John

I've put this in its own thread, but for the sake of completeness: John

It must have come out about Autumn 1977. I can remember sending away for one from The Model Shop, Harrow, I think. The FROG box was much smaller than the one Revell subsequently used! John

I was at the local toy train fancier's monthly swapmeet with the boy this afternoon, and came across this! I've never seen inside one of these before and, although the origins of the later Jaguar GR1 kit are clear, this one is quite different. Apart from the differences to the fuselage, there is a completely different weapons fit, including bombs, SNEB packs, AIM-9s, what look like AS30s (shades of the Matchbox kit) and one of these funky French rocket pod come fuel tank thingies. All in all very interesting. John

You get the distinct impression that whoever designed these camouflage schemes must have been on something strong! Nonetheless, even in small scale, you can see how effective they are in breaking up the aircraft's outline. They must have been horrifically labour intensive to apply though. John

That was originally a FROG kit, one of the very last they produced. John

Here's the airframe with its upper surface camouflage colours applied: The colours are Humbrol 10 Service Brown, 86 Light Olive and a 50/50 mix of 90 Beige Green and 86 Light Olive for the grey. Undersides will be good old 65, and the red on the fins is 220 Ferrari Red. Next stage is a coat of Klear and decals, and then Humbrol mattCote to even out the different lustres. John

Whats them things in your sig line then? John

Just arrived courtesy of Bill Clarke. So what's in this very colourful box? First of all, the TARDIS itself, moulded in blue (what else?) The figures are on bagged grey sprues with a seperate, smaller bag with the heads, arms and hands. There are 2 clear sprues, one for the windows and one for the control console. A further bag has stickers, instructions and a small piece of fluorescent green paper to go inside the console. There is also a printer card interior for the TARDIS. Finally, a tray has 12 3ml acrylic paints, 3 what appear to be rather good brushes and a tube of cement. The TARDIS roof with built in electronics is taped below this tray. All in all, very impressive indeed and it looks like excellent value. John

I read the thread with great interest as I quite like the Hellcat. My primary thought on the debate about the chin intake was that they were comparing photos taken from different angles. John

Over the years I've built more Airfix 1/48th scale Spitfire Vb's that any other individual kit. I've bought 2 Tamiya Spitfires and one remains unbuilt in its box some 16 year later - the shape is just too compromised for my eye. The Tamiya kit was released some 14 years after the Airfix kit and shows the advances in moulding technology that took place over that period, but they seem to have used somewhat foreshortened plans when tooling the kit. Hasegawa and Tamiya are much superior kits but to my eye t least the Airfix builds into the superior model, and it's a nice kit to build. John

A bit of progress. The wings and the 3-dimensional jigsaw that is the engines nacelles are assemble here. There is little in the way of positive location for the nacelles, so they were lined up as neatly as possible at the front then glued and taped. Finally the rear was fixed to the lower wing. A bit of fettling gave a good fit that only needed some gentle sanding to get everything flush, and no filler. On the undersurface, the joins at the front of each engine needed a little filler to close things up completely. Possibly the major weakness of the kit is the moulding of the props and spinners in one piece. The tail unit withthe outer fins painted red, these will be masked off fof the national markings. Larry, Mo and Curly now properly dressed. The fuselage joined together - no filler at all! Top view. You can install the ventral windows and the belly gun through the gar for the wing, if you're careful. The airframe completed and undercoated. The upper wing join needed a smear of White Stuff. John

Brass models like this were fairly common in this part of the world (Central Scotland) when I was a kid in the 1960s. They were made in the local foundries, Falkirk being a centre of the light casting industry until about 20 years ago with Carron Company and Allied Ironfounders having a major presence in and around the town. My dad, who was an engineering patternmaker with Allied, told me they were made from scrap, often flash or offcut from munitions work, and were cast to simple patterns knocked up by anyone in the foundry who was keen on building wooden models. They made all sorts of things "on the side", from scrap and offcut. John

