filled in the slot for the kit exhaust, I'll try my best to put in a later style exhaust. I opened out the intake at the front of the engine cowling, that was nerve-wracking, not done that before.

The LANDOR scheme is my favourite BA livery, very elegant.

Another couple of hours in the Maintenance Hangar over the past few evenings. Twin Otter cockpit built, painted and decals applied. I messed up with the lap belt decals, so left them off, need to take more care. The cockpit is installed now and the interior surfaces painted. Not happy with my choice of 'light grey' - it's way too dark really. I know it's hand painted and the finish isn't great. The wing halves are built and the engine cowlings fitted, one side is ok, the other will need some more attention with filler and sanding. Chipmunk wing assembled, some filler applied and sanded back as carefully as I could at the wing tips. I know the seats are way-off scale-wise, I will live with that, the cockpit canopy will be slid shut.

Scottish Air Ambulance G-SASC Beech Super King Air flew over a wee while ago, Aberdeen to Glasgow.

Thank you Perdu. I was at high school when I last did any model aeroplanes - so that's thirty years ago or thereabouts! Yes, it's good to be back working on kits 🙂 Thanks Roger - I'm sure I'll be asking lots of questions just shortly haha 🙂 Hi Tomoshenko, addicitive - yes, I have a DH88 Comet Racer up in the loft too, however I think I need to improve my basic skills a lot before I look at it. I keep looking up planes I like and seeing if there's a model of it available, this could be dangerous 🙂 Oh my goodness, the detail in Fritag's Chippie is fantastic! I won't be getting anywhere near that (I won't have any cockpit detail - although it would be nice to put something in there just to fill in the areas where the instrument panels are. I've always had a soft spot for the Chipmunk. I've never flown in one, although I did get to sit in one when I was a young lad - couldn't see over the instrument panel, I loved the smell 🙂 Meanwhile back in the Maintenance Hangar, here's tonight's efforts. Not much to report really, fitted the fuselage windows into the Twin Otter's fuselage halves. They'll need some work next time, I need to fill in some gaps at the cockpit side glazing in particular. I glued the Chipmunk's wings together too.

Thank you for your kind words and thanks for the great tips as well - I have lots to learn! My biggest problem will be finishing, painting and applying decals - but there's lots to do before I'm ready for that 🙂

Hiya, that's interesting! Loganair's G-BVVK in Flybe livery was on Highland Airports on BBC Alba tonight 🙂 I think I'll be doing the same plane in BA markings.

Just getting back into building model planes after a break of a few years. I'm kind of learning as I go along and trying to make a decent job, but I'm a slow builder. I like civilian aircraft and trainer planes. Last year I started an Airfix 1:72 Chipmunk but I think I sickened myself of it trying to rub down the rivet details and never got very far. A few weeks ago I saw the Revell DHC-6 Twin Otter and bought it. The Twin Otter is going to be finished in a British Airways livery (like the ones that were flying between Glasgow, Barra and Benbecula. The Chipmunk is going to be finished in the overall black scheme that the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight had a few years back. I put a coat of NATO black inside the Chipmunk fuselage halves tonight and sanded down some more rivets on the underside of the wings. I managed to scratch the canopy when I was cutting it out of the sprue. Polished it up a bit with toothpaste but now there is a very fine haze, it's not crystal clear. I saw some videos about dipping clear parts in a floor polish to mask imperfections so I might give that a go nearer the time for fitting it. With the Twin Otter I've filled in a few sink marks in the fuselage halves as best I can over a few nights this week. Tonight I started putting in the windows, managed to tip over the small plastic bottle of adhesive, so decided to call it a night before I did anymore damage 🙂 The two models... Filling in some sink marks on the Twin Otter fuselage... The story so far...

Testing 🙂 Yasss! 😄

Hi, thanks for adding me to the forum. Another returning modeller, I used to do this many years ago as a youngster and got the urge to start again. My main interest in aviation is civilian aircraft; my current build is a Revell DHC-6 Twin Otter. I'm an awkward sort, rather than stick with the kit paint scheme and decals for a Canadian Air Force rescue plane, I'm going to have a crack at building this as a British Airways liveried aircraft (decals for which have been received). I'm a slow worker, as you'll find out haha! My other interests are my VW Beetle, cycling and photography. Thanks for looking.