TonyOD

Welcome aboard shipmate, if you set up a WIP thread for your build I'll add it to the Build List.

That is indeed a good shout, and they can be had for a decent price. I'm guessing I'll be able to find some kind of conversion kit without trying too hard. Any reason why not the old Mk I (19 Sqn box art), which handily comes with the flat canopy?

We're only just keeping up with the first tsunami!

Don’t be ridiculous

Me!

I’ll check that out @Angus Tura, thank you!

Glad to have this build in the GB now! I hope you sort out the wonky fuselage… cheers Tony

Good to hear!

Not just yet. I’m making the time for the three others I have on the go!

Fair enough, I just feel bad that the Sea Dogs' gain is another GB's loss!

That would be a shame. I’m sticking to my two build plan. Find the time? I’ll make the time!

I've heard about Lucas' work but not seen it. Reason I ask is that while I had an ASR Spitfire Vb up my sleeve as a potential third build after the two Seafires, funky yellow codes notwithstanding that's basically another Day Fighter Scheme/sky nose/sky band Vb and I'm already doing one of them. Using the same rationalisation as we've applied to yours though I could do a Vc as flown off USS Wasp to Malta. Though it's solid can of worms territory and opinions vary, I may go with the blue as [possibly] applied during the voyage to the Med on board Wasp, sky underside (these Spits were delivered painted in desert scheme but with sky instead of azure blue undersides), two pairs of cannon, 90 gallon slipper tank, as configured on takeoff from the carrier. Plus there's be little weathering to do as the planes when loaded onto Wasp at Clydebank were brand new. The book I was enjoying over a wee dram last night was Dr Alfred Price's Spitfire: A Documentary History. When I was a kid we didn't have many books in the house, but we did have an encyclopedia of WW2, a big coffee table book about Hitler(!) and this book by Price (published 1977), which I read over and over again. Long since lost, but I managed to pick up an identical first edition for a few quid. It's funny, I can't have laid eyes on the book for at least 40 years but I still remember some of the pictures. The chapter about the Maltese club runs I was reading has a very stirring first-person account of a flight from Wasp to Malta (and what happened next) from one of the Operation Calendar pilots. All but one of the Spitfires arrived safely, but as you say they were all destroyed on the ground within 48 hours of arrival. The Governor of Malta took the rap for providing insufficient protection for the precious planes while on the ground and was replaced. That double-spread photo of the tiny, heavily loaded aircraft leaving the deck with a vast expanse of water, not to mention hostile air activity in front of it I find hugely evocative. The sheer courage of those men! Interestingly the airframe I have in mind, BR294/GL*E is presented in the mythical "non specular blue" in my Eduard Profipack kit, while the same plane according to your KP callouts was "probably" Temperate Sea Scheme. You pays your money and you takes your choice!

I seem to remember North Sea oil being quite exciting when I was a kid in the 70s. Before fossil fuels were a dirty word, of course. I guess Revell tapped into that. Whatever their benefits, it’s hard to get excited about a wind turbine or a solar farm, I doubt we’ll be seeing model kits of them.

Can’t argue with that!

Fast becoming a perilous riptide!

Just reading this over a nightcap Mark. Made me think of your Vc. What’s your thinking on the colour then?

This evening's round-up... Today we have four new additions to the build list, welcome to @Romeo Alpha Yankee with his SS Sovereign oil tanker, @Dermo245 with his Grumman F-11F-1 Tiger, and thanks to @Andwil who I more-or-less bludgeoned into doing a Sea Harrier, as well as @JOCKNEY for adding a Republic Seabee. The total number of builds now stands at... 111 I don't think we have any new starts today, apart from the tanker, which comes with a few parts stuck together. We have one additional crew member on the bridge, namely the pleasant chatty bloke at the party, until he falls out of the window blind drunk (his words, not mine) and now GB co-host @Bertie McBoatface. But the big news: take a bow, Mr @Luke1199 who is first into the gallery with his Grumman F8F-1 Bearcat (actually he quietly sneaked it in yesterday, I missed it!) Happy modelling all Tony

And it probably will. Eventually.

Great job, and first over the line! Pride of place at the top of the gallery!

Lovely, and a whole new angle on shipping. "Oil" add you to the build list now. I'll get me coat.

I had that kit at one time and regret letting it go, will be nice to see you tackle it.

In a move reminiscent of that time Elvis got a DEA deputy's badge off of Tricky Dicky Nixon, I have extended an invitation to co-co-host this large and ever growing GB to Mr @Bertie McBoatface, who has kindly accepted. Bertie has been spreading good cheer (and bad jokes) around the GB since its inception, not to mention bewitching all comers with his tales of whale-chasing adventures on the high seas and timber-bending adventures on dry land. Good to have you on the bridge. Thunkyavurrymuch!

This is looking fantastic!

Found this one? I think we’d take it.