Rudolf_Filip

Mini update! I was slightly distracted when a friend came over and insisted that I should put the Spitfire on hold and finish my old Lindberg X-3 Stiletto instead. I did so for a few hours when sanity prevailed and I decided to go back to this lovely Spitfire... I discovered that the seat mount in the Aires set was damaged and unusable so I cut away the Airfix one and used that instead. The detail is not so delicate but it will have to do. I also decided to remove the headrest for the pilot and I drilled out all the holes. I really must try to be a better photographer... I added a few extra wires to the sides of the cockpit. According to pictures of a preserved Spitfire 22 the whole cockpit was full of wires. The floor looks rather nice and add a lot of interest in the cockpit. After a trip to the hobby room floor the etched rudder controls are not so straight anymore... I'll wait and see how much of them that will be seen later and maybe I have to fix them. Now I'm going out to my "painting shed" and start to paint everything green... Andreas

Well, I have started to work on my Spitfire. My experience is that Aires does really nice detailed cockpits but they are somewhat of a pain to actually fit inside the fuselage. It's not different on this one, I'm afraid... I had to thin both the resin sidewalls and the inside of the fuselage to get a decent fit. Hopefully it will be worth the extra effort. Note the light shining through the fuselage. I took away as much plastic as I dared without going through... Testfitting and hopefully it will work. I found the excellent book "The Spitfire Story" by Alfred Price at the local library and it actually had two decent pictures of PK684 that I'm building. However, oddly enough both are captioned wrong! Here it is claimed that the Spitfire in the pic is PK664 when it clearly is PK684. In this interesting photo PK684 is suddenly a Spitfire 24. Anyway, it's interesting to know that Jeffrey Quill also tried to sell Spitfires to Belgium at about the same time as he went to Sweden. This pic is from Brussels in 1946. Edit: After I wrote and posted the text above I found out that PK684 probably was modified into a F.24 sometime in 1947. As I mentioned earlier I'm a beginner when it comes to Spitfires... Andreas

Here are some of the aftermarket I might use on this Spitfire. I also have a few more items on the way. I haven't decided on what seat I'm going to use. I like the Barracuda seat with the belts molded into it but I might get a better result with the etched belts? I might go after the look of the Jeffrey Quill photo above with the belts hanging casually over the fuselage side. This is a list of the aftermarket I have at the moment: -Seat, Barracuda resin -Propeller blades, Barracuda resin -Wheels, Barracuda resin -Engine rocker covers, Barracuda resin -Seat belts, Eduard etch -Canopy, Squadron vacuform -Cockpit, Aires resin -Instrument panel, Yahu prepainted etch -Decals, Xtradecal I also bought the late war pilot from Barracuda but I'm not sure if I'm going to use him. From my photos it looks like mr Quill didn't use all that flight gear. Wish me luck. This is going to be a fun build! Andreas

Mike, your build looks great! I lost all interest in my own buildthread when Photobucket took away all my pictures... The cockpit looks just perfect! I would know since I work on the thing... Andreas

Hmmm... What kind of idiot would let you up in that beautiful aircraft?

I'm finally going to start a project that I've been planning for a long time. Hopefully posting the progress of the build here will give me a push to finish it... This is the background story. I work at the local museum at former Swedish Air Force base F 10 at Ängelholm, Sweden. I love to just sit and browse through the extensive photoarchive now and then. It is absolutely huge and full of interesting photos from 1940 up to 2002 when the base was shut down. Sometimes I happen to stumble over something that I haven't seen before. A couple of years ago I found some pictures of a different looking Spitfire at a different airbase. I discovered that these pics were taken at the F 14 base at Halmstad, Sweden. It turns out that no other than Jeffrey Quill made a sales tour to Sweden in this Spitfire 22 in June 1946 with the mission to sell airplanes to the Swedish Air Force. As you can see it was a slightly different looking Spitfire, it was equipped with a contrarotating propeller like the Seafire 47. Unfortunatly the timing was awful since the same day Jeffrey Quill landed his Spitfire in Stockholm the first of the new DH Vampires for the Swedish Air Force was delivered! The Spitfire was by 1946 old news when compared to the Vampire jets... However, the Swedish Air Force did eventually bought the Spitfire XIX and used them as S 31 for a couple of years. I'm very thankful to the photographer for this pic. Note that there is no gunsight. Jeffrey Quill and some beautiful details... :-) I actually did a quick build of the Airfix Spitfire 22 in 1:72 scale two years ago. I stole the propeller from the Special Hobby Seafire 47. I'm sorry for the lousy quality of this photo... Now I want to build me a bigger version of this rather sexy looking aircraft. I'm going to use this Seafire 47 in 1:48 from Airfix. Most parts including the propeller is already in the box. I think that the only thing missing compared to the Spitfire 22-kit is the lower portion of the tail rudder. I've collected quite a lot of aftermarket "candy" that will be used on this build. What do you think? Anything I need to think about before starting? I'm mostly interested in Swedish aircraft so this will be something new for me. To be continued... Andreas

I actually like the filletless version. I've always wanted to build this Swedish J 26.

