kiseca

If ever an aircraft looked over-engined, this is it . I guess a pair of huge American radials would look even more over the top on a Whirlwind. Those Merlin pods certainly highlight how slim and slender the rest of the aircraft actually is! I've always had a soft spot for the Whirlwind ever since I first saw one in one of those old war comics that used to be popular (probably Air Ace in this case). It's an excellent conversion, well executed esp. considering the circumstances and short build time that you had! Nice work and a great what-if.

Thanks for that! The solution for the stand's socket makes a lot of sense too.

I've tried Humbrol Decalfix and Microset / Microsol. I wasn't happy with the Humbrol. It was hard on the decals and I had trouble with it lifting / dissolving Tamiya acrylic paint. You can water it down but I didn't trust it. It was smelly, too. Microset has given me hassles as well. It is applied before the decal, to the area that the decal will be applied to. It can help get a loose decal stuck down but sometimes with large decals for me it has made it stick down quickly before I've finished getting it into place, and it sticks so hard I can't get it off without ruining the decal. It's never given me any hassle with the paintwork. I now only use it occasionally when a decal is reluctant to stick. Microsol is applied after the decal is in place. It softens the decal and helps it settle into the contours of the model. If you use it too much it can soften the decal until it breaks up but it's easy to avoid that. I 've also never had any problems with it affecting the paintwork. I'd recommend Microsol as it is easy to use and very effective. It is very good for reducing silvering. I found it hard to get and had to import it, but a bottle lasts ages. I have, on another forum, seen someone recommend putting a small drop of gloss varnish on the sticky side of a decal before applying it, also to help it set and to remove air from under it and reduce silvering. That might be worth trying.

OK, you have just broken my brain with the shots with 1:1 scale bits I see it but I still can't force it to make sense! Instead of making everything look small, it looks like you have giant pots of paint and glue and toothpaste tubes

Very nice looking, and I really liked the last photos paired up with its 1st generation jet fighter brother. The dawning of the jet age.

Looks good! As others have said, it's got a very sci-fi comicbook look to it, particularly the Dan Dare engine pods either side of the fin and those extravagantly swept and tapered wings..... and the crew seats which double as access elevators of course! Certainly an aircraft that left an immediate impression on me the first time I saw a picture of one. So much so that I have the Trumpeter one in my stash, and indeed it is next in my build queue. Glad to hear it goes together OK. I don't mind the inaccuracies because I'm not familiar enough with the aircraft to notice them. I hope! I was also planning to do it wheels up to show that sleek shape in flight.... but I've also heard somewhere that the landing gear is fussy on this kit as well. Or it's just incorrect. I forget, but I am sure I read something about the landing gear when I was researching the kit. Were there any major challenges you came across in the build that you'd advise I look out for?

Sums up my reaction, really.

That's a great looking model. The paint job and finish look perfect.

A few posts back, Homebee posted a promotional Youtube clip of a pre production / testfit example or whatever. At about 17 seconds in there's a closeup of the cockpit and canopy, and the finish is really rough. It looks like a frosted bathroom window. I assume for production they do something to the moulds or to the process to get the smooth surface we're all used to, and that the frosted glass at that particular stage in development shown in the video is entirely normal. Hence my joke about not being sure if I like the frosted glass. All in jest. I have complete faith in Airfix to not sell it like that. If the real aircraft were like that all Spitfire pilots would be experts at instrument flying.

That was me. It was a joke

Yes that is a grand idea. I've also been shopping for half built Airwolfs with a similar idea in mind, but building a full on military variation from a different chopper is a brilliant idea. Can go full on camo or steam punk with it too. Maybe put a NOTAR or Fennestron rotor on the back, 4 blade rotor to match something I saw as a kid in a Bill Gunston book... or maybe add a pair of Alpha Jet wings... I might be getting overly ambitious now but I really like that idea! I've also considered using the clear fuselage halves, leaving one wall off the compartment and then leaving a part of the fuselage clear so that Dom and his cave can be seen. It will make the light redundant though, and while I think the room will be stable enough with one wall missing, I'm not 100% sure.

