P-3s rule

Great work Angelo. A civilian bright yellow Catalina (travelling from middle east to Newcastle or Sydney I believe) overnighted at raaf Darwin one night back in about 2004 when I was serving with 92wg detachment of P-3s. The Cat was pulled up nose to nose with an 11 Sqn AP-3C on tarmac near base briefing room and we had the opportunity to get on board the Cat and bang our shins on the interior bulkheads. Wishing I could find those photos I took on the day.

Superb build Roger! My great uncle Tom was a bomb aimer/ front gunner on 466 sqn RAAF based at RAF Driffield in Yorkshire ...on Halibags. He flew one sortie, then the war ended! I plan to build his B. III in 1/72 one day.

Welcome to the wonderful world of 1/700 ship modelling Andy. Whilst 1/350 does seem very popular these days, the great advantages us Braille scale ship builders have is the huge range on offer and the ease of storing large numbers of waterline ships in our display cabinets. Now as someone who built their first kits in the early 1970s (mostly 1/72 matchbox, airfix and revell aircraft and 1/76 afvs) , my eyesight is nowhere near as good these days, and even with magnifiers and a visor I struggle, so I tend to avoid rigging and attaching people railings by choice. I do struggle along with photoetch when it is necessary as in trumpeter 7 part catapults as in my uss new York build. I think 1/350 ships really need pe railings and rigging due to their size so I can happily avoid this. I do have quite a few ibg and flyhawk ships in the stash which come with pe railings and I will probably not use them when the time comes for these builds. My advice to you is stay with tamiya, hasegawa, fujimi, and the minnow of the 4 aoshima ( lower quality mouldings/detail for many of their kits) for your first couple of builds. Matchbox 1/700 ships are a product of the times and have quite chunky detail generally. After you have successfully built a few of these kits, feel free to have a go at trumpeter and flyhawk ships. I have plenty of flyhawk kits in the stash and still have not built any as yet.....one day! You will find plenty of gurus on this site who can offer you great advice on colour schemes and paint mixes and matches for RN colours. I have been using lifecolour acrylics from sets recently and find them easy to brush on. I avoid airbrushing! Happy modelling Andy- and enjoy the world of 1/700 ships!

Great work on this tamiya classic. Very impressive!

Inspirational work Andy. I must build some more of my Luftwaffe kits from the stash in 2024!

How about an avro Lincoln, avro Manchester, avro York, hs748/ Andover, blackburn botha, vickers Warwick, blackburn dart or ripon, fairey flycatcher, westland wasp, all in 1/72? Realistically only the 'draggie' , Lincoln and manchester stand any chance of being released by airfix. Valom seems to be the saviour with their 'obscure' raf releases. And a 1/35 matilda 1 for something left field - that gecko or bronco will probably end up kitting. Or a 1/35 Abbott or members of the Spartan family? The nichimo abbot is hard to find at a decent price. And then the obvious, a 1/350 queen Elizabeth or P.O.W. ( modern carriers, not the ww2 battleships). Just my two bobs worth. I expect to be disappointed once again!

So how is this project going captain ( commander?) Rob? Have you commenced surgery yet?

Wow. Great work on this old kit. Superb. I really think you should work on the rescue launch and pt boat, and maybe consider picking up the early war airfix e-boat and the late war revell e-boat next!

Being an ex raaf officer, I had many good chats over a cold beer or two with (army) 5 aviation regt aircrew and several flights on their Chinooks and blackhawks at raaf townsville in the early 2000s. The great majority of them loved their aircraft and found it hard to believe their beloved blackhawks were to be replaced by nh 90s. ADF helicopter procurement has been a disaster in the last 2 decades with 3 poor choices made by bureaucrats - reconditioned seasprites for navy, tiger gunships and NH 90s (taipan) for army. It appears we are back on the right track again with future purchases of Apache's and blackhawks for army, and Romeo Seahawks for navy.

Impressive effort on those 1973 figures. Nice panther too!

Thanks for those replies guys. I will divide them up into those 10 segments and mask off the red sections. I was unsure if all those German WW2 ranging stakes were the same, in height and graduations etc. And now, I must think about picking up a Hummel kit, Tigerasfb!

I' currently building the Dragon 1/35 Sfh18 howitzer with a Tamiya Sdkfz 7 as tow vehicle, and am seeking information on the height of each equal band of red and white strips. From what I understand, the poles/rods/stakes are 1.5 metres in height with each vertical section of colour being 15cm. There are 3 stakes supplied on the sprues with 1 on each outside of trail , with the last one on being on inner side of 1 trail. Can anyone please confirm whether this is correct or if there was any variation in the measurements (of stakes/poles) - or provide any more information on their useage or painting. My hardcopy (book) references are obviously inadequate when it comes to this kind of information on German WW2 artillery. A post on another modelling forum suggested these rods were also used to clean the barrel, but I find this difficult to believe - as these rods would have become quite dirty with prolonged use.

Have just returned from a 6 hour visit (Saturday) to the Smithfield/Cairns Armour and Artillery Museum, where I had a good look inside the Grant in question and noticed how cramped the 6 man crew would have been operating that AFV. The sponson area vertical internal 'partition' divided the internal area and kept the turret crew separated from the sponson gunner and loader and driver. There was quite a sizeable crowd (probably in the thousands over the 3 days of Armourfest) in attendance and large numbers of sepectators paying to do laps of the muddy circuit adjacent to the museum in a Gepard, M41 Walker Bulldog, Stug IV, Sherman Firefly, T-72, M8 Greyhound, Spartan, Schwimmwagen, Fox , Panzer IV Ausf J and a few others. Guess I'm lucky enough to live only 85kms from the museum , so it's only a 1 hour car trip to make the trip several times a year.

My once huge collection of commando , battler britton, air ace holiday specials, and war and battle picture library comics never failed to inspired my plastic modelling and as a child and teenager of the 70s and 80s, the memories in "achtung schweinehund" book ( I bought a copy a few years ago and read the whole book in about a week!) that you mention take me back to those times. The scene in Australia was not quite as 'big' as the uk but airfix, revell , tamiya, and matchbox kits were sold in most newsagents, sports and hobby stores, chemists and pharmacies, general stores, and supermarkets in those days. I also well remember eagerly awaiting the latest 64 page purnells specials on sale at newsagents which seemed to be released monthly, and picked up most issues of military modelling, scale models, and airfix magazine. Second hand book shops were a great place to buy bargain priced older hobby mags and comics too.

In an ideal world I'd like to average 1 1/35 or 1 1/700 ship kit per month also. Maybe this year? Great collection of mk Iiis, and that jagdpanther looks impressive too. Most inspirational - great work!