I have painted the propeller blades and I didn't like it at all... :-) It was difficult and required some masking at the tips. One blade need a little touching up but otherwise it will have to do. But... when I was going to upload these pics I suddenly realized that there was somehing wrong. I compared my propeller with a pic of the real J 22 and to my horror the tips were painted black-yellow-black instead of yellow-black-yellow like I've done on my model! Fortunatly I soon discovered that the model was correct and that our real J 22 is incorrect! It will be so much easier to mask and paint the real propeller than the small ones... :-) Andreas

Hi Troy I've compared the plans in the book with the real J 22. I found out that the plans are very accurate and the details are just right. I'm impressed with those drawings and I'm also very impressed with the Planet Models kit which is obviously based on those plans. The Kora kit is not quite of the same quality but it's not so bad when compared to the plans. Here are a few pics of the Kora kit. Mine is very badly molded and there seems to be some problem when mixing the resin. Note that the flap should be a little bit larger and extend below the fuselage. The Planet Model kit is correct. A bit skinny underneath but otherwise OK. Molding quality is much better on the Planet kit. Please note that there are two bulges on the Planet wing. These are for the guns and there should only be one on each wing for the J 22A. Easier to remove one than to add one on the J 22B. However Kora must have misunderstood since they have molded the bulge recessed! :-) I'm not so sure which propeller hub is the better one. I think that the Kora one is slightly more accurate with its more pointed tip. However I don't think that the difference is big enough for me to use the Kora spinner which is slightly to "long" (tall?). Andreas

Since this is a modelling forum... back to the kit! I've spent some time masking and painting the propeller and spinner. I forgot to take a pic of the blades but here is the finished spinner. The blue paint is actually the real deal. I found a really old jar of paint with some original blue Swedish Air Force paint here at the museum. It worked great in my airbrush and I love the shade which is exactly the same as the blue on my decals. The cockpit is where I'm going to add most of the extra detail. I'm not so fond of the instrument panel. The dials on the instruments are not so visable that I would like. I have a plan involving some Airscale instrument decals. Meanwhile I have started on the rest of the cockpit. I've added the two bulges on the floor. They were removed from the Kora kit floor and positioned on both sides of the pilots seat. The floor is (like on the P-40) also the top of the wing. Here is a nice drawing from the manuals. The purpose of these bulges is to make room for the main wheels when retracted. Here is a nice pic that show the cockpit as seen from the outside with one of the access panels removed. I need to go and take a lot more pictures of the actual build now... :-) Andreas

I've been very busy with my J 22-project. I doesn't really show on my kit though but I've made some progress. As I mentioned earlier I work at a museum in which one of the three remaining J 22 is kept. I decided to spend a few hours doing some research. I discovered that we have plenty of references including plans and drawings. I also found the original painting instructions! But the best reference must, of course, be the real thing! :-) Although it was a somewhat basic fighter it doesn't mean that it will be a basic and simple kit... The cockpit is full with detail that will look amazing in 1:48. The kit interior is decent but not good enough for me. Of course I couldn't help myself. I just had to take a selfie in the cockpit... :-) Andreas

I've been struggling with my mobile phone camera and I really need to start using my "real camera" instead. The pictures seem to get worse... Jonners, I like youre describtion of the J 22! The landing gear is somewhat out of place on this small aircraft. It doesn't help that it is very overscale in the Kora kit! Here is the Kora leg next to the more realistic one from Planet Models. Both are cast in white metal. (I'm sorry for the out of focus pic!) Christer, no, the J 22 never carried the ghost. Most just used the Skånegripen on the cowling. I have already ordered a second J 22 kit that I want to build as our "Röd Kalle". Unfortunatly I can't seem to find the Skånegrip in 1:48 so I guess that I have to try and design and print one myself... I've decided to scrap my old Kora kit and just use some of the better parts on this build. I have this early version but I think that it's still in production but with different decals. Very classy looking boxart... :-) Here are the decal sheets. I'm going to use the blue "H" and Mickey Mouse from the Kora kit and the walkway and all the small text from the Planet sheet. However, I'm not very fond of the national markings from these kits. I will probably use these from Flying Colours. (The ones to the right). Andreas

