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I managed to pick up a bf109e-4 from Bill's hobbies yesterday in Coleraine for 6.99. Hope to start soon but will have to clear the bench of projects at the moment, such as a big build diorama with 3 tanks, one plane and about 20 odd figures...so will defo need the four months dead line. But looking forwards to this and interested to learn how to do the cloud camo/make the camo look air brushed with a hairy stick! Without this GB I wouldn't have even picked up this but really glad it honed me into it! Not totally sure of the composition as of yet, if I'll do as on the ground with wheels down and a bit of conversion..uhmm butchering as I call it! Or if it will be in dog fight.

Hi folks Latest off the bench today.... the 1/144 Platz A-4E repackaged by Eduard. Lovely little kit but sooo tiny! You don't realise how small the Scooter is until its parked up next to an F-14 or F-18. Built completely OOB but I had to scratch build the refuelling probe as it snapped off during assembly! Grr! (my fault) I went back to Vallejo paints for this one, and experimented with masking fluid for the camo. Not quite sure I'm that happy with it but it was lot easier than using tape or white tac at this scale. Might try something different next time? New scale.....new techniques me thinks! Anyway I hope you like! All the best.

Transport aircraft design can throw up some of the most dreary and downright ugly aircraft but I think the dolphin-backed Constellation has to be the most elegant and graceful - even with a beer belly and shark fin! This is the naval version of the early-warning Connie, the WV-2 Warning Star. These aircraft ploughed up and down each American coastline for up to 20 hours at a time, usually below 6,000 feet (very much 'in the weather'), 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This helped provide a radar barrier or 'picket line' to warn of incoming Soviet bombers or - as was feared at the time - paratroopers. Missiles weren't so much of a bother just yet. These missions could be anything but pedestrian. Take this (actual) flight report from a Willy Victor commander: Proper pilot stuff that - love it. The commander was part of VW-13 - this model represents an example from this squadron. VW-13 was established in 1955 and helped comprise the Atlantic Barrier (BARLANT) force. It was based formally at NAS Patuxent River in the late-1950s and early-1960s, but in reality it often called NAS Argentia in Newfoundland home, and roamed to and fro across the Atlantic fairly frequently (there are some great photographs taken in Glasgow). Weather in Newfoundland was diabolical - the norm in winter was a 600' ceiling and visibility less than 1.5 miles. Argentia itself is very exposed, and colossal near hurricane-force crosswinds could often be expected on landing (many of which were made on instruments almost the whole way down). The accounts of the ice build up are astonishing - on a 15 hour barrier flight, one Connie staggered home with ice on the underside of the wings one foot thick in places! Fascinating, gutsy flyer stuff - shot through with skill and courage. Anyway. This is the Revell kit, kitbashed with a Minicraft Connie picked up for a fiver on eBay. I know some on here have been able to fashion great things from the Minicraft Connie. Alas I did once try to build a Minicraft constellation but found the experience so miserable and unrewarding I promised myself never to do it again. After plundering the parts I needed for this build from the Minicraft kit and using a few spares on other projects, I'm afraid I just binned the rest of it. The Revell kit is superb. The fit is basically really good (wing fuselage join needs a bit of attention) and detail is excellent (yes, panel lines are a little deep, but I'll forgive that given the lack of alternatives). The only problem with the Revell kit is that it is the passenger transport version - so you have to fill, sand and rescribe a fair bit to lose the passenger windows. Not as big a chore as I feared, but the first time I've done this. The Minicraft radomes fit fine with no real problem - the bottom one is a bit tricky to get right. The top radome is actually much too thin in plan, but I didn't amend this. I just won't look at it from directly ahead! Paint was Hataka as usual. I have the Caracal Decals sheet which offers lots of enticing EC-121 and WV-2 schemes. I went for this fairly plain WV-2 scheme as I want ultimately to do all of these schemes (yup - yet another ludicrously ambitious plan). This being the first conversion I'm doing, I wanted a fairly simple and forgiving scheme to learn the pitfalls for something more complex next time. Still, it's pretty handsome, I think, and the scheme is faintly nostalgic for me as the Minicraft kit I did build before was a VW-13 aircraft. Oddly the Caracal decals, which are otherwise excellent, only offer one set of the three white stripes on the nose - but I did manage to find some others from the Minicraft decals. Also the wing walkway is incorrect. I made half an attempt to correct it but it should have another box towards the leading edge between the nacelles. But they behave superbly and couldn't be recommended more highly. These got very worn-looking towards the end of their life in service (see the aerial photo above). I did some weathering with pastels and pencils, but tried to keep myself under control. I don't know what it is about transport aircraft from this period but painting the props is always a royal pain! Anyway - glad I made the effort. (By the way I went for yellow tips for an early WV-2 - in the late-1950s these were repainted with red-white-red tips as you can see on most photos in this post). I also added a multitude of tiny aerials which was quite satisfying actually. Unsurprisingly the radio antenna locations changed quite a lot so it's worth checking your references quite carefully if you're into getting this more or less right. I think what impresses me about the Constellation is its size. It was designed to be high off the ground so that its engines could turn massive propellers at fairly low revs giving it superb range and fuel economy (relatively speaking - it's hardly a Prius...). I've seen one flying at Duxford and they are much bigger than they look from a distance. And finally with something almost completely unrelated - but a transport. Thanks very much for looking. Angus Niche side note: the USN vs. USAF naming is confusing and took me a little while to decypher. The WV-2 (or Willy Victor) was the same as the USAF's EC-121D, but later versions of the WV-2 were fitted with a more sophisticated radar, making them the equivalent of the EC-121K even if the naval name didn't change. Just on the off chance anyone is taking part in an aircraft designation pub quiz over the weekend.

