Mr T

Nearly there! Masking off canopy and cabin windows. Just a few bits to touch up and then will be in the gallery. Has been a bit fraught in places due to the canopy issues, but faily pleased now it is nearly done.

I have managed to move on a bit with this kit now the Hotspur is virtually finished. The fuselage is together and seems to need a bit of filler. On the photo, you cannot really see it as the filler an plastic are virtually the same colour. Dave, I am sorry to hear about the tinted canopy, I think QC at Novo was never brilliant. I can remember checking kits for sort shots etc as there seemed to be issues.

That looks a very nice build. Keep meaning to build an RAF one, but never got round to it

Thanks for the kind words. Am home now and going to have an early night I think despite the lure of the modelling space. My cutting is usually a bit rubbish which is why I used a Tamiya/Ofla engraver to go along the panel lines indicated and to make a good cutting path for a razor saw. The Airfix plastic is not as brittle as some so was OK. The resin is nice and could be cut the same way which reduces the potential dust. All credit to Alleycat (who did the moulds) and Freightdog to try and make what are extensive changes a bit more manageable.

Thanks for your good wishes. They have taken the Zeppelin out of my left nostril and are going to let me go home as they have identified and treated the bleeding point (queue jokes about being a right little bleeder).Weird as the consultant I am under remembered me when he was a junior doctor and reg/senior reg when I was a staff and then charge nurse on an ENT ward.

You are right, I got as far as getting the wings and fuselage together and matching, but was very hard work as nothing fitted. As much flash as kit and bits of mould. Would love to know where the master came from. I remember doing major work on the tail surfaces to reduce them to anything near prototypical thickness.

Thanks for your good wishes. Not keen on knockout drops these days. Hopefully it will be sorted soon.

Thanks Pat, doctors will be round this am and will decide what to do next. Had forgotten about the R100 kit. Came with a mooring mast as I recall. Have not seen one for years.

Progress on every thing stalled. This is being written from my hospital bed as bled again and admitted this evening. Currently have an inflatable device the 🛏️ of a Zeppelin up my left nostril. Trying to distract myself on the hope I can sleep as a bit painful. 🏥🎈📈🛏️🤧

Fat chance at present, writing this from hospital bed as been admitted as bled seriously again. Got a big inflatable thing at least the size of a Zeppelin up my left nostril (this may be an exaggeration, but feels like it). Hopefully it will be sorted out tomorrow, but not a happy bunny.

Thanks for your kind comments. The model is nearly finished. Decals and final varnish coat are on and just waiting to demask the canopies. A bit behind hand as we have been up in Scotland as my mums house has sold and we went up partly and I have a hospital visit with a nosebleed that would not settle.

Really nice build of both helicopter and lorry. I built the AMP kit when it came out. An interesting build, but not without its challenges

Progress has all of a sudden slowed owing to me being in A&E at the Leeds General Infirmary at half four this morning with a severe nose bleed. It stopped, only to start again, although not as bad at lunchtime. We are supposed to be going away for the weekend and so holding my breath. Completely p****d off with it as have to rest while it all settles. My Frog Group Build is also affected and annoyed as Hotspur is on the point of being finished 🏥🤧🛏️

Skinny is a bit of understatement. The cylinders are very thin with no detail apart from machine screw like cooling fins and the crankcase looks like piece of shaped dowel. I have a memory that although Frog often provided separate engines, they all tended to be at a similar level of crudeness. Even some of the contemporary Airfix all in one efforts seemed to be a bit better.

The conversion kit instructions give clear guidance about cutting the wings. I found measuring the cutting part at several places and then running a blade along a steel rule gave a good guide to using a scriber to make a deeper cut. A bit of breath holding is also involved.

A bit far for me, but I have seen the Swift at the Newark Air Museum, most recently after watching the 100 anniversary flypast practice when I went on my way home, a very pleasant afternoon and the shop was worth looking in.

I have missed out loads of stuff like the oxygen pipes and regulator and all the throttle handles etc. you get on Eduard etch and which are largely too tiny to handle unless you have a level of patience way beyond anything that I have. It always amuses me that Frog seats are all the same and bear no resemblance to anything pilots sat on. They remind me of the dining chairs that I used to see as a child in Hopewells an upmarket? furnishing store in Nottingham when my mum went in for a look around (Never bought anything as far I can recall as the stuff was always a bit pricey). Just looked now and the place is still there and still not cheap!