Since I work at the museum of former Swedish Air Force base F 10 the choice of an aircraft based there was simple. I found this machine as a profile in the J 22-book and decided that it was the one I wanted to build. Nice and colourful and from the right unit! The 2nd Division of F 10 had Disney characters on their aircraft for a while in 1945. I went through the archive at the museum and found a few pics of them. Pluto Donald Duck Carioca And finally, the one that I'm going to build... Mickey Mouse In my old Kora 1:48 kit of the J 22 this actual aircraft was on the decal sheet and the decals look rather decent so I'm going to try and use those. Andreas

By the way! I may have to mention that since I work at the local museum at Ängelholm I get to play with the real thing! :-) Andreas

It's been a long time since I actually wrote something here on Britmodeller, but here I am... :-) I'm going to build the new resin kit of the Swedish Air Force fighter J 22 in 1:48 scale from Planet Models. The FFVS J 22 is probably not very well known outside of Sweden. I'm not going to tell the entire story behind this little neat looking aircraft. For those who wants to know more I can recommend this site: https://web.archive.org/web/20120213150808/http://www.hobbybokhandeln.se/j22/index.htm Back in 2008 I visited the "Spielwarenmesse" in Nuremberg. I went there with a plan to convince some of the manufacturers to produce some kits of my favourite Swedish aircraft. I had a large pile of books filled with references about the SAAB J 21, the FFVS J22 and Swedish stuff in general. I ended up with the nice people at MPM/Special Hobby who showed great interest. I donated all my books to them... I'd like to think that I'm some way involved in at least this kit I now am going to build here. :-) I'm going to start by saying that I'm sorry if my language is lacking (I'm from Sweden) and for my photos are somewhat of poor quality. I mainly use my mobile phone which has a very bad camera. I forgot to take pictures of the kit before I started to build... Here are some of the main resin components after cleanup. Although it is not apperant in this lousy photo the quality of the resin parts is excellent. The first impression is that the fit also is very good. The canopy is vacu and is very clear and you got an extra spare if you fail with the first one. The undercarriage is in white metal and you get a small etched sheet with some nice details. I mentioned a book about the J 22 earlier and it's excellent. It's "FFVS J22 - Flyghistorisk Revy" and is from around 1990. The book contains some very nice, detailed drawings. I tried to match the main parts to the drawings and the actually match perfectly! I suspect that Planet Models used this book when they designed the kit... :-) Note the matching detail on the rudders and flaps! My only complaint so far is that the detail on the rudders and flaps are a bit overstated. A few swipes with the sanding stick fixed that without any troubles. I also have the Kora FFVS J 22 which was the only J 22 in 1:48 prior to this release. The Planet Model kit is a much better kit. However I'm going to use a few pieces from Kora, for example some of the etch is better. I'm also replacing the engine with a C-47/DC-3 one from Quickboost. Not that there is much wrong with the Planet Model one but the detail is a little sharper and I got a few of those Quickboost engines very cheap at a local swap meet. Here is the Quickboost C-47/DC-3 engine with some detail from the Kora etched sheet. I know it's a bit pointless since the J 22 had a rather big spinner in front hiding most of the engine. Well, I already had the engine lying around on my bench so... Here is it after applying some paint. It will do... There were a few airbubbles in the resin at the very front of the cowling so they had to be filled. I splashed on a litte Tamiya silver spray paint to see if I suceeded in removing them. To be continued... Andreas

Wow! A new Re 2000 in 1:48! Finally a new kit of this beautiful aircraft. The Classic Airframes one is almost impossible to find and have quite a few issues. I'm not even going to mention the other kit of the Re 2000 that is one of the worst kit ever.. I hope that this new one is just that, new. I wish that it's just not a slight modification to the existing Re 2002 which is not a very good kit. I need to build me a couple of Swedish Air Force J 20. Andreas

This is going to be a great year! I'm thrilled...

