At Sea

Threw some paint at it: Tamiya AS-9 RAF Dark Green = RLM71 Tamiya AS-29 IJN Gray Green = RLM02 Tamiya AS-5 Luftwaffe LightBlue = RLM65 I think the RLM02 on the topsides looks a little too pale, but really happy with the finish & the masking so may not mess with it.

Nothing is dampening my enthusiasm for this kit. Checking my kits & washing some mould release agent off is a lot easier than filling & rescribing!

It’s probably the launch of the Airfix Vulcan clearing the shelves!

Ford Frozen White is a White White, if that makes any sense. BMW Alpine White is also pretty pure. For a V-Bomber Transit Standard Ford Diamond White is too cream & will not do.

Stunning work. There are some very good pictures of downed B-17 in Heinz Knoke's I flew for the Fuhrer. This captures the feel of the picture very well,

I think it works brilliantly, would have been a good alternative to the Skyraider. Some of the stuff used in Vietnam looked no less bonkers to be honest; Bronco's, Super Connies, Cessna Skymasters, bendy helicopters (Piasecki H-21), Helicopters with 99% of them missing (S-64 Skycrane) etc etc. The Do335 would have fitted right in!

Looks at his brushes. Looks at his hands. Sighs. Fabulous modelling and really superb skills.

The FG.1 bits are in quite high demand as they allow someone to convert the Revell (Hasegawa re-pop) FGR.2 into the very hard to find FG.1. So if you aren't going to do that yourself I would suggest that you could raise a reasonable sum of money on a well known auction site with them. Same goes for the kit decals.

Regarding the intakes the way I have done it on my Victor (which has a similar assembly) was to pre paint the parts in Halfords White Primer, I then assembles using Tamiya extra thin, the glue that squidges out of the join mixes with the paint and hides the joints pretty well. Using the same technique on the Airfix Phantom resulted in no sanding or extra work required at all.

Sorry for no step by step updates but this just falls together so delightfully! A real Mojo restorer of a kit! In this last picture the stepped panel line is the joint between fuselage and wing, the straight one to the left is a poorly moulded panel line. I'm staggered by the fit of this kit and have built a few Eduard Spitfires. Am a fully paid up Eduard 109 fan now!

Ahh, my lack of knowledge seeping through. I presumed that the B.1 shared nose and tail, which would have made it simple to do. So very typical of a British manufacturer to make a updated version of something that shares nothing with the Mk.1!

Looking at the parts breakdown of the new Airfix kit the wings being a separate sprue would allow (with the addition of a B.1 specific sprue containing intakes nose leg and tail cone (tail cones if you wanted) a B.1 to be made. Alternatively if someone very enterprising decided to make a B.1 conversion kit comprising wings nose leg and tail cones that would fit into Airfix's existing parts that could work too. You know more than I do if this is possible.

I was quite touched that this was my wife's response!

Aircraft involved for those that want to model them: Skyshield 2. 27 squadron from Bermuda. XJ824, XH555, XJ823, ?. 83 squadron from Lossiemouth. ?

There seems to be a renewed interest in Skyshield of late. A couple of YouTube history channels have made content relating to 'When Britiain Bombed America, twice' by Mark Felton. I doubt Airfix are priming influencers but it's a nice coincidence.