John R

Just a thought about modelling BBD instead of a standard P51. Was she not modified to have a rear seat? If so this may have meant that the canopy was non-standard too. John

From a photo taken at one of Shuttleworth's evening shows when the light was kind John

My Airshow Calendar consists of 12 photos taken at events in 2011. It contains dates of UK airshows in 2012, dates of some Model shows and dates of Formula 1 Grand Prix http://johnrieley.files.wordpress.com/2011...2012-gp-jpg.pdf You are welcome to download it for your own use. All I ask is that you make a donation to the Motor Neurone Disease Association via the following http://www.charitygiving.co.uk/airshowcalendar The calendar is in PDF and should appear quickly as it is only 860kb. To download all you need to do is save it to a file on your computer and view using Adobe Reader. You can print off individual pages as you need them Please let me know of any problems. I would also welcome any opinions - good or bad - as to the content and whether this is a good idea John

I have to confess he wasn't left to do the canopy alone but he was pretty good about getting the brush into the place I told him to put it. He was offered the option to paint but getting the 'stickers' on was his first priority. It was a trip down memory lane for me as the Frog Hunter was my first plastic model and I couldn't wait (or afford) to paint it either. After it was finished I compared it with my Revell Hunter and shapewise it's pretty close. John

I lined up the front and back of the wing stubs so that they matched the profile of the wings. I then used Milliput to give a fuselage profile based on that in Barrie Hygate's book. It's relatively flat on top with a rounded tummy. You will need to build up the underside of the wing stubs as they flare into the fuselage as even if you take up Ian's offer of replacements I don't think this bit will be correct. Compare the picture of the fuselage halves with this One vital tip is to get as much weight out of the fuselage behind the wheels as you can before joining the halves. I anticipated trouble and drilled out the jetpipe but I didn't remove nearly enough. Also to either make provision for nose weight before you start or add weight before painting. There is very little room in the nose for weight. A lot of the other stuff, canopy shape, decals & wing /te depends on how picky you are. One thing that will need doing is shortening the piece of the u/c leg where the wheel is attached. I think that the bit that arches over the wheel is too long and looks silly. I simply cut a bit out and used superglue to join it. The u/c cover can be used add a bit of strength as it covers the join. Let me know if you don't follow this as I can probably get a picture. If you look at the picture it appears that the a/c leg isn't actually like the one in the kit as it doesn't have the arch. You will probably also need to lengthen the rear strut on the mainwheels. I cut it off and replaced it with a piece of plastic rod. Note also That the main u/c doors are curved and not flat - this implies that the fuselage has a a slight concave aspect to it. Hope this helps John

OOps! It ain't finished. I was so relieved to get the u/c doors on and have it standing on its wheels that I forgot the aerial on the top of the fuselage. I also need to provide some indication (decals probably) of the exits for the boundary layer air above and below the intakes. John

For those interested there is a picture of the real thing here http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=79954 Taken at Duxford on its first display outing John

Ian, I did shout, and to your credit you sent a replacement immediately but the replacement didn't match either so in view of this and the other faults with the fuselage shape it seemed best to get on with what I had. Perhaps I should have mentioned this in the original post. I did hope to bring it to Telford but rectifying the 'tail sitting' made that out of the question John

MPM had them on sale at SMW for £29 reduced from £32. I was sorely tempted but at that price I decided to wait until someone has reviewed one. I have seen too many duff kits from that part on the world to take a flier on anything new. John

Some time ago I started a Maintrack vacform of the P1052 and ran into a number of problems. One item particularly bothered me and that was the landing gear and the shape of the underside of the centre section.The only solution seemed to be to wait until the reserve collection at Yeovilton was open and I could go and look at the actual a/c. In the meantime I decided to have a go at the Heritage version of the P1081 but it turned out to have a different set of problems. First of all the front and rear halves of the fuselage did match. I then decided that the underside of the fuselage was all wrong and required lots of filler (no pix I'm afraid) There were other issues with the wings and tail - blunt trailing edges, wrong thickness etc but I didn't dare to do too much in case pinholes started to make an entrance. Then followed numerous problems with the canopy (wrong shape), u/c legs ( too long), decals (wrong size letters) and finally just as it all came together I found that despite my efforts at hollowing out the rear fuselage it turned out to be a tail sitter. This meant making lots of holes in the underside of the front fuselage to put in weights and repainting. In many ways it felt like making making one of the old balsa 'solids' where you had to carve a blank form to shape. Finish is Revell 'Sky'. Matt with Klear to give the gloss finish. Was it worth it? It's now one of a growing family. John

