John R

well worth your efforts John

I built this several years ago using Alclad polished Aluminium over Humbrol gloss and it is still pristine. Chris has seen this but he still can't bring himself to believe it works! However I have to agree with him about decals over Alclad. John

Hi Niles, It's not just a matter of £50. There's a small matter of a 300 mile round trip which ain't cheap especially for us old folk and no I don't pay that much for a kit. I agree that it is the sensible option but there is something deep inside that says spending that kind of money on getting the underside of a piece of plastic correct, especially when it is only going to sit in my display cabinet, is just not worth it. It would be interesting to know what others think. Regarding my previous post. I reckoned that there might be some problems with the old Maintrack decals so I gave the model a protestive coat of Alclad Clearcote and ended up with a paint job that looked like silver paint. One step forward and two back! It has now been sanded down and reprimed. John

Hi Igor, Special Hobby, I think, make a 1/72 version of the D558-2 with the jet engine. That may help you if you can find one or some pictures of one that has been built John

I had hoped to have this ready for Telford but ran into problems with the canopy and as I also wanted to get my Arrow and La 250 ready something had to give. I originally thought that the canopy with the kit was wrong as it did not match the drawing in Barrie Hygates book but after spending much time trying to mould a new one It dawned on me that there is a problem with Hygate's drawing. If you try to use the plan view the canopy is too narrow and you can see why below. The three views are not consistent. I now think that the kit canopy is not that bad. I did try to use the kit canopy but messed it up(!!!) and still had to make a new one. It has now been finished in Alclad. I still have not managed to get a consistently gloss aluminium finish but I think this will have to do. John

bad model in terms of fitting Oh dear. I picked up one of these at Telford and was looking forward to putting it together. Now i'm not so sure. Anyway you did a lovely job John

Despite the problems it still looks pretty good to me. Which primer did you use and did you attempt to wash/degrease the resin bits? John

I was put off watching the presenter going 'gee whizz' after being given a jolly in a Jet Provost. Maybe it got more objective after that. John

Surely it couldn't have been primer if the roundels were there. I would have thought that they were the last to be applied. John

Some pictures have been added to the main post comparing the modified kit with the original John

Which website are you referring to? Paint4mod just gives a totally blank grey page. PHaTNesS - I'm not hung up on getting the 'correct' colours. I just wanted to get paints with colours that matched the decals. Given the name of the manufacturer I wasn't expecting the last word in accuracy. I just thought it might be a quick and easy build after my problems with the La 250 and Arrow and would end up with something unusual in the cabinet. John

Unfortunately the link to the first produces a grey page and nothing else. I have a link to the home page of this site which allows you access a Pdf version but that does seem to have any of the Kiddyland colours (surprise!) The second link only appears to cross reference the major manufacturers Thanks for trying John

I have just acquired one of these. The instructions are all in Chinese and the paint colours only refer to Kiddyland paints. Does anyone know which shades of red and blue are used? At first glance they look like ADC Red and Blue but when I compared the decal sheet with my YF16, which used Hannants paints, they seem to be a different shade. Any ideas anyone? Has anyone built one of these? John

Rick, did you see this in my earlier post? 'On Sunday at SMW Wonderland Models were selling these at £5.99' I don't know if they do mail order but it's worth a query John

That's a nice job. Which white finish did you use? I went to start one of these a while ago but found that the strakes/elevator sections on the fuselage were warped and reluctant to straighten so I put it aside. On Sunday at SMW Wonderland Models were selling these at £5.99 so for that moey I ended up with an unwarped kit and a spare set of decals. John

The main u/c was 'built in the air' using tubes of various diameters held together with CA. It's now to be found in Ready for Inspection http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234949577-avro-arrow-a-corrected-version-of-the-original-hobbycraft-172-kit/ I hope you think it was worth it. John

This was an all-weather fighter produced first flown in 1958 and was turning out to be a very fine a/c when it was cancelled in 1959 for budgetary reasons. However the cold war never did turn hot so maybe Mr Diefenbaker ( the Canadian PM) was right! After building a 1/72 scale Hobbycraft CF 105 Arrow and discovering at the end that the decals were not too good I posted a question on Britmodeller asking if anybody made a decent set. This opened a ‘can of worms’ as the discussion shifted to the kit itself and the lack of accuracy thereof. I had corrected what I believed to be the only major error, the actuators being on the topside of the wing instead of the underside, but it turned out that almost nothing about the kit was correct. This is my attempt at producing a reasonably accurate version. The decals are by Arrow Graphics. whilst these were far superior to the kit version they did have a few problems of their own, being rather thin and the less said about my efforts to get the walkway lines straight and stuck down the better! At the moment it still requires a few tweaks, especially the nose u/c leg, but as Telford is in a few days time and I have to ‘get a life’ after it is over I don’t know when it will be complete so here it is. The WIP thread tells the story and this has links back to the original thread. http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234940353-avro-arrow-a-correct-version-of-the-hobbycraft-172-kit-i-hope/ Below are some pictures of it alongside the original version. They don't, to my mind, look much different so if you have the original and are not stickler for accuracy then use it. My advice would be to swap the ailerons to get the jacks underneath and to very carefully sand the top of the canopy to round it off to stop it looking like an F106. The exhaust behind the canopy should also be modified. Those were the only modifications I made to my original version. Many thanks to Chris Tyler, who donated the kit, Scott Hemsley, who donated the decals and Navy Bird for a set of drawings Arrow left side rear by johnrieley, on Flickr Arrow left side by johnrieley, on Flickr Arrow lfront by johnrieley, on Flickr Some comparisons with the original version. Two Arrows rear right by johnrieley, on Flickr Two Arrows side by johnrieley, on Flickr What the Canadians wanted and what they ended up with Arrow and Voodoo by johnrieley, on Flickr Three of a kind La 250 - mid fifties Arrow late fifties Tu 128 'Fiddler' early sixties Three of a kind by johnrieley, on Flickr John