Were there fewer TSR2s than required? It wasn't a subject I had a great deal of interest in, but I didn't have any trouble picking up a kit from a local retailer. Its also not like it wasn't well trumpeted in advance, so anyone who wanted one and didn't get one has only themselves to blame! As for the Canberras, I don't think you have to live in india to want to model an IAF aircraft. I'm not sure the prior existence of the CA kits means much either, they aim at a different sector of the market. John

FirstBus!!!! Do I win? John

What are the stores on the Mk58's inboard pylons? John

I completely agree with Hornby's reasoning vis-a-vis the Nimrod and Canberras. I can't see the Canberras in either scale being the commercial risk that the Nimrod would otherwise be. I also have high hopes for the business model that was started with the TSR2 and continues with tne Nimrod - if they can sell pre-sell enough units to cover costs and deliver a profit in an ecceptable time frame, then why not work like that? It opens the way for the production of other niche interest kits, like the Valiant. John

Does that mean that the upper surfaces were repainted too? John

I've thought about picking up their F-84 to plaster some French markings from an ancient Microscale sheet but the F-16???? The archetypal Boring Grey Jet! I did once build a Revell one with separate engine, tractor and ground crew figures though - that was cool and it was red and white, not grey! John

This one! But I do agree with your point. John

This is an excellent kit, and well worth its reissue. Here we have 3 wise Luftwaffe monkeys, undercoated in Humbrol 63 for their flight suits and awaiting detail painting. One of them may well sport a leather jacket! Here is the interior with my home-brewed RLM02, which looks fine to my non-Luftwaffe-expert eye. John

I remember getting one of these when it came out and thinking it was better than most of the mainstream Harrier kits around at the time! John

Very true. I remember one "celebrity" web reviewer declaring a kit I had just finished to be "unbuildable" and stating he had binned his. I liked it so much I had been out and bought the 2-seater version of the same mould! John

How could I forget the Airfix P1127? Its one of the first Airfix kits I can remember my dad building way back when! Ditto the Hasegawa GR3, that had slipped my mind totally. My recollection is that the Hasegawa, ESCI and Fujimi kits all came out within a few months of each other shortly after the Falklands. Actually I'm surprised Airfix (Palitoy incarnation) didn't tool an FRS1 fuselage for their GR1/3 then too. As for Revell, I recall a GR1 in their "picture box" phase. It may have been the FROG kit, or possibly reboxed Fujimi? I remember building the Tamiya GR1 in the included Spanish markings and being well impressed! John

OK, we've done this with Jaguars and Alpha Jets but now I'm thinking Harriers. I've recently unearthed a couple of Airfix GR3's I'd forgotten about, and that has set me thinking about the Harriers I've built over the years - and thats a few! As far as I know, there are GR1/AV-8A, GR3, T4 or FRS1's from: 1/72 Airfix : GR1, later GR3 - fairly simply FROG : GR1 - rivets and enough weaponry to start a small war! Hasegawa : GR1 - same as FROG?; FRS1 - much later mould, no relation to GR1 Matchbox : GR1 - simple, bombs and SNEB pods; FRS1, derived from GR1 Fujimi : GR1/GR3/FRS1 - never seen one but presumably seperate noses? ESCI : much the same a Fujimi, now boxed by Italeri Heller : T4 - Bobkit, but nice 1/48 Airfix : GR3/FRS1/FA2 - all related Tamiya : GR1/FRS1 Monogram : GR1 - highly regarded 1/32 Revell - actually a Kestrel? 1/24 Airfix : GR1/GR3/FRS1 - the acme of Harrier kits. I'm sure there are others. Which ones are the most accurate? Someone else can do the 2nd generation! John PS, maybe we could do with a "Whats in the Box" forum, to pull this type of resource together?

After the fun build that was the Airfix Hs123 I've decided to have a go at this fine old kit. The last time I built one of these it was in the original Type 4 box. This one is a bit later but still in that baby blue plastic I will forever associate with the Airfix kits of my youth. I don't think this kit has been in the Airfix catalogue since the blueprint style box, although it has been available from Bilek. So far I've painted the interior and put together wing and tail sub-assemblies. I'm not really much of a Luftwaffe modeller and don't have many of the specialist paint colours in stock, so for RLM02 I mixed Humbrol 86 and 90 50/50 and was very pleased with the result. More pix to follow. John