Here is my new project. This will (hopefully!) be a depiction of N220, the winner of the 1927 Schneider Trophy race. I started this one about a month ago and it has been progressing fairly well. Now that some of the more difficult parts are out of the way I thought it might be safe to show. It's a small aircraft - only about 47mm from nose to tail in this scale, but the shape is quite complex. So there were more than a few nights spent trying to get the outline and cross sections looking right. I started off with the fuselage outline. Marking it out on a sheet of 1.5mm styrene. The drawings date back to 1956 and seem to be the only game in town. Fortunately they compare very well to available photographs, and it looks like the original draughtsman poured his heart and soul into them. This was cut out and "cheeks" of styrene added either side to fill out the plan view. Some evergreen rod was added to form the core of the rear decking. Other strip was added for the upper fuselage fairing ahead of the cockpit and a lot of Mr Surfacer 1500 was brushed on to blend the contours in. It looks like rubbish right now, I know. But I swear... I am going somewhere with this! While the fuselage was drying the floats got a start as well. I used two bits of 3mm styrene sheet to make up the basic block. One side of the high impact styrene sheet has a hard, clear surface. I face these inwards when I laminate the pieces so it gives me a visible centre line and I don't accidentally sand things out of true. The plan view was shaped first. Once the top view was satisfactory the side view was marked out and the lower profile cut to shape and filed to the right contours. The step is made by masking off the rear section with three layers of Scotch tape (810D is best) and painting on several layers of Mr Surfacer to build up some thickness. A couple of days to dry and bit of a sand, then take the tape off. Once the underside is done it is safe to start shaping the top. I find if I start trying to shape things in the round from every angle at once it goes out of control very quickly. Doing the shape one profile at a time seems to be much less difficult. The floats got a final shaping and were scribed and sanded smooth. Extra details like the mooring points and circular inspection panels were added too. With the fuselage, I tried to keep the components separate for as long as possible. The windscreen was mocked up in solid styrene as a guide. I'll use it as a pattern for doing a clear one later. Putting things together for a trial run... Blending things in was tricky. It was made worse by the lack of suitable primer. The hobby stores round here have been picked clean, and due to covid they have not been restocked for the best part of a year. I was operating on the very last of my Tamiya primer, so I had to buy some Mr Surfacer 500 (the only stuff I could get). Unfortunately it is way too coarse for 1//144 and has a very gritty texture. Lots of work was needed to sand it back, as you can see here. I'll leave it at that for now. I hope you will like the progress so far. More later!

