John R

Thank you, Stephen, for confirming that I haven't completely lost my marbles. The trouble with photos is that they are so dependent on the light under which they were taken, the exposure and the printing that you cannot get a definitive result. I do have a photo of WV256 which I took at in sunshine, I must go and find it. Also if you look for 'Sky' in Britmodeller there are so many posts about what colour it actually is and who makes the closest match. Trying to wade through them to reach a conclusion just reduces me to a gibbering idiot reaching for the bottle.

I have read that the finish was specially produced for Hawker by Cellon. In Barrie Hygates book the P1052 is described as having gloss duck egg blue and in the photo referred to earlier the colour looks more blue than the Xtracolor 'sky' I haved used on my Seahawks and the Humbrol 90, Matt Beige Green, specified by Pavla for their WB188 mod kit.

You might be thinking of the one of the P1052 which appears in Vol. 2 which appears to be under exposed given the colour of the green fields below. John

My copy of Francis Mason's book has only B&W photos John

Chris, you might be better off using a new thread for this John

Bob - Agreed. I knew about the shorter hood before starting the build but what I learned from the video was that the hood was transparent at the rear whereas in its current state at Tangmere the rear is painted red John

Thank you. I'm glad that has been cleared up. It also confirms that the conical windshield was used for the record attempts. Another difference between the a/c as flown and its current condition at Tangmere is that the rear of the canopy is clear at the time of the record and painted red at Tangmere. John

Alas, I only have the Corgi edition, circa 1955,

The actual a/c is only a few miles away from me and I had a good look at it. There is some confusion about whether or not it was actually fitted for the flight. I have seen a photo of it captioned 'Taking off for the record flight' which I reckon shows that it was. A pity I did not look into this matter earlier as Neville Duke, the pilot', lived not far from here. I had another look at the film and there is another, different, symbol on the port side. Curiouser and curiouser John

Brilliant! Thank you. How did you find something like that? I wonder how it ended up with black serials in the museum. As John Adams once remarked 'Museum aeroplanes are funny things'. However one answer begets another question. On the fuselage where one would expect to see the ejector seat symbol there is this Do you, or does anyone, know what it is, what it represents and what colour it was? Thanks again John

Hawker Hunter 3 - World speed record holder underwing serial colour and now some queries about symbols where the ejector seat warning should be and also original colour I was about to apply the WB 188 underwing decals supplied with the Pavla mod kit which converts the Revell Hunter into the Mk 3 when I realised that they are white whereas those on the actual a/c at Tangmere are black. Which is the correct colour? I can find no photographs in which these serials are visible. Interestingly the WB 188 on the fuselage side is white... There is, or was, a Wolfpack mod kit which had black serials. Also, whilst on the subject of this a/c, did it have standard size roundels on the upper surfaces or did it have the oversize ones it had when it first flew? Can anyone please help? John Edit. There are some symbols on the cockpit sides where the ejector seat warnings should be. Port and starboard appear to be different. Can anyone please enlighten me as to what these were? (There are some very useful answers much later) This topic has drifted to a discussion about the original colour of WB188. See the later posts.

Fun? That's an interesting concept....

As the saying goes "It's life's economies you regret, not the extravagances"

Brilliant work but why did you not consider switching to the Trumpeter version or using bits to cross-kit? John

I have just looked through the Aerofax and Detail & Scale books on the Scorpion and they don't help either. John

I have seen an almost identical box but with YF-16 on the a/c fin. I have never been able to establish whether it's the same kit with different decals, the most likely explanation, or the FSD vesrsion which I belive was dimensionally different to the prototype. If anybody knows I would like to know the differences between the two. John

That looks exceptional for an Anigrand kit. What was it like to build and did you do any checks for accuracy or did you just build it? One came up on Ebay recently but given Anigrands propensity for producing rubbish it was too big a risk as the retail price is £78 and even secondhand it went for around half that.

The weather was more accommodating than it was on Sunday - you can't win!

Oh Dear, now look what's happened! The more I looked the more I found wrong and the latest was the forward fuselage. I thought that the nose was too blunt and this combined with my feeling that the fuselage was too narrrow and that the wing dihedral and aerofoil were wrong led me to saw the whole thing up and see if I could put it back together in some sort of vaguely correct shape. This is reminding me of a comment made about my Avro Arrow when I went through a similar process several years ago - 'It looks af if you used the kit as rough cut blanks for a scratch build' You can now see why I was reluctant to start a WIP. The only progress has been finding more things wrong. Do not watch this space - if it's like my other projects it could take years. John

This is the same as the post referred to by Tommy where it is given its own separate article but thank you for your help

There were a few downsides besides the weather There were 85000 people on the first day and 125000 on the second and this despite the weather forecast being appalling. Heaven knows what it would have been like had the weather been good as the car parks looked far from full. The show being free probably attracted many people. On the second day our coach had to park a 45 minute walk from the gate. The traffic reminded me of RIAT. The crowdline was crowded, several bodies deep and there were all sorts of obstructions along it. There were many aerials sticking up, one for each tent, probably something to do with WiFi. However there was an embankment which gave a better view if you were prepared to accept some jostling but even this didn't protect you from the aerials. On the other hand flying took place from 9am to 6pm and if the weather had been good... John

The arrivals & practice day was fine with wall to wall sunshine spitfire, FW 190 and Corsair but I preferred this version They did not have this formation at the show Nor this one The weather on the two show days was awful with rain and low cloud. There was an additional hazard in the plethora of aerials sticking up all over the place and along the crowdline I got to the show after it had started (Traffic!!) just in time to catch this formation breaking up A surprise for me was a Bristol Sycamore amongst the displaying helicopters Gripen Swiss F18 gave an astonishing display amongst the low clouds It ended its display with a pass at close to Mach 1. I hoped that it would do it again on the second day so I could get a better picture but alas it did not Frecci Tricolori They did not display on the second day but departed en masse in the late afternoon I really do not like this colour scheme Swiss F5 pair For me the highlight was seeing a Draken in flight Take off on the first day Take off on the second day

Thank you for that Tommy. A brilliant suggestion. After reading your blog I took another look at the picture of the u/c as I had wondered about the function of the inner portion of the 'Y' as it looked as if it had a forked end. If you draw a line along what appears to be the top of the fork it appears to lie along your suggested axis of rotation. However trying to persuade the Anigrand leg to rotate about that axis does not result in it fitting into the fuselage, suggesting that more research into the shape of the leg is required. I feel some wire bending coming on...

After much digging in the internet I have reached some conclusions. There is a narrow u/c bay in the wing into which the main leg fits and this has its own door which can be seen in the photo above.. There is also a small fairing which starts behind the wing leading edge. It's hard to make out in some photos unless you know it's there. Below shows where Anigrand would have you fit the gear leg. The next picture is of the XB-42 gear because it's the only 'clear' picture I could find. You can just make out the bay in the wing and can see which is the main gear leg and that part of the Anigrand leg does not exist There is a great difference between the XB-43 and the XB-42 as regards the u/c doors. I hope this is clear. More to come John

Lovely job. When you compare that ancient kit to the awful modern one I'm building/fixing you begin to wonder about progress.