Well done - it can't have been easy. I really must get to work on mine John

I don't see anything John

I'll endorse all the previous comments. Lovely job John

Great! and thank you. Is it too late for a supplementary request? Namely a photo showing the rear of the jetpipes and the fuselage/nacelle blending on the topside if it's not too much trouble. Regards John

Being unable to find out what I wanted about the configuration of the u/c this project was put on hold until I could get a look at the actual a/c at Yeovilton. This was not easy as it is held in the reserve collection which is only opened to visitors a couple of times a year - unless you are prepared to make a private visit where you get an hour of the curator's time for £50! Anyway the Open Day was on Oct 27 and off I went only to find when I got there that the bit I wanted to see was off limits. Visitors had to stay behind the barrier and from there you could not see the underside or rear. The curator was most apologetic but 'if I let you through everyone else will want to go as well'. He did say that he would try to send me the pictures I needed so watch this space. This is all I got plus a few from different angles but it does show the existence of a rear strut John

Interesting as I ran into this problem myself only this evening. I thought I would try Halfords clear acrylic over matt humbrol to get a glossy finish. I started by spraying some into a small bottle a then using that in an airbrush. A test piece worked fine so I tried it on the model. This gave a semi gloss finish so I tried spraying from the aerosol to give a thicker coat. Disaster! The paint wrinkled and I had to strip the whole model. John

Yes, the lighting was difficult to say the least. I did wonder if I would be better off further down the field, which is where I assume you were but I got my shot of the Meteor which was what I went for so I ended up reasonably happy. I liked the angle on JE-J, nice picture but do you know about the shadows/highlights feature of photoshop? I tried on JE-J and got this I like your pictures and you have given helpful advice to us in the past so I hope I can return the favours John

Nice pictures. I particularly liked the second one. With the difficult lighting B&W might have been the best option. Must go and try that with mine John

Air Atlantique's recently restored Meteor T7. The F16 ejecting flares. Tricky shot as he was nearly in the sun. Spitfire and Mustang

Air Enthusiast 42 has a description and cutaway John

Oi! I saw the Polikarpov 'placard' first - back in May. Seriously, those are nice pictures and do justice to a great day but where did you get all that light for the Blackburn, Triplane and especially the Cygnet? Do you have an F2.8 lens or a very steady hand? Houston - Shuttleworth is open all year but save your trip for a flying day. There are several between May and October. The evening ones can be especially good John

Blackburn 1912 Monoplane rounds off the Autumn display The rest of my pictures are here http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=112350 John

What's the difference between a PT20 and a PT22? It looks like they have different engines. There are a couple of PT22s in the country. One is '001' which has a shiny polished fuselage and the other is '854' which looks like it has silver paint. I believe '854' now lives at Goodwood so you may see it around Sussex John PS. Nice build and keep going

The wingspan for the YF 100 is given as 36ft 7in which translates to 6.1in at 1/72 so I shortened the wings to this. The only data I could find about the fin was this photo from X-fighters by Steve Pace. I also used it to make the YF 100 decal What I found was that all I needed to do was remove the rudder of the F100D and carve the fin to make it an aerodynamic section. I think the height needed adjustment and the 'thing' ( fuel vent?) on top needed adding. The length of the nose probe was estimated from another photo The final result is here http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=78710 Hope this helps and let me know if you need more. Have fun! John

It's a bit early for the rest of us as there are still Shuttleworth and Duxford shows to come and last year the Duxford show provided my best pictures. Still here's a couple that I think will make the final list - From Shoreham John