John R

Could it be a perspective problem? If the two pictures are taken from different positions or the a/c centerlines are not at the same angle things will look different. Below is an example. Assume that you are viewing from the left and the photo of the a/c on the left has been resized to match the length of the one on the right. Objects on the centreline will be aligned but those off the centreline will not. Note how, in David's comparison the wing root and the u/c doors do not line up. This not the whole answer as I think that other factors such as the positioning of the camera will also have an effect. John

It's OK Andre, I have managed to get a copy of the article John

I was thinking about this from the manufacturing point of view and to insert a piece would probably involve reshaping a lot of the front fuselage to fair it in unless the cross sections were constant at that point. I put some lines on your picture and some interesting things appear. Obviously there are some perspective issues but it would appear that the intakes have been moved aft but the interesting thing is to compare the shapes. It would appear that the forward part of the nacelle has been reshaped, as one would expect if the intake size was to remain the same. John

OK. Thanks Andre

Andre, Any chance of getting a copy of that article, please? John

Are there any drawings showing the nose profile of the Fireflash Hunter XF 310? There appear to be two versions, the early one with a pointed nose and a later one with a rounded nose. In photos the pointed version looks to have a blunt tip. Was it some form of intake (for radar cooling?) or was it a transparency? Regarding the shape was it the same as for the Firestreak Hunter? The second version, which I have seen referred to as being an FR 10 nose, looks to me as being longer than a standard nose. Can anyone please enlighten me further? John

Looks like the size of a pilot's Bonedome... One other thought. Chris Tyler, who posts as CTmodeller. worked at Blackburn and may know something. John

David, PM sent John

1/38 Julien! Even I can understand why not. Sorry - couldn't resist John

I think that 'hate' is over doing it, just lack of interest. After all manufacturers need to make money and if they think that a kit will not sell well they will not bother to produce it. The aircraft you mention did not have long and distinguished service careers so that might account for the lack of interest by modellers. Another indication is that when these kits appear on Ebay they sell for reasonable prices which would indicate that there is not a great demand for them. John PS. I have the Skyray, Cutlass and Tiger in my display case

Nice work. That looks a lot more like a Flagon than the 'A' version released several years ago John

Did you manage to get the rear portion of the canopy to fit satisfactorily? I am in the process of building an F7 John

Main thread updated to comment about the Special Hobby version showing the outer wing panels to be natural metal.

This one? Actually it wasn't the yellow one that broke the record. John

Drop Dead Gorgeous! I ber Lockheed wished they could turn them out like that. My remedy for overly shiny Alclad is to give a light 'dusting;' of ordinary Aluminium as an overcoat but be very careful, it's so easy to overdo. John

This was produced from the Airfix FR5 and the Alley Cat conversion kit from which you could make an F2 or the F4 which captured the World Airspeed Record at 735mph in 1953. You get new top wing surfaces (see edit below), smaller fin and new tailplanes. A new canopy rear section is also supplied but I could not make it match the Airfix front section and so used the original canopy suitably masked. All we know of the original colour is that it was 'light blue' so I chose the nearest match to the only colour photo I have seen, taken when it appeared at Farnborough. I used Humbrol Aircraft Blue which was unfortunately matt and finished with Klear to give the gloss. This was a nightmare. I don't know if I chose the wrong option or if it was sheer incompetence but it just wouldn't come right. I cannot believe how good it looks in the photos. The real thing is rubbish. If I did another one I might have gone for Humbrol's Sea Blue which is gloss. An interesting problem arose with the WK198 decals on the underside of the wing. They overlap the gear doors so I photcopied the decals and used the copies to make templates for cutting the decals to the shape of the each wing and its door. The problem was that the decals for the doors were too big ! How did that happen? Well some comparison between the doors supplied for the 'gear down' version and those for the 'gear up' revealed that those for the former are shorter. It's all explained here In the past there has been discussion as to whether ot not the tip of the nose was red, black or blue as in some photos it looks all black and in others it looks a paler colour. My theory is that in the 'black and white days ' there were two types of film, orthochromatic and panchromatic. With the former reds appear as black so if some pictures were taken using one type and some with the other this would explain the difference so I went for the red nose. Hope you like it John Edit Feb 2022: I built it with the wing as supplied. I now believe that it is incorrect. I think that Alleycat created it by filling in the leading edge between the root and the the 'dog tooth'. There is an explanation here. Seen here with its rival, the MK 3 Hunter which established the previous record of 727mph

Well done! It might not be perfect but you have ended up with something that may well be unique. Regarding the numbers on the fin you could use white decal sheet and print the section containing the numbers with red and blue stripes plus the numbers. The 'only' problem with that approach is matching the red and blue from the decal to the red and blue of the paint. Another way would be to print a decal for the whole red, white and blue section of the rudder. I hope this makes sense. John

Thank you Paul. None of the photos on the Thunder & Lightnings site and the Britmodeller walkaround show it quite as clearly as I would have liked but it does appear to poke into the bay. However it does appear that it is only the very top of the panel, beyond the notch, that goes in. Airfix have trimmed off a bit too much maybe due to getting the right u/c length to give the correct 'sit' angle. We are only talking about less than 1mm, not enough to get excited about but it does explain why the piece of decal that I cut to place on the panel was too long. John

The Airfix kit comes with two options for the main u/c leg covers. One in one piece for the gear-up version and the other in two pieces for the gear-down version. One is shorter than the other. Why is this so? It has caused some head scratching as the version I am building (an F4) has part of the a/c registration decal on the cover and this means that some of it will go missing. The only explanation I can think of is that as the u/c is extended the top part, due to the positioning of the hinge, goes UP into the u/c bay. Can anyone please shed some light on this matter? John

Hi Serge, Alley Cat Twit that I am (he's getting old, you know) I just realised that I had Richard Franks' technical guide to the Swift and in it are the following... The original design study was was for 4 Cannon and 4 Fireflash The list of specifications for each Mark states 2 Cannon and 2 or 4 Fireflash But the armament section shows a photo of the underside of XF124 (the one in the Alley Cat kit) with no cannon and the comment that the series was unararmed John

What is really interesting about that picture is that the a/c is not a Swift. It is VV119, the Supermarine 535. So is that a mock-up, a doctored picture or was the 535 used as an aerodynamic test-bed?

I am in the process of converting an FR5 into an F7. Did it carry guns, and if so how many, or just the Fireflash? John

Thank you John

Thank you for bringing it to my attention. I did not know the CC 2 was there. I thought that it was in Rome. Or are there two of them?

Melvyn - pm sent A couple of other things to watch are the canopy width and it is easy to get the anhedral wrong. Discussed here