Love this kit and I'm hoping to build mine someday... :-) I really like the choice of building "Yellow 09". I have a special relationship with that very MiG. I live in the south of Sweden and a local supermarket had that machine as some sort of gate guard for several years. That supermarket chain used to specialize in surplusmaterial. They bought two MiG-21 from eastern Europe and put them on display outside of two of their shops. They stood outside for several years without any protection so the weather and vandals took its toll on them. A couple of years ago one of them was donated for an art project in which it was destroyed. The other one was "Yellow 09" which was saved by an aviation museum (Svedinos, Falkenberg Sweden). I hope you don't mind if I post some old pictures that I have taken through the years? Andreas / Rudolf_Filip

I don't understand the lack of interest in this exciting news. I've built their J 21 and their new J 29 and they are absolutely fantastic kits. I would say this is even better than if Tamiya would release a Vampire. If Pilot Replicas manage to have the same quality as their J 29 it will be about as perfect as a plastic model kit can be. Andreas

The seat in the kit is decent and looks the part when installed. It wont take long until Pilot Replicas will release a more detailed seat in resin but for now this will do. The doesn't have much of detail in real life either. Here is a picture of one of our seats. Here is my seat in 1:48 under construction. I've added a few pieces of plastic card and wires. I used the belts from the Maestro models etch for the AZ Tunnan. I also made the life raft that the pilot sits on. Now it looks like this after some paint. I still have a few details to add on the back of the headrest. As you can see I couldn't resist panting the instrument panel. I wanted to see how the decals worked. I'm happy with the result. What do you think? Will it work in a cramped dark cockpit? Now on to the intake and the prevoiusly mentioned tube, I didn't like the one in the kit so I decided to try and fit a piece of tube from Evergreen plastic. It might work... I've actually crawled all the way in to measure it properly. By the way. Here is decent picture how the exhaust should look like. Oh and if anoyone is interested here is me with a friend of mine! I'm the guy to the right... Andreas / Rudolf_FIlip

OK, here we go! Here is how my Tunnan will look like when finished. Hopefully... I wanted to build a machine belonging to F 10 Wing at Ängelholm. I found this picture which suited me fine since most of the markings can be put together with the supplied decals from the box. The only markings missing are the griffons of Skåne on the forward fuselage. Fortunatly I have some in the right size from a Hasegawa Draken. As usual I didn't follow the instructions and started the build with the rear fuselage. The part fits together perfect and no need for filler anywhere. Pilot Replicas missed the shape over the exhaust a little. A very small piece of plastic card solved that minor issue simple. If you're wondering why there is a crack or a small gap below the tail section it's supposed to be there. I've tried to repicate the shape but it looks a little messy right now. It will be fixed later. Take a look at the next picture to see how it's supposed to look. The afterburner in the kit is extremely basic and doesn't quite live up to the quality of the rest of the kit. I thought about building my own but I decided that life is too short and stole the one in my Hobby Boss Tunnan instead... It's a bit small since the HB kit is... well... too small... I think it looks ok. It will do on this one but on my next J 29 hopefully there will be some resin out. I wanted the rudders to be lowered so I carefully removed the rudder from the horisontal tail with a saw. I'm not so happy with the result but hopefully it won't look too awful on the finished model. Time for a break and a beer! I decided to test the larger parts to see how they fit. Perfect! Note the AZ monster in the background... Also notice the tube in front of the PR kit. I have a cunning plan to replace the intake channel with this since the one in the kit is "simplified" because of the lack of space under the cockpit. We'll see how that goes. I'm also going to use the engine fan front from the AZ kit. Nobody will ever notice when finished but I will know... Andreas / Rudolf_Filip

I've started a new build with something that has always interested me. I'm a bit stunned that there is now not only modelkits of these objects but they are also very, very good! I might warn you that this build might sound like a commercial for the company Pilot Replicas but I don't work for them, unfortunatly... These are the kits I'm going to try and do something nice with: I was going to start this topic a few weeks ago but I couldn't resist building instead. I've started the J 29 Tunnan and I'm loving it. I have been building models for the last 30 years but I have never seen this quality in a "mainstream kit"! The parts fit together like a dream and the sharpness of the detail is great. The whole package just screams quality! As I said... I'm sorry but it's a great kit and I'm very happy. The J 29 is my absolute favourite aircraft of all time. As some of you might already know I have a full scale one to play with! Stay tuned! I will post more pictures of the build as soon as can upload them to Photobucket. Andreas / Rudolf_Filip

Well. I got my J 29 a couple of days ago. I've started it and my build will appear in the "in progress-section" very soon. It's absolutely fantastic! The parts fit together better than any Tamiya kit I've built. It also seem to be very accurate. I haven't been able to find anything wrong so far. I should know since I have the real thing to play with! :-) Andreas / Rudolf_Filip

By the way... Have you seen this? http://www.forcedlandingcollection.se/USAAF/USAAF112-440804-hotpants.html Andreas / Rudolf_Filip

I have started this kit myself and there are some things to look out for. I discovered yesterday that the main landing gear doors are shown installed incorrectly in the instructions. The large doors should be on the right side on both landing gears. Andreas / Rudolf_Filip