Mr T

Be good to have an excuse to build a Sea Fury, that is lacking in my built kits, but not in the stash and another Tempest wouldn't come amiss.

Count me in, I have a few Helicopters and VTOL aircraft, and somewhere I think I still have a Yak 141 'Freestyle' kit as I always fancied building one after seeing it at Farnborough in 1992.

The Humbrol acrylic squeeze bottles aren't bad, I've used a couple and thought they were I went completely acrylic when my children were young, not only for their sakes but for mine. I use a number of different brands, airbrushing large areas and brush painting for the rest. I generally find that acrylics don't cover as well as enamels, but I have learnt to live with it.

First kit purchases of 2022, an Arma Model P51B/C Mustang and a KP Tempest VI. They have been on back order for a while and so pleased to Puck them up from Halifax. A bit difficult to park as apparently they are filming at the Piece Hall. One thing about the Tempest is that has five spoke wheels spare and so will do for the Airfix kit.

Hmm, that does look nice. Do I ditch my built Magna kit one for this?

Another part of my life gone. I am glad I have a complete set of 'Hamish an Dougal' to remember him by. My brother met him on a train up to Sheffield once and ended up giving him a lift to the hotel where Barry Cryer was booked in. Richard said he nearly crashed the car because he was laughing so much

Currently listening to 'The Shockwave Rider' by John Brunner. It was written in the early 1970s and set in a dystopia future, about 2018 or so. Some of it sounds depressingly familiar. Also slowly reading 'Action Stations Revisited No 1 Eastern England'

A very neat build Enzo, and such speed. My Siskin is crawling by comparison. Never built the Jaguar kit, it was around when money was tight and I was very selective (ie was it cheap?) about what I bought.

Looks very nice, it was always a very good build. The Fury is a lovely looking aeroplane. I built the AModel kit for a GB in 2020.

Currently Globemaster ZZ171 doing circuits into Leeds-Bradford from the South East. A bit of a crosswind at the moment, which is probably why it is here as LBA can be 'interesting' when the wind is blowing in certain directions.

Hi Hornchurch, I started building about a year or so before you, although not to very high standard, having only just discovered paint. I have been modelling ever since with a slowdown whilst I was at university and starting work. I seriously got into building after a disastrous first marriage (where I found I seem to have married my mother in law as well as my wife, judging by her level of interference). I well remember Mildenhall with the barbecues. After a couple of work, health related and family slowdowns, modelling is my main hobby and I have been on the forum since July 2011. It is generally a good place with people willing to help and who by and large don't take themselves too seriously and have a wicked sense of humour. I am a strictly 1/72nd scale builder with a strong lean to British operated military aircraft. Welcome to the forum, Martin.

None of the print or indeed broadcast media are very good when it comes to who does what and with what. At the beginning of Desert Storm the ITN reporter was telling us about the US bombers taking off from some base in Saudi Arabia as he was speaking. The 'bombers' taking off were KC135s. Most news stuff these days, apart from politics is done on a shoestring compared to the resources available even twenty years ago.

Constructional work is now underway with the Siskin. Spent some time making the interior to replace the somewhat uninspiring floor and seat. Found a surplus PE seat that is approximately the right shape and made cockpit framing etc out of plastic rod and strip. The Silverwings Siskin instruction sheet is available as a PDF download and contains some useful information. I was going to use the instrument panel decal from the Modeldecals sheet, but it is a work of fiction and so a new scratch built panel will be made using information from the Data plan. The fuel filler and pump have also been built. I am going to use the kit engine with a bit of detailing to the reduction gear case.

I shall watch this build with interest, Patrik. I have the kit, the white metal was by Aeroclub and I think the Vacform bits were mastered by Joe Chubbock. If so it should be a quality product.

I would be tempted to saw off as much as you can without damaging the part. I would avoid sanding as far as possible as it produces an easily inhaled dust that is not good for you, not only from a cancer perspective. The saw will produce dust, but most of it will be larger particles. Using a particle mask is a good idea and somewhere we'll ventilated if possible. When finishing the surface off after sawing, wet sand and clean up well afterwards. With resin, I like to get primer on as quick as possible to avoid handling or inhaling any resin fist.

