Enzo Matrix

Indeed it is. But not only is it a Typhoon, which is always going to be good, but it's a FROG Typhoon. That's got to be a double

I've just spent a wonderful half hour browsing through the entries in the gallery. I've made a few mistakes when judging some of them... "nice 48th scale model". Nope... it was 72nd! I did the same with a couple of 35th scale that also turned out to be 72nd. There's some serious skill on display.

It's white metal, so par for the course. Very easily fixed with a quick tweak. You should see some of the white metal locomotive kits I have in The Stash...

This is quite a tour-de-force!

There is always an easy (but possibly expensive) way out. https://www.hannants.co.uk/product/SAC72120 If the undercarriage on my RS Models build turns to worms, that's the way I will be going.

I often wear my underpants over my trousers.

Sadly not. They will be in 1/72. However I will be building a 1/48 F-100 in the Monogram Classic GB.

Thanks, Peter. That was most helpful. I've been looking at my not inconsiderable stock of Lifecolor paints to find something suitable. Then I noticed that the pre-coloured PE in the kit has some parts printed in the relevant colour. I don't know if it's accurate but I'm going to go with that, simply so the panels don't stick out like a sore thumb. The nearest match I could find is Lifecolor UA-902 IDF Sandgrey 2.

That is normal practice. The gallery closes at the deadline until the poll is complete. Then it opens again.

Let's hope...

I have given my subject a lot of thought. The Queen has reigned for seventy years so my subject needs to take that in to account. The Battle of Britain Memorial Flight took part in every Jubilee flypast: 1977, 2002, 2012 and will also do so on 2 June this year. Two aircraft have been consistent in attending every flypast; Lancaster PA474 and Hurricane LF363. My subject will be Hurricane LF363... but I will build three models representing the marking schemes carried in 1977, 2002/2012 and this year. LF363 is a Mk IIC but has spent most of its life masquerading as a Mk I with the cannons removed. It has mostly worn Battle of Britain camouflage (which it never wore in service) but with different codes at each jubilee. There is a possibilty that A and B schemes were worn at differnt points in time.

Judging by the problems that @John Masters had, I'm pretty sure this kit is trying to lull me into a false sense of security.

Okay, let's get cracking. Hold on tight, rider! The cockpit area was sprayed with Lifecolor UA-133 RLM66 Dark Grey. The remainder of the interior is aluminium from a rattle can. The instrument panel is provided as a plastic component with a PE overlay. The seat harnesses are also provided in PE but I elected to use Eduard pre-coloured harnesses instead. The pilot's seat has an unfortunate mould ejection pillar slap bang in the moddle of the seat bucket which will be next to impossible to remove. I didn't even try. I simply replaced it with the spare seat from the Airfix kit. I have done a bit of painting and drybrushing in the cockpit - even going as far as to fit a redundant panel of switches from an Eduard set. All this is of course pointless as none of it will be vissible on the finished model. Fuselage closed up. There are no locating pegs on this kit so I added plastic card tabs to help with location and to provide extra gluing area. As I mentioned earlier, very little of that cockpit will be visible.

Next step is to build the nacelles. And carry out final priming. The first uppersurface colour was then sprayed using Lifecolor UA-502 Dunkelgrun RLM 71.

Then comes the scary bit! Fitting the transparencies! I have added the guns at this point but fully expect to lose the barrels during the rest of the build. Once fitted, the transparencies need to be masked. I strongly recommend using the Eduard masking set. Masking from scratch is the road to madness! The Eduard set greatly eases the process which took me about two hours in total, but even so you can see where I have added Tamiya tape to make up for where the mask does not quite reach the top of the side windows. I have also masked off the bomb bay and flap interiors.