Procopius

See, I'm totally different, I say "Jesus Christ, Winston!" The other day I dropped an F-bomb on him, which I'm not proud of, but I was holding the baby, and he seems to assume that because my arms aren't free, nothing I say needs to be listened to, so I needed to employ some amplifying language to clarify that I would kill him if he woke his mother. It had roughly the effect upon him that yelling "Maud'dib" had on Sting at the end of David Lynch's Dune. Ah yes. My father probably holds all the same views, but is more genteel about it. My parents and I got along a lot better after I ran away; I think it sort of reset things. My dad may radically disagree with me on most things, but once I replaced all of my toilets on my own, I believe I accrued sufficient Real American points in his eyes.

Budget rolled over, so: 1/72 Airfix F.6 Lightning 1/72 Sword F.1A Lightning -- I looked up my old build thread of their F.3, and it promises to be hard going, though before my strength failed me, in my youth, (2014, which is apparently a long time ago now) I managed to build a prior F.1A: And a lot of Lightning decals so I can make XM190/G of 111 Squadron, which participated in Churchill's funeral flypast in 1965.

Win gets a lot of excessively detailed explanations from his old dad ( though not, mercifully, of the Westland Affair), including, but not limited to: the coal wars between the miners and the mining companies; the Holocaust; how ground-controlled interception works; the rise of Adolf Hitler; why aircraft carriers steam into the wind to launch aircraft; Prohibition; why Groucho Marx is funny; what a BMW is and exactly what kind of person owns them; etc.

I forgot to mention: on inspecting the Wessex box, Winston asked me, very suspiciously: "What's the military purpose of this helicopter?" Well son, mainly to help prop up Westland until it's time for Michael Heseltine to resign.

I bought the Ian Black/Firestreak Books F-4 Phantom book, hoping it's inspirational, given the price.

What if I just sent one large child, somewhat larger than one is used to children being? In any case, today was the local -- I use the term very loosely -- IPMS show, forty miles away in Wheaton. I had a short list of things to do before I left: get groceries, and take the boys to Target* to spend the twenty dollars their great aunt and uncle had sent each of them. In my distant, long-vanished youth, twenty dollars was real money (in fact, I see that $20 1990 dollars equate to $45 2022 dollars, which is almost precisely what I guessed it would be), but for the boys, it was merely an object lesson in how twenty dollars falls just short of buying anything cool. This was not helped by Winston's incredible indecisiveness when surrounded by a vast panoply of things he could potentially buy, most (but not all) solidly over twenty bucks. We spent one hour getting groceries, and almost two in that damn Target. I was quite spent by the time I got home. One of the unfortunate things about being a parent, especially a parent of multiple children, is that even if you've been Very Good and patiently allowed some of your children to exhaust you, there's no guarantee that Parent A, who you made breakfast in bed for (omelette) will have gotten any rest while at home with Poor Life Choice 3. In fact, Parent A did everything but rest, so I was still on deck after getting back. We had previously discussed my going to the show, and the potential for taking the boys (you can't offer something to only one of them, which has been ruinously expensive at times) and so after feeding them and myself, I gave thirty minutes notice for departure. Winston wanted to come, and Grant -- under a grievous misapprehension over who was going to get the bulk of mommy's attention, him, or a barely sentient blob which is in mortal danger when in her favourite sleeping position -- opted to stay behind. As I mentioned, Wheaton is quite far away, requiring one to take a sort of sharply curving path south to evade the city proper. Today we had 55 MPH winds, and as you're probably quite aware, Illinois is effectively flat, with no real terrain to speak of. This meant that the roads were very exciting places to be for forty miles, and that only two broad groups of drivers were on the road: those frightened out of their wits, and the criminally insane. The latter prefer, depending on their social class, BMWs or lifted pickups, and you can safely assume that were you to heave a brick through one's window, you would soon have access to a bumper of cocaine or an unregistered handgun, respectively. Very exciting indeed. Unfortunately, we reached the show far too late, and several of the vendors were already packing up, and the built models were sequestered for Judgement. The show had changed venues as well, and had much less space this year, and the vendors' room was regrettably, immediately following the registration. The folks at the registration desk were too busy hobnobbing, and so after ten minutes waiting patiently to pay the entry fee with an increasingly fidgety Winston, I walked in, confident that any efforts to stop me would be at a similar level of disorganization and could safely be laughed off. The dealers' room actually generally has a lot of cool stuff at the show, and I was looking forward to browsing it, but browsing alone allows me to indulge the furtive, unlovable person who lurks just beneath my skin, the insatiable maw that, knowing it can never be loved, feels the overpowering urge to buy and buy and buy and buy in the vain hope that someday it will somehow be sated and complete, whereas browsing with Winston means that I have to try and manage his own insatiable maw instead of letting my own have free rein. So we passed a lot of stuff I desperately wanted to impulse buy (1/700 Type 42, Type 45, HMS Illustrious, and a few others for $10-15 each; a 1/32 new Revell Spitfire II for $16; $30 Airfix FG.1 Phantom etc etc), while trying to find an affordable kit for Winston (and thus also one for Grant) that he actually had a hope in hell of building. There were tons of old Heller, Airfix, and Hasegawa kits there, often only $5 or $10, so we had a fighting chance, but Winston of course dreams big, as all people who have yet to be crushed by the full weight of the world do, and was interested in: a $200 1/350 USS Wasp (LHD-1, not CV-7); some 1/18 Forces of Valor stuff in the $50 range (my entire budget for the show was $60, funded entirely by the fact that I am very good at coming in underbudget with the groceries); an ancient 1/600 Airfix HMS Repulse -- with no price listed, which is always dangerous, especially as I am not, in the slightest, a haggler -- and an HMS Hood, also unpriced, which he suggested could be for Grant, presumably not realizing he was giving up ten thousand tons and two 15-inch guns to his younger brother thereby; and divers and sundry more in this line. For a moment things were looking up when he found the Hasegawa weapons packs, but he wanted to buy a bunch of those and then some jets to hang them on (understandable), which was looking to add up fast, and there is of course no guarantee at all that he'll actually ever build them. They did eventually open the model area, and we looked over the (sadly few) entries, including two magnificent 1/48 B-58 Hustlers. Win actually seemed fairly interested. Amidst all of this, I managed to score two Italeri Wessex HU.5s, probably my favourite helicopter for looks (for the same reason the MiG-29SMT is my favourite MiG: it looks stupid), for eight dollars each. Unfortunately, due to a misapprehension on Winston's part, he came to believe these were somehow reserve kits for himself and Grant should he be unable to make a decision on his own, and so now I have no kits. Winston suggested strongly that next year I should enter a kit; mercifully their next show will be 2024, which is some sort of regional thing, so perhaps he'll forget by then, He did seem to have fun, but then again: he got a Wessex out of it. Anyway, we got back, and discovered that Grant's ruinous love (he gets overcome by it and slowly sticks his perceptibly vibrating face mere microns away from someone else's, usually the sleeping baby, and emits a strange sort of high-pitched noise which our scientists believe is pent-up joy) kept everyone from getting any rest yet again, so I lugged a bellowing twelve-pound infant around and tried to get the boys into bed, then was left with her while Mrs P showered until 9:30 PM, a shower that was frankly alarmingly long, and which I rather fear lowered the level of Lake Michigan by several inches. I'm trying to summon the strength to work on the kit, but I'm tired enough that I think it might be a mistake to mess with it right now. * If the midwestern United States had an official religion, it would not, in fact, be underinformed nondenominational Protestantism, but Target, and possibly also potlucks.

