Tim R-T-C

Sam Halpert's A Real Good War It is presented as a novel, but written by a B-17 ETO veteran and definitely feels autobiographical with vivid descriptions of the bombing campaigns from the view of a crewman. A compelling read.

Wings on. Fortunately these were not a buttress joint otherwise that would have been a real nightmare. For scale have an Alphajet formation flight.

Progress continues, wing roots etc all now filled, but the cowling was a particularly troublesome part. Consisting of two half-circumference parts, they were not big enough to join at the bottom (unless I missed something in the fitting?). Going to need some more putty methinks...

Superb, I thought I only had until the end of April. Glazing fitted, gaps filled and masked ready for painting. However after fitting the first antenna mast (just behind the nose glazing) I might look at an alternative as it looks more like a telegraph pole...

No doubt. In fact there is increasing evidence that Facebook in particular is plagued by AI powered accounts that just post generated images and others that just post replies to other such images - presumably building up a follower count that appeals to the social media algorithms.

He has been at Telford the last two years with a good sized trade stall. Stuff looks good if slightly low resolution printing on some of the samples - may have improved since then.

I've heard social media accounts will often include a small error intentionally to attract lots of comments correcting them, which is good for the algorithm... 🤔

The mysterious Phoenix. Cruises for days at a time, flies twice as high as an airliner, has the wingspan of a Boeing 737, a crew of none and carries no national insignia.... The RQ-4D is a Northrop Grumman designed high-altitude, remotely-piloted surveillance aircraft, operated out of NAS Sigonella in Sicily It is owned not by a member state, but wholly by the NATO Alliance Ground Surveillance Force - the intelligence gathering arm of NATO. Unlike the short range armed drones such as the Reaper, the Phoenix always flies to and from Sicily and it remains over NATO nation states or international waters throughout its flight. It's known deployments have taken it to the Ukrainian border and the Russian border of Finland shortly after it joined the organisation. The kit is a short run production from Miniwing. Although no doubt fiendishly complex on the inside - the exterior of the drone is very simple and makes for a straight forward kit. The undercarriage was the hardest part - the legs and outer door having very little to hold them securely, so I added some styrene rod to replicate the struts visible on reference photos. The sheer size of the thing is remarkable. The fuselage as long as a twin engine bomber, while the wings are far wider. Going to be fun finding a base for this!

Thanks. I'm going for the US Airliner scheme for this one, based on the photo. I'm interested in the Spanish or Manchuko schemes for my other boxing, but not picked one yet.

Classic 1930s airliners are always nice to see under construction.

Love these seaplane racers, looking forward to seeing this underway.

Love the yellow wings schemes, looking forward to this one.

Just on the rivets/panel question - would the OD/NG painted P-51B models have also had such filling or was it less relevant on painted types?

A golden age build of a brand new kit. The Sova-M GA-43 in 144th scale was only released this year and I picked up a copy at the Hinckley show just two weeks back. This early 1930s single engine airliner is delightfully obscure, only five being built as the Great Depression hit American air travel at the time. Producer General Aviation was the remnant of Fokker's US subsidiary after the Dutch firm withdrew from the US market - it would go on to become North American, producers of the Mustang et al. This particular example flew with Western Air Express before possibly ending up in Spain during the Civil War. Two examples went to Switzerland (one of these also ending up in Spain), one to Columbia as a float plane and one to Japan, later Manchuria. The kit comes as two boxings. This has the US and two documented Swiss schemes. The other has what I can only assume are hypothetical schemes for Japan, Manchuria and Spanish operation. The kit was previously released in 1/72 by Sova with these schemes split across multiple boxings. Welsh Models released this type as a solid resin print in 144th. The kit goes together fine for a short run model. The cabin is solid but a flight deck with seats is provided. I will add a little extra detail as a reference photo shows large control columns. The only concern I have are the very shallow panel line and door engravings. Not sure how well they will show after painting. The photos as the one above do show very variable metallic shades on the panels so I am intenting to try a masking effect for these.

