Hepster

I seem to recall attending a lecture by at SMW years ago in which Michael Ullman presented some evidence that the greenish tint arose from a late war mix of RLM76 which had a primer additive to allow it to be used on a surface without primer, thus saving both weight and time on an airframe which might not last long enough for the paint to get scratched anyhow.

MG17 (wings) MG81Z (rear cockpit)

'Panzers in Normandy - Then and Now' by After the Battle publications has a pic of a wrecked Panzer IVD in Normandy, but although it still has the short 75mm gin it has been refitted with the wider wheels and tracks that came in from the Panzer IVF onwards, so modelling would be tricky!

This has been covered often! Use the middle size nose for the NF12 in place of the overlong nose provided for the NF14. Also, remember that the band halfway along the main canopy is black; it is actually internal, though the kit shows it as raised external. The wheels are wrong, but you can't fix it, just go with it. Buy lots of filler.

I picked up both an Airfix T3 and Heller T3 at a show 5 years back, and the main difference was better plastic on the earlier Heller boxing, in that the Airfix boxing used a much softer plastic. This was a problem with the nosewheel, which is very thin and fragile. When I built the Airfix boxing, I resorted to coating the nosewheel in superglue in order to reinforce it. I recall having the same problem on a build of the Airfix FAW9, not surprisingly. The Airfix kits both had one piece 'wraparound' tail flashes, whilst the Heller boxing has the more common two piece. Decals were semi-translucent, so I used spares to double decal roundels because of poor colour density.

'Testing Colours' by Adrian Balch - Airlife 1993 - has a good air-to-air pic of WS838 as it banks away with a nice view of the underside of the port wing. There's also a pic taken air-to-air from above. The underwing serial is there, with no roundel, just like the flight-sim pic. The main differences are the fuel tanks - the photo shows the port tank and the belly tank in aluminium finish, whilst the starboard tank is yellow. All three tanks have the full set of stripe stencils. The upper wing roundels are small, the same size as the fuselage ones. There is a weird looking area just inboard of the upper port wing roundel that is painted black. There is no sloping whip aerial on the upper rear fuselage (incorrectly shown in the flight-sim pic), bit there is a white blade aerial.

I think that it is a Vulcan B.1. The first few delivered were painted overall aluminium finish, beginning with XA889 in 1956 and (probably) finishing with XA900 in 1957 since XA901 was the first to be delivered in overall anti-flash White. This narrows the above to 12 serials from XA889 to XA900 if my info is correct. As luck will have it, the two technicians working on the wing airbrakes are blocking the view of the serial, which is partly visible on the tail in black letters/numbers. The serial is also repeated on the lower part of the door under the nose, but I cannot read it.

The NF13 at Staverton (at the Jet Age Museum) is WM366 and has been restored at some time in the past with the nose from NF11/TT20 WM234, so that's why it does not have the intakes. It also has the tail from F8 VZ462, but hey.

I have a copy of this booklet in front of me - it lists the Kestrel as a future type 'when fully developed', a terrible artists rendition of the HS.801 maritime reconnaissance aircraft (what became the Nimrod} and the final page features the F-111 with the phrase 'Typical of tomorrow's RAF is the revolutionary F-111...' An enjoyable little booklet,, I shall use the Basset photo as a guide to doing the Basset in my stash...

The canopy could be jettisoned because, being hinged like it is, a belly landing that goes wrong and finishes upside down traps the pilot. Spits and Hurries can slide their canopies back to avoid this.

Nice one Kes, just enjoy the build! Coincidentally, I picked up a copy of the same kit at my local charity shop for all of £1.50. In view of the useful comments, I guess I'll just build it as a generic merchant ship of the period.

What a beauty, I also built this fine kit last year, same issues with the engines. I also grafted in metal pin replacements for the probes o the wing and the tail, they were warped and flimsy on mine and needed sturdy replacements.

re 1 - the circular detail on the leading edge is a plated over gunport. The earlier 109s and the E-1 had a machine gun in this location, whilst the E-3 onwards had a 20mm cannon one frame further out, so that the inner gunport had to be covered.

It's not truly smokeless, more so the bigger the gun. As for staining, if a 20mm causes staining on a fighter plane, then a 12 inch on Dreadnought might be a bit worse.

