Procopius
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Posts posted by Procopius
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Happy New Years to all of you from the midwestern United States! In a way, I feel like bit of a fraud putting these up:
1. I'm not British (alas!).
2. I'm not much of a modeller.
However, I've had a love for British airplanes that was cemented ever since I wrote J E "Johnnie" Johnson at the age of eight and that great man not only wrote back but sent me an autographed copy of his memoirs---a real gentleman of the first order. I've enjoyed reading (and very intermittently) participating in this message board despite these hindrances, though, and I've appreciated the kind help and advice many of you have offered me. I want to apologize in advance for both the quality of the images which follow, and also for the quality of the modelling therein; I don't have an airbrush or much skill at painting, and I'm not very good at assembly or decalling either---all embarrassing flaws in a man of 28, especially when I see that some people's grandchildren, a quarter of my age, can do better work. Still, I greatly enjoy the hobby, and this board has made it even more pleasant. Looking at all the models you've built gives me something to aspire to in the long-distant future.
Again, apologies for the terrible modelling on display. I'm trying, hopefully I'm learning.
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While there's such a high concentration of people who know more than I (actually, such things can be found virtually anywhere anytime two or more are gathered), was there actually a "Grey Moose" Spitfire VIII? My copy of Morgan and Shacklady has a photo on page 286 captioned: "A pair of Mk VIIIs of No.457 Sqdn, RAAF. Nearest aircraft was A58-614 and named Grey Moose." I've always assumed this was a typo or a misreading, but if not, how delightful!
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Worst Christmas present ever! "A Buffalo? MOM, I wanted a Spitfire!"
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Another cheap option comes from the Kopro decal sheet: it's the same included in one of the KP/Kopro spitfire VIII boxes and can be see here:
http://www.hobbyshop.cz/shop/1-72-decals/5...1-72-decal.html
It can be bought in several on-line eastern europe shops.
Thanks! I went with the Kopro decals.
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Look more closely at the ZP coded ones in the review
I was going by the review's "sadly, neither this machine nor the other shark mouthed one below are depicted on the decal sheet", but is that incorrect?
Forlornhope, I've sent you a PM.
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It's perhaps a bit over the top for what you want but the Kagero decal-book has a couple of shark mouth options.
http://www.hyperscale.com/2011/reviews/boo...kreviewrk_1.htm
Perhaps only a little less over the top but... you could get the CMR RAAF Mk VIII boxing which will give you Caldwell's and several other nice options - I know, as I helped choose them!
http://www.hyperscale.com/2008/reviews/kit...9reviewgp_1.htm
Sadly the Kagero appears to lack the shark-mouths, and the CMR route seems like it would be difficult to explain to my wife.
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I'm going to be picking up a Hasegawa "Spitfires against Japan" set in the next month or two, as I greatly enjoyed building it the first go-'round. Is there a good set of decals for Clive "Killer" Caldwell's Spitfire VIII, or for one of the shark-mouthed Spitfires available out there?
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My understanding is that the Academy Spitfire XIV is a bit chubby all 'round; it certainly looks very brawny next to my Fujimi kits.
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Oh frabjous day! Thanks to the good offices of the gentlemanly chris57, I was able to obtain a Magna resin MB5 kit, which, I might add, is beautiful. Here's my plan: having purchased some plasticard, I intend to trace the Magna landing gear doors onto it and thereby take care of my Pegasus kit. The Magna kit also comes with two vacform canopies, and I'm confident that my expensive classical education has equipped me to tackle them.
Well, maybe not. But I'm feeling optimistic!
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Possibly during Pedestal, what with the yellow on the tail?
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I'm gonna patent this baby.
That's weirdly reminiscent of an OV-10 Bronco.
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No clue what decals come with the kit, but BarracudaCals (Roy Sutherland) has a Tomahawk sheet that features 3 Tomahawks as well as a couple of Kittyhawks
Aren't those P-40Cs and Es, though?
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Are there historical RAF decal options for this fellow? I'm not up on P-40s in Commonwealth service. Any out of the box, and if not, what aftermarket options are there?
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A PM on this forum to Chris57 should get you a brand spanking new Magna MB5 - he's the UK agent and a top bloke too.
Many thanks; I've sent him a message forthwith!
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Well all of this has certainly filled me with trepidation! I've never really kitbashed anything aside from science-fiction wargaming miniatures in my misspent youth, which is a lot less demanding. Vaccform canopies...I own exactly two of those, for the horrible Octopus Seafire III kit, which has coaxed more swears out of me than a gallon of cheap rum ever could, and remains incomplete, with many of its fragile resin bits busted. No tears. No tears. The less said of it the better.
