J.D.

Can't remember where I read it but somewhere in the plethora of books I have, there is something which says that they didn't use that bombsight because it was too hard to hold steady in any kind of turbulence. Most opted for a system using a piece of string tied to the securing nuts for the perspex bubble and with a small tab (not sure if it was metal or wood or whatever) attached to the middle of the string which the bomb aimer held against his cheek under his preferred eye. The sighting marks for the towers were drawn on the flat perspex plate with a chinagraph pencil. Keeping the string line taught - and God knows how they could see the pencil marks - they were able to drop their weapons more reliably than with the Y-shaped thingy. I have seen at least one photograph of this system but it gets no attention. I think this was mainly due to the film and the RAF not wanting to let too much detail out. I shall keep look for it for you.

At a very rough guess, they look like vortex generators to me.

Just had a look at that one very nice. They'd look good side-by-side. Don't want the Foxhound to turn into a stashound...

An updates on this fascinating build?

Nearly there! Latest problem is with the canopy. I masked it off but I seem to have done it in slightly the wrong places, leaving paint where I don't need it. If anyone has any good ideas about how to remove this, I'd be appreciative of them. Still waiting on gear doors from Airfix. Still need to install gun barrels and antenna wire. Still need to do a bit more weathering too. By the way, those are resin wheels, not the kit ones. Otherwise, I'm pretty happy with it. Cheers, JD

Okay, that clear it up pretty well. I was going to wait a week and I think that is what I'll do anyway. It'll be that long before I get another chance to do anything. Cheers.

I know it can undo pastel weathering but I'm going to wait until I do the final dull coat before I do that. I don't think there's anything wrong with the paint I used. It came from a proper art supply shop. I guess the real question is how long they usually take to dry. The vast majority of it is turpenoid anyway, so I imagine it won't be that long. I'm just seeing what everyone elses experience is 'cause I don't have any.

Hi all, I have just finished doing some streaking (paint, not naked) with artist's oils and I still have more to do. I want to do some final weathering with pencils, pastels, etc. The question is how long do you need to wait before applying a top coat? The coat I have been paining over is gloss. The terpenoid thinner I have been using has dulled a lot of it but I am not finished yet and need to apply a final dull/matte coat.

Wow! That's simply amazing! Well done that man.

I understand there are also problems with the Tamiya windscreen and canopy shapes. The link to the comparative build I posted above goes into this and other aspects quite well. I have also discovered that the A8 wing would need to be backdated to A7 (sorry Biggles) by shaving off some bulges on the upper surface. It seems that there are so many variations on the Wurger and so many kit variations that mix and match could end up being the likely outcome.

This is good news. The Hasegawa A7 wouldn't need a lot of work done, from what I can gather and it's a pretty accurate kit by all accounts. Here's a thread from another forum where someone did a four-way comparative build: http://www.aeroscale.co.uk/modules.php?op=modload&name=SquawkBox&file=index&req=viewtopic&topic_id=194430 I'm not much of a rivet counter but I'd like it accurate out of the box. The upside of that old Hasegawa kit is that I believe it has Major Bär's markings included in it. The only problem with that is that it is a deleted kit and now becoming quite rare.

I know of a couple of panel lines which need to be filled on an A8, like the circular hatch under the fuselage and I know about the pitot but that's about it. The rack would be dependent on the kit. Some have both types of rack and some don't. I haven't seen any aftermarket ones. Major Bär also removed the outboard guns, which wouldn't be difficult to fix. News on the Eduard kits is promising. Any idea of a time frame?

Thought it looked familiar.

Thanks for that Jack. That's a good starting point. Dragon also make an A-7 which seems to be accurate. Now it's probably just a matter of finding appropriate decals. The problem with something like this is that there was a bewildering number of variations just in the A series itself. That is further compounded by the fact that decal manufacturers, for good reasons, don't always have the ones you want. This is especially true when there have already been kit releases in the past. They can't hold all of them! So they come and go. Then there is the variation in the interpretation of what colours were involved. Hard when they are looking at photographs which are anything up to 70 years old, in B&W and not necessarily complete pictures of any one aircraft. The hunt goes on...

FWIW: the prices I'm seeing for the Eduard are pretty compelling, especially when the markings I want are included. It seems to be a question of trade offs.