Scratcher

That is a brilliant piece of work. As a complete novice in CAD, would it be rude to ask how many hours went into it?

I bet Jesus's old man felt the sam 12 hours later, I realise I've posted a reply to a topic on entirely the wrong forum. A senior moment as a result of having too many windows open and too many beers!

Meanwhile, the perpetrator is quietly watching, alternating between gobsmacked and thoroughly bemused....

It didn't end up yet. Life leapt up and got in the way. So far, I've mated a new nose with the back end. And then I got sidetracked back into full time employment. I thought I'd done with all that time consuming nonsense...

Rest assured, I help to make sure that many thousands of litres of Glenfiddich get sent south for the sustenance and succour it provides to those of a micro modelling disposition.

Meantime, I'm working at Glenfiddich and I'm partial to their Balvenie Doublewood on occasion. General, your micro modelling skills are well worth a toast!

Andy - your seats by themselves are stand alone works.

Wow, those seats are almost as good as mine...

Lovely work Andy. This build, with your attention to the areas I'd overlooked, is looking much more like a Buccaneer

I also remember early mornings hand pumping fuel from 45 gallon drums into an Auster that we had as a tug, and I had a few memorable flights in that too - when the glider pulled off I got to fly it back. Great fun, pulling tight spiral turns on the quickest way back down. My memory may be playing tricks with the Chipmunk though, I'd guess 1971-72 or thereabouts.

Talking about Chipmunks, If I remember correctly, the Fulmar Gliding Club tug at Milltown in the early 1970's, which I spent a lot of time trying to follow on the end of a rope, was the same machine as depicted by the Airfix kit decals at the time, WP896 , although in a different colour scheme - silver and dayglo if memory serves. Prior to the Chipmunk, a Tiger Moth was the tug, but I never had the pleasure of a tow from it. Aerotows in an open cockpit T21 are still vivid memories though! Am I right? was the Chipmunk WP896? .

I've researched the Buccaneer and it appears to me that it's one of the most thoroughly documented aircraft on the internet. On top of that, the help and enthusiasm from everyone involved, from modellers, ( General Melchett in particular) to those who keep the real thing running at Bruntingthorpe, ( Colin Robinson) has been invaluable. Much credit to all the real enthusiasts!

My first flight in an aeroplane, a 5 minute trip at an air display at Lossiemouth in 1971. My dad couldn't understand why I'd spend all my pocket money on it when I was due to go on my second ever flight in an aeroplane a week later - Piper Aztec G-ATLC. My dad had the use of the company aeroplane to go from Kinloss to Isla and on the return trip I got a shot of flying the aeroplane. I don't think the company directors in the back enjoyed it, but I certainly did. My first solo in a glider, a T21 at Milltown in 1973. Hang Gliding through/over the Cuillin Mountains in Skye Gliding log dated 23/5/96 Bocian, 'P2 - Aerobatics with 'name of instructor'. 23/5/96 Bocian, 'P1 - Aerobatics without 'name of instructor'. The same instructor (a Tornado pilot at the time) later taught me how to beat up an airstrip at a height where beat ups need to be performed along the strip rather than at an angle, because there are likely to be fences and farm animals in the way at the sides. I never had the nerve to get quite that low, but my first attempt sticks out in my memory. I really can't pick one flight as the most memorable, but on May 6th, 2006, climbing to 16,200 feet in wave over Ben Rinnes in an Astir, and being convinced that I'd turned the oxygen on properly was worth a highlight in my logbook. I suspect hypoxia prevented me from exploiting the conditions and climbing to the point where I wouldn't be around to remember the occasion! 23,000 feet on a dual flight, in an ash 25 over Elgin a couple of days earlier was pretty stunning too.

Very nice work Andy and it's given me some ideas for the future...

I'm in Rothes - and although the Buccaneer garage is handy for reference, I can only really access the underside.

