Filler

He’s done it again. It’s no coincidence, that’s for certain. And I really can’t think of any other explanation. I will try and park our car outside our house (and a car cover is a good idea) but it will prove tricky as he seems to get home from work about three o’clock every day, so he gets there first. And even this evening, I’ve just got home from dinner at the folks and he’s put it outside ours. I’m absolutely certain that it was less than double figures the number of times he parked his Volvo in front of our house in four years, and yet he’s done it every day since he got this thing. And at no point has the space in front of his own house been already occupied. What also gets me is that he’s a “hard” guy. A tattooed roofer who knows how to handle himself. And yet he’s happy to put me and my family in danger. In truth he’s clearly a coward. But this is also a problem. We’ve always got on well enough as neighbours, and I really don’t want or need friction with the people on the other side of the wall. So any approach over this is a none starter. I know it may seem trivial to many, but this is a situation that is causing me stress and I have little option to do anything about. Well, apart from move I suppose.

My neighbour had owned a Volvo kind of SUV type thing since we moved here. He tended to park sometimes outside his house or often up the street to avoid the bird muck that descends from the large trees opposite our houses. This week he has changed his car and has an Audi RS6. It’s noisy and apparently gets to 60mph in 3.4 seconds. Since he bought it, it has been parked exclusively outside our house. We aided this by parking outside no one’s house around the corner to avoid the phenomenal amount of bird poo we get in spring. My theory and concern is that by parking it outside my house instead of his own, he has figured that if anyone wants it in the middle of the night, it’ll be my home they break into in search of the keys and not his. Am I paranoid or is this probably what he is thinking? I just don’t want my wife, child or me beaten to a pulp by criminals wanting to steal my neighbours car. Obviously I need to accept the bird deposits rotting my paint work and park my car outside my home when I can to prevent his being there every night. And I also really need to move for many other reasons too! I was told recently that the car gangs are even known to employ delivery drivers to look out for particular vehicles on their lists as extra sets of eyes.

Has anybody watched this new series? It's a 10 part spy/action/drama/thriller thing that I thought was pretty good in the main. And it was not difficult to fall a bit in love with the character Rose Larkin, played by Luciane Buchanan. She's lovely.

I highly doubt anyone has watched this Japanese series on Netflix (not even @Red Dot!), but I thought I'd mention it because it does have some great footage of JASDF Fuji T-7s and C-130s interspersed in it. It looks pretty clear that they had good assistance from the JASDF with the cockpit and air to air footage. I only watched it because of the missus, but the aircraft bits helped me get through it. And to be honest, it wasn't too bad for an easy watching sentimental romantic drama.

They're amazing photos and it's a very good looking subject too. They'll be much missed when they've disappeared from European skies. It must be a pretty strange and amazing experience seeing aircraft that close to each other up there.

Thanks for answering my Osprey question Andy. I do have a couple more questions. Firstly, where is the T7 taken? I'm guessing maybe Hamamatsu, but does Fuji appear that large from there? A bit of Googling suggests that Shizuhama is also possible/likely. And less aircraft or model related, but how did you get on with the mask wearing? I found it a bit of a pita last November, but I wondered if things have relaxed more yet.

I'll give that a listen now. Any advice is appreciated, but I have to say, most scribing tutorials on YouTube seem to involve a 2 inch straight line along a nice flat wing. You don't see anyone fighting to get a scribing template to conform to a complex bend with the tail fin getting in the way and then trying to secure it in position with a couple of bits of tape before trying to uniformly drag a metal point around it three times without slipping or the template moving. And then repeating forty times!

You are seriously tempting me to follow suit Dave. The panel lining is very fine and reasonably true to the real thing, so it could definitely be left alone and look more than fine. I guess it's more a mysterious pressure to do 'modelling', plus I did buy the Up North scribing set for the kit. I know that if it doesn't go well a second time, I will not be making a third attempt!

It's been another few weeks of inactivity, partly due to a loss of enthusiasm thanks to the task of scribing. Basically, it did not go well and I tried filling it all and sanding smooth. But then I figured that as difficult as it is, I had in truth rushed my efforts. So I lost the plot and bought another kit to start again! (It hasn't got warped wings which is great news!) Haven't got around to take 2 on re-scribing yet, but I have started attacking the exhausts. I've cut the excess from the AML resin exhausts and they have gone together quite well. Not glued yet as painting to be done first. Then I had to remove 5.5mm from the kit exhausts. Yes, point 5 of a millimetre. I simply can't work to those tolerances!! Lucky I now have two kits because the first attempt was a right mess. Second time was a lot better thanks to having learnt what not to do. Missing a photo of the cut exhausts. I also attempted to add some hint of the rivet detail on the heat shield parts around the exhausts. Luckily it won't be very visible when all assembled. I am going to get some paint on later. I have really been putting off painting as I find the whole airbrushing thing quite stressful.

Excellent photography as always Andy. Looks like lovely weather and a fantastic mix of types. The Osprey is a great catch. Where did you see that?

Those petals were a bit beefy, but the detail down the pipe looks excellent. Nice progress.