A very late start this evening, as I was detained by the glorious burden I assumed for free. No, strike that, I pay through the nose for the privilege of having a remarkably fat little person scream in my face while mommy vanishes ostensibly to shower but in reality to do anything and everything but shower, intoxicated by having full use of both of her arms again. It's magical. When I finally got downstairs, I mostly did admin stuff, re-glossing the model, painting the spinner (I opted for the pleasing RAF Red of Colourcoats), and adding the exhaust stacks. The stacks have an ingenious design, if you hate yourself. The P-40, as you know, has three sets of two stacks each in little bays or cells, for lack of the proper term. This means the normal single part long strip of exhaust stubs isn't on, because you will go mad trying to paint and mask it, or give up and do a terrible job and brain anyone who looks too closely with whatever model to hand has the most nose weight added. Special Hobby has split what would normally be a single part into three smaller parts per side (handed, natch), with microscopic pegs and more flash than a 1950s press conference. If I were a colossal cynic, I would think the utter lack of care lavished on these parts might have some vague connection to the fact that the CMK portion of the Special Hobby octopus produced resin aftermarket stubs, but that would be ugly of me. Anyway, I had to remove the nitrile glove on my left hand so that I could actually manipulate the damn things, and then, using my typical process for clipping and attaching small parts (swearing continuously at them in incredibly specific ways), managed to get all six in place. I'll weather them in situ, inasmuch as I can weather anything. (I'm contemplating a brown oil wash for the aircraft overall once decals are on. We'll see.)

Oho! Gannets have been on the brain for me lately. I'll let you go first and see if you suffer overmuch.

That was my immediate go to, but fair play to DK, the decals had melted comprehensively into the paint. Nonsense, I welcome bromides from all and sundry! I've been accused (with unfortunately a great deal of justification) of being an inveterate complainer, which I always felt was simply me being honest about how I felt rather than hiding it; living with Winston, whose brain is a copy of mine, has helped me to understand why everyone who spends any amount of time with me looks so tired all the time, however, and I just finished Jerry Pook's book on his time flying Harrier GR3s in the Falklands, which is one long complaint from stem to stern (it's incredible to think that had the services merely realized they had an RAF Squadron Leader -- OC "A" Flight, which I assume is like being "Assistant to the Regional Manager" -- who knew exactly what to do at all times, they could have saved a lot of time and money and sacked all those useless admirals and planners cluttering up ships and Whitehall alike*), and it made me realize that just possibly, this is actually super irritating! But I've never been a salesman, and something in my soul rebels at the prospect of presenting everything as super, really super (I taught the boys to say this in a Terry-Thomas voice, to Mrs P's dismay) when it's super bad, really super bad. I'd love to blame social media for this desire, but I grew up in a home like that, and both I and one of my sisters ended up running away, so my general impression was that it didn't work too well at least in this specific instance. I think I would happily trade my example for any of yours, given your final results, though I flatter myself that I can turn out dozens of turds in the time it takes you to produce two tiny Sistine Chapels.