The book 'Remembering Revell Model Kits' by Thomas Graham, Schiffer 2004, gives the scale of the Spanish Galleon H-367 as 1/96, whilst it gives the scale of the English Man 'o War H-397 as 1/65. H-367 is a modification of the 'Golden Hind' kit H-325. Another Spanish Galleon kit, H-400 was issued in 1/65.

Locally based AW109 G-TRNG, interesting colour scheme.

Blue Steel was white for live and blue for practice. Most of the aircraft concerned would have carried practice rounds most of the time. I have heard it said that not many of the aircraft ever carried a live round; if so, then XL321 is surely one of the exceptions, since it has been photographed a number of times carrying a white one. The blue/practice rounds were not just a ballistic shape - the were fitted with some of the systems of the live weapon, such as inertial navigation along with the various umbilical attachments, presumably so that use of these items could form part of the training. The two tailpipes were fitted with covers until use, so externally they would have been identical. Conclusion - either colour is appropriate.

You could try looking up details of the Vulcans used in 'Black Buck' missions. I think these were selected from those that had received the Skybolt plumbing, so that they could be fitted with pylons for the ALQ101(V)10 jamming pods and the anti radar missiles, amongst other reasons. Incidentally, the inert Skybolt shapes fitted to the trials aircraft didn't look much like the actual Skybolt.

I'd go along with the above, the kit is said to have tight tolerances, even the new Airfix mag referred to issues in ensuring that the intakes fitted properly. In addition though, and after seeing several completed examples, I would say that you need to double decal the roundels because if you are doing either the red wings version or the fire orange version it may taint the white in the roundels.

Alas, most pics of this unit have the CO's aircraft WK722 in the front just like this, blocking off the view of everything else! An exception to this is a colour shot of 601 Sqn on page 97 of 'Camera Above the Clouds' volume 3, which shows WH364 'B' in front with the CO's aircraft 5th in the line. 'B' is near the back in your shot, as they are arranged in alphabetic order. Can't read the other serials I'm afraid. WH364 currently residing in the Jet Age Museum, Gloucestershire, wearing spurious 601 Sqn CO's colours, which is how it was painted when in use as a gate guard at Kemble.

You are certainly correct to avoid the Roden early He 111 kits, I built the He 111B about 8 years back and I still have the nightmares.

Tony, Seeing as you have got the Gerald Scarborough book, you might look into old copies of the Airfix Magazine Annual, which used to contain the pick of the articles from the monthly mag, with the Crusader-Covenanter conversion being one of the best examples. Also, if you are looking at 1/76 scale, don't discount the Fujimi range. The airfix mag did a series of conversion articles for the Fujimi Panzer 38(t) kit to create various Marder III and flakpanzer types. The Fujimi Matilda is (arguably) more detailed than the Airfix example, tho' both are good.

Nice one Tim. The Normandy look is a good idea, as the cupola makes it a later model Tiger anyway. It does look like zimerritt is out of the question, but if you take attention away from that by busying the hull up with dark green/red brown camo streaks or patches that may do the trick. The hull mg might do with replacing, the stubby thing provided by Airfix doesn't really do your good work justice. But considering the kit has allegedly been voted Airfix's worst ever kit - as mentioned in the 50 years of Airfix book - what you've done here is quite remarkable. Regards, Rob H

I personally doubt that this is a 'sexist' thing at all... If the Buccaneer had been adorned with something like the 'Buster Gonad' artwork it might have been equally censored, if not more so. You have to consider the feelings of the visiting public, especially if it might risk an unfavourable TripAdvisor review.

If you do get a Frog, FAW9, then do something about the nose which is a bit blunt. I fixed mine by adding a pointier tip and getting it blended in with a bit of sanding. Alternatively,spend some money and buy the Freightdog replacement nose. The Novo repop of the Frog kit is easier to find, and usually cheaper but is usually covered in flash. Incidentally, I recently had both a Frog and Novo kit of the FAW9 in my hands, and was puzzled by the fact that the Novo kit weighed nearly 50% more - guess its something they put in the plastic, it was too much to be accounted for by all that flash.