Shorty84

Question is if the E-2 variant was built at all? I may point to the following webpage devoted to the Bf 109: https://me109.info/ It contains a quite extensive database which links Werknummern, known photographs and technical information*. It states that while the Bf 109E-2 was planned, this variant was never built and sources stating this are wrong. His references (237 books at the moment) can be viewed under 'Sources'. *Some instruction to navigate the page: On the left you select the appropriate variant (e.g. Bf 109 E). Then you will see a drop-down menu in the upper right corner which allows you to select the desired subvariant. This will open the page which contains technical information and known pictures, profiles and Line Drawings for this specific variants. Each picture you open will contain further information like Werknummer, Markings, Pilot, Squadron, ... if known. Of course, you can use any of this information to locate a picture of a specific aircraft via the Search function. Cheers Markus

I'm not sure where I read it but while the Bf 109E was intended to feature a 'motorkanone', vibrations and feed problems with the MG FF prevented this and was only solved satisfactory with the MG 151 in the F-series. Unfortunately, the myth of a mounted 'motorkanone' has continued until quite recently, probably helped by the blunt spinner with the hole in its centre as a 'proof'. Cheers Markus

My sentiments exactly! A 1/48 version later on would be much appreciated.

Hi @Sabrejet! The Twin Sabre came out great, a really unique model 👍 Your WIP finally pushed me over the edge to try this conversion myself (was thinking about it for a longer time and your build showed it is feasible and provided useful intel). I also managed to get the only existing Decal Sheet for the TF-86 from DEKL's to do s/n 53-1228 in its final colour scheme. If you don't mind, I would like to ask how you did the canopy? Is it vacu formed? It's edges look too thick to be a vacu or did you modify a part from another kit? Thanks! Cheers Markus

I think such stories are indeed apocryphal but may have originated from a true story. The Tu-22 Blinder de-icing systems contained 450 liters (119 US gallons) of pure grain alcohol which was not denatured so the ground personnel sometimes extracted a bit for 'personal use' to make their duty a bit less boring. Unofficially, the Tu-22 was sometimes nicknamed the "booze carrier" because of that. Cheers Markus

Superb build, a really unique variant you can call your own now 👍 Cheers Markus

Yes and no. It is your main problem if you cannot put the asking price on the table to buy the kit as you have to pay the full sum at once and cannot pay in rates. Then it doesn't matter how good the hourly rate is if you cannot afford to invest the asking price upfront. Still, to put it blunt, it is not the problem of the manufacturer if individual modellers cannot afford their kits. It would only be a problem if a majority of their potential customers could not/are not willing to afford it. Then their business model would not be sound and either they change it or go out of business. So there are only a few options left: You wait until someone offers a discount which puts the kit within your budget You wait and save until you can afford the asking price You don't buy and/or get another, cheaper kit of the type from another manufacturer Of course, it is the final asking price which is of importance for many modellers as it decides if one can afford a kit or not in the first place. Discussion of the pros and cons of the different offerings on the market comes next once it is clear you could afford it in order to determine which offering gives you the best 'bang for the buck' based on your individual priorities. 'Quality' is hard to quantify as everybody has different priorities in this regard. But since Dora Wings was mentioned earlier: I have kits of both manufacturers and it is true that you cannot really compare them to Arma. Dora Wings are short run (albeit very good ones) and the surface details on Arma kits, especially on the Hurricane, is way better than on any Dora Wings kit. So the difference in price is not surprising, even without considering things like different cost structures, the differing labour costs (EU vs. Ukraine) and so on. Just my 2 (Euro)cents! Cheers Markus

May I ask how you came to this conclusion? From what I could determine based on the available photos it is exactly that, a simple, straight sided plug between the fuselage and original nose. A few pictures to illustrate my point: Upper and lower profile of the plug (between canopy and original nose) is straight and parallel, the curvature only begins with the original nose: https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/60d3c6d0e106af90561564f7/615f46c480d5fca5802e5586_Avro Lancaster KB882%2C now with the NMRCAF (5).jpg When you follow the outline of the anti-glare panel, starting below the canopy its border remains a straight line until it meets the original nose where it tapers, following the curvature. Means the plug has straight sides: https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/60d3c6d0e106af90561564f7/60f81476bd3446cf211471d0_Avro-Lancaster-Mk--X--RCAF--Serial-No--KB976---SAM-Photo.jpeg Another picture showing no curvature on the plug: https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/60d3c6d0e106af90561564f7/60f9727ed4bde9290ad8f72d_Avro-Lancaster-B-Mk--X--RCAF--KB976---nose--G-BCOH---Alan-Wilson.jpeg Pictures taken from this article: https://www.silverhawkauthor.com/post/canadian-warplanes-5-avro-lancaster-rcaf-post-war Cheers Markus