Cold War Shield, Volume 1. Expertise in a can! Meatbox is looking good!

I've heard that myself, I keep meaning to try it, but not sure of which machine or what materials to buy.

Troffa, who is as generous as he is handsome, if such a thing can be imagined, is sending me a copy of Falklands: The Air War, which given the current state of transatlantic shipping, is a very pricey kindness. I am in his debt. I felt like I should be ready, so purchased an Esci Sea Harrier, probably the last Eduard mask set for it still in the wild, and some resin thrust vectoring nozzles, as well as some decals. It's remarkable how thin on the ground Falklands (and Sea Harrier) model stuff in 1/72 is in the year of the 40th anniversary

Just so, the vast majority of my painting is done with a Badger 105.

Last night I glossed the Kittyhawk, and it looked very fine indeed. Today I began to apply the decals, and it went really well. Until I realized I was applying the wrong ones. I had begun to apply the codes for ET861/HS-V, a Kittyhawk Ia flown by another member of the Squadron in August of 1942. Quite aside from the fact it was the wrong aircraft, it was the wrong type of aircraft: a Kittyhawk Ia is a P-40E, and a Kittyhawk I is a P-40D. More or less. These are the markings I was supposed to use: As you can see, the HS is rendered in a different font, so I couldn't even just carry on slightly chastened. However, it turns out that DK Decals settle very, very nicely. Too nicely. My attempt to remove them resulted in disaster. For a moment, I was overcome by despair. To have come this far and failed almost at the final hurdle. To have wasted my time so comprehensively. To have failed at the most minor, most stupid tribute to the memory of a man who literally killed to make my life and the life of every person living in freedom and peace today possible. And then I was overcome by a furious cold rage. Clemenceau, speaking in 1914, said "There come times, in the lives of peoples, when there passes over them a tempest of heroic action." I normally use this only in connection with my ability to eat an entire pan pizza of any size in a sitting, but now again it applied to something equally prosaic. I modelled as I have never modelled before. Not a moment was wasted. I got out my 0.2mm Procon Boy airbrush, which I have mainly for show, and freehanded that paint right back on. It's not perfect, but I was not beaten. I did not fail. The build continues. And! I added the dark green areas the serial number goes over, so bonus. I also "weathered" the existing paintwork, we'll see how bad of an idea that was in the fullness. In other news, my baby-stoperation is happening December 2, just under the wire to write it off on my insurance (if we spend more than $8,000 on medical care in a year, the insurance picks up the tab for the overage -- hang on to the NHS, folks). More later.

Excellent books.

Looks like a wide-mouthed Meteor to me, which was usual for WKxxx-serialled aircraft.

I believe threads lock at 40 pages, so this is the new WYLA? thread. You will note it has the retractable tailwheel and wing fuel tanks for longer range. In any case, an unexpected budget surplus due to an accounting error meant that I snagged, all in 1/72 2 x Revell Hawks 1x Revell Hunter Masks and etch for same I know this is a fool's errand, but I want to build the Hawks as late 1970s-early 1980s jets. I don't suppose anyone has finally produced the early version of the Hawk Mk10 seat, I believe the Mk10B? Please don't say it's easy to scratchbuild. I would do that if I wanted to do that. I don't.

That should be WL164/X, received on 11 March 1954, and sent on to 5 MU on 7 February 1961. W/R/T T.7s, 74 Squadron had three during its time at Horsham St. Faith: VW430/4D-X, from 26 July 1949 to 10 October 1952; WF787 from 27 August 1959 to 1 August 1963; and WL380, from 17 June 1952 to 2 September 1959. Interestingly, Horsham St. Faith DID have an F.8 as the station commander (New Zealand-born Battle of Britain veteran WngCdr R D Yule)'s aircraft from 1952 to 1953, when he was sadly killed in the crash of another Meteor.

"My deliverer," I'll say. "My saviour."

My appointment to discuss and schedule it is tomorrow afternoon, in fact.

Sorcery.

Definitely. When I'm not pretending to work, I may be able to find out more from Cold War Shield Volume 1. That would make sense. The Meteors would have been through a lot of flying by that time, so should have looked pretty weary indeed!

Fortunately for me, I own and have read all of the latter!

It sort of seems like the discussion is principally about their older Hawk. Based on the below thread, my understanding is that the Revell one is excellent but represents a pre-1981 Hawk.

Did your dad perhaps mean a Meteor T.7 or F.4? The F.6 Meteor was a swept-wing design mooted, but never produced. I think the RAF was just struggling to equip all of its squadrons; 74's Hunters were older F.4s from 54 Squadron, which had just received newer F.6s. As it happened, 74 was one of the first squadrons to get the F.8 Meteors, after 245, in mid-1950. When was your dad with them? 74 flew them for quite a while, so they might have been pretty clapped-out while he was there.