Amo Aero

This is a kit I built quite a while ago, but just got around to photographing. From what I remember it was a very nice kit, but the nose and cowlings required some putty. The cowlings in particular were quite fiddly. It's OOB, with the exception of the antenna masts and antenna wires.

Superb modeling skills here! Beautifully done aircraft and probably the best water sculpting and painting I've ever seen. An exciting diorama that tells a story and gives a sense of what it must have been like to actually be there. Bravo sir!

Nice work! It looks like Frog got the line of the fuselage/windshield right, unlike almost every published drawing of the Hornet.

Magnificent! You really did justice to that old kit. Bravo sir!

Wheels up and exciting camera angles--you really captured the beauty and power of the Spitfire!

I always liked the Victor--science fiction made real! Nice work!

Superb modeling and photography!

Fantastic work! So nice to see an old vac kit getting some love.

I built this quite a while ago. It was an enjoyable build let down by the decals.

Beautiful work! Great to see those seldom modeled aircraft.

Fantastic vacuform modeling! Fascinating airplane.

I just posted a build video of the PR.XIX. It's about 20 minutes long for those of you who may be interested. My apologies to the moderators if I did something wrong here.

Yes, you are absolutely right, and it was done by very smart people using slide rules. Raw human brainpower painstakingly melding poorly understood aerodynamics with new materials and untested structures to create new aircraft unlike any that had gone before. Then a brave pilot had to put his life on the line to see if the engineers got it right.

Aeroclub did a mixed media NF.14 in 1/48--vacuform airframe & canopy, injection molded cowlings and empennage, and white metal LG & cockpit, IIRC. Happy hunting!

I never thought of it that way--9 years--astounding! Given the same pace of development, by now we could have had flying cars and Starbucks on Mars!

So good to see these old kits getting some love.

Very impressive! I really like the anti-flash scheme.

Beautifully done, and you did it while immobilized with broken bones?! Even more impressive! I can barely function when I have a slight head cold.

What a beautiful beast!

Yeah, I have one of these in the stash too. As a Jug fan (what guy isn't?), I would love to build it, but its odd engineering has intimidated me so far. Following your build is an inspiration--thank you!

You got some industrial strength mojo! You're making great progress!

Yes, it is airbrushed. TBH though, I am in complete awe of those who wield the hairy stick. If I had to rely on hand brushing, I would have given up modeling for knitting years ago. Re additional pix: One of my ongoing projects is building a table top photo studio. When it's operational I'll post more pix. Even so, the only thing you would learn from detail pix of my camera apertures is that they are horribly misaligned. If my model represented a real PR Spitfire, the camera rigger would have been courtmartialed for sabotage.

Yes, it's hard to beat late model Spitfires for aeronautical beauty. PR.XIX is so clean, no gun blisters, etc, and the postwar color scheme further accentuates its sleek lines. Enjoy your builds! It really is a nice kit. If I had test fit the MLG before assembling the wing it would have been so much easier to deal with the fit problems.

There are no ugly airplanes--some just have more character than others. This one is blessed with an amazing amount of character!

My first model in almost 7 years! I tried to pick a kit that would be the easiest, most trouble free 1/48 scale build. I (re)learned, at least for me, that no such kit exists. Overall, it went together well, and was an enjoyable experience. There were some surprises though: IMHO, Airfix's decision to include dropped flaps was a mistake--Spitfires are almost never seen with them dropped. It took a bit of fiddling to improve the fit--not really a big deal, but to hassle over a feature which is superfluous was irritating. The real challenge came with fitting the MLG struts--it took quite a bit of filing and carving and drilling to get them to fit into their sockets in the wheel wells. After finally getting the first "leg" in place, I broke the little plastic spigot on the 2nd. I ended up cutting away the broken stub, then drilled out the strut and fitted a brass pin. I drilled an oversize hole in the corresponding socket in the wheel well and superglued in a short length of telescoping brass tube to provide a strong and precise attachment. After that the remaining gear went in just fine. I never did get the cameras to line up properly with their windows in the fuselage. In retrospect, I should have painted them black so they would be less noticeable or just left them out altogether. As a matter of course I masked and painted the black walkways at the wing roots. Later, I discovered the kit decals are superb--perfectly registered, opaque, conformed well with little to no silvering. Had I known that I could have used the walkway decals and saved some time. Now that the picture is posted here I see I forgot to paint the nav lights--D"OHH!!