John R

After a couple of years struggling with resins, vacforms and modifying ordinary kits I decided to do an easy one. I had a Hasegawa F18 in the stash and as it was the prototype F18 I thought that it would suit my needs perfectly. The build was quite easy, almost everthing fitted beautifully and I did not use ANY filler. The trouble started when I came to apply the decals. The colour scheme was Gold and Blue and the gold in the decals was a dreadful washed out apology for gold which leaked colour when applied so it had to be a paint job. Enquiries revealed that the 'Gold' really was a metallic gold and not a shade of yellow and the 'Blue' was actually a Ford Motor company paint. I ended up using Revell blue 'tweaked' to match the colour of the lettering on the decal sheet. The stripes on the side of the nacelles looked too difficult to mask so I sprayed strips of decal sheet with gold and blue and cut strips of the appropriate width.

Nice job. I built one of these a few years ago, the silver version, and found it to be such a nice kit that when the Sea Vixen came out I assumed that it would be of similar quality...Alas! John

I would love to make one of these but it looks beyond my capabilities and patience, even if I could get one. Looking forward to seeing it finished. I hope the men in white caots don't come fro first! John

Actually it's both 96 and 84. It started as the F96 but got changed back to F84 for budgetary reasons, I believe, causing problems as the F84G with straight wing came after the F with swept. Thanks - I will se what I can find on Hyperscale John

Well Watson - what do you make of this? Good Heavens Holmes! It looks like the wreckage of a couple of F84s Yes, I believe that some idiot has pulled apart an F84F and is going to mate the wings and tail to an F84G fuselage to make a model of the prototype, the YF84F Why on earth would he want to do that, especially at this time of the year when there is a garden to be looked after, airshow photographs to process and a loft full of perfectly good kits to make? Maybe its the heat, Watson, it does strange things to a man's mind and remember he's just finished a Mach2 Leduc 022. That can't have helped. Does he realise that by starting from an F84G he is going to have to either make a new canopy or polish the frames from the existing one? Well, as I said at the start, he must be an idiot Will he succeed, watch this space but don't hold your breath John

Deon, I don't know either. I just joined them in the hope that the solvent might take care of it and it didn't! Subsequently I wondered if polishing the edges might have been better. John

Thanks General. I would love to build more of these French exotics but the kits are either not available or are horrors, although the Mach 2 Trident that I built some years ago went together without much agony. There is build thread on this site of a resin Durandal that makes the 022 look like a cakewalk. I got the Mach 2 Leduc 021 and a Fonderie Miniature Gerfaut in the stash that I may get around to when I feel strong enough. John

A lot of people have viewed the original version and as I produced some build notes for the Model club meeting I thought that others might find them of interest.. It's not Sci-fi or a What if? More a what might have been. It's one of the many cases of French napkin doodling of the fifties which produced the Durandal, Trident and Griffon in their attempts to produce supersonic fighters. They did however end up with the Mirage so perhaps we should not scoff. A mixed powerplant interceptor, it used a jet engine for take-off and to get it up to speed whereupon a ramjet lit up and was supposed to take it to Mach 2. I only found out recently that it did actually fly. I had thought that it had been cancelled before completion but it did fly and made some 120 flights although it never did reach its design speed. This is the Mach 2 1/72 scale kit and those of you with experience of their products will know of the difficulties in making one. I have had this for a while and the impetus for finally facing up to it was for one of our club's competitions with the theme 'Power'. Examination of the mouldings revealed that there were 2 ways to build it. Either spend ages reworking the bits to fit or build it as is and accept that it would be less than wonderful. I made a conscious decision not to try making a silk purse out of this particular sow’s ear – my modelling skills, and patience, were not up to it. Some build notes I accepted the blunt leading and trailing edges of the wings, their varying thickness and sink marks. Some attempts were made at tidying up the leading edges. The circular fuselage isn’t and the fairing on which the left tailplane is mounted was in the wrong place. The latter was cut off and repositioned with all the attendant filling. I felt that this was unavoidable. It has also been suggested that the fuselage of the model is underscale! The picture posted by the General when originally posted gives credence to this idea. There were numerous sink marks and holes all over the model. Holes were filled but many marks were left where filling would have involved destroying some details. some rescribing was necessary on the fuselage after removing flat spots. The canopy on the actual a/c is a circular transparency but in the model it is supplied in two halves which I found impossible to join without the joint line showing. If anybody knows how to do it please let me know! The nose, transparency and cockpit all have to be put together and mounted on the front of fuselage just in front of the intake. Difficult, to say the least. The wheels were out of register by half a tyre’s width. I left the nosewheel as it is very small but I ended up sawing the mainwheels in half before joining the left and right sides together again. There is a problem with where, and when, to put the weight in to keep it from being a tail sitter as the fuselage halves are joined before knowing how much is needed and there is very little space in the nose. I think that putting some in the fuselage halves before joining would be best John

