Brad

I've been wanting to build this model for around 20 years, but I was never good enough with painting natural metal to attempt it. However skills improve and new products hit the market. I recently picked up some SMS Super Silver and wanted to give it a try. The kit itself from Tamiya is very nice, but it does lack a little detail and I had a small etch set to improve on the cockpit, undercarriage doors and other small items. SMS Jet Black was used as a base for the Super Silver and I'm pretty impressed with it's look and durability. I've handled this a fair bit and it has not caused any damage to the surface. The tail decals, excluding the fin flash which was masked and painted, came from Dying Sun II decals from Rising Decals, the US insignia was from the spares box. This particular aircraft was captured at Clark Field in the Philippines. Repaired to airworthy, she suffered a landing gear collapse and was grounded, with the intent to take her back to the US shelved, it's probable that 'S9' was scrapped onsite sometime after the end of the war.

Eh, let them have the shed. I'll take the nice air conditioned spare room thanks.

Something nice and easy; a Tamiya Mosquito pretty much straight from the box. I only added some decals from Moose Decals. They are pretty nice and you get quite a few options, but only enough national insignia for 1 aircraft. Sweden purchased a mixed batch of nightfighter mossies post war, that severed into the early 1950s. Some were left in British colours, some were repainted. This machine was one of those that was repainted.

Brad Corsairfoxfouruncle Marklo Chrisj2003 Zebra Hockeyboy76 2996 victor Nimrod54 bianfuxia modellingedmontonian Grandboof CliffB Well that's 12, might be struggling a bit but if anyone wants in now is the time to sign up.

That's a good idea, I've made a change to explain it better at first glance.

This is the Yak1b of Sergey Lugansky, who was one of those lucky individuals to fight almost the entire war and survive. Joining the Red Army in 1936, he would fly various aircraft starting in the 1939/40 Winter War. In the Summer of 1943 he was presented with this Yak 1, which was built with money raised by the city of Alma-ata. He would end the war at the Air Force Academy in Moscow, after flying 390 combat missions and gaining 34 victories. He was also twice awarded Hero of the Soviet Union. After the war he held various high ranking Air Force posts until retiring in 1968. He passed away in 1977. The kit itself is nicely molded with good decals, although you only get one decal option. Detail is nice, the fit on the other hand does require some patience. The wing fit in particular requires some work, but it is not beyond the skills of the average modeller. It did make me feel a bit better reading that the Yak 1, especially early production aircraft suffered from poor quality control, requiring modification on the production line meaning that parts between individual aircraft were not interchangeable. Paints used were Vallejo Air range; AMT 11, 12 and 7.

Keep plugging away mate, you're through most of the hard stuff.

That's a great effort so far. I tried to build one of these a few years ago, I even went to the lengths of adding extra detail, but after breaking the tail rotor actuator rods several times along with multiple other frustrations in building this kit, it took a mach 2 arching dive into a brick wall. Oddly enough, I have their 1/72 offering which is a much nicer kit.

Hmm, you're the second person who's mentioned this. I went back and had a look, I think I've confused the two; the bis has the wider dorsal spine that extends down the fin not the MF. So yes you are correct this is a "bis". The model is correct though, I've just mixed up the two variants. I've made some corrections to my OP.

This kit is one of the very nice Fujimi Mig 21s, of which I have built several of. My particular boxing was the SMT, or the Hump Back as they are know. One problem was, the plastic that appeared in the box was that of the Bis, as indicated by the word being molded into the inside of the fuselage spine. Not only that, they give you the MF tail, The main external difference between the Bis and MF is the fuselage avionics hump proceeds further down the base of the tail in the MF bis. I think this may have been a packaging error as I've seen other boxings online with similar parts and those with the correct parts for the SMT. Anyways never mind, I can make an MF from the parts I have, so that's what I did. Aztec Decals Latin Eagles II was used. I was rather attracted to the top surface camouflage of this particular mig. The kit itself builds very well with adequate detail for the scale, it does not require any nose weight but it is recommended to put a couple of grams in the forward nose just to make sure. Decals are also very nice and lay down well under Mr Mark decal solution. Another aircraft is added to my Cuban collection.

Nice builds mate. I picked up this boxing too earlier in the year.

Looks great, sometimes you just gotta knock out and easy one.