Three years late to this topic, but I was wondering if this could be confirmed. I have only found images of ‘grey’ cockpits for MIVs, but it’s not always clear if the photos always and only depict IVPs. I have an IVA cockpit to paint and am stumped as to black or grey.

I’m no great expert, but I think filling is the way I’d go. I’d be using plastic card to pack it to hopefully create a strong wing to fuselage bond. Also helps if any touch ups to panel line are necessary. It looks like a really nice kit. But come on Kinetic, where are your F1s?

Releasing the IV wouldn't go a miss before they worry about any more releases. The IV has been 'coming soon' for a couple of years now. Having said that, I'm sure they are just waiting for me to finish rescribing the Heller kit before finally announcing it!

Been a couple of weeks of little progress as the re-scribing proved difficult and not particularly successful. As a result, in the last couple of days I completely made things up as I went along and decided the best thing to do would be to “paint” all scribing with glue in the hope that they would melt a bit and all but disappear after a good sanding down. Never seen anyone do this before, which means it is either a daft idea or that other people are good at scribing. The plan now is to prime in grey and then kind of fine line panel shade in black in the hope that it ultimately results in at least the sense of panels. I get to try this twice as my Mirage IIIE has been in a similar state for a couple of years. Out of curiosity, I brought down my Kinetic IIIE kit from the loft earlier and having a look at the lovely crisp panel lines on it, I am again asking myself why I keep taking on old kits when there are so many newer kits of (generally) better detail. Anyway, I might tinker with the cockpit and exhausts this weekend as they need to go in before closing up the fuselage. And I’ll also pick up a can of Halfords grey primer as it’s a huge model and I don’t fancy spraying Mr Surfacer at it through a 0.3 needle for hours on end. Onwards and upwards! And I must resist starting an RF-4C in the Reconnaissance GB.

I think it's fair to say that scale models don't get built and painted much better than that. Lovely work!

Hello and thanks for taking time to post a reply. I hope I didn't give the impression I am being critical as you do excellent decals of excellent subjects and I've bought quite a few of them. In the case of the BAF Alpha Jets, as far as I can tell, the white backed warnings first appeared in 92 as the transition to the tactical grey scheme started and was complete by 1994. So no doubt as you have shown above that your markings are correct, and thus my use of 'not correct' was not correct. My peculiar problem is an irrational fixation with European based NATO aircraft in 1986/1987 that you might well have seen at a UK airshow. This quite often causes me frustration. I should probably just give my head a wobble and get it built as they were just a couple of years later, as per your brilliant decals. I think that you are right in that the cost and hassle of getting four tiny new triangles produced is not warranted. It's funny that they were literally the only markings that did change.

Thanks @Jabba, they’re some nice decals, but unfortunately none of them include markings from the SEA scheme era. I’m thinking that my only options are either to somehow find a hi-res photo of the warning triangle (which seems fairly unlikely given they disappeared before digital photography) and get someone to make the decals for me or I do a French Air Force example instead.

To be honest, I'm not sure what help I'm hoping to receive here, but I want to build a Kinetic Alpha Jet kit representing an aircraft in Belgian service in the mid/late 80s. I have the kit and I have the Caracal decal set that includes two BAF examples, one in the 'Vietnam' scheme worn between 78 and 94 and another in the tactical grey scheme introduced in 92. The problem is, the scheme I want is not in any of the existing Kinetic boxings and the Caracal set does not include the correct warning triangles for the SEA scheme. Here are a couple of pics of the two types: As far as I can tell, even the old ESCI kit didn't have the correct markings for the BAF SEA aircraft. And I've so far not even found a very clear image of the marking. I've so far drawn a blank with aftermarket decals (even DACO don't do it) and I can't find a good enough image for reference for perhaps getting some made by somebody. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Crikey! I thought I had problems with my Heller IVP kit and it’s bendy wings. I hope you get there with your plan B as that is a great aircraft and scheme.

Thanks Sam, I’ll give it another go using that technique. Certainly nothing to lose.

Still some scribing to do and quite a bit of fixing the bigger errors. Been looking at slightly dropping the flaps as that is how they are at rest. It looks like a simple task or scoring and bending down a couple of degrees. However, despite my efforts, the starboard wing is still very wonky. Now contemplating fashioning a replacement flap. Not sure how to get the wedge profile yet though.

Good suggestion. I like Diane Morgan and she was brilliant in Motherland. Actually watching something on YouTube about the IV to try and give myself renewed enthusiasm after my left over lasagne lunch.

I don’t know about cursing and swearing, but scribing takes the pleasure out of modelling. I have a rare day off to myself and I’ve spent the last three hours scratching a perfectly good kit to death. Even with the Up North scribing set, it’s a nightmare. I’m roughly half way, but I’m losing the will. Is it really worth it? At least the raised lines were straight and consistent. I just want to glue stuff together and see progress. I’m definitely at risk of losing out to something, anything on Netflix at the moment.

Perfection. And a lovely subject too. That very first photo was taken at Woodford airshow, my local. The IIIS was accompanied by an F-5 in the static display.