Navy Bird

Trust me, you don't want to see it. That's why I didn't zoom in on it. The rear of the front side windows should be a half-circle. As moulded, the engraved lines for this shape are round on the bottom, but almost square on the top. Looks really weird if I paint it that way. So the mask I made has the approximately right shape - circular. The "square" corner at the top was then painted over, but the engraved line is visible. Maybe I'll post a pic. Anyway, I'm going to try and be real careful and put some PPP in the offending lines and gently clean it up. Who knows, it might even work. Cheers, Bill

More: Here's the low-down. The shape of the side window for the front canopy, as supplied in the kit, is wrong. My intent was to sand the canopy completely smooth, polish everything back up and let my masking fix that. But, the panel lines for the canopy are engraved - so much for that plan (I don't have any clear putty). I decided to just mask everything (to the correct shape), paint it and see how it goes. And the answer is - meh. The engraved lines that ended up being painted over are still quite visible and just look weird. The canopy is not attached yet, so if I get another brainstorm it will be accessible. I suppose I'll have to strip the paint, fill the panel lines and find someone to vacform a copy or two. If I can get that far, I can cut things open and display the canopy open in all its silly design. It's a thought anyway. In the meantime, I think there is just the nose probe and weather vanes to finish. I can still do the FOD covers, of course, but I'm not sure they're needed. The interior of the intakes is very dark - you can't see anything in there. You may recall that I cut out the bulkhead that was close to the front of the intakes - that really helped. Cheers, Bill PS. The boarding ladder is just about done. I thought about using the PE as a template and making the ladder from styrene rod, as someone suggested, but the actual ladder was made from flat tubing so the PE is more accurate. Whew - saves me from some more work!

@Redboost has a habit of doing that! Cheers, Bill

Is your bomb bay cover a tad bit too short? Mine was, and others have told me the same thing. Nothing that some card stock can't fix, but I thought it odd. Cheers, Bill

It wasn't too bad. I had an old Microscale decal sheet of F-111 stencils - the no step and walkway stencils are both on the same film and their separation was perfect to span the black stripe. Sometimes the piper pays you, eh? That made it a lot easier to align everything. There are still quite a few where I had to separate them and apply individually, but no big deal, The rest of the stencils are on as well - I'll get a photo soon. These are mostly hoist markings for the weapons platform, and some other nondescript stencils along the fuselage side and bottom. I still have some to add to the side of the forward fuselage, but that will come after the radome is painted. ***** And...the lower air brake optical illusion works OK enough for me to have mounted the air brakes with some superglue. The canopy had its Future bath today and will dry overnight. Tomorrow I plan to give her the semi-gloss varnish. We're getting very close to the remaining 10% which will take 90% of the time. Cheers, Bill

Looking great! I like the base, it matches the epoch the Batboat is from. And I still want to know where the black border that surrounds the bat logo on the fin came from ... Cheers, Bill

24 "no steps" and 20 "walkways" later... I followed the photos I have and that were supplied by you guys. The outer wing sections from 203 that have been preserved do not seem to show any stencils along the walkway line by the flaps and ailerons. I have more stencils, so if someone can show me that they should be there, it'll be easy to comply. Cheers, Bill

I see lots of walkway stencils on this amazing, fantastic artwork by Robert Bonchune: Looking closely at the outer wing sections from 203 that were saved, the stencils say "NO STEP" and "WALKWAY" depending on which side of the line they are on. I'll dig through the sticker spares (two full shoe boxes) and see what I might have. Oh, I used decals to fake the openings on the lower back side of the intake ramp. It looks better than leaving it white. Cheers, Bill

Great work Terry! Good thing you had your own machine shop. Cheers, Bill

The main gear doors have actuators that are quite prominent in photos, and since Hobbycraft did not provide any such doohickeys, I had to make some teeny tiny brackets from card stock and fake the actuators with styrene rod and brass tubing. Hey, it's what I had laying around. The black squares on the doors are sensors (I think) for contact with the wheels when they are retracted. There's a reason why I said "I think..." Lame, I know. But hey! The good news is we be stickerating! The wing walkways are weird. Where exactly are you permitted to walk? The stripes are decals, and they were cut into individual straight line sections to assist with application. The instruction sheet even says to do so - but it was still a royal pain... She's getting there. There are a bunch of stencils to apply, and then I think I'll give her a coat or two of semi-gloss to seal everything in. The last items to do will be the canopy (which I intend to leave in one piece and available to be easily removed if the future brings resin-cast open canopies in 1:72 scale), the ejection seats/control column, and finally the nose probe followed by painting of the anti-glare area and the radome. Then I quit. Cheers, Bill PS. Oh yeah, the FOD covers....