Another kit will not help you as the fuselage has nowhere the correct shape to be used as a plug (the fuselage aft of the cockpit is higher than at the nose joint, see here). Here is a picture of a Lancaster with the lenghtened nose in profile. You can see the plug between the canopy and the original nose. It is straight sided compared to the curved outline of the original nose: https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/60d3c6d0e106af90561564f7/615f46c480d5fca5802e5586_Avro Lancaster KB882%2C now with the NMRCAF (5).jpg I suggest to cut off the nose and use a strip of suitable thick plastic card to create the extension. Cut a stip to the correct width, then make two pieces (one for each fuselage half). Bend it a bit to incur a curvature and glue it to the fuselage, only a few millimeter at one time. This gives you the chance to adjust the strip to the curvature of the fuselage. Once this is done for each half you can add the original nose again. Cheers Markus

Absolutely, my crystal ball sees an Ukrainian HU.5 build in the future 😁

What the others said, the weathering of the mottling is exceptional. Great work! Cheers Markus

Great subject and very clean paintjob 👍 Cheers Markus

Impressive build 👍 You don't see the Neomega conversion built very often and it is a shame that the Ka-52 isn't treated with a state of the art kit yet. Let's see if I build mine before a new kit is released 😄 Cheers Markus

Oh my god, this describes me so well, it's scary

Great topic, I like to build choppers myself, mostly in 1/48 and until a few years ago there was really not much to choose from regarding state of the art kits. Thankfully this has changed and established companies as well as newcomers released some very nice ones. So here is my personal hitlist of nice, modern helicopter kits in 1/48: Zvezda - Mi-24/35 series Zvezda - Mi-8MT Annetra/AMK - Mi-17 AMP - HOK-1/HUK-1 Airfix - Westland Lynx family Especially AMP has a very interesting subject choice, some really left-field decisions which I really like. Please release more of that. Cheers Markus

Hm, no takers it seems? I'm interested in this question too because I play with the idea to build my G.55 in 1/48 as a Syrian machine. I did some reseach but came out empty handed. There doesn't seem to be any info out there which colours were used. So I simply tried the method of elimination to arrive at the most plausible conclusion. First of all, I used some information from a STORMO Magazine article (Link1) which dealt with the build of an Egyptian G.55 but contained some interesting tibbits about the Syrian Machines: "Syria was also interested in the Fiat fighter and between January and September 1949 received 12 single-seater G.55As and one two-seater G.55B, diverted from a batch initially destined to the Italian Air Force (AMI)." So they were built in Italy but where they painted there too? In this article (Link2) I found some pictures of the delivery ceremony of the first batch to the Syrian Air Force (scroll to the middle of the page). As one can see they are already painted, some are still missing their roundels. Back to the STORMO Article, there is another interesting sentence which, while it was made in reference to the Egyptian colours it is equally relevant for the Syrian machines: "Using British colors didn’t make too much sense since Fiat didn't stockpile these colors, ..." If true, it makes most sense that Fiat used colours they had in stock which most likely would have been Italian colours from wartime stocks. So I checked the existing camo schemes for the G.55 and finally settled for the most probable and logical solution, that they were painted in the original Italian camo scheme of Nocciola Chiaro 4, Verde Oliva Scuro 2 and Grigio Azzurro Chiaro 1. This was a camo suited for the desert environment anyway so why not use it? Makes most sense considering the resources available. Can I prove this assumption? No. Can I be sure the information above I based my conclusions on are correct? No. But it is more probable that Fiat still had stocks of Italian paints available which were used than to think the Syrians shipped British paints to Italy to get their planes painted. Other references like the Kagero book don't have an answer to this question too and just contain the very general statement that they 'look' like painted in brown and green (Link3). That's all I can add to the topic. Cheers Markus

Talk about the new tooled Bf 109 in 1/32 Revell did a few years ago. A lot of talk erupted because the gun throughs in the cowl were too close to each other although they had a few of the most reputable subject matter experts on board as consultants. So how could that happen? These subject matter experts explained later on that they were well aware about this error and pointed it out to Revell but the management basically told them that this project spent already enough time with research and the CAD-work had to be finished now, error or not. So often it is simply that a certain deadline is reached and the result has to be transfered to the next department (toolshop, ...) in order to meet the project milestones. Of course, having help for free from enthusiasts is nice but as a company you have to know who of these amateurs offering help is a real expert and who just thinks he is. Imagine the horror if they listen to the wrong people and base a new kit on incorrect information. Not so easy to check that. And even if help is offered for free it still costs time. Time to determine the credentials of the person offering help, time to organise meetings to see what he can offer, time to connect the person with CAD Designers, Project managers, ..., time to explain what can be done and what not (design limitations, ...). So it still costs the company resources and time they may don't have planned because (and modellers don't like to hear that) they have determined that a 90% job still gets them enough sales and it is simply not worth to them to invest more resources just to get a few additional sales in return. Cheers Markus