Gosh, it was April when I kicked this one off! Well, there's been some progress at least. Interior is all painted and decalled. It is also assembled apart from the port wall, back wall and ceiling. The ceiling and top parts of the side panels are, according to the destructions, a 50/50 mix of white and yellow. The end result of that will pretry much be yellow, and would look way too bright and yellowy compared to what is shown on the TV series. There, it looks like a creamy white so I used Vallejo's aged white which I had lying around. I still think the result is a bit too creamy but it's not bad. The grey is Vallejo ocean grey, apart from the seats. I did those a couple of months earlier and I think they are aggressor grey. The floor is black and the instrument shroud is a mix of black and grey. The decals went on quite well - you can see I broke one on the side panel but other than that they settled well on very bumpy, detailed surfaces with some encouragement from Microsol. Instrument panel is dull aluminium and the computer screen is translucent blue brushed over the ocean grey. I didn't know what it would look like but I am quite pleased with the completely accidental texture that resulted. Not that it matters. The computer screen will be completely invisible once the fuselage is closed up. Speaking of which.... I wanted to light up the interior to see if I could make at least some of it visible once closed up. As standard it's a dark cave: I've never done any lighting before so I wanted to purchase a kit that was ready to go. I saw a company called Small Scale Lights recommended, found them online and got in touch. They were very helpful. I described what I wanted to do, sent some pictures, and they made up a kit for me. I know that with a bit of knowledge I could get the parts cheaper but I found the price more than reasonable for the service I got. As for the results, you can judge for yourself but I'm really happy. It's better than I was expecting. Can even see that decal I tore... Other than that, the rotor is also complete and ready to go. I put it on at a bit of an angle so that it leans forward when the helicopter is horizontal - that's the stance I recall from the real thing - but in hindsight that was a mistake and I should have just set it level. I'll see how it looks assembled and decide whether or not to separate it. It might be worth doing anyway because it will make the body easier to paint. If I'd realised beforehand I could complete the rotor assembly after the fuselage is complete, I'd have done that! Anyway there's a tip for anyone else building this model. The base and shaft for the rotor needs to be complete before the fuselage halves are joined, because it sits in lugs inside the fuselage. However, the blades can be left off. It's worth waiting. In fact the shaft is also press fit into the base so that might also have been possible to leave for later. Here's the rotor assembly. All Vallejo colours except the yellow is an AK acrylic paint.

I know what you mean! Whet was in my mind is, tan and red are the classic Ferrari colour. Red bodywork, tan interior. So I was thinking, how would it look if all the red part of the interior was tan, all the black bits in the interior stay black. Bodywork stays red. If the join lines between the bodywork and interior panels are smooth, it might look rather tasteful and might even break up the mass of car a little. And it's a concept car. The two or three they sold would be whatever colours the buyer wanted most likely, so it would have been a valid combination. Only problem is, at my skill level I think I'd find it easier to pull off a red interior than a tan one.

As mentioned in my previous comment, the Tamiya kit has been ordered and arrived. And so has the reference material. Thanks again for all the replies and help. A WIP thread will follow... eventually! There's quite a queue ahead of the Ferrari. Box and reference images. I had this magazine when I was young. I am not sure this is where I first came across the Mythos...I think I was already aware of it when this came out, but this was certainly the most extensive writeup and image library I had of the car. I find myself wondering what it would look like with a tan interior and... no. Maybe I shouldn't

A good looking build of a challenging looking car. I agree with you, it's probably the least attractive of the Koenig Specials models. I found a lot of his work wasn't sympathetic to the shape of the original car. This being one example, though its roundness did to some extent predict the 964. His 512BB and 308s being two others. Curvy cars covered in blocky additional panels. On the other hand, I thought his 928 was quite nice, and his Countach was unusually subtle... but then, it's a Countach. To my memory nobody ever figured out how to make a Countach look faster or wilder. I did like his Testarossa based Competition, though. That was a poster car for me as a kid.

I was watching an update he did of an e-type Jaguar. Exquisite work and attention to detail and a really keen eye for how each component fits into the big picture. It's not just about how good each detail looks but how well it fits in with the whole car.

Terrible result on the canopy there! Very unlucky to get that reaction. Hope Revell can supply a replacement, they were really quick when I asked them about some missing bits on my ADV. I guess at this point there's nothing to lose by re-dipping the canopy. Possibly can also try coating it in something else like one of those famous floor varnishes. I have no reason to think that will help apart from when I got white clouds all over my model from a satin varnish, putting a gloss varnish on top magically (to me) made the clouds vanish. So who knows? Maybe a gloss varnish will somehow fill in, mask, dilute, refract or dissolve whatever effect has made the canopy foggy. Or maybe it will just mean the canopy now has two messes to deal with instead of just one.

Very nice build. Shocking how different the shapes of the two different kits are, but I guess back then they didn't have much to go on except some grainy photos

Nice! I hope you'll be sharing that build on Britmodeller when it's done? I need to get another two because there are two more F.1 liveries I want to do. I considered going for them in 1/72 but one of them will be a SAAF aircraft and I already have a SAAF Impala in 1/48 so I'll stick with that. I bought these in 1/48 from FFSMC along with SAAF decals. If I get a Mirage III then I can do a SAAF jets of the 1980s collection (should add a Buccaneer too) and I will have enough F.1s to keep me happy. I think.

