Herb

Fighter canopy design prior to the fully blown perspex is an interesting topic. The primary trade-off between low drag and good visibility was explored in a lot of ways, and of course considerations like emergency jettison, rollover protection, and aerodynamic effects on the empannage were also important. I think the variety of different designs used indicate the perfect balance was hard to achieve. Every engineering decision is a compromise, and thousands are made with every design. In hindsight the "car door" canopy may not have been the best solution, but neither was it radically worse than the contemporary choices.

A manly conversion! The smell of plastic dust and putty is thick in the air...

Had to jump in since I received this kit in the mail just yesterday. It's beautiful! Very nice detail, truly outstanding for this scale. Look at the clear parts, the rear-view mirrors are on there! I was happy with refinishing the F-Toys gashapon, but AFV Club has definitely improved over that mold in just about every way. Highly recommended, and I hope they plan on doing a lot more more modern subjects! Herb

Fuad, your builds are always a pleasure to view! The weathering on this one is particularly nice, thank you for sharing it! - Herb

Wow! Just, wow!

Nice! Where did you get the decals?

Here's an A-12 cockpit shot, I'm thinking the Y1A-8 would be similar...

So strange, I'm seeing it clear as day. Hmm.

http://www.aviationofjapan.com/2009/11/ Cheers, Herb

How about now?

Beautiful Fuad! And your photography is awesome!

I didn't find any good cockpit photos, but the instruction sheet for the 1/32 Silver Wings Hawker Woodcock was useful... http://www.silverwings.pl/hawker-woodcock.html Cheers, Herb

Excellent, I wish you the best of luck! I went the Danecock route, and I think it turned out ok. Merlin kits are buildable! Cheers, Herb

Straightforward build of the Italeri kit... some modifications made to the engine and nose areas, particularly the cowl "cheeks". Cheers, Herb (many apologies, once again, the pictures work when I post them, and overnight they disappear...! Will continue to work on this...)

Thanks for all the nice comments! Rigging is just a mix of .002 filament and EZ-line. Really quite simple to do, just tedious. Apologies for the weirdness on the WIP pics. I see them on my home computer, but not on the one at work!?! Cheers, Herb