zebra

It’s magnificent Rich. Well worth the effort you’ve put in.

some people will bet on anything!

Thanks! I’ll look out for that boxing then.

Happy birthday Dave. First time I've heard Brisbane weather described as brisk!

SABENA is a nice scheme. I spent a long time looking at available decals and trying to decide. F-DCAL’s Air Inter it Armee de l’Air decals nearly won. But then the 26 Swissair decals were on special offer last time I put in an order with the big yellow shop!

My second build will be the Skyvan. According to Scalemates this was originally released in 1974, this boxing is a 2002 re-release. I've built this kit once before, around 1982, and my (hazy) recollection is of a kit that went together pretty well but was a resolute tail-sitter. This is one of the first kits that came to mind when this GB came up. Box shot, plus the decals and PE I'm going to use: The Royal Thai Police decals are from Siam Scale. I've used their decals once before - on the Royal Thai Air Force 737 in the 737 STGB - and was pretty happy with them, so I'm hoping for more of the same. One slight concern is that there are no cut-outs for the windows. I think I'll deal with this by painting the fuselage sides before assembly, then adding the decals that go over the windows and cutting the windows out with a sharp knife. I'll then be paranoid about damaging the decals for the rest of the build. The PE is from IPMS Austria (but made by Eduard) and looks quite nice. There's a colour fret (which you can see here) for the cockpit and another fret with bits for the rest of the interior. Perhaps this will prompt me to build it with the cargo ramp open. Not sure yet. A couple of other things I need to think about are the rivets and the windows. It's covered in rivets but they're fairly subtle - not the massive ones some old Airfix kits suffer from - and I'm tempted not to remove them. It'll make accurate assembly crucial, so as to avoid having to use sandpaper, but from other builds I've seen online this seems to be possible. The other thing is the windows - these aren't flat, they're all a bit concave. I could leave them as they are, but I'm tempted to try and do something about them. I'm wondering whether to fill the concave bits and use them as masters to cast replacements in clear resin. Anyone got any tips on that? All this will probably have to wait - as I said in the Caravelle thread, I have a busy week ahead of me then off travelling for a month - so this is really a placeholder for now. Thanks for looking Z

First up from me in this GB will be the Caravelle, originally from 1961. This is a 1995 boxing. Pretty sure I've built one of these before - I built most of the Airfix airliners back in the 80s, with a few exceptions - I've never built the Vanguard, 747 or Concorde but I think I built all the others. Sprue shots, plus the decals I'll be using - 26 decals for a Swissair Caravelle III: A pretty simple kit. Nice to see the silvery grey plastic again. I'm going to build it more or less OOB, will just need to fill the windows (the only transparency is for the windscreen - nothing for the passenger windows). I've made a start - fuselage assembled, windows filled and waiting to be sanded down. I'll also remove all the raised detail - as this is 1/144 I don't think I'll rescribe it. Here's how it looks tonight: Probably won't get a lot further than this for a while - I'm in for a busy week at work, then off travelling for a month - I'll get straight back into it when we get back in mid-July. Thanks for looking Z

Hate it when a build becomes work... keep going, nearly there and it’s looking fantastic!

Nice choice. Another one I have a distant memory of building, before I knew about rigging and therefore before I was put off building biplanes!

Looking forward to this one. The Comet was the first Airfix kit I built, and second model overall (first was a Matchbox Lightning), bought with cash an elderly aunt gave me for my 7th birthday. So this is a pretty nostalgic one for me. I suspect you’ll do a better job than I did back then!

I’ll be following this. Never built this one, had been thinking of getting hold of one to build in Manx or Air UK colours. Maybe this will rekindle that. Does anyone know which boxings have the alternative noses?

Nice build of a lovely little kit. Built the Bird Dog a couple of times over the years, could easily be tempted by another.

Nice choice John. I have fond memories of building one of these about 30 years ago. Seem to remember it as a nice little kit.

I agree with others who’ve said an aircraft that meets a bad specification well shouldn’t be regarded as a bad aircraft. Much worse are the ones that didn’t do what they were supposed to do - ie fly well and handle well, and do the jobs they were designed for. my nomination: the Lerwick. A few quotes from the Wikipedia article: unstable in the air, on the water and not suited for hands-off flying... vicious stall and unsatisfactory rates of roll and yaw... several aircraft lost because of wing floats breaking off... couldn’t maintain height or constant heading on one engine. 11 of 21 built were lost. Sounds like a truly terrible aeroplane to me!

Very nice Hawk