Progress on the MB5 is slow; mostly I just sand the parts down and try to see how well they'll fit together. I tried for the Magna MB5 on Ebay today, but despite the aid of a loyal UK-based satrap, I did not prevail.
Here's where I sit in terms of the kit:
Don't worry, nothing's glued together, I'm too frightened of wrecking my £25 (plus cross-Atlantic s&h) model right off the bat. The props have an immense amount of flash, and I'm trying to file them down without gouging them. I also have to cut out the tailwheel doors, figure out how to make a cockpit interior (never really cared about those, but feel I should give it the college try)...maybe use pieces from the Spifire V fuselage in one of my Sword Seafire IIc kits?
Allegedly, once I detail the cockpit "to choice", according the instructions, I should glue the fuselage together, then add the rear cockpit fairing. There's just one thing...the fairing's presence makes the canopy not fit properly!
(fig. 1: the fairing with canopy)
(fig. 2: the canopy absent fairing)
So now what?
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I've never used a vacform canopy, shamefully. I'm kind of afraid of them, clumsy hands and all. Can small scissors or shears be used to cut them out and trim them? Seems safer than an x-acto. Also, is there an aftermarket cockpit or a cockpit that can be scavenged from an existing kit that won't cost me too dearly?
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Looks... erm... interesting? What's the length on that fuselage? I built the Falcon vacform a few years back, and I have to say - it wasn't much bigger than a Spit. Nice pic BTW - one I've never seen of the MB-5
Well, according to the ever-reliable wikipeda, the MB5 should be 37'9" (sooo...37.75 feet) to the Spitfire Vb's 29'11" (29.91 feet) in length, so 126% as long and 15" tall to the Spitfire's 11'5" (11.416 feet), so 131% as tall. (I'm mostly writing this down for my own later benefit.) So...the fuselage should be 6.29 inches long, right? Now I need to see if I have a tape measure...
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Hullo all,
In a fit of madness I purchased a Pegasus kit of the Martin-Baker MB5, one of my favorite never-was aircraft of World War II, and the British answer to the P-51 Mustang, OR SO I THOUGHT. (More on that in a second.)
Now, Pegasus kits, as all of you knew and I now know, are not for inexperienced modellers, which ha-ha-ha, I guess I could be called that. I'm terrible. So I apologize in advance if you're the chappie who I beat in a feverish ebay bidding war to "win" (if gaining the right to pay more for something than anyone else was willing to can be construed as winning) this particular kit, because you could almost certainly do a better job on this than I'm going to. Such are the perils of the capitalist system.
There's not much to the kit, just some fairly thick pieces of hard plastic (see fig. 1), and some helpful templates for making landing gear doors, as well as instructions to scratchbuild your own 20mm cannon. Eep! For the first time in my life, I wish there was photoetch kit for something.
Now, one thing I hadn't realized before getting the kit in the mail is that the MB5 is a B E A S T. The thing is so big I kind of wonder if the kit is really 1/72 scale. As you can see here, it's a mammoth compared to a Sword Seafire IIc, though I've seen a picture that does seem to indicate that the MB5 was probably large enough to seat a family of six in relative comfort. Be that as it may, this thing isn't Mustang-sized, it's ginormous!
Even so, the canopy is so big that I'm kind of frightened. It looks like there'd be room for a large crew in this beast. Look how big it is compared to a Spitfire F.24's!
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I came across this quite by chance: Helldivers in mixed USN/RN livery!
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When it comes to FAA Helldivers, I suspect the truth lies somewhere between the views of 'Winkle' brown and those of Peter Smith (A man who hasn't yet met a dive bomber he didn't like, to borrow someone else's phrase!) Mr Smith's comments in the Crowoood Book on the SB2C are almost diametrically opposite those of Capt Brown.
I've always taken Peter Smith with a grain or two of salt, ever since reading his rather intemperate remarks in The Great Ships Pass. He certainly wears his heart on his sleeve, I'll give him that.
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I'm referring to the former aircraft, not the biplane. The RAAF (not RAF) evaluated a land-based version of the SB2c, but disliked it also. A much unloved airplane, it would seem.
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I was told by my WWII aircraft obsessed son (that,s what I get for showing him Battle of Britain when he was 2 yrs old) that indeed both the Helldiver and Devastator were evaluated by GB for possible use but were rejected much like the P-39 and P-38. Any info or pics on this? I got a brand new Tamiya MkVb riding on this and I don't think my son needs another free kit, neither do I for that matter!
