TheyJammedKenny!

All of the above and more! This is great. I remember my dad building and finishing this kit in the 70's.

Unfortunately I did not take the opportunity, though I examined the F-13 close-up, in person.

Excellent change of pace from your usual crop of massive Soviet aircraft! These look fab! Interestingly, I just looked at an F-13 that had been sitting outside for years, and the dark wing panels are actually chromate green-yellow beneath the silver lacquer--thought you'd be interested. Alex

These are beautiful models, @follasha, and entirely up to your usual high standards!

According to a source I have on British civil aviation, VP-TAU, VP-TBB, and VP-TBC were all Viking 1As drawn directly from BEA. This means they were short-fuselage, with fabric-covered wings. I have read that the spinners often disintegrated, which is why many airlines chose to remove them in service.

What is the status of this project? It looks like it's still in development from the link I have.

MicroMir still has it "in the works." I agree with all comments above about Valom kits! I've built only the Valetta, and had a good amount of fun with it, despite some travails. The parts breakdown and assembly sequence on the DH-95 looks like it needs some special care from an experienced modeler--particularly the engines and landing gear.

Hats off to you on this beautifully done model, which is a challenge to work on, and so glad it came out for you! I really love the cheatline, and the titles are fine--just some erosion damage on the right side, which the paint shop needs to touch up after the monsoon stops. Your fuselage roundel placement is entirely correct, because on photos of the real thing they are assymetric L/R. The left roundel does not in fact touch either door. The wing roundels are a bit small, but no worries. What throws things off is that the ailerons are about 3/4" too short in span, and that affects the look of thing.

Packing and shipping is currently underway, so it should hit the shelves any day now. Next to come will be the T-39N, which I understand to be a direct adaptation of the civil version, with longer fuselage and more pax windows.

Beautiful! Seeing is believing, and yours is really a nice product. I wish you success in all your endeavors!

Milan says the Dominie will likely be ready by the end of this year. Of course, it would be a nice Christmas present! At the same time, we all know that these projects sometimes slip to the right, scheduling-wise.

Graham T.: I would love to see photos of your Valetta when you're willing to share! Alas, I don't have my references nearby, but I think you cannot go wrong with the following antennas based on photos I've seen of other aircraft: MP10 on either side of the astrodome, with HF wires converging on a "T" shaped anchor on the vertical fin; 2 x MP15 in a straight line, mounted on the underside of the nose, fuselage centerline; 2 x MP12, radio altimeter dipoles, centered on each horizontal stabilizer, but much farther outboard than depicted in the instructions; 2 x MP8 either side of the forward fuselage, below the cockpit, representing the Rebecca equipment. There is also what I perceive to be a glide-slope aerial shaped like a hook, below the cockpit on fuselage left side--should be on the fret. Don't forget to add the "bumps" to the nose, which are on the sprue but not called out in the instructions. Also, the Rebecca antennas are best substituted with those from a C-47 or other, because they are much too skimpy. If you're depicting a post-1964 or 1965 machine, you can omit them entirely.

If any of you has contact with Sword, send them an e-mail in support!

It's a monster! Beautifully executed, bravo!!!

All: I met with Milan, Sword's boss, at Moson at the end of April, who told me he is actively researching the Dominie T.1 and HS.125-400 for future projects. Don't throw away your Airfix Classics yet, though! I strongly encouraged him to proceed with both aircraft models, and he cautioned that it depended on the economic situation. I also suggested that he engineer the Dominie with a series of optional parts, including the ventral equipment bay, to allow modelers to build Series 1 or 3 business jets. Side Note: Sword's team was uniformly unenthusiastic about producing a 1/72 C-140 (Lockheed JetStar) due to its size.