zebra

This will be very tempting. A mark III in 1/48 will be impossible to resist. The Miles Master must be one of the most under-represented aircraft in kit form. I think Frog did one, but apart from that has there been another injection moulded kit? More than 3,000 of the real thing were built so about time we had a new kit.

Now with wheels and tail fins:

More great work Big X. The wheels on cocktail sticks are like classic Airfix era party food, but I think the kebabs might have been a bit exotic back then!

Beautiful work Adrian, great result

Marvellous! Don’t think there can be anything that says “Classic Airfix” more than a dogfight double.

Looks fantastic John.

Yellow and black paint on. Most of my modelling time this weekend seems to have been spent masking - certainly a lot more time masking than painting - but I think it was time well spent, I really love this colour scheme. Into the home stretch now I think - undercarriage is next, once it's on its feet I'll get the decals done, then various external details to add. Another two weekends' work I reckon. cheers Z

I've recently rediscovered a love of Spitfires so count me in

It can be found a little cheaper than that on a certain auction site - I just got one from a seller in Russia for A$91 including shipping (can't imagine shipping from Russia to NZ would be all that more than to NZ) which I think translates to NZ$99. Also bought decals for the scheme on the A+A box from Bsmodelle, which look quite nice. Really looking forward to building it. Neither do I! I wouldn't be surprised if this turns out to have the EE plastic in the box.

Been there - it’s big and pineappley. I was a bit underwhelmed by the big shell near Noosa though. Big lobster in South Australia is my favourite. It’s like something out of an old fashioned horror film.

Queensland carpet monsters must have quite an appetite!

Thanks Dave. I'd like to make another - it's a very nice kit for its age - and I agree, it would be great to see this as part of the Vintage Classics range

One last mod to do before painting was to add the strengthening strip behind the observer's blister - a pretty simple job with a piece of 40 thou plastic card. I have to confess I don't think I measured the strip as precisely as the dimensions Red Roo give in the instructions, but then they quote the dimensions to the nearest thousandth of a millimetre and I don't have anything on the bench that would allow me to measure quite that precisely! Once that was done I primed it, fixed up a couple of gaps that I hadn't quite smoothed over completely, painted the collector rings and painted the aluminium top surfaces. I used decanted Tamiya AS-12 with a few drops of light grey added to dull it down slightly. Have to say I think the finish looks pretty good. thanks for looking Z

Orange bits painted and a few decals on - I thought it would be easier to get a few of these decals on without the tailplanes and fins getting in the way - then tailplanes and elevator attached:

One of the local online model shops which I occasionally buy paint from has a loyalty points programme. I needed to order some Alclad and had $12 worth of points. And they had the Mi-4 on special offer at $12. I now have the Mi-4! Will be following Steve's build, not sure if mine will make it into this GB (might be tempted to convert it into the passenger version).

Fantastic result Ray, I love it

Finished the grey and white on the upper and lower surfaces today. A bit of work with micro mesh was needed to blend them in, but seems to have worked. The post-it masking left the decal largely unscathed but pulled off some of the roundel. Fortunately there are more roundels on the sheet than I need, so I have a spare. Didn't do as good a job on the windscreen as I thought I had - it's not as bad in real life as it looks in the photo though. Need to paint the wingtips and rudders orange next, then a few touch-ups, final assembly and decals.

Thanks Steve. I really like this conversion - really good quality, seems to be very comprehensively researched, and I’ve never seen as much detailed information in a set of instructions as this anywhere else. Can’t remember what I paid for it but I don’t recall it being expensive. I’d definitely buy from Red Roo again.

SAS decals ordered from 26. Fingers crossed that they arrive in time...

The Beaufighter has been my main focus today (apart from popping out to the garage from time to time to give the Skyvan another blast of white from a rattle can). It's now nearly ready for a coat of primer. Main jobs for today have been to get the wings and tailplanes on, then to add a few smaller parts and work on a few of the details. As Giorgio said, it helps to have a well fitting kit as the base for a conversion - makes it so much easier. The fit of the wings was excellent. Most of the smaller jobs today were according to the Tamiya instructions, with a few obvious instructions. The oil cooler intakes from the kit were replaced with resin items from the Red Roo set, complete with a bit of brass mesh at the back. You can see them a bit better here: You can also see in the first photo that I've replaced the cowl flaps from the kit with open flaps from the Red Roo set. Other changes included using the shorter carb intakes from the kit, and of course to add the autopilot fairing on the nose. I also had to modify the observer's blister - it was cut back at the rear on the TT.21, with a flat panel installed, apparently to improve the observer's view. This was all easily enough done by filing back the kit's blister and adding an acetate panel in the hole that created: The last mod I need to do before I can start painting is to add a strengthening strip to the top of the fuselage. Ran out of time for that today, might get it done in midweek. Going to need to think about what paint to use for the painted aluminium finish. From what I have in stock, the best options are Tamiya AS-12 or Alclad dark aluminium. Both will look a bit too natural metal at first, but might just give me the finish I want once I've sealed it with some semi-gloss varnish. Will ponder on this during the week. thanks for looking Z

I thino there’s someone (Kinetic or Kitty Hawk?) planning one in 1/48

@trickyrich does airborne early warning count as recon, or is that stretching the definition a bit? Just purchased a Zvezda Beriev A-50 that would fit the bill if it counts. This GB might also be the kick I need to build my Modelsvit Tu-22KD - that would count as a ship killer I think, with the AS-4 Kitchen which was apparently designed to attack US carrier groups. Hopefully we can get to 30 and get this in the poll.

This would be a great GB - I think it wants another bump - surely we can get this to 30?

British supermarkets are generally much better than Aussie ones but they always pack your bags for you here so this is never a problem for us. I've got used to it, as I found on the recent UK trip - every time I was at a supermarket checkout there was this odd little pause whilst I remembered I was expected to pack my own bags! Those dirt ramps will look great. They look weird sitting on their own without a bridge though!

I think those are Falcon 20s - you'd need to use the Mach 2 kit. But maybe Amodel will follow up the Falcon 10 and 50 with a 20?