As usual, joining a GB right at the end of play! I accumulated a number of these twin engine Japanese types when acquiring unsold kits from a closing vendor. Originally released in the 1970s and re-pressed several times by Hasegawa and Aoshima, these models are quite basic (no interiors at all) but not bad for the time, with engraved panel lines and good transparencies. I came across this nice profile, on the Rising Decals 1/72 sheet and a handy entry on the Aviation of Japan blog that gives a little info on this Sentai too - particularly that the aircraft were used in the evacuation of the Philipines in early 1945 which will make for an interesting diorama. Sprues look decent. A little flash and sanding needed but nothing more than a modern short run production. Before too long, fuselage together and wings assembled. I just blacked out the interior as I'm not planning to try and scratchbuild any sort of cockpit detail on this build. I have acquired some aftermarket interiors for a few of the kits in this series, but not the Donryu.

Don't forget that a vignette doesn't always need a centrepiece plane or vehicle, I have created many small scenes with just figures or just scenic elements. Its a good way to focus on the scenic details and use up some of those diorama detail sets you often accumulate but never find use for!

Those who have seen my productions before know I always like to make a vignette out of my builds - harks back to my model railway upbringing and the fact that I generally model for the show circuit, where a tiny model is easily lost on a display table. For these two I decided to try something different by using a wooden base - it isn't a solid block, rather a wooden sheet on a roughly 2cm framing, which makes it much lighter. Onto this in my normal pattern I added texture paint and grass, leaving space for a nameplate. I started work on the vehicles too, more details on these at the next update. Unfortunately I couldn't get figures and vehicles ready in time for the Hinckley show so I took the planes on their bases to display with the Night Fighter SIG. Next step will be to complete the vignette part before their next outing at the Stoke show at the beginning of September.

Highly impressive

As for the Hurricane Emerged from the paintshop in Tamiya NATO Black. I don't often gloss before decals, but I felt that silvering would be highly visible on the black surface, so a did so here. Decals are from Shelf Oddity - a very high quality Polish aftermarket supplier. This sheet provides four alternative Hurricane Night Fighters - I will hopefully be building all of them in time. They are delightfully thin and conform in seconds - some care is needed while handling though. A protective coat of matt was quickly applied, followed by some metallic chipping on the wing roots and heavy exhaust staining, for which I use AK Interactive water colour pencils. The reference pictures I have found show a lot of wear on these types. The 'soot' black paint apparently wore off very rapidly, although from the monochrome pictures it isn't clear if the original temperate scheme is showing through, or just a black undercoat. I decided not to try and replicate this without more information. The canopy and aerial mast were added, per the Shelf Oddity sheet, these were left in the original green and brown - this completed the Hurricane airframe.

Decal time for the Emil. A few choices had to be made here. Firstly on the colour of the lettering. Some sources say red, others grey or white. The kit only came with dull red options for this airframe, so it made my choice for me! Then the crosses. Some models have just the white outlines, using the black base to fill in the rest. Others have the pure black of the cross distinct from the slightly different paint scheme. I went with full decals including a black base as, from my understanding, this was the standard practice at this time and, given the airframes were probably resprayed from a traditional scheme, it seems likely that the markings would have just been masked rather than redone from scratch anyway. The F-Toys kit doesn't include any stencils so I sourced these from the Beacon Models kit sheet and ended up using the crosses from there as well, as the Japanese decals are incredibly thick. After a spray of matt varnish, the masks came off and the main part of the 109 construction was complete.

Civilian boxing, RAF and Royal Navy. Seen here with some of the civilian schemes and a sample of their upcoming Comet racer which is going to be cast in resin by CMR. Innards. The schemes included in the RAF and RN box. I don't believe they have an online shopfront yet and not sure about whether any retailers will be carrying the range, but they are selling direct in the UK and overseas - use the email address on the box front and tell them Tim from SIG144 recommended you. They do also sell at some model shows, I believe they are at Hinckley this weekend.

