Richard Humm

Joining this GB would give me an excuse to buy the Airfix kit (not that I really need one...). I'm in.

I'm planning to do a Norwegian one in the NATO GB, but I seem to have acquired a few more kits of the type. Sign me up for this one.

I'm planning to build my Airfix F-80 in the Airfix Classic GB later this year, but I've got a couple of T-33s and maybe an F-94 kicking around. Add me in.

You can put me in. I might even do this

According to the book, FROG sold 32,000 of them in the first year, so if they gave the retailers a trade price of around ten bob (half the price of the kit), they'd have received £16,000 - if the moulds cost £4000, then there was a decent profit made even allowing for boxes, decals and lights.

FROG did issue some Heller kits in the 1960s, so it's not complete heresy - the D.501 is from about ten years later, though.

Made a start, painting up Hans-Joachim and painting the interior dark grey (I didn't have a dedicated RLM 66 handy, but this should do.

Got some more done over the past few days, including the turbochargers now fitted and the starboard wheel well and oil cooler in progress.

There's the Hawker Sea Hawk as well.

Revell have sold most of their old tooling to Atlantis (along with Monogram and Aurora stuff that they had acquired) so they haven't got a vintage tool bank like Airfix.

Looking at the sample in my copy of Aircraft of the Fighting Powers volume 5, I'd say Humbrol 147 is the nearest in their current range.

Once you've got the Blenheim built, you can demonstrate how FROG made them to a common wingspan rather than a common scale.

Dark Green and Ocean Grey would be the official upper surface colours, and Medium Sea Grey for the undersides.

The Fury is the Matchbox kit. The mystery kit looks like the FROG Hotspur, the instructions are here: https://www.scalemates.com/products/img/8/2/7/161827-47-instructions.pdf

Let's have a look at the kit then - here's the painting instructions The instructions and the parts Looks like it's all there.

Lines and Hellström say that the Spin-a-Prop version wasn't released, but the mould was partially converted.

It looks like they put the wrong transfers in the kit - those are for the Gloster Whittle E28/39.

The original version of the Beaufighter had three RAF versions, but it was converted to the Australian version in 1971 when provision was made to fit a couple of "Spin-a-Prop" motors and batteries. The Beaufort and Ju 88 were also changed to be motorisable at the same time.

It's interesting to see that the stand is back on the sprue, after FROG removed it for the H-style boxing when the Skybase was included. I suppose the feed to the stand parts must just have been blocked off. There's certainly less flash on that moulding than some FROGspawn versions I've seen.

Not a lot of progress in the assembly today, just the ailerons and wingtips. I spent more time trying out Tamiya's paint mixes for the turbochargers. I did find the Molotov pen for the landing lights. There might not be much done tomorrow either, as it's my games night.

Got quite a bit more done tonight. First of all, assembling the nose wheel bay Then adding the nose bay and spar to the lower fuselage, not forgetting the nose weight Adding the top of the fuselage with the cockpit Then adding the gun bay doors and nose cone and building up the wings adding the undersides and upper leading edges, along with a couple of drop in panels on the undersides. Just the ailerons and wing tips to add to finish off the wings. I haven't yet added the landing lights in the lower wings, as I need to find my Molotov pen to put in the reflectors before adding the lenses and the masks that you get for them. As I'm doing the F, I don't need to add the identification lights that go under the fuselage of the G.

Dale said in the video that the Bulldog was based on original Bristol drawings, and of course they could measure up the Hendon Bulldog even if it's not convenient to LIDAR it.

That's a 1970s Skybase though, which are almost always blue (there is a catalogue which shows a clear one, though I've never seen a clear one in a kit). The original 1956-1966 round stands are almost always clear.

Here's my first entry for this group build, to be built in the North Africa bag art scheme

This isn't actually my build, but one I picked up cheap on Ebay a while back - the rather rare de Havilland Venom FB.4