As promised here are some pictures of the Swift with the cuts made for the conversion parts, apart from one wing half. Looking at what I have cut off to replace with resin , I now begin to realise how much of the Swift was altered to try and make a workable fighter as the FR5 was initially built from uncompleted Swift F.4 airframes. I am quite pleased how so far the new parts match the old. a wing has not bee fully tested yet as parts of the wing are quite fragile and i plan on adding the new resin wing panels to the under wing section as soon as I have cut them off their casting mounts to reduce the risk of damage. Now I have got that sorted i plan on starting the 'normal' part of the kit

Some work done on the Bristol 138 in the last couple of days. Raised panel lines, such as they are have, largely been replaced by with new scribed one and the engine out of the spares box has been sanded to fit the kit cowling. I looks much better and I will put up a photo when it has been painted etc. Work has started on the interior. I found a drawing of the cockpit from the Flight archive, which has given me something to work from. The cockpit is not going to be superdetailed as the canopy will be shut. The canopy is much better then the one on the Hotspur, being less marked and clearer, although still quite thick. a bit more attempt has been made to make the air intake a less empty. so far my overall impression of the 138 is that it looks like shape wise a bit like the unnatural spawn of a Typhooh and Blenheim/Beaufort.

I have the MkII in the stash so will watch this with interest. I built a II when I was off sick after I had been diagnosed with high Blood pressure about 25 years ago. Used the old Frog kit and the DB conversion set. Not sure it did anything for my BP though. Lost the model about five years ago when the fuselage split in a non repairable fashion. Still have the engines though for a Shark

I must admit to a certain degree of trepidation in tackling the cutting. I have made this my first task and so far cut the fuselage in the places the instructions indicate. It has worked surprisingly well and the new nose and tail match up well on a test fit. I used a Taimya scriber tool to deepen the panel lines before cutting with a fine tooth razor saw. Going to do the wing, which is a little more scary. I reckon on marking out the cut and using the scriber to create a good line for a razor saw to follow. I will put pictures on when I have done. Only had one mishap when Wilf the cat came jumped up as he wanted attention (ie food) I note you live in the States and you have my sympathy for the terrible events of the last 24 hours.

Camouflaged with 56 Sqn markings, the conversion kit has appropriate decals

I was born in February 1954, 11 days before the first Swift F.1 entered service with 56 Sqn. Much has been written about the Swift, a lot of it not terribly complimentary and it did have a number of flaws that made it unsuitable as an interceptor. The F.1 lacked manoeuvrability at the altitudes it was expected to fight at. Handling was made even worse by the insistence by the RAF on a four gun armament in the F.2. Low speed handling when landing was poor and there were issues around its ease of maintenance. The F.2 entered service in August 1954 and that is what i am intending to build. The F.1 and 2 were withdrawn in March 1955 and any effort to turn the Swift into a useable fighter were abandoned, despite the appearance of the F.4 that addressed a lot of the shortcomings of the Swift. However, all was not lost as the Swifts low level performance was good and it was solidly built. This made it a suitable replacement for the Meteor FR9 in the fighter reconnaissance role which it fulfilled with 2 and 79 Sqns in RAF Germany as the FR5, the subject of the RAF 1/72nd scale kit I built an F.2 about 32 years ago by carving up the Pegasus 1/72nd FR5 kit (the plastic was that thick!), but the model was damaged beyond repair in a house move and so the arrival of the Airfix kit and the Freightdog conversion set enabled me to think about building another one. This Group Build has spurred me to take the kits out of the stash and get them built. The two reference books shown give, in my opinion, a fairly balanced view of the life and times of the Swift and I am eager to start.

I was also born in Feb 1954 and agree not a lot seemed to happen that month. English Electric P1 made its first flight as did the B52 and C130. The XF104, Fairey Delta 2,, XF4D, T37 and Voodoo prototypes also flew in this year. The Swift entered service in February which is what I am doing.

This is another kit I have unearthed from the stash have been bought and the wings stuck together some forty years ago. The kit cost 39p according to the sticker. The Bristol 138 was built as a high altitude research plane, but also with an eye to the World Altitude Record that it gained twice in 1936 and June 1937when it reached an altitude of 53,937 ft. (16,220 metres). Of mainly wooden construction, it was powered by a twin supercharged Pegasus engine and a second airframe to be powered by a Kestrel engine was never completed. The kit is fairly basic, but has promise seems large for such a small engine. I have some Rising Sun decals with better coloured roundels and some stencils and I am using a Pegasus engine out of an old Matchbox kit (?) to replace the screw thread dowel kit part.