Rabbit Leader

I missed the start of this one, glad I’ve just come across it now. Who doesn’t like a TF.X Beaufighter? … this should be good fun and you’ve kicked some major goals with that AM cockpit so far. Looking great. Cheers.. Dave

Tom, your modelling is crisp, neat, subtle, accurate and always beautifully presented, I aspire to reach that lofty level. What a wonderful Halifax you’ve ended up with all painted up in one of my favourite schemes. Cheers.. Dave

Appreciate the positive comments, many thanks! Now to answer your two questions - The Revell 1/72 kit only includes non-folding straight wing parts and unfortunately two chaps from Airfix have already mentioned there will be no follow up AEW.3 Gannet from these basic moulds. There are just too many differences between the two variants and ‘possibly’ the only consistent parts would be the outer wing tip sections, the rest is all different. Sorry to confirm the bad news. Cheers.. Dave

I’ll take your word for it, have to say Dutch Hunters are my strong suit and I was thinking of another ‘Far East’ themed example and that came into my head. Cheers.. Dave

Thanks for the comments lads. So a little more Gannet progress has occurred, although theres still a few small parts to add in addition to a truckload of nose weight before I close the fuselage up. The fuselage and bomb bay fit is still not quite right and adding the cockpit parts hasn’t helped that issue either. Semi Gloss Black paint has been sprayed in most areas and seats painted a brick red type of colour. Seat belts are just thinly cut strips of decal that hopefully will look OK once the canopies are on. The kits instrument panel decals broke up and / or disintegrated on application so I don’t think the rest of the sheet will be of much use during this build. Not sure exactly how much weight I need as it’s not mentioned in the instruction sheet, but there’s quite a bit of room in between the cockpit floor and bomb bay roof. I’m also hoping the wheels will be able to take the weight. Apologies for my lack of comments in the many other Salty Dog GB threads, there’s just so many great builds going on it’s impossible to keep track. Cheers.. Dave (by the way.. how good does Airfix’s new 1/48 Gannet look?)

Yes, hopefully Airfix will take up the goodwill of the Singaporean Air Force and reward them with a special Hunter “Far East” follow up boxing. I can see schemes that depict. a). FGA.9, No. 20 Squadron, RAF b). F.6, Operation Trikora, RNLAF c). FGA.74, No. 140 Squadron, Royal Singapore Air Force. I’d certainly buy it and would hope plenty of others would too. Cheers.. Dave

I hear your pain.. my son started calling me “Ghandi ears” during his teenage years, now he knows why the house will be left in his little sisters name! To somehow stay on this strayed 1/72 vs. 1/48 topic, I happily build in both scales however will limit my 1/48 purchase to one and buy multiples of the same subject in 1/72 scale to depict in other paint schemes. That being said, you can purchase a still quite adequate Tamiya 1/48 Mustang for much less than the cost of a 1/72 Arma Models P-51, so it’s horses for courses at times. Cheers.. Dave

You might be thinking about the Nene powered Aussie FB.31 Peter. That had a nose acorn ADF blister and Ejector seat. The engine intake were similar to the FB.5 mark too. As mentioned above, the first Vampire box does include all parts to model any of the British single seaters. Cheers.. Dave

Nice job Luke, I can't believe we've already got one in the GB Gallery! A well deserving opening shot. Cheers and well modelled... Dave

Yes, the catalogue seems to show the ‘proposed’ schemes for all the 2023 boxes. Hopefully Airfix will upload them on their website too. Cheers.. Dave

An all Red with thin blue & white stripes G-FURY (Similar to the G-FIRE Spit XIV) A Dark Sea Grey over Sky Royal Navy version with red & yellow ‘training’ (?) bands An overall Oxford Blue Royal Australian Navy version in the exact same markings as my build below. Some of the schemes are shown in the offical Airfix YouTube clip, best take a look. Cheers.. Dave

Beautifully finished, that’s come up really well indeed. I’ve never considered this scheme, however its hard to look past it after seeing your results. Cheers and well modelled.. Dave

So thats £50 in just postage costs?? I haven’t even purchased the Airfix Club items within that price! I see the value in padding the purchases, but that’s quite up there in overall costs. Can a UK Club member purchase more than one FR.9 kit? I’m sure they could ship it over here quite a lot cheaper than that. Cheers.. Dave

re. Rest of World (ROW) Airfix Club Membership Hopefully I’m not straying away from the thread topic, however I now notice the ROW Airfix Club membership is only £10, however only includes ‘digitised’ items. Has anyone from outside the UK joined up and then purchased this Club Meteor boxing? How much would someone as far away in Australia be expected to pay to land this FR.9 kit to his front door? Cheers.. Dave

I’m also hoping for an FGA.9 / Export boxing with underwing rockets. Surely the image of a rocket armed No. 20 Squadron side banking FGA.9 flying over a green Indonesian jungle would make for the most attractive boxart? Cheers.. Dave

@brinjal, the old formula H72 Dark Earth was my go too paint, however since it’s re-formulation I swear it’s a closer match to US Tan these days. I now use AK Real Colour Dark Earth RC287 and am even more happier than what I was with the original Gunze paint. Cheers.. Dave

The CA Gannet kit is already being flogged off at a well known auction site Down Under… the listing prices are let’s just say… ‘Interesting’?

Nice work. You can actually buy a whole AM cowling to solve this small dilemma, however it's easily correctable as you've just shown. Cheers and well done.. Dave.

Not exactly what we all hoped for, however I'll settle with new transparences and decals with the old 1/72 moulded kit. Be nice to get a new sprue of accurate ski's too, but that's probably doubtful. Cheers.. Dave

A09185 came with an additional sprue with 8 x 60Ib rockets for the Korean War schemes, hence the different kit number. Cheers.. Dave

That’s a shame Steve, I was hoping you’d stay up with me still Stupid o’clock and enjoy the final hours of Airfix guessorama! I’ll pop the jug on again hey?

Cracking Job on that SM... really beautiful work. Cheers.. Dave

I believe the 1/72 Meteor F.8 only came about due to Covid restricting the design team from venturing abroad. Having all the research from their 1/48 kit, it made sense to use what information they had and downscale an existing subject. If that’s the case, we are quite lucky to have this kit, which has seemingly come by way of chance, rather than by design. So Airfix’s true intentions may have been no 1/72 release for 2022, which would have been a real shame. Hopefully this kit has been a popular seller and make them rethink that there is still are market for the traditional scale. Cheers.. Dave

See... told ya! That looks quite beautiful by the way, who needs decals when you can make paint masks like that! Cheers.. Dave

Paul Lucas has written a two part series on the F-111K in the last two months of Scale Aircraft Modelling. That would be a good place to start I’d say. Cheers and best of luck.. Dave