Here is the article by John Adams about the nose length which appeared in SAM John

Did you get the nose length right? The one specified in the kit is too long. Anyone building th kit should beware of this John

Thanks. I'll give them a try John

Does anybody have any information on the markings carried by the prototype? All I have is a 3/4 rear view picture showing the swastika on the tail and fuselage cross but no details of the wings John

Trident wing fix? What was wrong with it? I had no trouble but then it was built before I contracted AMS and I was just happy to build things straight from the box without asking questions. John

To those (anybody?) eagerly awaiting the follow up to my earlier on of the British protoypes in January apologies for the delay. I got involved in designing a website for the local branch of a national charity. With that, the P1040 and spring finally appearing in the garden the follow-up took a back seat. Anyway I hope you like them but first a consumer warning. Some go back a long way - hopefully my modelling skills have advanced in the meanwhile John First the Americans Douglas D558-I Skystreak Anigrand resin, not the best of kits. Tail surfaces were very inaccurate and replaced by scratch built items Douglas D558-II Skyrocket Anigrand resin, not terribly impressed with this kit either. A pity as it was one of my favourite a/c. One of my model club members recently produced the Hobbyboss version and it looked ‘right’ whereas mine doesn’t Bell X-1 Hobbycraft kit – awful decals and I didn’t dare attempt to paint the canopy! Lockheed F94C Starfire Emhar kit. I think that there is something not quite right about the nose of this kit. A pity as I used to think that this was a most impressive a/c and I really wanted to model it. Douglas Skyray - No it is not the prototype but it was one of the many weird and wonderful efforts of the US Navy in the fifties that culminated in the Phantom. Tamiya kit - Why can't everybody produce well moulded kits like this? Convair XFY-1 KP kit. Quite a nice but heavy panel lines and undersize decals North American F107 Trumpeter kit. This went together with little trouble except around the intake but for some reason I had dreadful trouble with the paint job. Don't look too closely (Oh yes you will won't you!) Then a grandchild broke the nose probe! I wish all Trumpeter kits were this good. McDonnell Douglas F15 Hasegawa kit. Went together well but kit was old when I got it and the decals were a nightmare to separate from the backing sheet This seems to be a problem with old Hasegawa kits Lockheed YF22 Dragon kit. Some problems with sink marks but otherwise OK Northrop/McDonnell Douglas YF23 Italieri kit General Dynamics F16 XL Monogram. One of my most recent completions. The rear fuselage does not have the uptilt of the a/c. I also suspect the a/c wing may not be as simple as the one in the kit. I was unable to find anything to verify this. And now some Russians Yak 23 A simple KP kit. I didn’t know it was a prototype until recently I found a picture of it in the book ‘Early Soviet Jet Fighters’ Mig 1-44 Zvezda kit. First time I have made one of their kits and it went together well. Only real problem was that the colour scheme had the upper and lower colours reversed Su 37 Revell kit. Went together fairly well with a few issues with the fit on the front fuselage and around the intakes. It wasn’t clear (to me anyway) from the instructions how the boundary layer bleeds fitted and of course I got it wrong and had to correct it. And finally a French one SO Trident II Mach II kit.

This started life as an Airfix Sea Hawk which came to a halt many years ago because I couldn't produce a white gloss finish. It hung around the workshop for a number of years being used as a test piece for paints, gradually losing bits until it occurred to me that it might be possible to convert it to the prototype configuration. Out came the painstripper to clean it up and then off to Barrie Hygate's book for reference. A few millimeters were cut out of the fuselage ahead of the wing and new tail feathers were constructed from sheet. The wingspan was shortened and the control surfaces rescribed. A new canopy was moulded (my first attempt at this - what fun that was!), new jetpipes were made from tube and new u/c covers made from sheet. Roundels came courtesy of the IPMS decal bank and the registration letters were home made. The strange 'thing' on the nose is a sighting reference is case pilots couldn't cope with sitting out at the front instead of being behind an engine. It was made from 5mm tube dipped in superglue to make the ball at the end John