2 more Concordes off my production line The Air France version is the Airfix kit and the BA version is the Nitto kit. As I had mentioned in my British Airways Landor Concorde RFI,I like the Airfix kit better than the Revell offering. It maybe simpler but the fit is a lot better. The Air France decals are from Jet Set decals and seemed very old. My first attempt of applying a piece of the cheatline nearly failed,as the decal tended to tear as soon as it was off the backing paper. So I stopped and applied 2 coats of liquid decal film and 2 light coats of clear gloss to make them more durable. That worked and the rest of the decalling session went well,although the decals needed a very long time in the water to slide off the backing. I painted the model with Gunze white primer that was gloss coated afterwards. Engine outlets are a mix of Revell semi gloss black and silver. This was actually the initial production Concorde.The first flight from Toulouse was on 6. december 1973. The BA Negus Concorde is the Nitto kit. At first glance I thought its identical to the Revell kit. But after starting the build,I realized many differences. The fit is much better and the option for the lowered nose offers also a smaller windscreen that fits into the nose. Revell gives also the nose down option but only the regular sized windscreen for the in flight mode. The engine mount is also slightly different on the Nitto kit and is better solved than Revells counter part. The recessed cabin windows,wheels and gear legs are interestingly identical but the stand of the Nitto kit is better,the Revell Concorde "leans" too much backwards. Another plus on the Nitto kit is the included display stand.Because of those options I decided to build her with the nose down on the stand. Paints are the same as on the AF Concorde. The decals come from the kit and the details are from a left over decal set. The tail decals are from the Airfix kit as the Nitto examples did not want to bend around the stabilizers. Enjoy the Supersonic double Cheers Alex

Another 747 rolls off my busy Jumbo Jet production line... Its the well known and trusted Revell 747-100/200 kit. As mentioned in my previous posts,the newer those releases,the badder the quality of the kit. The moulds are really starting to get worn out,esp. the engines are sometimes beyond use. Some time ago,I ordered some resin engines from Welsh Models to overcome this problem as well as having the correct engines for the different 747 versions I wanted to build. As I have a soft spot for african airlines,I had to add a SAA 747 to my collection. I opted for a very old decal set from Runway 30 that I found on a certain auction platform. They were still in great condition given their age and fitted nicely on the Revell kit. The instruction consisted of a badly printed black and white photograph of the real thing,where it was nearly impossible to make out where certain decals should go. So some research on the internet was needed. The orange/red line decal seems to be more of a dayglo orange,I managed to tone it down a bit with semi-gloss clear.It looks still stronger on the pictures. The curve at the front should be less steep and should reach more the radome but the decals were designed that way. The windows are from Authentic Airliners Paints used are Revell gloss white 04 for the fuselage top,Testors silver for the underbelly,Revell light grey 371 for the wings,Tamyia mix of metallic grey and light grey for the coroguard panels. The engines are painted with Testors silver and Gunze chrome (cowlings) This particular 747-200 with the name "Lebombo" was delivered to SAA in 1971 as the first 747 and was put into service on long-haul routes to Asia and Europe Cheers Alex

This C-17A is another of one my builds after a 30 year gap in building models. This Charleston "T-tail" is from the 437 Air Mobility Wing, my last assignment after serving 30 years in the Air Force. It was a slightly challenging build, especially with me still learning to airbrush acrylics. The Revell kit is pretty basic which is why I added some extras plus I used DrawDecals that went on really smooth. In the last picture, I parked in next to a C-130, the kit I built just prior to the C-17. Next kit is a 1/144 Travis C-5M from Roden to complete my tour with Air Mobility Command.

When I was a plane spotter in my teens some 50 years ago TWA and Pan Am were just about the only international US airlines I knew of. Unfortunately these nostalgic liveries have long ago disappeared from the skies. The story of Trans World Airlines ended in the 1990's when it went bankrupt and was purchased by American Airlines in 2001. As far as Boeing 727 is concerned, its maiden flight took place in 1963 and the production of the plane ended in 1984. In total 1832 planes were made. For me as a classic airliner modeller it was a must to have on my shelf models representing the both iconic airlines. For TWA's part I decided to build their Boeing 727-200 in the elegant delivery scheme. This three holer was quite an old kit by Minicraft in 1/144 scale, from somewhere in the late 90's. Detailwise it wasn't nearly the quality of Minicraft's current airliner kits. I had to do some puttying and sanding of seams but in all the model went quite well together. I also had to add some weight to the front so that the plane wouldn't be a tail sitter. I bought a Skyline Details' photoetch set for antennas, wipers, pitot tubes, etc. I also had to scratch build and correct several details. The decals I used were 26Decals for the livery, Authentic Airliners for the windows and Nazca decals for the stencils and coroguards. I painted the fuselage with white Tamiya Fine surface primer which I then sprayed with Tamiya clear gloss TS-13. The metal areas I primed with Humbrol gloss black and sprayed them with AK Extreme metal-aluminium. I finished the model by sealing the details with Humbrol Clear acrylic varnish and also used Vallejo and Humbrol colours for smaller details.