I'm as enthusiastic about getting up close and watching this stuff as anyone, but driving: 1)three and a half hours to Leuchars 2)three hours to get in 3)three hours to get out 4)three and a half hours to get home blunts the experience. I see your point, but I live close to Lossiemouth, the most active RAF airfield in the UK, but any displays or museums are now at least four hours further to reach. I bet anyone in the 'Central Belt' could get to several museums or displays in the time it would take me to reach your starting point. I do have a mate who reckons he did the fastest time ever between Aberdeen and Lossiemouth. He flew a Tornado, after repairs, which had made an unscheduled landing at Aberdeen back to Lossiemouth in fourteen and a half minutes. Unfortunately, I don't have access to his mode of transport. It takes me an hour and three quarters...

The last Leuchars show I went to was a nightmare. 3 hours to get in and the same to get out again, with a 7 year old in the car who gave me a lesson in patience. I hope the airshows continue after the move to Lossiemouth - only 16 miles away. As a boy, I used to spend my holidays at the end of Lossiemouth's 023. On one occasion, standing on top of dunes on the beach I remember a Red Arrow Gnat passing below me, kicking up sand.

Didn't know there was a Nimrod in running order, and it's great to see all the aircraft I grew up watching being kept alive by dedicated enthusiasm. Maybe one day some of them will fly again....

There's plenty of scope for imaginative schemes in the older plywood/fabric machines - no colour restrictions there, and some shapes that are very different from the T tailed plastic lookalikes which dominate the sky nowadays - OK, it's function over form which dictates that the most efficient designs must look very similar, but there's a lot of fun to be had flying the veterans, designed when aerodynamics were less advanced and different ideas were tried.

Nice work - I always understood fibreglass gliders were overall white to reflect heat, which weakens the structure. As far as I'm aware there were restrictions on the area which could be coloured, for the same reason. http://www.dg-flugzeugbau.de/fileadmin/TN-DG/service-infos/2011-72-e.pdf A gaggle of soaring gliders are very visible and very pretty in white to my mind, especially when looked at from above!

Speechless: adj. 1. Lacking the faculty of speech. 2. Temporarily unable to speak, as through astonishment. 3. Refraining from speech; silent. 4. Unexpressed or inexpressible in words: speechless admiration.

Exactly the kind of stuff I was looking for!

Can't think of where else to post this on the forum. Does anybody have any links or info on how the likes of Hasegawa, Revell and the other manufacturers actually produce kits? Who sits down and says, 'Right chaps, we're going to produce a new kit - Bob, go and look at some photos and draw up the cockpit. The rest of you, go and draw some wings, fuselage and a tail. While you're at it, do a couple of engines and some wheels.'? And with all the people involved, how does the whole thing come together so that everybodies contribution dovetails? How do they research the subject, and how does the research translate into drawings and then into tooling? I'd be fascinated to find out about the process and the various skills involved.

Ah, well now - I think I'd fall on the side of the romantics, although there has to be room for both - the painter and the photographer for example. I think I'd prefer a painting over a photograph of the same scene but if technical accuracy rather than human interpretation is the criterion, then technology wins. That's not to say that a talented photographer can't capture a scene in an artistic sense, but somehow, a painting can have more depth and absorb the attention of the viewer to a greater extent. It's a bit like the discussions people have on the Hi-fI forums. If technical specs were the be-all and end-all of the subject, we'd all be listening through exactly the same equipment. There'd be no room for subjective argument because the numbers provide the proof. Anyway, back to 3D printers - as you say, we may very well end up in a world where warehouses and the physical transportation of many types of goods are a thing of the past. Walk into your local Thingmakers and they'll print a crankshaft for your 1966 Ford Anglia on the spot, and you can have a chat to the lady next door as she waits for her shoes to be printed.

Wow! I'm thoroughly impressed by both the model and the model holding the model. Like you, I wonder where scratchbuilding is going now. Is it going to be made redundant by 3D printers? It somehow irks me to know that my years of experience in modelling can be leapfrogged by a new graduate (who may never have cut a bit of plastic in his life) with an engineering degree and the associated CAD experience will look at it as just another printing project and can just say, OK, let me laser scan your subject, turn it into a CAD file and I'll 3D print it for you - what scale would you like? Your sword wielding analogy strikes at the heart of the matter - "Today the prowess died". Or should we just look at it as another tool in the box?