camper1

At least the engine stayed on in the early sixties a KLM DC7C had an engine fall off Mid Atlantic en route to Prestwick. I think all the 67th ARS aircraft at Prestwick apart from one SC54 went off in a bit off a rush to escort it in to the airport. There are some photo's of it on the net at SAL for repair, cant remember where though.

If you look at the rails the camera was being rolled back and forth under the wing. It was moved several times during the day to photograph the entire underneath of the aircraft. Presumably they have to photograph the aircraft as well to pick up the detail. Just playing devils advocate

Could it be this in 1/24 scale

Hi Folks A quick build not from the shelf of doom. The Hobbycraft kit is quite simple to build and reminds me of Matchbox kits, nice fairly thick plastic to work with and with no warping. Otter's were frequent visitors to Prestwick Airport in the mid sixties in the main US Army ones but a few Canadian ones wrapped up in UN markings also appeared. Painted with Tamiya acrylics and Xtracolor paints, decals from the spares box. Cheers Ian

The original Airfix Lancaster was 7/6d as was the Halifax. The Sunderland and Stirling were 10/6d. Thats where my Christmas and birthday money went.

Its not a jet, it's not silver has someone cloned you Andy? It's very nice though.

I believe the main Nimrod problem was the fact that the aircraft were practically hand built, so when the wings arrived they would not fit and had to be modified. The Tucano problem was the RAF would not accept the engine used by most other users so had to go their own way thus the problems started.Just incompetence by the leaders. I agree that cooperation is probably the only way to go but why does one company with a less than reliable reputation for fair play take such precedence at the MOD. The Airbus question is easily answered it's owned mainly by the French and Germans,they spend less on defence than a lot of countries so probably don't have the inclination to stop the money making airliners to develop a military version of whatever airliner they would select, simply put the small quantity produced would not be enough to make a profit BAE sold off their interest in Airbus some years ago, probably to boost the shareholders dividend, it has to be one off the worst decisions ever made by a board of directors, with orders of over 10,000 aircraft the profits could have been used to develop the military hardware we need. The lack of good management and stupidity by various leaders continuous to blight our armed forces, no wonder young people don't see it as a career any longer.

I can see the economics of having commonality with the P8,crew training /spares etc. What I can't understand is why Boeing has got into the MOD so deeply, why has this been allowed this to happen? The benefit to industry MAY take place, speaking to a member of BAE,s staff at the Keighley show he remarked the some of the F35 parts manufacture had been taken back to the US. What benefit is this to us as a country or is it just leading us up another garden path. Boeing has a reputation for killing off competition A330 sales to the US Air Force the spat with Canada over what is now the A220. I do agree that Airbus/Saab has nothing to offer so throwing their dummy out of the pram seems a bit sour grapes especially as they threaten to reduce wing spar production then the unavoidable event takes place next year. What this does show is a total lack of commitment to UK manufacturers by successive sets of leaders?in planning correctly for future research and development in the aviation industry. One other point in the statement I noticed was Marshalls carrying out the conversion does this indicate that second hand airframes might be purchased?

Hi Folks Number five from the shelf of doom, why it was left there I have no idea as it is one of my favourite aircraft. Built from the box apart from the aerials and using the kit decals. This is one of the easier CA builds goes together much better than some I have built, the decals held up well considering how old they were. Cheers Ian

Another nice one Andy, you really should take the advice I gave you and evict the kids, plenty of room then.

Hi Folks Number four off the shelf of doom. I bought this conversion at SMW almost 2 years ago to say it was frustrating is putting it mildly, the resin looked liked it had been used for shotgun practice.Filled and filled again to get some sort of decent finish. Strapped it on to the Airfix Meteor and had to start filling it again when blending it in.Not my best effort. It would be the first kit in twenty years to go in the bin had it not been for £34 of Meteor on the back end of it. Cheers Ian

Very nice, one of my favourite aircraft.

PM sent

I have two of these Provosts,e mailed them twice didn't get a reply. Suppose I'll have to wait till Hannants gets them.

Nice one again Andy,I have another one of these and like you got them at bargain price,2 for £7 at Huddersfield a couple of years ago.

Photographs in the Squadron Signal book on the F102 in Europe show them to have a seal round the opening part of the canopy. Having seen a lot of grey F102s in the flesh so to speak the sealant was yellow and is quite wide. HTH Ian

I really like this model, diorama nice as well

Hi Folks Number 3 from the shelf of doom and it's longest resident Not a bad kit for it's day,easy to build and fits together well. Finished with Compucolur and Xtracolor paints,decals by Caracal depicting an aircraft from the Alabama ANG Ian

Thanks Richard,there is another grey on in there which I will model, save me the trouble of trying to find a CFS badge in 1/48 scale.

It would be interesting to know if they were repainted in Luftwaffe colours. If I remember correctly when they were pulled from storage at Prestwick some flew to Renfrew after being checked for flight status and the rest were checked over at Prestwick. I don't remember any being in the paint shop, they look pretty good to say they had been cocooned for a while,some 120 MK5s were in storage at one time. Like UK taxpayers the Canadians didn't get value from their aircraft in those days most of the rest were disposed of around 1960. SAL had a great contract with RCAF maintain them, store them and then scrap and dispose of the remains. Interestingly I saw a lot of these again in the scrap yards at Lasham and Ascot.

I am currently building the Fly JP3 as XN554 and need details of the Dayglo pattern on top of the wing. There is a picture of XN554 in the Warpaint book which shows it to be different to the standard pattern, unfortunately it is only a 3/4 view but clearly shows the difference. The Xtradecal sheet has this as one of it's subjects but the pattern is not correct according to the photo in the above mentioned book. If anyone has this information any help would be greatly appreciated Ian Mods,would you please move this to Aviation Chat

You really can't beat this kit, one of Revell's finest and very nicely finished.

hi Andy Nice to see someone else managed to struggle through this kit and finish it off very nicely, Cant wait for the RF101 to test my patience!!!!!

For those interested in in such things Lynx ZD254 and Gazelle XX431 were noticed on lorries heading south. Both looked immaculate and were seen just south of Wetherby services

Hi Tony After our conversation about the spinner I found half a dozen photo's of this airframe. I couldn't detect any tonal values between the top of the cowling and the spinner,I did find other photo's of the same Squadron and there were definitely colour differences. Whether the spinner was a replacement or not I don't know,I did find a very nice picture of the T20 from the same Squadron with the green spinner which may well be my choice for the AMG kit Ian