The La 250 all-weather interceptor dates back to the mid fifties but troubles with the aerodynamics, engines, radar and missiles (the lot!) meant that it never reached production. It is interesting to compare this with the Avro Arrow of a couple of years later, which apparently got everything right, but did not reach production either. This model represents the fourth prototype which was not fitted with radar and only used dummy missiles. A-model kits are generally regarded as not being for the faint hearted but once built result in a reasonably accurate model. This one was much the same except for a major problem with the missile mountings which I didn’t discover until trying to mount the missiles at the end of the build. Checking photos revealed that one of the mountings was completely out of position and the other, on the wing leading edge, bore little resemblance to the actual item. See here for more information http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234948108-lavochkin-la-250-missile-mounting/ The missile wings have rollers fitted which run in slots in the mountings. I built channels out of sheet, fitted them to the appropriate places and faired them in with Milliput. This turned out to be a lot harder than it sounds as there is no definitive data on the shape on the mounts, I had to work on a model with u/c fitted and all the handling didn’t do much for the Alclad finish. Late edit: Regarding the build fitting the wings was tricky as they didn't match up with the stubs on the fuselage and a lot of adjustment was needed to get them at the same angle of incidence. There are a couple of bulges, topside and underside, where the wings meet the fuselage, 2/3 of the way back along the chord. These need to be smoothed off. Be aware that the rear canopy needs painting on the inside to represent an interior cover. I think that in the a/c this was a separate item from the canopy. It didn't appear on the first a/c and was presumably added so that the radar operator could see his screen better. However radar was not fitted to this particular a/c.... The jury is still out regarding the colour of the missiles. The kit says white. Photos of other prototypes show them having black and white quartering. I took the easy option. La 250 front left by johnrieley, on Flickr La 250 rear by johnrieley, on Flickr La 250 underside by johnrieley, on Flickr John

'John, I promise to keep within the confines of halls 1.2 and 3 this year' Oh good, that's where I'll be too. I should be on the Mid Sussex stand at least part of the time, assuming nurse thinks that I am stable enought to attend. John

'that goes for anyone whose going too of course, come over for a chat...' It took me all day to find you last year and even then I had to tie you down to finish the conversation! Re; Monino I went there a couple of years ago as part of an Ian Allan trip and found it somewhat frustrating as 1. The Moscow traffic meant it took longer to get there than expected so we had a lot less time than promised 2. The machines are within a roped off area and any attempt to cross the rope resulted in a lot of shouting and stamping of feet by the 'guardians'. Some of the party managed to circumvent this by getting into conversation with some chaps restoring a Pe-2 and muttered about the lack of access to the Bison - 'No problem - follow me' so off they went. John

When I first saw the Flagon A version I seized it as it was one I had always wanted but when I started it became obvious that there was something wrong with the overall shape. After much comparing of plans and measuring I came to the conclusion that sizewise it was OK laterally but far too long. I surmised that the plans had been produced using a CAD system and at some stage the drawings had to be changed in size and the person doing so used the wrong 'handle' on the drawing, changing only the length instead of both dimensions. Taking a picture of the assembled model and shrinking lengthwise seemed to bring everything back into proportion. John

In correspondence with Musa Zakoreev, who runs Prop & Jet making very accurate models of early Russian jets, I asked him how much the Russians knew about what was going on and his reply indicated that they knew even less than we did. John

Doh!!! I AM getting old. I had forgotten that I was sent some links to a La 250 walkaround when I first raised this issue and even more depressing was that I missed these pictures, one of which shows the position of the inboard mount clearly. John

It's nice to be able to help you for once. Regarding 'getting around to it' haven't you got enough on your plate with the Bounder? In case you, or anyone else, is wondering why its taken me to revive this subject the La 250 was 'finished' a while back to take to my model club where the theme for that month was 'Epic Failure'. Not only was I unhappy with the missile positioning all the attention was taken by a FRSIN 1/72 Brabazon. To add to my chagrin the guy who built it had previously been picking my brains about Alclad finishes and done a superb job on his first attempt at using it. As a result the La 250 has been sitting at the back of the cupboard in disgrace! John

As usual an answer raises more questions - like how do you move the inboard mount forward, especially when its on an almost complete model? How did A-model, which is usually reckoned to be accurate get it wrong? Should I go with black and white missiles? Regarding the lateral position of the inboard mount I did some measuring of the model and reference drawings and came to the conclusion that the bullet and the rear mount are in the right positions but the inboard mount is too far in. The rear mount on the model is not midway between the forward mounts. If the inboard mount is moved outward so that the rear mount is midway then it appears that the missile will fit it without having to be modified. The picture below appears to show that the inboard mount is positioned further forward than on the model. Thanks for the help John