Splendid paintwork and construction.

I'm definitely in, got a stash full of Valom biplanes. Will quads be allowed too? 😁

Yes, the wings on this Thunderbolt for example were brushed. I don't airbrush, I find the easiest method is a rattle can. I used to just step outside and spray over the bins. But more recently got a Benchvent solvent extractor so I can use cans indoor.

May 1945 - Soviet forces pour into the shattered remains of the Reich capital. This vignette which has, at least in my humble opinion, become the pièce de résistance of my land-based 144th scale scenes, started life as an exercise in creating ruins. Inspired by the myriad of Berlin '45 scenes in 1/35th scale that catch the eye at model shows and in publications, I wanted to create something similar, capturing the desperate defence and the apocalyptic destruction of the city. The big difficultly was creating realistic ruins - I have tried this before using cork pieces, but they just didn't look quite believable. Then a revelation! N gauge (which in this case is 1/160) rubble loads, apparently designed for railway wagons (not sure I've ever seen a railway wagon carrying a load of house ruins). I immediately ordered a pack - I got mine from https://www.modelscenerysupplies.co.uk/real-model-rubble-n-gauge-juweela-21214 (other scales look to be available too) The detail is superb and very varied, so I did a little careful picking to select pieces of a similar style since I'm trying to replicate a single destroyed building rather than a mix of different rubbles. Before embarking on a larger sized scene, it made sense to test the techniques on a small vignette base, so out came one of my 10x10cm boards and an idea for a diorama started to form. 3d figure printer 3djson on eBay released figures of Soviet traffic controllers - women who guided Russian convoys from the East, into Germany and I wanted an excuse to use these. I had recently picked up a few Zis trucks from 3d printers - a Zis-6 from Butlers Printed Models and a Zis-5 tanker from Paint & Glue Minatures - both with lovely detail. So it made for an interesting idea to represent a less commonly portrayed part of military modelling in general and particuarly this campaign - the supply columns - that must have stretched on endlessly to support the Soviet juggernaut. A little playing with layouts gave this finalised plan. With a little extra space to spare I could include a destroyed German vehicle too. This was a wargame model from the Victrix range which are injection plastic with simple construction but good detail. I wanted the vehicle to look damaged and abandoned and 3d printed resin vehicles are much harder to 'damage' without cracking the material. I was able to cut the 'tyre' off the front left and also drilled out the front engine hatch so it could be posed open. I painted this area to represent a fire, perhaps from an attack or just an over-stressed, unmaintained engine. With the layout complete, I started to build up the rubble pile. It seemed rather wasteful to use the rubble pieces where they wouldn't be visible, so I made a base out of cork, topped with Duluxe Create and Sculpt paste, then dotted with cork pieces and a few offcuts of cork coaster to make for some walls that struggle to remain intact. I fixed the Hanomag into position then carefully placed the rubble pieces across the area to try and make a realistic scatter. Then pigment, tonnes and tonnes of pigment. Even just a brief glance of reference photos showed dust to be ubiquitous on destroyed buildings. Fortunately I hadn't wasted any effort painting the rubble as it all received a good coating, as did the Hanomag (obscuring almost all of the careful painting!) and much of the base too. Meanwhile I painted the other vehicles in appropriate greenery. The figures are also from 3djson, the Soviet tank riders set. The figure at the back is supposed to be holding on to a T-34 turret, but it made for a perfect flag holding stance too which fitted the last days of war mood of the piece. More tank riders made up the soldiers sat on the statue base, while the statue itself is a whitemetal medieval wargame soldier. The small children watching are from a Preiser model railway set. With the addition of a nameplate from Name It Plates it was complete and I am very happy with the outcome - hopefully the first of a series of builds on this topic.