At Sea

Beautiful finish, my refernce build for the one I am currently plodding though. Nose gear landing light noted. Sorry for your loss.

Fleetscale sell the hull for this vessel. As I am currently Captain of it I have a full set of drawings on a memory stick. 1GB and 400 files. The poor old girl is being sold I see no commercial issue with making these available to anyone who wants to build this model. PM me and post me a blank stick & I’ll return you a full one.

Hi there, I know you guys aren't RAM Models but you did print the decals for their excellent Early British Phantom sets in 1/72 and 1/48. May I request ever so humbly that f these are ever re-issues that you add a couple of Silver RR Rolls Royce intake cowling badges as per airliners for the XT857 airframe and also add the decals for XT596 as she stands at Yeovilton. XT597 has been done many times, but XT596 is the only original YF-4K in existence and is essentially just a standard EDSG RN Phantom with the addition of the below logo, just aft of the port roundel. Thank you.

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.

I have 2 waiting for me at home. I imagine that there will be a Black Buck boxing as well as a future XH558 standalone boxing with the correct (incorrect) roundels and the decals for the inside of the bomb bay. This has to have been Airfix's greatest success for years. I can't wait to see mine and will be looking forward to your builds too. Off the back of the reception this has had, the 1/24 Typhoon and Hellcat I imagine a similar response will await the 1/24 Spitfire IX which must be on the cards surely!

Fixed that for you!

Beautifully built.

Loving this kit. It is so well designed and moulded. I had great trepidation with the multi part exhausts but they went well. I will definitely be building another one of these with the engine covers off to show off all that detail. Anything I think may be visible through the engine and gun cowl vents got a coat of matt black with some gun metal and then silver dry brushing.

The picture looks familiar. I can't place it...

Brilliant work, it always amazes me that the size of these ships and the mass of pipework on deck they don't make it high enough up to walk under, or low enough to work on. It's always just at head banging and need a ladder to do anything height.

Captured the look of a Typhoon really well. Nice to see the seekers on the LGB's at idle as well, so often they are modelled horizontal.