spruecutter96

Amount of plastic used by scale model-manufacturers in one year = 1 "Unit". Amount of plastic used by all other industries = Many, many MILLIONS of Units (and growing every day). So, in answer to the original question..... No, they shouldn't be banned. Chris.

I think we have to consider the practicalities of injection-moulding here. If canopies were produced to anything like their true scale, they would be EMTREMELY thin and would be broken with the slightest pressure. Personally, I would much rather have them too thick than very fragile. Until they can find a clear material which is both thin and resilient, I'm afraid we're pretty much stuck with what we've got. Obviously, there are professional, vac-formed canopies, but I've never used one (and probably never will). Other people may have a different take on this matter. Chris.

I'm interested to see if the new movie includes any reference to Baron Harkonnen being a sadistic, predatory homosexual. Back in the early 1960's when Herbert was writing the first novel, it would have been deemed acceptable (by most readers, anyway) to have this as a defining-characteristic of the villain. In the 2020's this description would inevitably cause a HUGE social-media backlash. I'm not saying that this kind of character-trait is acceptable - I believe the author was using it as a short-cut to indicate the extreme levels of the Baron's evil personality. Hollywood has a long history of equating homosexuality and evil. Back in the '90's, when "The Silence of the Lambs" was released, there were many comments made about the villain being portrayed as trans-gendered. The main thrust of the argument was that there is no established correlation between being trans-gendered and having the desire to commit multiple-murders (I think this was mentioned in the Thomas Harris book, but not in the film). However, there was a much-reduced Internet and no social-media then, so the arguments were not as widely publicised as they would be today. I would think that the film-makers will either heavily down-play or eliminate this aspect in the new movie, or they will be deluged by internet protests. Time will tell on that one. Chris.

Brad Dourif only ever had one "acting setting" - all-guns-blazing-and-my-doesn't-that-bit-of-scenery-look-tasty! Like Crispin Glover, Dourif elevated over-acting to a new art form. Nic Cage would have approved, I'm sure. Chris.

Very understandable, Geoff. I wish you the best of luck in re-organising the show for later in 2021. Chris.

Bump, for added visibility 30/9/20.

As weird a concept as this is, apparently it works, but only at a distance of several miles. When an aircraft is very close to its target, the lights will have the exact opposite effect, of course. I remember watching a documentary about the history of camouflage many year ago (possibly a BBC "Horizon"), in which they hung a bank of powerful lights off the side of a FV432 armoured-personnel carrier and from two or three miles away, the APC actually appeared to merge with its background. Chris.

Thanks for sharing your images. It sounds like the weather made it more like something to endure than enjoy. This does make me think.... If Headcorn could put on an air-show, why couldn't Duxford? Are the two sites radically different from each other? It's a little ironic that the weekend of the Duxford air-show, the weather was very close to perfect for the event. Chris.

Yep, potentially the century-old bomber. Surely there will be no other airframe that will beat this record. Having said that, I remember reading that there are some DC-3 aircraft still being used in South America, with much more modern engines. Chris.

I'm interested to hear what issues you've had with enamels on large areas. How are you thinning your paint? Is this anything to do with using one thick coat of paint, as opposed to using several thin coats? Cheers. Chris.

I think the answer to that is no. It's a while since I looked at the Cobra website, but the most "exotic" resin on there was for the Mi-24 Hind, IIRC. Chris.

That is what I would call a "comprehensive" answer! Thanks for sharing with us. Chris.

No problem at all. I am kind of in the exact opposite situation myself. Sold all my 1/48th stuff a few years ago - have kept all my 1/32nd, jammed in to every spare corner of the house. You never know, one day I might actually get around to building the blimmin' things! Chris.

I will be watching this one with some interest. Love the first movie - such a shame about the sequels! A bit of useless trivia.... According to Paul Vorhoeven, the ED-209 was named after the first movie's scriptwriter, Ed Naha. After the fact, ED became Enforcement Droid. Chris.

As I understand it, the early Tamiya 1/48th kits were based on a development airframe, which was fitted with a 20mm Vulcan gatling-cannon, due to the GAU-8 30mm weapon not being available at that time. So, if the cannon looks somewhat under-sized on your Tamiya kit, that's the reason. I believe that Tamiya corrected this detail with later version of the kit. From what I remember, the Tamiya was decent, but not amazing, in terms of detail. I've owned / sold the Hobbyboss two-seater A-10 and I thought it looked pretty good in the box, even if the rivets looked a bit too obvious for the scale. Why not go "full throttle" and get the 1/32 scale Trumpeter A-10? Accuracy was not a priority when they produced that one, but - boy - is it an impressive sight once built. The main thing it needs is a resin cockpit upgrade, as the kit one is a complete work of fiction. Oddly, the kit bang-seat is pretty good and really looks the part. I will now be drowned in dozens of posts of "How the Hell can you not mention "...XYZ" on the Trumpeter Warthog?". Chris.