As part of my ongoing 747 project to build each variant in 1/144 scale,the -300 is now my latest addition. As there are no 747-300 kits available in that scale (well...there is the Kepuyan model,but it can hardly count as a 747,let alone an aircraft😉),I had to do it myself. From my previous 747-400F build,I had a -400 fuselage and -200 wings left. Mating these parts resulted in some serious surgery on the fuselage wingbox and the wing mounts. First the wingbox had to be sanded down considerably to remove the wingroot and the front part had to be sanded to shape. Then I had to cut off the lower part of the wing lip to fit into the slot on the fuselage.After some careful alignment,the wings were glued to the fuselage and the gaps that appeared were filled with plasticard and filler. The flaptrack fairings had to be build up at the top to sit flush behind the flaps. After all was filled,sanded and brought to shape,it was painting time. Here I used Gunze white primer for the fuselage,which was clear coated after.It gives a very fine surface with a nice shine. The grey windowstripe had to be mixed to match the photos I found on the net.Testors aircraft grey with a few drops blue and white. The underbelly was painted with Gunze grey 315,thinned with Gunze leveling thinner. A great product by the way.It makes the paint very fine and gives an even nice shiny surface. The wings are painted Revell light grey 371 and the coroguard is my own mix of Tamyia metallic grey and light grey. The engines are Welsh Models resin ones,as the Revell engines are the older version with different mountings. The decals come from the mentioned Kepuyan crap...ehh kit and the are nicely done. Some images I had to cut out carefully from the printed grey stripe. The windows are from Authentic Airliners. All sealed with Gunze Premium Gloss. All in all,it was a lot of work to create a -300 with the parts used,its not 100% perfect but I am very pleased how it turned out in the end. Cheers Alex

a320 family ceo & neo 1/144 (a318, a319, a320neo & a321neo) I am currently working on all full range of airbus models for my project. These consist of an Air France a318, 2 x easyjet a319s. an easyjet a320neo and finally a BA A321neo. There is a kit for the a318 by eastern express. I've heard there are plenty of errors and it might be easier to convert a revell a319 or a320. I'm sure you can import a resin fuselage from the US but at some expense. Currently there are a shortage of revell a319 kits available but there are plenty of a320 kits and it basically is the same amount of work involved in the conversion just obviously removing a couple of extra windows. Seems strange that there is far more availability of the revell a320 kit and can be found for a tenner on ebay apart from the obvious removal of the fuselage sections the tail will need to extended that being the only difference blending the fuselage will unfortunately erase the panel details but can't really be avoided. I might be wrong but I've heard the eastern express kit is incorrectly scribed. Tail extension was made from scrap plastic below Fuselage sections are now smooth to the touch The bottom section of the fuselage was a bit troublesome. Removing the rear fuselage section means that the bottom doesn't line up properly. However I used a liquid plastic technique to build a new base of the fuselage where the join is. Plenty of shaping and sanding resulted in a neat finish. You can see where the new plastic has been blended into the fuselage. The next 2 examples are going to be a319s for easyjet. I plan one in the new livery and one retaining the old livery. I could only get my hands on one revell a319 kit so I am going to convert an old czech a320 model of mine that is now unloved. stripping the paint has left the wing plastic brittle. unbelievably I had a spare set of airbus wings. Blow is the old wings and the next image shows the new ones I used the same liquid plastic technique to blend the joins. I think I used too much polystyrene cement which led to melting a section of fuselage, I came close to binning the whole thing! The section has now hardened and we'll see how it looks after the first coat of primer a noticeable difference in the quality of the plastic! I think this must have been the last a319 kit in the world, finally a straight forward build!.... looks like I got the length right on comparison. I'm still worried about that fuselage, its been battered. The a320neo is going to make up the small collection of easyjets I've went with the revell kit rather than zvezda. This is a nice model and really easy build. the antennas are sturdy enough to be joined onto one fuselage half to save you the bother later, the are not easy to knock off like most fragile pieces. The sharklets also fit nicely Bare in mind there is no undercarriage supplied in this kit! luckily like the wings earlier I have spares Last but not least the BA A321neo. I was originally going to do a BA a321ceo from the Zvezda kit but the kit itself was horrendous and I binned it. You may think that's unlikely for Zvezda but in my opinion they overcomplicated the kit with multiple options including different slat and flap options which made putting it together a bit of a nightmare considering it's scale. like the a320neo kit this went together really well. The only reason its level 4 is probably the inclusion of the undercarriage as apart from the fuselage length its basically the same kit seal off the windows with gorilla tape inside the usual milliput window job... I've highlighted what needs to be removed. The kit offers some radome options but the BA doesn't seem to have chosen that option all examples ready for primer....

