John

Very nice. I've built a few of these kits with the grandson and kids in the school. They're generally very good but a couple have had design choices that don't quite work, for example I remember having an issue with the P51 and the front seats in the Beetle. Probably a good idea to replace them here. The grandson has 2 of the Volkswagen campers and they've both built nicely. John

Didn't this incarnation of FROG also issue a couple of the Airfix 1/600 warship kits? John

The basic hull. I've seperated the used cartridge bag from the rear of the gun to let me add a bit of detail to the breach area. There's also some very fine gaps where the fenders meet the main hull and where the top and bottom hull halves join at the nose. Nothing an application of Liquid Green Stuff won't fix. John

I'm building the /3, aince I've actually seen a real one: The interior isn't complex but not much can be seen beyond the ammo lockers and the backs of the driver's seats. Since this is an open-topped vehicle the bits you can see though the open top and the insides of the hull hatches are painted in the exterior colour of RAL 7028 and for this I've used some of my dwindling stock of Airfix enamel M9 Beige. The walls of the forward and rear driving compartments are Sovereign Hobbies German Tank Interior Cream, the oxide primer is Humbrol 107 German Purple and the black bits are Revell 8 Matt Black. Very thin Revell 8 is also used as an overall wash. The transmission casing is Humbrol 27 Sea Grey and the tops of the ammo lockers have a thin coat of Humbrol Dust enamel wash. It's shiny because it's still wet in the photo. John

The original Italeri kit had an insert for the early style of passenger door to fit into the space for the C-47 freight doors. It didn't fit particularly well and, if I remember correctly, is on the wrong side for the early passenger DC-3s. It also came with the twin row engines so, although it included markings for some pre-War civil examples you couldn't build one out of the box. I got a set of DB resin engines to build PH-ASR in its 1939 guise. There are actually another couple of Airfix Dakotas that fall between the 1960/1971 kit and the current releases. The colourful Canadian Air Force boxing from 20 or so years ago was, I think, the original Italeri mould. Hornby then issued another Italeri kit about 10 years ago but it was the ESCI mould this time round. I remember getting the AC-47 when it came out and painting it with the little glass phials of enamel that Humbrol used to sell. Camouflage Colours, or something like that. Scarcely enough paint for an enthusiastic 12 year old and an airframe the size of a C-47. Apart from the changes to the original mould already mentioned, the Gunship also got modern era pilots, loaders which I think were unique to the kit and a beacon on top of the fin. John

I find the trick with older varieties of Humbrol enamel is to stir them until your arm hurts, then stir them a bit more. I use common or garden white spirit from ASDA to clean my brushes and to thin the paint. I've never had a problem. Be wary of modern Humbrol enamel thinner, it's *very* hot stuff and not at all like earlier formulations. It certainly thins modern enamels very effectively and will clean just about anything out of your brushes. It might be a bit fierce for older paints though, and I wouldn't be spraying anything thinned with it without a comprehensive extraction system and a really good mask. John

I'm building the /3, since I've actually seen a real one: Not too much progress yet but hopefully more shortly. John

Probably a bit late to point this out but MAP Azure Blue is in fact a distinctly purple-blue. It isn't a grey-blue. The full size colour reminds me of parma violets... I found the Ammo by Mig paint to be a close match but I had trouble getting it to adhere properly. For the record the other close match in acrylic paint is Humbrol "Gen 2" 157 but some users have reported quality issues with the paint itself, although my sample was excellent. Acrylic users are not yet particularly well served for this shade. Enamel users are much better served with Humbrol, Precision and Sovereign all providing excellent matches. John

I've just acquired a Frogspawn Airacobra, of all things, so I'm in. John

The current Humbrol enamel and "Gen 2" acrylic 157 Azure Blue are very good matches for the wartime colour. If we're discussing the pre-reformulated 157, it's not that great a match for LMB, although this comes up frequently. It is good for a somewhat faded PRU Blue, and I'm currently using it on an Airfix F4F-4, where it looks just about spot on. Note that it's a good 10 years since Humbrol released their updated enamel Azure Blue so there's plenty of it about. Ammo by MiG is also a good acrylic match but I had some issues with the paint's coverage. If you like enamel Humbrol, Sovereign or Precision will all meet your needs. John

The first kit I can remember that had reasonable 60lb rockets and launch rails. I could well be wrong after all this time but I think it hit the shops during the Summer of 1973. J

I expect many of us first came across the Sd.Kfz 234 in the form of the 1/76th scale Airfix kit, in my case hanging up on the Woolworths wall of kits in its Series 1 plastic bag. Quite impressive, and moulded in Airfix dark green plastic so it didn't need painted. Mine benefitted from extra camouflage in the shape of moss and lichen from the garden tube glued to the hull. I thought it was cool 😀 The kit also showed up in the El Alamein German Defence Forces boxed set along with the Tiger tank and a set of Afrika Korps infantry. You got a neat vacform base and some of those little glass phials of Humbrol enamel. Of course neither the 234 or the Tiger was actually used at El Alamein, and the 234 was too late to see any service in North Africa, but these are mere details 😀 Then, a few years later, along came Matchbox and their innovative range of 1/76th AFVs which included the turreted 234/2. It was a delicate little thing, particularly the suspension. I also wonder if it might be just a little under scale? Amazingly enough both of these kits are still generally available today, along with more recent releases by the likes of Roden and Italeri, so it's a well covered vehicle in the smaller scales. I was also lucky enough to be able to study the real thing in the shape of Bovingdon's /3 last Summer: https://tankmuseum.org/tank-nuts/tank-collection/sd-kfz-234-3 Plenty of inspiration then 😀 John

