grahamf

Iconicair 1-32 Scale Supermarine Attacker by Graham French, on Flickr

No nothing at all it's an excellent kit, also having an idea of the tremendous amount of work that's gone into producing it, We should give them our support and not encourage the mainstream producers to duplicate it. Let the hard work pay off for the smaller people. Graham

Quill mentions 22 July for the comparative tests as he states it was one day after it was announced that ' our mastery of the day-light air is threatened' by Sir Archibald Sinclair. In another book 'Ultimate Spitfires 20 July is mentioned and both agree on the Pilot Seth-Smith. I have looked in the back of Typhoon and Tempest [ Mason ] and there is a list of test flights at Langley and on the 20 July R7632 was used to test take offs at various flap angles flown by Seth-Smith. The 22 July is not mentioned and the only other aircraft in and around that date is R7577 another 1A. There are one or two others but they all seem to have some modification which I would have thought ruled them out. Graham

Isn't it a no brainer really? When Airfix researched the kit the Defiant was in bits being restored at Rochester airport. They didn't tosh out the moulds from a few photographs.

Awesome! I've just bought two, one for my friend's 50th birthday present. Well its only taken 50 odd years for somebody to do a kit of it and that's the Chinese. 0 out of 10 to Airfix for never having having done one. I wonder how many times in all those years it was requested? I'm just gobsmacked It's finally been done, there are some good books on the subject and even they've been done by foreigners. Below is a photo of me aged 9 in Germany standing next to one at Corunna Barracks 26 Engineer Regiment about 1973. I was a keen modeller even then and wanted a kit of one. Graham

I'm probably talking to myself as usual, but heres's what red looks like in greyscale, Graham

Here's an old architectural modelmaking trick for cutting round windows:- you take a block of perspex, drill through it and then cut a slot half way through wide enough for the clear acetate to slide in, then the blunt end of the drill if you just press it against a grinding wheel carefully not overheating it to make the square edge 'sharp' then place the clear material in, slide the blunt end of the drill into the block then hit the now sharp end of the drill with a block of wood and it will punch out a neat disc. This is harder to explain than actually do! Graham

I've measured the concrete at Spilsby airfield and it seems that they are all a standard 10ft square. Graham

The third one down 01 because of this:- http://www.lend-lease.airforce.ru/english/articles/sheppard/hurricane_Z5252/index.htmits OK you can totally ignore my post, I'm used to it.

Its true that the museums focus on getting children interested and the Science museum used to have their own in house model and prop dept and they spent a lot of time producing Interactive electric devices to go with the exhibits. Trouble was it was the only dept that made any money as they did work for outside museums so when the bean counters wanted to save money that was shut down.

Id say the landscape is UK, lots of little fields with little wooded areas here and there.

I don't think drawings are a problem for German aircraft that's why there are so many kits of them and their many sub variants. A lot of drawings of British aircraft were destroyed post war.

The 1:72 and 1:48 trollies have all been done,The David Brown tractor is indeed next. Graham

The plan is to do all those. Graham.

The finished article, The kit will be available on our website this weekend.

I've just looked at my entire library and not found one of 64 Sqn! I would say that while I've been in France on the odd occasion I've had a quick thumb through their military publications and note that they have magazines of far greater photographic quality, content and interest than anything for sale in the UK. I do remember one celebrating the battle of Britain and it was crammed with good quality pictures that I had never seen before.

The tractors definitely next.

Just thought I would post a few pictures of the progress of our forthcoming RAF bomb trolley and Upkeep mine prototype parts machining. Luckily while producing this I found a real example of the very bomb trolley at East Keal in an unrestored state which I guess they are going to use to display their Upkeep mine on next to 'Jane'. This is the side of the Upkeep mine being CNC machined with a 1mm diameter flat end mill with 0.1mm overlap this results in a very smooth component that is paint ready. The major components next to a pound coin to give an idea of scale. The quite complex rear axle housing that had me scratching my head while measuring up the real thing. The main wheels, I went to town on the details of the hub both inside and outside. Graham

Apparently they didn't even score against V1's either and Tempest pilots took exception to the fact that they did.

I thought I would share these images of a completed project for a near neighbour of mine. He was one of my first customers and while not an avid aircarft modeller he bought a kit as a momento. I returned the favour by building him a completed aircraft from the reject castings that either had a bubble in or had cracked on removal from the mould, fortunately I get a lot less of those now! I decide the plane needed a base so did a concrete hard standing with a bit of grass showing, the flock material I used is a bit too bright for my liking but is all that was available in my local model shop, having chucked out all my realistic Architectural modelmaking scatter earlier in the year! [ Doh]. BTW the size of the concrete square's behind where I live that used to have Lancasters on them is 10ft x 10ft. The aircraft depicted is the first true Spiteful as against the previous MK14 Spitfire fitted with the new wings. It is in its later guise with the larger more familiar tail, the black anti dazzle strip is prototypical and I was going to leave this off but glad I didn't as it gives it a sort of racing look. The cockpit interior and wheel wells are interior green which I'm sure weren't but adds a nice contrast to the silver. Graham.

Its because they don't need to try, they will always have their loyal band of followers, Guess how much I charge for spare parts for my kits? £0.00p including postage. Graham

I remember doing the Halifax, at the time it was the only merlin engined one available and I was interested in the Halifax that was pulled out of the lake in Norway so I did that one. Graham