This is the Tamiya kit in 1/48 that has been kicking around my stash for a good 20 years! I slightly modified the kit by sanding off the gun ports, filling in the ejector chute openings, adding some etched seatbelts to the cockpit and swapping the prop and spinner to an Aeroproducts one from the Meng kit. Usual Tamiya quality build, although I don't like the way they have done the canopy and windscreen, you can never get them just right due to the breakdown of parts. Draw decals were used for the markings. They are ok, although I found that following their advice on application resulted in the decals bubbling and silvering badly. I managed to get most of it out, but not all. I then completely disregarded what was said in the instructions, applied a gloss, attacked them with Mr Mark and pressed them down into the surface. The result was better. If you do have Draw Decals in the stash to use, Mr Mark won't harm them and I soaked these ones in it! As for the aircraft itself, "Maytag" was owned by David Maytag and raced in the 1965-66 seasons at Reno and a couple of other places. She was painted overall gloss chocolate brown, Revell 84 was used with several coats of Future polish over it to attain the gloss. Weathering was kept light with a little dust on the wheels and some light exhaust stains, just as it might have appeared after a race.

Nice job. As for the colour, RAL 6013 Reed Green is the one you want. Revell make it straight out of the tin.

I bought this when it first came out so thought I should get around to building it. Although it looks great int he box, there are some issues to watch out for. The mold slip means every part needs to be cleaned up, especially mating surfaces. The nose cone is too wide for the fuselage. I fixed this by sanding down the mating surfaces of the nose cone parts, the fit you see in the kit has not been touched at all with sand paper. Thinning down the mating surfaces of the wing just behind the trailing edge gives a much better fit. Test fitting the air intake covers will reduce the amount of filling and sanding you will need to do. It's also worth cutting off the locating pins on the drop tanks for a better fit and making all attachment holes of the bombs and drop tanks larger, otherwise they won't fit the locating pins. Decals are very nice, I did apply over 100 stencils, but they gave no trouble at all. Everything is OOB, but I decided to try and use the RBF tags I bought. They are nice, but fiddly; there is a very small photo etch pin in the top of each, you can barely see it....I can barely see it but I know they are there!

Anyone who was a PS1 player back in the day remembers this classic. I can hear the sound effects now; unit ready....unit ready....unit lost....A bomb launch, detected. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrqQxl5o3eg

Let's not forget his legendary moment of paying a hooker with a personal cheque either lol....dude, use cash.....lol

It's my theory that Airwolf was able to fly so fast because Jan Michael Vincent was spilling his cocaine in the fuel tanks....only kinda joking here, the show was cancelled literally due to the massive amount of drugs JMV was doing on set. Great build too, I always liked Airwolf as a kid, even still have the original Nintendo game.

You're restricted from taking pictures of anywhere but the inside museum hangars at the RAAF Museum, because the museum is located on an active military airfield. Although not much goes on there these days and I've taken pics of the whole area, their private security are pretty useless, they even let me into the base one day without checking in. The only other place that someone attempted to restrict photography was on South Bank in the city. A group of us got set upon by security outside some of the restaurants because they didn't want pictures being taken on the river front, however over here it is completely legal to take pictures in a public place. You can imagine where the security was told to go by a bunch of 19 year olds.

Take care of yourself and each other...

Too much sun up there lol

Gotta be careful, the males are venomous. There's a little spur on their hind legs. Not lethal but it will hurt apparently.

This is the Bronco kit in 1/350. They pretty nicely detailed with photo etch included for the rails. These are a little fiddly but do look nice on the completed kit. In fact it was the photo etch that caused this kit to end up on the shelf of doom a few years ago, but I decided to either finish it or throw it out. Two options are given, U 37 an U 40. I chose to do U 37. The submarine had a long and successful career, embarking on 11 war patrols between the outbreak of WW2 and April of 1942, sinking 55 ships at 211,000 tonnes. After this, she was designated a training vessel in the Baltic, where U 37 would serve out the remainder of the war. Unlike many U boots, U 37 suffered no casualties through the entire war. On May 5th, her crew scuttled her in Horup Haff. I guess she got this colour scheme during her training days, as the Baltic tends to be a bit icy. Colours used were White Ensign Models schlickgrau 58 for the conning tower and upper hull with schiffsbodenfarbe III for the anti fowling. Decks were stained black with white being sprayed in a rough manner over the 58 grau for the camouflage.

The Hobbycraft kits are getting pretty old now, first being issued in 1992. They build up reasonably well, the only real issue is they lack the cut out in the main gear doors to allow the gear leg to pass through it. You need to make this cut yourself, I chose to simply remove the offending gear doors, call it removed for mud build up. Decals are thick, but the colour is good, I ruined the number on the tail myself to scrounged one from the spares box.

I did this one last year for a group build. It's the special edition Hasegawa kit in 1/72.