Here is my finished Zvezda Boeing 737-8 Max in 1/144 scale. This is in the ‘protective layer’ fresh from the production line and in British Airways livery, though they don’t actually operate this variant, it is used by Comair in South Africa under the BA livery (ZS-ZCA). It was a standard OOB the build with the detail sheet supplied by Authentic Airliner Decals. The kit is straight forward enough to build and is great for little details at the same time! As this was a build designed to show the aircraft in its post production state the paint used was Halfords Racking Grey all over. I used Revell 361 applied lightly with streaks for the high impact primer layer on the engine nacelles. Various Revell Aqua colours for the metals. The detail sheet from AA was excellent and very true to life. It was like completing a jigsaw puzzle the way the pieces all interlocked and joined! I have always wanted to do a model in this way and when I saw this sheet I knew it had to be done! I can only hope I’ve done this excellent sheet some justice. It’s tempting me to convert a 737-8 Max to a 737-7 Max just to do the other scheme. Thank you for looking and as always feedback and comments are always welcomed. I am on a roll with getting these projects that have been sat around for a long time completed! Regards, Alistair

Hi folks, It has been a while since I last posted a build of mine. My computer and my camera said byebye,so I had to organize new tools and also I had been kept busy at work. Nonetheless,I was also busy building models,even more so during this darn pandemic...the only positive thing about the pandemic is that I have plenty of time,but thats really the only positive thing I see in that matter. But back to topic; I am actually not an A380 fan,but when I saw the first images of ANA`s upcoming A380 with its turtle scheme,I knew I had to have this in my collection. The search for the decals was on,the Revell A380 Demonstrator kit was bought and the project was started... Then the problems began; The decal set was found on Ebay,but when I received it,I knew instantly that this wont work. Bad printing quality and also the subjects were printed as two large decals. Apart from the poor quality it seemed impossible to apply them in a way that would look good.So the whole project was on hold for a while.Despite that,I decided to continue the build of the model anyway,so it would at least be built in components. The build itself was also not easy as the parts were warped and the overall fit was not the best. I dont know if this is a problem in particular or just due to the worn out moulds,a problem many of the newer kits from Revell seem to get very quick.Same I found on their 747-8I / 8F. I kept looking for a decal set on the various sites from decal manufacturers but no one seemd to offer them. I then had the idea of painting the whole scheme with the airbrush,creating masks out of the decal set that I had,but one day when I thought I will give it another go,I came across images of a built A380 in exactly that livery. That guy used decals produced by Dream Decals,I never heard of them before,and the result looked awesome. Great I thought,went to their homepage,tried to order a set...failure. After numerous e-mail requests I still got no reply,hence I could not get me one of these decal sets and the project was further delayed. Being me,I had no intention to give up and I kept searching and then during the first lockdown in march,I suddenly came across TBdecals from Italy.They also offered that schem as well as the 2 other turtle schemes. Well,I had nothing to lose,so I gave it a try and placed an order...10 days later I received a wonderfully printed decal set. Project saved... The Airbus was already built,so I just had to paint it and then the endless decaling session was on. The decals were of great quality and went on rather nicely.I devided the more complex decals in smaller sections,so they were easier to handle. It took well over 15 hours just for decalling the whole fuselage but I managed it in the end. Due to the complex design,it was clear that it wont come out perfect,but the result is more than satisfying. After more than a year the ANA A380 "Lani" is finally done. The display stand was obtained from the AN-225 kit as the A380 sadly lacks one. Paints are from Revell (white from a spray can) Tamyia (sky blue and white mixed for the front) Testors (dark grey for the coroguard panels) and Gunze for the metallic parts. All Nippon now operates 3 A380s,all in this particular turtle design but in 3 different colours, blue,turqoise and orange. They are used on the Tokyo-Honolulu route Enough text,enjoy the pics. More airliners will follow in the next days,as I still have to get used to my new equipment.