I was in a similar position a few years ago. The father of one of my daughter's friends died suddenly and I was offered his stash as the family had no idea of the value and just did not want to see it go to waste. Alas it was all 'armour', not my scene, but I reckoned it might be worth a bob or two so I sold it for them on E-Bay. What I learned was that people seemed to wary of new sellers. There was hardly any interest in the first kit but once I got positive feedback the rest went with no trouble. John

I built one of these from the Kopro kit a couple of years ago I thought that whilst accurate in overall shape there were a lot of problems. The wing section looked so thick and blunt that it might have been more at home on a Typhoon (the WW2 variety). The fin seemed far too thick. I spent so much time thinning wings and fin that I wondered if scratch building might have been a better option. John

I built one of these a while ago and endorse your comments. I was so pleased with mine I rushed to get their Sea Vixen...

Lost in admiration. I saw the real thing at Monino this summer - what a mighty beast! I appreciate your problems as I have some of their other stuff, an Su 15Tm, an La 250 and a Sukhoi T-49. They are going to keep me busy for a long time John

The FD1? at first sight it looks lovely - all crisply moulded with nice but slightly deep surface detaill but... It ain't the right shape according to Barrie Hygate's book but looks about right when assembled. The most obvious is the tailcone which is far too large according to any photos I have seen and the tail parachute housing resembles one of the rocket pods it was designed to handle. The cockpit needs trimming down to fit inside the fuselage and the glareshield doesn't look like anything in the photos. The air intake splitter needs shaping. It goes together OK but be very careful with the mainwheel bays. They are marked L & R but whether they are wrong, or more likely, I got them mixed up and when I came to fit the u/c legs the mountings were in the wrong place. I then found the lower doors wouldn't go where they were supposed to... What drove me mad was keeping things lined up when the glue was applied. Something I have yet to master with resin and that is what is holding up the 188. For some reason I had great trouble with the Alclad finish. It wouldn't set and was cleaned off and reprimed a couple of times. However the bit on the fin, which was duralumin, went on fine. Nose weight? Can't remember (see what its done to me) but I think not too much. It has to behind the seat as there is not much room in the nose John

Yes - but when is another matter. I was given the 188 as a birthday present a year ago and haven't yet had the guts to tackle it. The FD1 almost had them sending me off to the men in white coats! I also have a Maquette FD2 in the stash...That doesn't look too friendly either Current project is an F16XL John

Lovely work - wish I was that clever. Tell me about the Su15. Was it accurate? I built the 1/72 version and it seemed as if the fuselage had been stretched John

My main interest is in experimental aircraft and prototypes, especially those 'G-Whizz'aircraft of my childhood when new and exciting types appeared regularly. All are 1/72 scale Supermarine 510, Maintrack Vacform (my first vacform) Hawker Hunter prototype, PJ Hunter F6 resin with 'knobbly' bits removed. Anti-spin parachute added and home-made registration letters. The font I used to make the letters didn't match the photo I had, so I spent some time modifying the figure '8' only to find that when the registrations were cut up and spread over the u/c legs you couldn't tell the difference! Saunders Roe SR53 Kit was of Polish origin, bought from Hannants several years ago. I suspect it is a copy of the original Airfix version Fairey Delta One Olimp resin kit, Alclad finish. I thought that I had 'cracked' doing Alclad after the P1 (next pic) but found that I hadn't English Electric P1a Aeroclub vacform fuselage, Airfix F3 wings and tail, RAF roundels from Xtradecal, home made warning stencils More to come ( the foreigners) John

Aeroclub do a kit to convert a Revell F6 to a Mk 1, which I think should be identical to the Mk2. I've just finished converting a PJ resin F6 to the prototype as the back end looked a bit small for a F6 so all I had to do was sand the excess bits off John

The simple answer is Alclad polished aluminium over gloss black enamel. The real answer involves 'elbow grease'. The first attempt came out looking like silver paint. This was almost all removed by rubbing down with wet and dry, reprimed and then several very thin coats of black enamel were applied, rubbing down between each, followed by a top coat of Alclad which was then buffed. I think that the answer is to get that black undercoat really fine - glassy smooth. Normal gloss is just shiny. John