John R

I wish I had thought of that As I said to JamesP above you are still worried about breaking the end off at a later date A big part of the problem would be getting them into the tweezers in the first place. All my efforts to pick them up with tweezers or other methods ended up in them pinging off into space and it was amazing how far they went. One chap did a WIP of the FD2 and he managed to attach all 4 of them. My mouth is still wide open in amazement

Thank you for the compliment. I have seen your P1a and it looks like a more thorough build than mine. That comment about keeping the sprue attached is most interesting and helpful. I would still be worried about breaking the whole thing off at a much later date. I usually replace all plastic pitots with one made from brass tube.

Were you allowed to handle the controls ? (but not at 30ft, I think). I was and was struck by how easy it was to fly. I remarked on this to the pilot and received the slightly terse reply that it was a fighting a/c and had to be like that as you would spend most of your time looking out. John

The Dorawings kit is a significant step forward in the products from outside the mainstream. Most of it went together very well. Most problems were self inflicted. The only significant problems with the Dorawings kit involve the nose section. That long nose probe is moulded as part of the fuselage nose and my first reaction was that it was unlikely to survive the building process. This was borne out shortly after assembly commenced when I realised that the end had gone missing and there was no trace of it so I did not know exactly how long to make the replacement. Repair was not an option. Even if possible it was bound to happen again so a replacement was made using brass tubing of various diameters but leaving the thinnest off until painting was about to start. There are several vanes supposed to fit on the probe. These are made from PE and there was no way my fingers could get them in position without them pinging off across the workbench. If anyone knows how to do it please tell me. The canopy is another problem. There were fitting problems but the real trouble for me was the masking. I could not get the masks for the window in the roof and the 'portholes' to stick in position and replacements had to be made without great success. I think that it spoils the look of the whole model. The NMF is Alclad applied over gloss black. After applying the NMF there arose a problem with the decals. See here for details https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235139192-dora-fairey-fd2-decal-problem/ The P1a was built many years ago using the Aeroclub vacform fuselage and the rest from an Airfix F3 but I thought that it should be included here for comparison as both originated at almost the same time. John

WV318 started life as an F4 but after an accident was rebuilt as a T7 and in October 1964 was upgraded to a T7A. She was used to train Lightning and Bucaneer crews. One of the last 4 to serve with the RAF she was painted black to commemorate 40 years of the type. Purchased in 1996 by Delta Jets at Kemble she was a regular on the airshow circuit until 2012 when Delta Jets ceased operations. She passed through a couple of owners then ended up at the International Test Pilots School in Ontario and is currently in service there. I had the good fortune to fly her on my 60th birthday, a surprise present arranged by my wife, and 24 years later my heart is still in the skies of Gloucestershire. The model represents her as she was when I flew her with a satin black finish. She was repainted in gloss black shortly afterwards for the Hunter Jubilee. The model was built from the Revell kit with the PJ Productions resin T7/T8 conversion kit. The only significant problem was that the place where you saw the front end off the Revell fuselage appears to be about 2mm too far back which creates a problem as the recess for the front of the wing has to be extended forward to compensate. Unfortunately the PJ forward fuselage had already been mated to the Revell rear section before I found this out. I thought that I had a picture showing the problem but it seems to have gone AWOL. Fitting the vacform canopy was something of a struggle which required some building up of the cockpit sides. The paint finish is Xtrakit 'Night Black' with a satin finish after the decals had been applied. Decals came from an old Xtrakit Hunter set which included a set for the Black Arrows. They are not quite correct for this T7 but were the only set available as far as I know. I had some trouble applying them as they had a tendency to break up. As luck would have it the worst case was the upper surface decals on the wing where part of the outer white ring went adrift. I reckoned that it was better to leave it that way than try to paint in the missing bit. There was a bit of last minute panic when I discovered that contrary to the instructions in the coversion kit this T7A was fitted with a tailhook and I had to make one. One is actually supplied with the kit for the T8 version but in my case the hook had been broken off before I received it (It was secondhand from Ebay) John

I stand corrected. I think that I was measuring the diameter of the blue ring. In fact a standard 48" roundel fits beautifully over the existing one which saves trying to remove it. Similarly a 30" one fits, not quite perfectly, over the one on the underside of the wing. It leaves a tiny white border which could be taken as the carrier film if you don't look too hard. John

No way! a. It's stuck on the model b. Even if it wasn't that sort of delicacy is beyond me John

If you simply type WG774 you get the 'gap' between the 7 and the 4 and that's how it appeared on the decals but the illustration in the kit shows it the way it appears on the a/c. Interestingly theWG774 on the rear of the fuselage of the a/c does not have the 7 and 4 closed up when it first flew but this was changed when it appeared with its brother at Farnborough in World Recorder Holder markings. Now it's me being unobservant. I had seen the white ringed decals on the coloured a/c and felt sure that I had seen them in pictures of the NMF version so didn't check further. Even worse the rather grainy picture I have of two of them together on the runway appears to show the fuselage decal with a white ring but the one supplied in the kit for that version does not have one. Even worser (sorry, but this is getting to me) replacement of the white ringed decals is not going to be easy. A quick check of the spares box showed nothing suitable and a measurement of those supplied seemed to indicate that they were 45" diameter which I think is a non-standard size. Gordon Bennett! why do we do this to ourselves? Thank you John

For better or worse this is how it has ended up. John

As the Americans say 'Close, but no cigar' The slope of the 4 and the 7 seem to be different but if you were not too picky one could get away with suggested remedy but here's how it looks as a lash-up and this was the only picture I could find of the a/c I'm off for a lie-down in a darkened room John

Ooh Err! I saw your post just in time as I have wasted an afternoon putting it 'right', as shown below. Fortunately the decals had not set and I was able to remove them. Thank you John

It does make me wonder if the manufacturers ever build their kits before releasing them

I just went to apply the decals and came across a 'Showstopper' which I have not seen flagged up by anyone else. Has it been corrected by Dora and have I got an early set? John

Really nice model but from the title I expected it to hanging from the HANGAR roof. Sorry about the sarcasm but some things do irritate and everything else is great. Please correct the title. John

Thank you. I should have thought of looking there. It was double whammy because it cleared up something regarding the fairing on the top of the exhaust John