Ed Russell

Agree about the biplanes. People who just dismiss Matchbox kits are either foolish or determined scratch builders. X-Kit ≠ OOB

Probably the brand of choice for an OOB Merlin-engined Halifax too!

Thanks - no, it's a scratchbuilt lighter based on a picture (from somewhere). I don't think Kora were around when this one was made. I'm sure I found interior pictures somewhere. I'll look for them. Edit Some interior pics http://www.picstopin.com/607/heinkel-115-page-3/http:||www*warbirdphotographs*com|LCBW11|He115-18f-s*jpg/ Recovered He115 photostreams http://www.flickr.com/photos/chcmech/7336008978/in/photostream/ http://www.flickriver.com/photos/chcmech/7337471508/

Here's one I prepared earlier..... Matchbox one, sometime in the 80's

Mr A.I.W. - Thanks for indicating these reviews. They are generally approving and, in two cases, by modellers whose work I am familiar with. I am happy to accept that the one I saw was maybe a failure of QC rather than a poor product line. I have done Alps printing and I know the pitfalls. I can answer your question... Calum is probably looking for reviews to determine whether or not the items are of merchantable quality and thus support a decision to purchase them or not. This is my understanding of what reviews are for. I note with interest all of these reviews are from 2003 and 2004 - are there any later than a decade ago or are there no new products?

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234920292-mysterious-hf-spit/ http://spitfireforums.com/index.php?topic=229.0 Might help a little

Or move to Australia where, despite the howling of the rip-off retail lobby common sense prevails and the Government long ago realised that it wasn't cost-effective to collect small amounts of money. Thus the threshold for duty is 1000 AUD (about 660 GBP). Mind you. as soon as they realise how HMRC does it, they will probably reduce it to $5 and stick a $100 handling charge on everything!

I have only seen one set insomeone else's possession. It appeared to be printed on a poor quality or out of alignment printer and was not properly coated. Maybe that one set was an outlier although you would think decent QC would have picked it up. Mr A.I.W apparently. thinks it is beneath his dignity to submit things for review so it is difficult to judge them. With respect to the review above if they were not in accord with David Muir's SCW book they were probably rubbish. If anyone has any and would like to give another unbiased opinion I'd like to see it. As I see it, constructive criticism can only improve things.

A- Ha! Thank you Daniel! Not exactly a 'series' but probably taken around the same time. Here I was imagining Mr Aeroimageworks had a contemporary walkaround of the aircraft. They are all fascinating pictures though. I'm continually surprised by vintage colour pictures that appear that I haven't seen before. I think this thread has been very interesting and informative.

No degeneration at all visible here .... a most interesting thread. If it is desired to be strictly on topic perhaps an answer to the question in posts 59 and 60 would be apposite. Where can one view the rest of the series of slides referred to in post 54?

http://i412.photobucket.com/albums/pp202/ruspren/spots-all.jpg

All covered in Post 10 and later discussion of the dates

You may be looking for something that doesn't exist. For example, just looking at some more or less sequential Fw190 and Bf109 aircraft which fell into RAF hands, there appears no system to the serials Fw190A-3, MP499 Fw190A-4/U-8, PM679 Fw190A-4/U-8, PE882 Fw190A-5/U-8, PN999 Bf.109E-3 DG200 Bf.109F-4, NN644 Bf.109G-6 VX101 Bf.109G-6 TP814 Bf.109G-14 VD364 or if there is, I can't see it. There may have been some system for cataloguing the large number of post-war prizes but most were scrapped (not scraped) pretty quickly for their metal content and any sytematic physical numbering of them seems unlikely (except in some bureaucratic ledger) and I'm not aware of photographs to bear this out. For lists of captured aircraft, if you didn't think much of the reference mentioned above, you are going to have to do original work in libraries and archives.

Where can the rest of this series be viewed?

Have you done a build article anywhere? Very nice work.

Genuine colour photos of crushed coral airstrips - note the lack of colour in the actual strip. http://www.google.com.au/imgres?sa=X&hl=en&biw=1680&bih=839&tbm=isch&tbnid=GOtd6de_X6DMHM:&imgrefurl=http://www.airfields-freeman.com/HI/Airfields_W_Pacific.htm&docid=x172y701ksQfZM&imgurl=http://www.airfields-freeman.com/HI/Palmyra_HI_05Aug1_ne.jpg&w=965&h=861&ei=8yB5UYywGIKQtQb_oIGgBA&zoom=1&ved=1t:3588,r:0,s:0,i:83&iact=rc&dur=3388&page=1&tbnh=186&tbnw=200&start=0&ndsp=27&tx=120&ty=62 http://www.google.com.au/imgres?sa=X&hl=en&biw=1680&bih=839&tbm=isch&tbnid=fnFh3zidxWLjUM:&imgrefurl=http://www.airfieldinformationexchange.org/community/showthread.php%3F3639-MALDIVES-Gan/page2&docid=t6pht7jmP7BQSM&imgurl=http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb198/Flyer719/OVERSEAS/Gan/Gan29.jpg&w=1024&h=625&ei=8yB5UYywGIKQtQb_oIGgBA&zoom=1&ved=1t:3588,r:28,s:0,i:176&iact=rc&dur=656&page=2&tbnh=175&tbnw=288&start=27&ndsp=38&tx=130&ty=67 http://www.google.com.au/imgres?sa=X&hl=en&biw=1680&bih=839&tbm=isch&tbnid=UeiYsbRF-x2HAM:&imgrefurl=http://www.airfieldinformationexchange.org/community/showthread.php%3F3639-MALDIVES-Gan/page2&docid=t6pht7jmP7BQSM&imgurl=http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb198/Flyer719/OVERSEAS/Gan/Gan30.jpg&w=1024&h=626&ei=8yB5UYywGIKQtQb_oIGgBA&zoom=1&ved=1t:3588,r:27,s:0,i:173&iact=rc&dur=450&page=2&tbnh=175&tbnw=287&start=27&ndsp=38&tx=173&ty=75

