Blue Monday

I love this, I have to say. As Bill says, post up as much info as you can, what bits come from kits, what bits are scratch-built and how you are bringing it all together. It doesn't matter that the model is your own fictional design. Every flying machine starts off as a simple idea. Keep going with this. It looks amazing. BM.

Flawless. A truly brilliant little build of an interesting aircraft. BM.

A great salute to one of aviation's over-looked greats. BM.

I was looking through Whirlybird's Catalogue for 2012 and it looks like they have a resin HH-3E conversion planned for the future. It should be good. http://www.whirlybirdmodels.com/img/Product%20Range%20leaflet%20-%20Nationals%202012%20A5%20-%20in%20page%20order%20plus%20decals.pdf BM.

Another great model, General. I thought the Terra-Cruiser was going to be trundling along soon but this is very nice. The finish is pretty much flawless. BM.

Those are two very nice little tractors. This is one area of aviation modelling that has been ignored by the manufacturers for too long but thankfully that seems to be changing. Most tractor kits that I know of come as additional items in aircraft kits, like the modern tractor in the old Revell 1/72 F-16 kit and of course the tractor in the Airfix Stirling bomber. BM.

Well done on a fine build of what is one of the most basic of helicopter kits. A new H-3 Jolly Green Giant 1/72 kit is badly needed. BM.

Page 56 of the Irish Air Corps' own book, "The IAC celebrates 100 years of Flight" shows the three IAC king Airs in formation. Two are in the white-and-dayglo paint scheme. The inside of the engine nacelles are visible and show no black panels. The dayglo band continues all the way down the inside of the nacelle. It does look like there is a black panel or section painted along the underside of the nacelle though. It could be that a black panel was painted to the inside area of the nacelle after a repaint. There were two different versions of the dayglo "Evening Herald" paint scheme applied to the King Air and there were often small differences in some of the details of the colour schemes of many aircraft types operated by the IAC. BM.

This book, as mentioned in the previous post, is a must-have if you want to build the Fouga, Irish or otherwise. http://maxdecals.com/ BM.

Correct font or not, that is a museum-quality model. He is just showing off with those wheel wells! BM.

I see that Whirlybirds have released a 1/72 kit of the Sikorsky HH-52A Seaguard helicopter. No doubt it will be up to their usual high standards. It is criminal that this release has gone almost unnoticed but I think Whirlybirds will have a website up-and-running soon. The Aviation Megastore have this kit for sale on their website. The price is €49 (€59 including EU taxes) which is steep but this is a niche subject so you are going to pay for the privilege of getting a good quality kit. I thought I'd order one and the total bill came to a whopping €90 including postage! The extra €30 seems a little extortionate for what will be a small package travelling between The Netherlands and Ireland. Does anyone know of another supplier for this kit? Is it possible to order direct from Whirlybirds themselves? I am fearful that the Aviation Megastore might well be the only online source for this kit which means it will be out of reach for the majority. That is a shame because you can be guaranteed this kit will be a cracker. BM.

It is great to see the FAH Corsair being built. It is one of those great anomalies in the history of aviation: A WWII fighter that served into the late seventies and saw combat in 1969! Brilliant. I have FAH-609 on the go at the moment in 1/72 so I'll hope to pick up a few tips here. Thanks. BM.

The December 2012 issue of "Flight Journal" magazine has an 8-page article on the Soccer War and in particular the dogfighting between the Honduran Corsair and the El Salvadoran P-51D. I haven't had a chance yet to read the text of this article yet but it looks good. It doesn't have a huge amount of photos of FAH-609 (the Corsair I want to build) but has a small piece on Capt. Fernando Soto. BM.

Can anyone tell me if the fuel filler cap is offset to the left from the centre line on all Corsair drop tanks or is the tank on the left fitted with an offset filler cap to the left and the right tank has its cap offset to the right? Any photos and references I've seen so far show the filer cap offset to the left on all tanks. Have a look at the tank in this link. http://www.warbirdinformationexchange.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=37801 I'm adding a little detail to the Italeri tanks and I want to get this detail correct. Thanks. BM.