That is a wonderful build and diorama. So much character in that scene and so much to take in. Absolutely lovely.

Thanks for that. The Italeri instructions are very light on information about the three aircraft or why it calls this the "bye bye" edition. An easy enough guess that it is to do with retiring the F.1 but the kit gives no indication what made the three aircraft depicted significant for that event. I searched internet images of the aircraft I built while researching / verifying the colours but I didn't go into its history. So it's nice to have a little bit of background added for them as well. Thanks very much!

Yeah, very similar. Also reminds me of the Israeli F-16s from Iron Eagle, though it looks like they have some green in them as well.

And this one is finished. Tailpipe was the last bit to do. Took me a while because the colour contrasts were too much.. I made the dark bits too dark, and I wanted to bring out the panel lines a bit more because it looked more like a cheap, banded bi-metal finger ring than a jetpipe. So it's had a few sessions with various washes, pastels, Tamiya powders and varnishes before it got to a point I was happy to put it on the jet. It's a cozy fit so I haven't had to glue it on, which is good because it's actually quite a lousy looking design (interior is particularly crap) so I may well replace it with an aftermarket one at sometime in the future. The next F.1 I build will certainly have an aftermarket tailpipe, and possibly windshield and canopy too. I'm quite happy with the kit provided windshield but I have read that it is too wide, and once I'd taken the photos I can now see this in the front views. It's good enough for me, but on the next build I'll be looking to see what difference aftermarket bits can make. Anyway here's the RFI thread. Thanks to you all for joining me on this journey.

Mirage F.1. Dassault somehow have a habit of designing a bit of style into their jets. Whether it is intentional or not, I don't know, but their fighters are often very easy on the eye. None more so, in my opinion, than the Mirage F.1. Even the name is evocative. For me, perhaps because of the generation I am, very few designs visually capture the performance, athleticism and lethality of a supersonic jet fighter with as much grace as a Mirage F.1 manages. There are very few options for an F.1 in 1/48 and the aged Esci one is generally acknowledged as the one to have. It has some inaccuracies but for its age it actually goes together rather well. I bought the Italeri "Bye Bye" boxing of this kit simply because, with it being the youngest boxing of the anciend Esci kit available, it seemed the one least likely to have any warping or damage on it. I was originally going to do a SAAF CZ but when my I saw the desert camo option available in the boxing, I knew I had to do that. It's a change from the usual green / brown / grey camo I usually have and the tail treatment is particularly striking with the black flashes on the vertical fin echoes in the twin dorsal fins beneath the tail. The build is completely OOB with the exception of the scratch built, removable intake covers which I made primarily to mask off the intakes while painting the model. I'll reuse these on the next F.1 I build. Paints are mostly Vallejo Model Air with a few exceptions: The aluminium underside is an old and dull tin of Humbrol 11 (Silver) which also serves as the primer coat for the camo colours, the nosecone is Tamiya acrylics (flat black and dark iron mixed), and the ECM pod thingy on the port wing (station 2?) Is Revell steel enamel because I wanted to give that paint a try (It looks nice enough but was an absolute pain to clean the airbrush... and it stinks) . All other metals are Vallejo Metal Color. Panel lines and (minimal) weathering is all a pastel wash. Varnish was Vallejo spray gloss before decals, and Windsor & Newton Galeria matt varnish final top coat to set the finish and seal everything in. There are a few mistakes I've made which I could have avoided with more research or forward planning. One was the navigation lights on the wings, which aren't called out in the kit's painting instructions. There are two little teardrop shaped bumps, one under each wingtip, which are kind of shaped like navigation lights sometimes are, so I painted those red and green. Turns out those bumps should be body colour and the actual nav lights are two little rectangular sections on the front section of each wingtip. I know better for next time. The other is two quite prominent decals that should go on either side of the ejection seat headrest. These are not marked in the instructions when the seat is assembled, but only called out with the rest of the exterior decals. By the time I had gotten to them the cockpit was all sealed up and I wasn't going to crack it open to add them. Overall, a very pleasant build especially considering the kits age. So much so that I've bought aftermarket decals for two more. Build thread is here: And now for the pictures. Not sure why this one displays sideways.. Thanks for looking!

Very entertaining read of a kit that sounds like a great one to avoid! End result is a good looking rendition of a very characterful looking aircraft. I've always liked the big old Hercules.