I've had little time to get much modelling done these last few months but, browsing the Rubicon Models UK website last week, I discovered this kit had been released. That'll do me! There's already a 1/56th scale Italeri kit of the 234/2, but this one offers the open-topped variants as well. So what do we get? 3 neatly moulded sprues of ABS plastic: Loads of alternative parts which allow 3 of the 4 main production variants to be built out of the box. You can get a seperately available turret to do the /1 version if that's what you want. Typical Rubicon high quality instructions: Also typical of Rubicon is the generic decal sheet, so you'll need to do a bit of research if you're modelling a specific vehicle: There's some info and a couple of suggested colour schemes on the back of the box: Choices, choices... More soon. John

I was at East Fortune on the morning that XM597 was flown in, escorted by a Hawk. Negotiating the narrow taxiway, one of the main undercarriage bogies went off the tarmac and on to the grass. The pilot got back on the road by opening the throttles which, for a moment or two, gave us a Scottish version of the St Maartens fence as the engines were pointed right at the crowd of spectators. It got a bit warm 😀 I've gazed in wonder at the beast many times since and photographed it often. This is what the pylon looks like now, most of the interesting fittings having been removed :

Remember our model railway brethren can be a good source of BS-matched paints: https://howesmodels.co.uk/product-category/model-railway/railmatch-paint/ John

Key point, I think. So long as the right bits are there Airfix can publish an errata sheet and a sheepish grin. J

Mixing a reasonably strong orange from red and yellow paints isn't actually that easy. Depending on the pigments involved you can end up in the salmon pink range. Try it with whatever paints you have available. I'd speculate that, if the band is indeed orange, that's how it came out of the tin. John

I think there's a bit more to it than that. We know what colour Dark Green and Dark Earth are because they are both still in the standard. Dark Green is noticibly olive. Using a viridian green just looks wrong because it lacks the character of the original. See Humbrol 30. Same with Dark Earth, it's not particularly red but sometimes it's reproduced like that. Then there's my BFF Azure Blue. If what you use lacks the distinctive violet tone of the original then it won't reflect the essential character of the colour. It's more complex than just picking your favourite dark green. I think it's important to understand what the colour *should* look like in order to reproduce it on a model. Again, something I've said before. My family business was screen printing and sign making. I didn't spend a lot of time working there but I am a qualified screen process printer - although I'd struggle to get a print job done to any sort of standard these days 🙄 I've been to ink suppliers and watched their technicians wet matching samples. The level of accuracy is very impressive. Experienced professional painters, or printers or technicians, can mix batches of paint to a match that the human eye finds indistinguishable, even without the aid of modern standardising technology. How that mix might age is, of course, another matter. John

I've told this story hereabouts before. I live in the home town of Alexander Dennis, the country's biggest bus builder. When I was a kid the company was called Walter Alexander ltd. A friend's uncle was a coach painter there and would bring him small amounts of original paints to transform our Dinky or Matchbox vehicles into a representative Scottish Bus Group fleet. The local operator was Midland Scottish, who had a bright blue livery. However the paint from the factory made the models look much too dark. Same with Fife Scottish red. The best *representative* colour for Midland Scottish blue on a model was Humbrol 14 French Blue, but this was noticibly lighter than the original colour if the repainted model was held up beside the real thing in Falkirk bus station. We struggled to get a *scale* match for the Fife Scottish red, as even Humbrol 19 didn't look bright enough on our models. It was still much better than the paint shop samples though. It proved to my satisfaction that scale colour is a "thing". How, or if, you interpret that is of course up to you. John

Ah, the 1970s - the decade that style forgot 😀 I got one of these for my birthday the year it was originally released. I remember it being quite a fiddly build around the wheels. It'll be interesting to see it again. John

Thanks for that, and in particular thanks to your father. I wonder if the white "I'm not an Me109" markings were considered adequate, or have the invasion stripes simply evaded photography? Given the nature of the cross-Channel missions detailed in the ORB stripes would definitely be appropriate. The Americans fully striped up their P-51s. John

That's a good call. Later in the June 1944 entries the digits do in fact vary between "179" and "197" for "C". John

Chatting to a colleague the other day and they mentioned that they are related to W/O Antony Murkowski who served for much of the War with No 316 Squadron, after arriving in the UK in 1940. Already a trained pilot he completed a refresher course at 58 OTU at Grangemouth. I've mentioned before that our school is built on the old Grangemouth airfield so that's quite a coincidence. I can feel a historical project coming on! We've involved some of the kids looking up the Squadron ORB from around D-Day and we've found W/O Murkowski's name most often associated with Mustang Mk III "179" "C". As has been mentioned before the ORB only has the figures from the aircraft's serial numbers, not the letters. It can't be FB179 as that was shot down in May 1944 while serving with 315 Squadron. Any thoughts on the other options? FZ179 looks the most likely but can't find enough information. I have an ICM Mustang Mk III in the stash and enough Techmod and Xtradecal sheets to make a reasonable stab at the aircraft as it would have appeared in the Summer of 1944. One other question - did these Mustangs carry D-Day stripes? I know they should have but photos seem to be ambiguous, at least if they're dated accurately. TIA John

There's a useful summary of the colours used by most of the major combatants on the Matador Models site. This is the Japanese bit: https://matadormodels.co.uk/tank_museum/xcamo_ww2japan.htm J

I think the Airfix paint range, and indeed the early Humbrol enamels, were based on BS381C, yes. J