The original Kit Builder

I've heard that many some folks have been the victim of Indian quality control again and recieved kits with sprues missing, including fuelage halves and upper wing pieces. I would still buy the Airfix release in preference to the Revell, but will wait until the problem is sorted out. After the many avoidable issues relating to the Indian part of the organisation, if I was Mr Hornby, I would have sacked the quality inspectors and replaced them with people from the home company by now, and stopped rushing to get kits released for unplanned dates. Get it right, not early.

I've looked at a couple of dozen images of MiG 17's where the canopy is visible and only two of them give any hint of this feature and only one of those, clearly. It looks likes MDC, but I can't see what use it would be on a canopy with a heavy centre brace like the Fresco has. In any case, HB's representation of it is far too prominent. There are a number of after market canopies available for the MiG 17, should you want to replace it, or you could try to sand the detail away and re-polish the canopy, if you think it possible and if you feel the detail detracts from the overall presentation. Chris

Thanks for pointing that out. I had missed the hole and, therefore the connection to the damaged paint. Graham, I worked alongside RAF painters and finishers for many years and know first-hand the preparation necessary for even a rush job like the 4 tornadoes painted at St Mawgan, for Gulf War 1, which took a week. There are certain things that have to be done and they take time. A dedicated spray facility with a drying oven might speed things up, but they still need time and in the 1940's the RAF had no such facility. Furthermore, modern paints dry far more quickly than those used then.

If that aircraft is OG/DG, the dopers should have been tech charged. If it has been repainted, it is recent enough that the machine still carries A type roundels, yet huge areas of paint have peeled off. I note that it is also carrying the b scheme. Was this retained when the colours changed? I have never noticed whether the original pattern was retained after the change. There have also been comments about whether orders were ignored for some reason. No they weren't, but theynwere also treated with a dose of practicality, just as they are today. Priorities would have been assigned and the reality of doing the job with limited resources would have been as real then as now. Don't forget, it's not just the putting new paint on, it's also hours of stripping, masking and dismantling, followed by waiting for paint to dry, before bringing the next aircraft in. Wirh the possibility of there being only one spray-gun at an airfield and only one spray bay, you can add an awful lot of time to the execution of any order issued by someone who is very likely to be not only a senior officer, but also aircrew, with little understanding of engineering timescales.

The more I see of these, the more I'm determined to get a pair. They are, without doubt, the best two stage conversion part I've seen.

I've seldom had any problems with Eduard SA etch parts. If you find them insufficiently sticky, though, or if the contact area is too small for them to adhere well, run a brushful of Klear onto the edge and let capilliary action take it under the part. When it dries, it will give you a pretty firm attachment, without the risk of damage or loss of detail as you might find with super-glue.

Most if not all, of 19 sqn's Spitfires wer from the initial production batch, including K9795, which was the 9th production aircraft, so it is almost (!) certain that the gun heating system was absent. However, many of these aircraft continued to see service through the battle and would have been modded during their lifetimes.

However it left the factory, MM 417 EG-T was carrying three shades by the time of the photo's, now widely published. The only logical combination is OG/DG/MSG. It also seems to be the case that the aircraft was repainted at some point, probably as much to change the colours, as to lower the demarcation line. This repainting appears to have been done freehand, as all demarcations are softer than woud be expected if masked. Edited to correct spelling.

Looks like 40 and possibly 4, previously MD241, which suffered and accident around Nov 1944, near Darwin.

Incidentally, if you go with Humbrol, don't use their recommended H30 dark green as it is too dull, too deep and too blue for RAF green. Some use H116 instead. I tend to favour Hannants xtra colour, which has always seemed to match pretty closely.

The correct scheme is ocean grey and RAF dark green topsides, with medium sea grey undersides. Dark sea grey is the wrong shade entirely. Hannants do the proper colours in both acrylic and enamel and Tamiya also produce them, having released them for their 1/32 Spitfire. Some have commented that Tamiya's medium sea grey isn't right, but it looks OK to my eye. Vallejo don't do anything like the proper shades, as far as I know.

You can bet that this will bite the MoD in the bottom at some point. The shape of this indicates that some minister or bean counter thinks it will be cheaper, but giving a foriegn company a monopoly, even one in a friendly country is seldom wise. The approach also ignores very solid strategic reasons for doing things the way we have since the start of WWII.

Yes, the weight is attached to the elevator and the fairing to the tailplane.

Going by the images, the first would seem to be a Venom, rather than a Sea Venom and of an earlier variant. All that's happened, is that the second image is of a later mark, with faired in weights in order to improve aerodynamics. The weights are fixed to the tailplane and move with it.

Sliding or jettisonable roof panels are only for use after ditching or wheels-up landings. Multi-engined aircraft crews especially gunners and those required to move around the aircraft rarely had the parachute attached to the harness in the aircraft. The pack was stowed in the fuselage and clipped to the harness prior to bail-out.

If you genuinely don't, then why bother comment, or even read the thread?

Saw these at Culdrose airday on Thursday. Pilot Kevin Whyman was, sadly, killed.

Revell 9 Anthracite is a very good shade for overall black and comes in acrylic and enamel.

I've left the stuff on for 4 years with no issues.

On drawings in general, I have worked on many British and US types over the years (and years!) and have learned two things: First, manufactuers general arrangement drawings always carry the warning that they are not to be scaled from and, second, manufacturers drawings, particularly British ones, often bear little relation to reality. For instance, those for the Nimrod make absolutely no mention of the fact that Nimrods come in three different lengths, with one particular aircraft being the equivalent of a frame station longer than the shortest. The topic 6 Aircraft Repair Manual contained a pipe and cable interchangeability chart for this reason, yet I have never, ever, seen any drawing indicating any but one overall length for this type. Unfortunately, the same is true of the detail drawings, so merely adding together all the theoretical component sizes and expecting an accurate final number is not necessarily any better a method than any other.

Where's the proof that Bentley's drawings are dead right? I know of his reputation, of course, but it wouldn't be the first time something held in esteem had been in error. It could as easily be a draughting error, or a mix of drawing and kit errors.

Seat serial number.

Having now seen the Scorpion, if the old adage about looking and flying right still holds true, this thing should be unable to get off the ground on jacks.

Place something against the back of the canopy, fairly tightly, so that there is no room for the burr to form. The curl of material that would become the burr is carried away by the flutes of the bit intstead. There is no need to drill right through the backing piece.

RG 238 made the record breaking flight from London to Capetown on 31/4-1/5 1947. Getting ready for work at present, so I'll try to find out more later. 81 Squadron.com list her as having served with that sqn. She was built at Hatfield and later converted to PR34a standard, which was a modernisation programme, with a revised cockpit layout. She apprears to have been delivered sometime between Jan '45 and Jan '46. It also seems she was one of the aircraft that flew accross the Atlantic to Gander in Canada. In 1953, of course, the Korean "police action" was ending so a reconnaisance aircraft in Japan would have been expected. About that time, too, a large scale mapping mission commenced in Australasia and the Far East, so there are a number fo reasons for 238's presence. Will try to find something more definite later.