Jon.M

That must be really bad. I don't think I want to see one! Jon

Thanks for the kind thoughts. It was my mother who died and even though she was 87 and had been ill for a long time her death is deeply felt of course. As you'll see from the pictures I have done some work on the Freedom Fighter. The canopy is an awful fit and despite much fettling it's still not good. I decided to brush paint with Humbrol enamels and the first coat of 11 Silver looked good. That tin ran out and the new tin is a completely different colour and has a much coarser grain. Most of the model is painted with the new tin of 11 Silver, whilst the tail section of the fuselage where the engines are is painted 53 Aluminium. Can you tell the difference? The tail pipes are 53 Gunmetal. The bombs, tank, guns and missiles have been painted and are ready to fit. Next is Klear and decals and then I can see how bad the canopy is. I'll now have to wait a couple of days as my brother in law and his family are visiting. He has sons aged two and four and everything modelling related has been put away to protect both the models and the kids. Jon

My absence this week has been due to a death in the family which will continue to affect my participation over the next couple of weeks. I have found that filling and sanding can be a therapeutic distraction. There has been progress on the F5-A but not much time spent following or commenting on other builds. Awful fit of the air intakes. The gaps were first filled with plastic card and then plenty of filler. I added the pilot and several breakable bits and thought I was ready to start priming, but then discovered that the canopy is a bad fit, I thought I'd checked earlier in the build. It's too bad to fill with clearfix so I've removed the pilot so I can add some plastic card then sand it back to get a reasonable fit. I hope I don't break the missile carriers of pitot tube doing this. I'm not sure when painting will start it may be a couple of weeks. Jon

The P-61 does have a fair bit of aftermarket stuff. Aires do a resin cockpit and Eduard do both interior and exterior PE sets as well as masks. However I understand that these parts were designed for the DML/Dragon kit and the Aires cockpit at least doesn't fit the Airfix kit well. I've still got to consider how I want to build this, but as you point out there is a lot of glass. Jon

Hi Speedman, The only aftermarket item I found for the cockpit was a resin ejector seat by Pavla. Which is why I decided to include the pilot even before I decided to build it wheels up. The canopy is so thick that the lack of interior detail shouldn't be a problem. Hi Sean, The strange nose join is an illusion caused by the weird silver plastic that Airfix used at the time. It changes colour when cut or sanded leaving darker areas and swirls in the plastic. It does make eliminating joins fun. In short they remain visible even when they are perfectly flat. It won't be possible to judge the joins properly until it's been primed. In the photo above the nose even looks bent or badly aligned but it isn't. Or at least I hope it isn't it's really hard to judge even with the naked eye. The undercarriage doors and air brakes had to be sanded down and have ejector pin marks removed to get them to sit flat. They are still being sanded from the outside. The filling and sanding is not yet finished and will probably continue after the first coat of primer. Jon

Hi Dave This was one of my favourite models when I was young. Was it really that simple. I look forward to seeing how it goes together. Jon

Hi Speedman, Here's the other side of the wheels. Not much flash. Half of the wheel is larger and better moulded than the other half. "Better moulded" is a relative term. This is the solution to the problem. On the subject of the quality of Airfix and Revell kits, when I first built them in the late sixties and early seventies all kits easily available in Britain were like that. When the moulds were new though the quality of the parts was better. I built this F-5A in about 1970 and while I don't remember it clearly I'm sure the fit was nowhere near as bad as this newer one. It's not that they were bad when they were new, they weren't, it's more that other manufacturers issued newer better quality kits and and the market changed to accommodate a greater percentage of older modellers with greater expectations and deeper pockets. I hope this group built is reminding us that there is fun to be had with simpler less detailed models. Under Hornby, Airfix are now producing good newly tooled kits with in my opinion a good quality to price ratio. They're also getting to grips with attracting a new generation. More of the starter kits are now versions of the new tool kits with simpler paint schemes and decals and they've also started this range. http://www.airfix.com/news/airfix-launches-quickbuild/ It must be admitted that some horrors remain in the range. Boulton Paul Defiant anyone? I hope to get an update on the build done this evening but it might be tomorrow, suffice to say that much filling and sanding has taken place. Jon P.S. I've just won another Northrop, an Airfix P-61 Black Widow on evilbay. I've never built one but it has been described as "a challenge".

Thanks for the offer Dazz. The Iranian decals came with this kit and I intend using them. They look OK, if nothing special, after being exposed to sunlight for a few days. The issue I've got is from 93 -95 and suffers a lot from mould wear, I'm amazed that this was re-issued as a starter kit recently. Hi John, Interesting colour schemes on those F-5s. It's good to see kids being introduced to the hobby and they're are both good efforts. At least with the PM kit there's no problem getting the nose and rear fuselage lined up with the main fuselage. I've been having trouble with the Airfix one (update to follow this evening). They also have those sexy wing tip tanks. Jon

Hi John, When I first thought about building this kit I went looking for decals as the originals are a bit discoloured and who wants to build an Iranian aircraft? I found a set of decals for a pretty red and white Turkish display team F-5A but after looking at the kit I decided to not spend any money on it. So the Iranian decals were taped to the skylight in the loft and they're looking better now. The roundels look close enough to Italian ones that it'll probably fool casual observers. I'm being disparaging about this kit but it's so far proving to be fun, and as it cost so little I don't care if it goes pear shaped or banana shaped given the state of the fuselage parts. Jon

The "Parco Tematico dell'Aviazione" (Aviation Theme Park) http://www.museoaviazione.com/en/ is on the road between Rimini on the east coast and San Marino. It's about an hour from Bologna by motorway. The aircraft are mainly post WWII and there is a high proportion of east block stuff. Migs 15, 17 19, 21, 23 for example as well as types flown by the Italian air force. Here are some more photos of the Javelin these are mostly details. I hope they're useful. Jon

Hi Simon, The Flixton one looks in better nick than this one. I've got a few photos of this FAW 9 which is in northern Italy if you want them. The hill in the background is the Republic of San Marino. Jon

I've not seen one of these before. look forward to following the build. Jon

Airfix 1/72 Islander Airfix 1/72 Albatross DV Airfix 1/72 Bristol Fighter Airfix 1/76 Churchill VII converted to Mk VIII Jon

This is where I got to last night adding some generic detail to the cockpit. I've done almost no research so it's not an accurate representation of the F-5A cockpit. As the kit's cockpit is almost non existent I have decided to add the pilot to fill the empty space and also because he's the single best part of the kit. I finished painting him today although I still have to add a wash and remove the growth from the top of his head. The wheels and undercarriage legs are badly moulded so I had a look through my spares for suitable replacements. As I usually build aircraft with undercarriage down I don't have many spare wheels and couldn't find anything appropriate. What I did find was a period Airfix clear stand. So as the kits undercart is so rough and I don't want to spend any money on after market items for it I'm departing from my usual habits and doing this one 'in flight'. I also found a better pair of sidewinders. This is where I've got to today with most sub-assemblies glued, but with a lot of filling and sanding to come in the next few days. The upper join of the fuselage should clean up OK the lower join will need a lot of filler. Blending the nose in is also going to take some work. Progress will be much slower during the week and next weekend is Milan's largest model fair. I bought this kit at last year's show so who knows what foolishness I'll get up to this year. Jon

It was one of these that got me back into modelling a few years ago. I used quite a bit of filler on the lower fuselage join but otherwise it was fine, apart from the rivets of course. On mine the transparent parts were not very clear. Good choice. Jon