Typo for FS 36134? Cheers, Bill

Nice documentary on the building of the full-scale replica for the museum in Toronto: I especially liked the peek inside the fuselage of the replica. Plus, some good insight into designing the replica strong enough to maintain its shape when gravity strikes. Or when someone decides to do chin-ups on the trailing edge of the aileron. Cheers, Bill

Good stuff, David! I was fortunate to see a demonstration of the CF-101B at the Dayton Air Show in 1977 (I think). Everyone I talked to thought the Voodoo demo was the highlight of the show - it really was an impressive routine. I still remember that Voodoo screaming down the runway at nought metres (a little higher than nought feet) and then right in front of me kicking the burners on and going into a vertical climb whilst barrel-rolling until she was right out of sight. Crazy stuff. Later in that air show, it was the F-14's turn. It broke down taxiing to the runway, and was pulled back by a tractor. Gotta love it. Cheers, Bill PS. I've seen many Tomcat demos and they were very impressive. But that Voodoo on that day...

I won't go into all the details, but the basic story is this: the CF-105 Arrow's intended mission as defined in 1952-53 was to intercept Soviet bombers coming over the pole, which Canada felt the CF-100 could not do. Once the "missile gap" (the belief that the Soviets had more missiles than the US) was brought into the equation, a need for more advanced surface-to-air missiles was identified. Plus, Sputnik raised a lot of eyebrows. The US position was Canada should buy the BOMARC B nuclear-tipped SAM system instead of the Arrow, which they did (as Canada could not afford both). BOMARC was a joint development by Boeing and the Michigan Aerospace Research Center, hence the acronym. Canadian BOMARC installations would be incorporated into the US SAGE automated defense system. At approximately the same time the Arrow was cancelled (1959), the US cancelled the XF-103 (1957) and XF-108 (1959) projects - both were manned interceptors. The XF-108 was also intended to escort the XB-70 bomber, itself cancelled in 1961. Anyway, Canada ended up buying second-hand F-101 Voodoos in 1961 to replace the CF-100. Their BOMARC installations (just two I believe) stood down by 1972. It's a long story, with politics, faulty intelligence estimates, spiraling budgets, and strong-arming on every page. It's a sad story, too, as the Canadian aerospace industry was decimated by the cancellation of the Arrow - over 14,000 Avro Canada employees were let go on "Black Friday." I recommend The Avro Arrow: For the Record (Second Edition) by Palmiro Campagna for all the sordid details. The Arrow would have made a fine interceptor, one of the best in the world. One USAF general (can't remember his name offhand) lobbied for the US to procure Arrows. If only... Cheers, Bill

Thanks. Masking is one of the modelling things I think I can do well. Drives me nuts though. Very cool. Now I have to go out and buy a UV torch... Thanks. I think she'll look even better with stickers. That would look very nice, as the shape of the TSR.2 would lend itself nicely to that scheme. Or raspberry ripple - that would look great as well. Thanks David. Not up to the standards set by your big Spook, but it's better than I thought it would be. If only Hobbycraft had spent a few extra loonies to add more detail and fix the shape of the intakes (they're too square) it could have been a real killer. I probably would have waited for @Zsolt Arlath's 3D printed model in 1:72, but I had already started this one. I still wonder where he found the reference material for the outstanding detail in his CAD work. Maybe Dan Ackroyd had a full set of manufacturing drawings hidden in a barn somewhere? ***** Anyone know the colour designations used in the Canadian roundel? I have three decal sheets for this bird, and the blue is different in each one. Cheers, Bill