Cheers
The Royal Navy ordered 450 Helldivers, but didn't much care for them and only accepted 26.
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Has there been any more word on this?
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Both of my Sword Seafire II kits have badly pranged up three-bladed props. Now, to my untutored eye, the props seem to strongly resemble the superfluous De Havilland prop supplied with the Airfix Spitfire II kit; can I swap the prop out, or will I be making a major blunder?
Also, do any decals exist for Battle of Britain era Spitfire IIs, while I'm asking?
All the models I built in 2011
in Ready for Inspection - Aircraft
Posted · Edited by Procopius
My favorite aeroplane would have to be the Spitfire IXc with the bigger intake, although really any Spitfire will do; as a small boy I saw a picture of a Mk II and fell instantly in love, and in my sedentary old age, I've even come to terms with the bulbous loveliness of the Griffon-engined Spits. As far as of all of the kits I built last year, I think Hammy Grey's Corsair IV turned out the best for me, but I probably enjoyed building the Airfix Mk I/Ia/II Spitfires the most, as they go together so easily that I feel like a total champ. The Frog Firefly and Barracuda also had their own very retro charm, although I built them so early on in the year that I had a lot remaining to learn... The two Sword Seafire IIs and the Xtrakit Spitfire XII were probably the toughest for me, as I've yet to find a good brand of filler, and the green stuff I have from Squadron doesn't seem to do the trick. A shame especially because I love Merlin-engined Seafires, or really any FAA fighter.
My wife (I actually started modelling this year to cope with the stress of wedding planning; I got married on 30 July) has informed me that I can get an airbrush, which I'm rather excited about, since it means I'll have one more arrow in the quiver. Right now I'm laboring under the mixed blessing of my lovely spouse being 400 miles away most of the time finishing graduate school; I have more time to model, but the drawbacks to this arrangement are of course obvious.
Erik- the Bf109 has a Bf110 and an Fw190D-9 assembled but unpainted to keep him company in my Rogues Gallery, and I have a Ki-43-I, Ki-43-II, A6M2-21, B5N2, and D3A1 still in their boxes for the more maneuverable side of Team Evil.
My original goal (ha ha ha) was just to model all the types of planes in the Indian Ocean Raid of 1942; at one point I wanted to get a graduate degree on the topic of the Eastern Fleet, and I did a lot of archival research, but one thing lead to another (and it's virtually impossible to find an Albacore in 1/72), but somewhere along the line, things got very, very out of hand. At the moment I have waiting to be finished: RAAF Spitfire Vc (Airfix kit, not really a fan, and I did a bad job on the white ID leading edge markings), Special Hobby Blenheim IVf (without the resin parts to make it an "f", so...a Blenheim IV), ancient Airfix Hudson, Airfix Corsair (rather less nice than my Hasegawa one), the aforementioned bad guys, an Xtrakit Spitfire 22, a "Mister Hobby" PZL.11c, a Pegasus and a Magna Martin-Baker MB5 (A BEAUTIFUL machine), a Revell Sea Hurricane IIc and a tropicalised Revell Hurricane IIb (slated to become a Ceylon-based Hurri IIB), another Airfix Hurri I, an Airfix Ju88A-4 (mostly finished, my first experiment with masking tape to make splinter camo, but I lost a lot of enthusiasm when I realized I really wanted to build a BoB-era Ju88A-1), an Airfix Do17E, a decal-less Hasegawa Martlet II, and an ancient Monogram Do17Z. My wants for 2012 (provided they can be snuck under spousal radar at nought feet on a moonless night) are:
1. Three Tamiya 1/72 Spitfire Vb kits (so I can build one with a Vokes filter, one with an Aboukir filter, and one with the standard filter.)
2. Trumpeter Sea Fury FB.11.
3. Trumpeter Wyvern S.4.
4. Two Hasegawa Spitfire VIII. (To build Clive Caldwell's Spitfire and a Sharkmouth from 457 Squadron RAAF.)
5. Fujimi Spitfire LF XIVe.
6. Sword Spitfire LF.IXe.
7. forthcoming Airfix Spitfire F.22.
8. AZ Spitfire XVIII.
9. AZ Spitfire 21.
10. The Freightdog/AZ Spitfire XIVe so I can use the JE-J decals on the probably nicer Fujimi kit.
Plus assorted other Spitfires to taste, and I'm hoping a plastic 1/72 Seafire III comes out, my hated Pavla/Octopus one languishes half-built and all mangled. I'm also starting to feel a yearning to build some post-war RAF jets... EDIT: Also maybe an FW190A-8, to stare at and silently hate.