Finally we have weather in Switzerland that allows taking pictures on the balcony... This is the 1966 first issue of Airfix's Concorde. Due to its early release,a good 2 years prior to the first flight,the kit is probably more based on early drawings than on the real thing. There are some differences compared to the real prototype. I actually built it OOB,I even planned to use the kits Air France decals,and use some leftover decals for further detailing. Unfortunately the decals were impossible to use,stiff as a board and they broke at the slightest touch once off the backing paper. Well...it was to be expected but I tried it anyway... I then roamed through my countless aviation magazines and there I found an article on the Concorde,in which all former airlines who had ordered the Concorde,were depicted with a drawing of how it would have looked. I therefore chose the Lufthansa version,as I have plenty of leftover decals from different kits. The blue cheatline and fin was airbrushed,using Revell Lufthansa blue 350. The LH bits and pieces come from the Airfix 727-200 kit and Revell A320. The model was painted silver and aluminium on the wings and fuselage underside as per the Airfix box art of the Air France version.It looks more interesting that way,and its a "what if" anyway. The fit of the kit is not the best,I am currently working on the BOAC re-issue,which I find even worse in that regard,but thats another story. Hope you like the Lufthansa Concorde,that never came to be... Cheers Alex

My entry will be Minicrafts 1/144 Legend of Aviation, The Douglas DC-3. The kit comes with 3 decal options, I have gone for the all over orange KLM version. I have some concerns over the decals, as they are quite old, did test one and it seemed to behave itself so fingers crossed. Plan is to build this wheels up, as a desk display model. Build wise I am going with the Bruce Wayne Option, Planning to start about 3ish this afternoon, means I should complete it before the Indy 500 starts,

Another A319 got finished. Its actually my last A319 from my stash unfortunately.As the kit is out of production by Revell,its not so easy anymore to get one for a reasonable price. There had been many builds and kit introductions,so I wont go to further detail on the kit here. Fit is great and its a joy to build. Everything was straight forward,only decalling the Airbus was a very time consuming task which needed careful planning,research and systematic application of the many decal pieces for the blue pattern. 15 decals each side for the blue patterns and many more for stenciling and other details. The decals come from PAS decals and have a great quality, are durable and easy to work with.And they are cleverly designed,which helps a great deal in the application process. They fit very well on the model,I had only little issues around the wings. As they have no white backing,the cabin windows will disappear on the blue,so there I used the ones from the kit decals,as well as most of the details on the wings. Rossia painted this Airbus in 2014 as it was the official carrier for the soccer club "Zenit St.Petersburg" Its a very striking livery in my opinion and I am happy that PAS decals produced such a wonderful decal set. I painted the model with Revell and Gunze enamels,coroguard panels are my own mix of Revell grey 374 with a few drops of Revell silver 90. Cheers Alex

My latest finished build. Roden's Globemaster II "Old Shaky". To be honest - it was my first 'short run', and I'm not very satisfied with end result. But I'm glad it is finished and now have time for something new 😉 I added to less weight in nose section, and model is tending to be "tail sitter", so I had to add the tail support, which I have seen on real photos, so it is not pure sci-fi 🤣 Now I've got two Globemaster's in collection: C-124 and C-17. Please feel free to provide constructive criticism 👍

After some Revell Concordes I wanted to try the Airfix kit. Compared to Revell's offering,its simpler detailed,no optional nose installation and it has raised panel lines and open cabin windows. But I must admit that I like the Airfix kit more. Revell has its Concorde kit for decades in their catalogue and its really starting to get a bit long in the tooth. Besides the Airfix kit,I also worked on the Revell one simultanously.The Revell kit ended up in the bin in the end as the parts had a terrible fit and the wing seams kept cracking open,no matter what I did. The decals come from the ill fated Revell kit and are superb,both in printing quality as well as details. Painted overall white using Revell 04. Engine exhausts are a mix of semigloss black mixed with a few drops silver. Another Airfix Concorde and a Entex kit are currently on the bench as well which should show up here in some time to join her sister ship. On with the pics Cheers Alex

Lufthansa took delivery of their first Boeing 727 in 1964 . I always liked their livery from that time so I wanted to build one of my many Revell 727 kits in that scheme. The decals are from Classic Airlines by Nick Webb. They are nicely printed and fit almost perfect on the Revell kit. The build was more or less OOB,I only changed the wheels and used the Airfix ones. The kits wheels are too big and have no real detail on them. The front gear doors were replaced with self made ones from evergreen plastic as well. Paints are Revell 04 white,Testors aircraft grey and Gunze Super Metallic Chrome,with a gloss black base coat.Some panels are painted with Revell silver 90 to give some subtle differences. They cant be seen well on the pictures but they are there. The details come from the extensive decal set of the 2016 Germania release. No weathering was done as I wanted to depict the 727 as she looked fresh off the production line. Cheers Alex

Hi, This is my GWH Victor K2 in 1/144. I'll use the Kitsworld decals to build it as XM715 Teasin' Tina. Cheers, Stefan.