I think it is not unreasonable to expect a kit to match documented dimensions. A kit which is not too short in length or wings which are not too wide in chord for example. No unreasonable expectations and fully doable for manufacturers. Well, specific forums like this are run by what others would already call die-hard modelers. Of course, even there you have a range starting with the OOB builder to Scratch build kings who print their own decals and it is to be expected that topics come up which are not necessarily of interest for modelers of each spectrum. And please don't interpret my next sentences as picking on you because they are general thoughts of mine but I'm always wondering why people enter threads just to say they are not interested in the discussion/discussion goes into too much detail/...? That's like going to a custom car show and declaring to anybody that this meeting makes no sense because the modifications shown there are beyond your scope as a simple car owner. So why not ignore this thread and leave the discussion to the 'super detailed and cross kit type' modelers then? It is not that anybody is forcing certain views of how to build on anyone and a particular thread doesn't need (and cannot) appeal to any skill level alike. Sorry for my rumblings 😉 Cheers Markus

Incredible build Ian. It is really worthwhile to follow a good scratch build as there is always something to learn from 👍 Cheers Markus

Great that someone starts one of these kits. Having seen their portfolio just a few weeks ago on FB I was wondering how they build. So I'll follow your WIP with interest as it will decide if I hit the 'buy' button for a few of their offerings or not. Cheers Markus

Nice paint mule you have there. Russian gear lends itself for some heavy weathering and I will curiously follow your attemps to weather the **** out of this kit in order to learn one or two new tricks Cheers Markus

That's great, I was hoping someone does a conversion for the 'Berta' variant. Out of interest I mailed AML if they plan a similar conversion for 1/48 which they confirmed (will still take some time until released). Cheers Markus

I give a cautious 'yes they have the wing bumps'. Unfortunately there are no conclusive photos of Tripalas while there are a lot for the Buchòns. But as they all are based on the G-2 airframe, all photos show them with big wheels (with solid wheel hub) and all Buchòns have the bumps it is save to assume all Tripalas had them too. At least some views are available of the Tripalas which represented Bf 109Fs in the German Movie 'Der Stern von Afrika' which show the bumps clearly (forget the flight scenes, they were done with scale models): https://www.impdb.org/images/c/c5/Gelb.jpg Cheers Markus

Hi @SouthViper, while I can't give you an answer to your original question I do think it is possible without too much work. Why I'm so confident about it? Well, because I just tried to fit the conversion to the Hasegawa kit with good results. You may ask why I tried this? This is an abandoned Bf 109F which is waiting for its turn since 25 years and is already missing a few parts. I want to create a Buchon two-seater and because the original clear parts are no longer usable I considered this a good opportunity to make use of the remaining parts. After a bit of measuring I came to the conclusion that the parts should fit with a few modifications: I removed the rear part of the resin cowl (gun cover and part of the sidewall) along the panel line. It should be easier to make it fit to the fuselage that way Aligning the resin cowl along the firewall (Hasegawa thankfully made the cowl at this position a seperate part) I noticed the wing to fuselage fairing on the resin part were shorter than on the kit. So I removed them from the cowl and aligned it with the plastic part. The only notable shape difference is on the fuselage sides where the Hasegawa kit is slightly bulkier (0,2mm). This can easily be sanded to match Adding the lower part of the cowl it is 0,5mm longer and fowls the lower wing. Can be sanded to lenght Checking the fairing of the lower cowl into the lower wing one needs to remove 1mm on each side of the resin part to make it fit to the Hasegawa wing My point is, as the Hasegawa kit is way older than the Eduard or Tamiya kit I figure that if it fits on the old kit, it will fit on the Eduard kit as well since both newer kits should be way closer to each other shapewise. So give it a try. Cheers Markus

They are ID markings. Since Ukraine and Russia use the same aircraft types they paint the undersides or sides of their aircraft and helicopters in yellow and blue to avoid friendly fire. Su-24: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/ukrainian-su-24-back-in-the-fight-and-armed-with-a-laser-guided-missile Su-25: https://twitter.com/clashreport/status/1640378082837012482 Mi-8: https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/02/17/europe/ukraine-pilots-helicopter-Russia-intl-cmd/index.html Cheers Markus