zebra

Nose on, with a bit of milliput added to blend it in at the points where it doesn't fit so well. One advantage of the Pelican conversion is there's plenty of room in there for nose weight. There's a fair amount of liquid gravity in there - the CG is somewhere between the nose gear leg and the end of the forks and it will actually sit on its nose. Obviously the CG will move back when I add the wings and tail booms but I can't help wondering how much more liquid gravity I'd have had to add to end up with a nose sitter!

Getting on with the basic O-2 build - doing everything (apart from the Pelican conversion, obviously) OOB so have got the interior done fairly quickly : (sorry for the poor photo) and got the fuselage together: Once I've got the joints cleaned up I'll add the nose. Seems to make sense to do it before everything's closed up - otherwise some sanding dust would inevitably get in, and it'll be much easier to remove if I do it now.

Really interesting idea Dennis, sign me up. You’ve really got me thinking. Could do a warbird, racer or fire bomber alongside an earlier incarnation. Plenty of airliners that have changed operators (although that seems too much like an easy option!). But things that went on to a later career in R&D or got re-engined have really got me thinking. Things like engine test beds alongside earlier incarnations. Front of mind are the Honeywell 757 which first flew with Eastern, or the Lockheed-Martin CATBird (a 737-based avionics testbed) which first flew with Lufthansa. I’ve also had a bit of a crazy idea going round my head for a while to do all the main Stratocruiser variants (including Guppies) in 1/144. This would include the YC-97J (turboprop conversion) which later became the first Super Guppy and ended up with NASA. So that would seem to fit the bill.

Great to see this one I the bunfight although allocating my 5 votes just got a bit more complicated! Thinking about my options, plenty of them have come up in this thread already (Lanc, Victor etc), how about a Canberra - do we think it’s big? Which leads to another question, is the RB-57F (which is definitely big, it’s got a bigger wingspan than a Victor) British enough?

Thanks John, you're on the list. Time to give this a bump and appeal for the 6 more names we need! I think this could be a really interesting group build, and it would have something for just about everyone. There have been some really great suggestions so far. So come on folks, sign up and we can make it happen!

Time to pick up the pace on this. Over the last couple of weeks I've been designing, test printing, tweaking and re-printing a 3D-printed nose and finally got one I'm happy with. It's not a perfect fit - in particular, getting the contours where it meets the lower part of the original nose was tricky - so a bit of blending in will be needed, but I'm happy enough with it so can get on with the rest of the build and have started painting interior bits. Here's how the nose looks taped to the fuselage: more soon Julian

Primed and ready for paint: The plastic behind them is pretty thin and is supposed to be cut away if you want clear windows. If you're using decals you can just leave it in place and insert the clear window strip on top of it, as I've done. It's a lot better than having to fill all the windows.

Here's my Eastern Express 1/144 Viscount 700 finished in Air Inter colours using decals from F-DCAL, which I've just finished in the French Fancy group build. Build thread is here. thanks for looking Julian

Here's my Air Inter Vickers Viscount 700, using the Eastern Express kit and F-DCAL decals. Build thread is here. thanks for looking Julian

Finished! The props were a bit problematic - as well as the fragility, one of them pinged off into the distance and was consumed by the carpet monster - so drastic action was needed and I made new ones on the 3D printer. These seem to be much more robust - certainly easier to handle - than the kit props. Anyway here's one photo, more will be in the gallery shortly: thanks for looking Julian

I'll probably buy one. The last two EE kits I've built (Q400 and Viscount 700) have been quite nice. Yes they're pricey but if you buy direct from Russia they seem to be quite a lot cheaper - EE on Ebay or PAS-decals.com - EE has the newest releases, PAS has better prices but you seem to have to wait a while for the newest releases (they don't have the Convair 990 yet). I've bought from both before, shipping takes a while, but it gets there eventually.

There's a Netflix documentary about it - an episode of a series, might have been called Cat People or something similar. It's very impressive, worth seeking out the documentary.

My list of favourites probably overlaps quite a lot with others - The West Wing, Dr Who, IT Crowd, Father Ted, The Fast Show, also Parks and Recreation and Spaced which I don't think have come up much. A few I wouldn't put on my all-time favourites list but have really liked over the last couple of years: Giri/Haji Hinterland Shetland We Are Lady Parts Derry Girls Schitt's Creek The Bridge (original Swedish/Danish version) The Marvelous Mrs Maisel Love a good documentary as well. Ken Burns' Vietnam was great. The Netflix F1 series whose name escapes me at the moment is an interesting insight into the F1 world. And watching the Amazon series about Man City followed by the Netflix series about Sunderland highlights the stark contrast between the fortunes of the two teams! Things that I've started but couldn't get into: Game of Thrones, Vigil and the US version of The Office. Didn't see what the fuss was about with any of them. I've also watched most of Ted Lasso, but really don't understand why it won all the Emmys!

Thanks Mike. The lines on the rear windows are the window frames which broke the window up into smaller panels on the early Viscount 700s, replaced by a single clear panel on later versions.

Undercarriage and wheels on. I interpreted the instructions as allowing the main undercarriage to be added after the wings are assembled - I was wrong! - but after a bit of trimming of a couple of parts it worked out ok. Undercarriage doors and props left to do. The props are very fragile - I've broken four blades off already - so I've decided I'm not going to mask and paint the blade tips, that's just a recipe for disaster! I'm going to use a Molotow chrome pen for the spinners and leave the blades grey (already painted) and that will do. thanks for looking Julian