Hi folk's my stalking for another subject has paid off and also taken me in another new modelling direction,build number two will be Revell's Space shuttle which is my first spacecraft subject since Airfix's Lunar module back in the sixties. https://www.scalemates.com/kits/revell-04544-space-shuttle-atlantis--237843 No idea what is in the box but it should be fun.£12 on e-bay secured it.

Here for your perusal is the Minicraft 1/144 scale DC-8 kit modified to be a -61. I decided to include photos of the finished model from the workbench as well as some that are staged in the bright sunlight. The workbench photos lend to seeing the details a little more clearly, while the sunlight just makes her shine! I’ve long wanted to build a DC-8 and chose for my subject N822E, msn#45907, rolled off the line at Long Beach, California in January 1967, then delivered as the very first -61 to Delta Air Lines. She flew her first revenue flight on 18 April 1967 in the roomy 195 seat two-class configuration, and served faithfully until her conversion to a -71 in 1982. In 1988 she was sold to UPS, re-registered as N707UP, then subsequently modified into a -71F as a freighter. She was stored at Roswell in 2003, and eventually was broken up for scrap. Livery decals are custom made from Vintage Flyer; cockpit and passenger windows are from Authentic Airliners; details are combination from F-DCAL, Vintage Flyers, and from my workbench. Photo Etch parts from ExtraTech. JT3D engines are from Authentic Airliners. I used Tamiya gray surface primer, Tamiya TS-26 white, Alclad black surface prep on the wings, Alclad airframe aluminum on the wings, and Alclad chrome on the under belly of the fuselage. Details of the work in progress may be found here: Thanks for looking. Hope you enjoy……

My first build will be an L-100-20 Hercules in the colours of TAAG Angola Airlines in 1/144. I'll be using the Minicraft kit with a Welsh Models fuselage. I'll photograph it before I start but for now here's a link to a photo of the real thing: https://aviation-safety.net/photo/292/Lockheed-L-100-20-Hercules-D2-THA Can't wait to get started!

Few days ago I finished another "long-term" project. It was my challenge since Apr. 2019. Small diorama with Boeing 747-8F in Cargolux Cutaway special livery on airfield fragment. The kit is mainly Revell, but, due to poor quality of some pcs. I took from Zvezda's 747 all the wheels (Revell's are to small), front landing bay and gear, engine's fans. Then I spent many hours scratching cargo compartment. At the end, to bring more 'life' to the diorama I ordered some, available online, stuff from ROCAST Models, which are superb. Naturally I had to add some photoetched parts - I bought Microdesign 144220, which has some issues, but most parts are ok. As usual, sorry for, probably too many, pictures. Cheers Piotr "Milczący" 🍻

As my mini Mig-15s over in the Africa GB are almost done I thought I would continue my experiment with 1/144 scale with this little chap... I understand the plastic is from Platz which srkiral is also building in this GB. I am planning on building the Israeli 110 Tayeset Knights of the North plane...because I like the colour scheme and I have never built an Israeli plane. After 40 years of modelling seems about time. As always all comments welcome. Dave

I built the model of the Tupolev Tu-114 a couple of years ago. The history behind this turboprop airliner is truly unique. The plane was designed in the late 1950’s on the basis of the Soviet strategic bomber Tu-95 "Bear" . The specifications of the plane were massive: hight 15,5 m. length 53 m. and wing span 51 m. The four 14.800 hp turboprops drove eight counter rotating propellers and the diameter of these ”widmills” was 5,6 m. The max. speed was 870 km/h. The noise level inside the cabin could reach up to 110 db. The plane was operated by Aeroflot (and in co-operation with Japan airlines in the Moscow-Tokyo route). There was a restaurant and multiple sleeping compartments and downstairs a fully operational kitchen. I built the model out of a high quality 1/144 scaleresin kit of the Russian manufacturer RusAir. I added a DC-3 model of the same scale to one of the pictures to give a clue of the dimensions of the giant.