Poor quality pic but reputedly IAF PR.19 http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/IAF/History/Aircraft/Spitfire/SpitPR101.jpg Bonus - one from the Bahamas (:>) http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SUPERMARINE-SPITFIRE-PR-19-RAF-80th-Anniversary-Aircraft-Stamp-1998-Bahamas-/400411919482

The CMR Mk VIII RAAF Spitfire kit has a scheme similar to this. The instructions include an information sheet largely prepared by Peter Malone which includes an interesting and all-too-familiar bureaucratic explanation for some of the Foliage Green / RAAF Sky Blue examples. Here's an extract. Two new RAF squadrons, Nos 548 and 549, were formed at the end of 1943, with RAF pilots and RAAF ground crew. In April 1944 they began to receive their new aircraft from each of the three aircraft depots. They were delivered camouflaged, mostly in the Foliage Green over Sky Blue scheme. At the end of April the RAAF issued a new instruction stating that camouflage on day fighter aircraft was to be removed to bring them into line with P-40Ns being received from the US and the anticipated Mustangs. In the event this order was subsequently modified at the request of commanders in the north to allow camouflage to be retained for operational aircraft. However the point does not seem to have been understood by the RAAF’s Eastern Area Command who ordered that all of 548 and 549’s Spitfires were to be stripped of paint shortly before the squadron moved north. This extremely unpopular order had to be carried out by the few remaining ground staff and the pilots. The two squadrons eventually proceeded north to Darwin in June. There, they were amazed to be told by the North Western Area Headquarters that their aircraft would have to be camouflaged before the squadrons would be considered operational! The repainting was done over a period of time and it was not accomplished before the end of the year. The Foliage Green over Sky Blue was the scheme mainly used, although at least one 548 Sqn machines was painted to match the H.F.VIIIs that 457 Squadron was then receiving.

I believe Italeri are seriously considering reworking the moulds to produce the stretched version. However they most likely would update them to resolve problems in the original kit so it may well be a long way off. The conversion above goes some way towards a good model (not just RAAF but other operators) but I believe it has its own problems - I don't have one here. There are fairly accurate replacement engines available from Ozmods - Model-Craft in the UK.

The Coronado "awful kit" can be built! Just make sure you hold it down so it can't escape! I think all I missed was that the twin tails are a little undersized.

Just about there - aerials, nav lights, turret framing (and the base) I have been having problems pinning down aerial colour. Some but not most appear painted white. I have seen bomber (Monica etc) ones in a steel blue colour and this is what I aimed for Plastic tube (stretched plastic handle cotton swab - tip from Libor Jekl) and 2 thicknesses of brass wire. Glue together and squash the tube a bit. Unless there are any problems the next post should be in RFI

JMGT (not JGMT) JM is, I think, Jean-Max They may be associated with Battleaxe kits Here's a 'box lid' http://www.swannysmodels.com/Potez.html

Very nice! I have done a few of the CMR glider kits and they are good fun. Not too complicated but stillcan be a challenge. Nice work.

This is very nice work by a master of vacforms. Someone will now bring out an injection kit!

Removing the cockpit masking tape showed, most unusually, a bit of paint bleed so it was cleaned up and the framing done with decal sheet. It needs a bit more clean-up and the circular 'cutters' supplied as etch brass need to be fitted. Next were some small details like the control horns. The Italeri ones are unusable and have been replaced by lengths of tapered plastic (cut from a comb) and lengths of brass wire. The aerials were added.... the later type DF loop housing is from an Airfix Sunderland suitably re-shaped. Then on to the suite of ASV aerials. The dorsal ones were made from plastic rod (re-shaped rockets) suitably tapered with brass wire dipoles. I used scale rulers, tape, dividers and plans to get the orientation correct for the dorsal and lateral holes in the fuselage. if I had thought about it more, I would have done this before joining the fuselage halves!!!! I then realised that I would need to fit the underwing aerials first as I'd never be able to work on the thing once the fuselage aerials were fitted. So these were made also from plastic rod and brass wire and the positions marked, using a jig to ensure symmetry. Fitted into position they looked quite nice. They were probably supplied in a blued finish (alkali treated to form iron oxide) but the underside ones are clearly painted in pictures. I think this model is going to be quite difficult to handle once it's finished so I will make a base for it. The next step is to drill out the wheels for pins to be fitted to anchor it to the base.