JohnT

The seat does look the wrong way round but no it’s 100% right. Have checked against photos and manufacturers drawing in the MMP book

Didn't know they were still in commercial use these days. Sad to lose the two crew. The video is not 100% clear but it looks like they had an engine fire at fairly low level (at the time the video starts anyway) from the smoke emitted and then there was a fairly spectacular flash and flames with an immediate nose down left wing drop and into the ground. They didn't stand a chance there by the looks of things. RIP

Chains @giemme ??? Unusual. Reminds me of a very old friend who was fond of saying a corruption of an old British saying - and I hope Google translate has it right - bastoni e pietre possono spezzarmi le ossa ma fruste e catene mi eccitano

Not bad but am I the only one who thinks the black/white invasion stripes on the fuselage look a bit odd stopping as they do at the wing root. I suppose given the wing to fuselage shape of the Typhoon there was no "wrap around" fuselage area. I wonder if they are continued in the same manner underneath ? I cant see in the photos if they do or not.

Yes - no problem.

Too many best shows and performers and looking across different genres how does one compare? Chris Rea - Tina Turner - Fleetwood Mac - The Eagles - the list goes on As for the bad ones - one gig stands out for me head and shoulders way way above the rest. No one ever been that bad again. Early 1970's Edinburgh Usher Hall and the offenders were Pentangle - a sort of rock/folk group. Instruments fiddled with as not in tune etc - discovered half way through numbers when they stopped playing. Open discussions on what some band members had been taking. Just truly awful. I wanted to leave but was with friends etc so didnt say anything. Comparing notes at the end outside it seems we all wanted to leave but were too polite to say anything inside. Put me off going to concerts for years.

@Graham T Ive one waiting in the stash yet to see the light of the model desk so any pointers along the way would be very helpful. Let me know if the decals turn to dust. I plan on doing a 603 Squadron bird and bought the AIMS decal set as an option. I can let you have the decals off that sheet for the non 603 aircraft. You might need to source roundels though as you have to use the kit ones other than those off the sheet. Have a look on Hannants site You can also get the Infiniti etch set there which has an instrument panel though not sure what one does for instruments - Airscale maybe?? John T

Reminds me of a time when at a rugby club one guy was sick of folk nicking his new pint when he went to the toilet for relief so he wrote on a bar coaster "I have spat in this pint" and placed it on top of the glass only to come back and find some wag had added "So have I!"

Heather - you have said it now !! when is the thread starting ? I'll be there with the

Great picture and inspiration for a diorama though. Back seater is going to be a bit in the dark. Not as bad a coal hole as the Sea Vixen but still not a panoramic view out the windows

@Alan P @SprueMan I wonder if we are getting into an area where externally fighter designs look the same rather like modern airliners. The real differences will be under the skin and in the capability of their computers and sensor packages and the integration of same with other aircraft and platforms Will the 21st Century top gun be more a geek than a Captain Kirk I wonder????

And death only comes the once

Aye but didn't the therapy sessions make a big hole in the modelling budget ? An ICM 1/48 Hampden will fill and gap in the market. I have an FM one and every time I get brave enough to open the box I close it quickly and mop the sweat from my forehead. I always thought getting one was a good investment though as sure as eggs are eggs now I have one some manufacturer will bring out one that I could,actually build - and so it proves. (Hasn't worked with my 1/48 FM Halifax thing so far though)

Pete one of the best cars I ever had was a Sierra in the XR4x4 guise. Not a Cosworth but it could shift and held the road well for its size. A chap in the local garage described that version as Ford’s best kept secret.

just astonishing.

Bird Brain? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-oxfordshire-68785461 Brilliant. How clever is that.

Nice idea as a Whiffer. Perhaps a suggestion. Knowing the Fat One's predilection in later life for glittery and sparkly things and also collecting art might some "adornments" by way of heraldry , hunting or suchlike be considered??? Just a thought. His DVII was just plain white though so maybe best stick with that?

1978 British School of Motoring Triumph 1300. Had a great instructor. Took me out one day in a snow blizzard. I thought he was joking at first as the street were empty and deep in the white stuff. He pointed out one day I’d get caught in that sort of weather so better do it first time in a dual control school car with instructor. Had great fun too.

Pretty cool of them but very dangerous and I hope that no Hollywood producer tries the quiz. A few wrong answers and we get Boeing 747’s attacking flown by Tom Cruise in the 8th Army Air Force 😁 with the quiz results as research🤪

I know I will be falling out or dribbling out of a Boeing fora long time to come given the booze I will require to steady the nerves

I might add that I too am a huge fan of Americans, mostly anyway. Some of the nicest people I have met in my life. My sons Godmother is from the US. That said in the world of international realpolitik @junglierating is pretty much spot on. It goes back a long way. One foreign policy concern shown during WW2 and since is that the US were concerned not to support the return of Britain to old colonies after WW2. Fair enough - there was a fair amount of the UK thinking the same as well. That trend in US thinking continues to today and the Falklands issue might not get the same support as last time from across the pond. In 82 the Argentinian junta got it all wrong. A democratically elected government might have a better chance in future. US support can't be guaranteed on this particular issue. I think I can see an increasing trend in the US policy back towards isolationism. It is something that has never wholly gone away but has been dormant for the decades after WW2. I think there is a change in the way the wind is blowing and certain other countries have become aware that the US might not be the forward leaning reliable security senior partner that it has been in the second half of the last century. All that rambling done though I'd like to think that the Falklands are not under threat just because the Argentine Air Force acquire some F-16 aircraft which they do need to modernise. Perhaps if their navy acquired a credible and significant amphibious capability with the same for anti submarine tasking then that would present a more significant threat. I recall reading that a much earlier concern about an Argentine landing evaporated when the then Prime Minister James Callaghan sent a hunter killer sub to the South Atlantic - possibly more than one? Or at elast he let it be known that one was there. Whether that was true? Who knows? I suspect the main barrier to military intervention is not Typhoons or F-35's but the possibility of 1-2 submarines sending any amphibious force to the bottom of the South Atlantic. While the sabre rattling is going on I'd have one on permanent station at all time as a reality check. A better solution is that the UK buys up all the annual Argentine wine supply and creates an economic boom there so that renewed hostilities are unthinkable - I am prepared to do my bit drinking it for King and Country.

@Rob de Bie nice Huskie

@Sabrejet - I got @Rob de Bie to do me some F-105 decals in 1/32. Quite tricky as it was a specific artwork for an F-105 squadron and multi coloured. Not cheap but just what I wanted so I was a happy bunny. Very happy to recommend Rob. You might have to wait a time while he gets enough folks together to make a sheet run off sensible. Worth waiting for though.

10/10 on the nostalgia meter. This kit was the first one I bought by mail -and I mean mail. Letter posted to the USA as I recall after seeing an advert in some modelling magazine. I sent International Money Orders - anyone remember those !!!!? Several weeks later the kit arrived and boy was it shiny. I was well advised in the instructions to scrape off the plating to allow glue to join the mating edges. I am sure there were obvious seams but my rose tinted memory only recalls I was a truly happy bunny. I did the USAF scheme too. Thanks for the trip down memory lane

Hi Alistair just got one of these to try and do it without succumbing to AMS for a change. Going to do it pretty much OOB to try and get something finished after starting so happy to be a fellow traveller along the way with you. I always liked the lines on the 202 so will be closing up the engine but maybe not the cockpit. I have seem some Macchi experten slate the kit but heck - if I went with every article that said the model looked nothing like a real one I'd never end up buying or building anything I saw in kit reviews that both Brett Green and Chris Clifford expressed their concerns about the undercarriage and the build sequence.