Thanks Christian. No problem regarding the napalm/fuel tanks. My only problem is that I managed to remove the front 0.5 mm of one of the tank halves with a razor saw when removing the part from the sprue! I will have to try some sort of a fix. Thanks as well for the heads-up on the decals. I wish I had seen them before I'd purchased the decal sheet from Sky Models. In fairness, the Honduran markings on the Sky Models sheet appear to be fine except that they don't have two copies of the kill markings for FAH-609, like they should do. I'm not sure if this error is copied on the other two sheets. BM. Edit; I just had a closer look at the markings on the Sky Models sheet and it has two sets of kill markings.

Can anyone tell me if these are napalm cannisters or fuel tanks hanging from this Corsair? http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?t=112322&page=2 I think they might the former but I'm not sure. I have started a little tinkering with the Italeri kit and have already managed to make a mess of removing the fuel tanks from the sprues. Thanks. BM.

I was fortunate to be invited to Casement Aerodrome yesterday for the launch of this book. I picked up a copy of this book and given today's poor weather here in Galway and having a day off work, I decided to get stuck into this volume. As with the previous Max Decals book covering the history of the Irish Air Corps, this book is well-researched and beautifully illustrated, this time by Radu Brinzan. The history of the design of Fouga Magister is covered as is the attack on Irish troops on UN duty in the Congo by a Katangan Fouga (a particularly interesting chapter). As always, the selection process of any aircraft for service with any air arm is a fascinating topic to read about. The other aircraft considered for purchase are covered and there are even colour side-views of two aircraft (in speculative Irish schemes) that were considered for Irish service. The Fouga in Irish Air Corps service from start to finish is covered with the chapter on the Silver Swallows display team being of particular interest. Another chapter captures the technical details of the Fouga and the book is illustrated with many photos and numerous colour side-views of the Fouga including those from Katanga, Austria as well as Ireland. A set of 1/50th scale drawings in colour are included along with a full set of 1/72 and 1/48th scale drawings. Overall, another fine book from Max Decals and one that I really enjoyed reading. This book is enough to make me want to build a model of a Fouga! Hopefully, this isn't the last book from Joe Maxwell on the Irish Air Corps and its aircraft. BM.

What a superbly finished Apache. Inspiriational stuff. I would guess that it is probably unlikely that all panels displayed open on this model would all be open at the same time. Even for the first, comprehensive pre-flight of the day, it is unlikely everything is open at the same time. Unlikely, but not impossible. BM.

Hi Paul. I sent an email to your current email address a while back. Can you let me know if it got through this time? Thanks. BM.

It's good to see something out of the ordinary and it's nice to see a nice little diorama as well. Very nicely done. BM.

That is a very nice diorama indeed. I admire your ability to get some great modelling done in a relatively short period of time. Make sure you enter this in a modelling contest at some point. It is bound to win you a prize. BM.

Hi Paul. Thanks for the quick reply. I was using an old email address by mistake. I have sent an email to your current address. Thanks. BM.

Hi Paul. Email sent regarding a small number of decals for a project I have on the go. Can you let me know if the email arrived and if the decals are a runner? Thanks. BM.

These guys have some good products. http://www.gpm.pl/eng/index.php?akcja=prod...amp;edycja=3217 They have card models of hangars in 1/72 and a control tower in that scale also. If you want a larger hangar that can accomodate a larger 1/72 aircraft model or numerous small 1/72 aircraft, the 1/48th scale hangar is the way to go. I plan to use the 1/48th scale hangar in a diorama featuring numerous 1/72 scale aircraft. The quality of the card is very good. I just have to figure out how best to construct it, having never built a card model before. BM.

Well done on a very nice result from the Dragon kit. It is always great to see another 500 built up. BM.