Unfortunately there is nothing to see there, unless you are into eighties supermarket architecture. In WW1, aeroplanes from the factory (BE2s in the main) were towed up Roundhay Rd to Soldiers Field in Roundhay Park for testing. Looking at the area now, you would never think of the aviation connection.

Thanks for the very informative post and pictures. I remember the first time I saw the F15, it was at RAF Binbrook at an airshow in 1978, I think it was a Bitburg based aircraft. Another bit of my aviation interest life has passed away. On a slightly different note it appears that the new F35A is out and about from Lakenheath as they have been seen over North Yorkshire, where the F15Es often play. Hopefully the E will be replaced by the EX at Lakenheath.

It is a big beast, I built the Rareplanes 1/72nd kit in about 1984 and it drawfed all of my WWII single engined fighters including the Thunderbolt. I have the CMR resin kit that beckons. It has a one piece wing with undercarriage Bay detail as part of the casting. Might go on build list as I quite like the Firebrand and I used to live near the site of Blackburn's Leeds factory when I was a student nurse (now a Tesco and a Wickes)

The Jolly Giant, that's a name I have not heard in a long while. It was in a small retail park along with an MFI and a couple of other shops just off Wellington St. I am pretty sure it was open when I moved to Leeds in 1981. It closed around the turn of the century (I can remember going there when my children were very young) and the retail park stood empty for quite a while before it was redeveloped into offices or flats. For railway buffs it was on part of the site of the Wellington St Goods Yard and Parcel Depot. The Hasegawa F18 first appeared as the prototype in about 1980 and the moulds adapted to represent the production version, so is quite an old kit.

Well worth a visit. Obviously not much to see on the ground, but is a nice walk if the weather is OK and you have a good view, especially to the South. It takes us about 20 mins from Rothwell. Up the M1 to J47 and then take the road that goes past Lotherton Hall. Sign boards are quite informative and apparently the landscape hasn't changed that much (eg no housing or diversion of watercourses). It can be muddy though.

Yep, pretty sure that was one of them.

I thought as much from my reading. The gravepits found at Towton seemed to belong to 'professional soldiers' as several showed signs of old, healed injuries.

The other impression I get from reading about medieval battles as that they were very difficult to control when large numbers were involved. Also thinking about peasantry armed with billhooks, how common were they in reality? Most surviving financial accounts from across Europe tell of money being spent on mercenaries, for example, the French bought in a fair number of crossbowmen in battles against the English (and in at least one case rode them down when things were going badly). Having used a billhook for its intended purpose, it is quite a dangerous piece of kit and I can see why billhook shaped weapons found in museums were not to be trifles with.

When my son was at Leicester Uni, we went to see him when they were moving Richard III's remains. They had a fair few re-enactors, including guys arming up, which as commented was a surprisingly quick process. They also explained a lot about late medieval warfare. I live not far from the site of Towton, reputedly the bloodiest battle in English History, and the explanation boards there give a lot of information about the weapons and wounds they inflicted, not nice. When I did archery, I pulled a long bow. I am not a strong chap and it was hard, although not as bad as I thought it might be, technique is important. It didn't half go through the target though. Sheffield made bodkins apparently had the best armour piercing qualities due to their shape and steel quality.

Both the Spitfire and Hurricane were developed with full knowledge and support of the Air Ministry. Specifications were written around both types well before they flew and sizeable order for both types were placed as soon as a prototype was on the air. The orders for relative out of date types were to enable new squadrons to form and crews trained whilst production started on newer types There seems to be this myth that in the interwar period the Air Ministry did nothing to push forward advances in aviation technology. This view doesn't entirely explain why the Air Ministry bought foreign airframes to examine and learn from and several of the interwar specifications were an effort to encourage manufacturers to develop new airframes (eg F7/30, even if it failed to produce what was really wanted). The economic situation in the thirties was not good in most countries.