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As mentioned in the RFI for my Eastern Airlines 757,I worked on both kits simultaneously. The mods I did are explained in the Eastern 757 thread,for the AA version I added the winglets,which come from a Eastern Express kit. They needed a fair amount of work to fit on the Minicraft wings...I always assumed the EE kits are simply copies of the Mincraft 757,but it seems not entirely. For the AA 757 I chose a more weathered look as pictures I found showed a quite worn and tired looking 757. The metallic look was created with Tamyia aluminium with a thin overspray Tamyia Mica silver from a spray can. Some silver decal stripes were added for more detail.The decals are from the kitwith the exception of the cockpit window being from Authentic Airliners. The cabin windows were printed on the stripes,so I could not use AA cabin windows. The coroguard panes are from a Flying Colors detail set,that I found in my spares box as well as some other details. The "AA.COM" logos on the winglets come from a Hasegawa 737-800 kit.They are a bit smaller than they should be but it was all I had in my stash.Most important that the logos are there at all... 😉 I sealed the fuselage with a light coat of Tamyia semi-gloss to tone down the metal and Tamyia matte varnish for the wings and engines. Weathering was done by using Humbrol graphite powder. Cheers Alex

@chrism started this build and passed it over to me for completion. Having made two Airfix ones last year, I decided to do something a little different. Hope you like it.

Besides ANA,LATAM of Chile also added a Star Wars jet to their fleet. They chose the attractive Galaxy's Edge Storm Trooper scheme for one of their Boeing 777. When I found those decals from PAS on ebay,the decision was easy. The quality of the decals is very good,the only downside is that it comes without instructions. So a lot of research on the net and careful photo study is inevitable. Also some careful trimming in some places is necessary. I had a 3 Zvezda/Revell 777s in my stash and so the project was on. The Zvezda kit is superb with mostly good fit,so the build was troublefree. The fuselage was painted with Gunze white surface primer 1500,clear coated with Gunze premium gloss. The wings were done with Gunze grey 315 and the metallics are different Gunze and Testors paints. As the decals have window holes,I left the windows open on the kit and filled them with Krystal Klear. The silver frames come from the great Revell decal sheet as well as all stencils. This will be my final Star Wars logo jet,together with the R2D2 Dreamliner And the ,still in production, ANA 777-300 BB-8.Finishing this is a bit delayed as I had to wait for some decals for it. It will make a nice line up and a great addition to my collection of special liveries. Cheers Alex

My last of the 1/144 787s and probably one of the most attractive liveries for the Dreamliner. ANA had signed a 5 year contract with Disney and painted at least 4 of their aircraft in special Star Wars liveries. Maybe some of you remember that a few years back,I already built that model,then with a 787-8,streched with resin plugs. After I had finished that kit,Zvezda announced their -9 kit... I actually never planned to build the R2D2 livery again because of its complicated design. But a friend kept asking to sell him that model,so last year I finally gave in and sold it,which led me to the point to build another one for my collection again. This time I used the 787-9 kit from Zvezda and a decal set from PAS instead 8A decs. The decals were great to work with and are also durable enough to accept some heavy handling and trimming. Again for the windows Authentic Airliner windows were used and details come from the nice Zvezda decal sheet and the spares box. Painted with Gunze white surface primer 1500,clear coated with Gunze premium gloss prior and after the endless decal session. All other paints are Gunze as well. Now my Dreamliners are all done and the Star Wars jet is back in my collection. No matter what,there wont be ever a 3rd R2D2 build😉 May the force be with you Alex

I am not the biggest fan of the 787,but somehow it grew on me to a certain degree and 3 Zvezda/Revell kits managed to enter my collection and now happened to be built all together. For the 787-8 I chose the delivery scheme ANA applied to their Dreamliners,with large "787" titling at the fron instead of the usual "ANA" titling. The kit is probably well known for its pros and cons,so I will not go into detail here . The build was pretty straight forward as everthing fits well with only a little putty and sanding required. The landing gear is the most fiddly part as it is very delicate and fragile. The decals are from BSmodelle and are very well done. Windows are from Authentic Airliners and details come from the Revell/Zvezda sheets and from the spares box. The whole model was spray painted with Gunze white surface primer 1500 ,clear coated with Gunze Premium gloss airbrushed prior and after decal application. Some photos revealed that at the time of delivery the wifi (hump) antenna had not been installed yet,so I left it off. The other antennas I left off too as they always tend to snap off during cleaning the models and then disappear on the floor. Cheers Alex

Revel box build with AA and other third party decals. Seemed that everything went wrong with this kit, I must have dropped it about a thousand times and weirdly it didn't fit very well. Still, here it is, not bad. Have also just finished a much nicer Zvezda A320neo, which can be seen here: https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235106308-sas-scandinavian-a320neo-zvezda-1144/#comment-4327834 Chris.

Here is my latest build of a 1980s General Dynamics F-16 A Fighting Falcon of the Royal Netherlands Air Force. It is the J-257 of the 322 squadron based at Leeuwarden. Cheers!!!

BEA Trident 2 'Ground Gripper' 1/144 Airfix with modifications The Trident earned the name 'Ground Gripper' due to its long take off run, seeming reluctant to take off! The Trident 2 was a development of the Trident 1, with an increased wingspan but utilising the same fuselage with a different internal arrangement increasing the seating, and 1 door less on the starboard side. The Airfix kit has been around for 50-ish years now, with a few accuracy issues, which I have have attempted to rectify There is a new kit from Eastern Express, but at £60+ it is way too expensive for my tastes, and anyway I get a lot of pleasure from doing a bit of real modelling and improving things. The main things are, straightening the leading edge of the fin, adding the fuselage to wing fairing, reshaping the centre intake, and a first for me, adding the leading edge 'wing kink' There is more detail at the end of this post, but for now, on with the pictures. I chose G-AVFB as it is preserved at Duxford in these colours: With something else, my recently completed Airfix Comet 4B These are the main improvements: I have never attempted putting the wing 'Kink' before. It is tricky because it is only in the leading edge. The trailing edge remains straight. I scored each wing upper & lower part on the inside, and bent & sanded it to obtain the kink, which slopes down from fuselage to about 1/3rd of the way along, where the rest of the wing takes on some dihedral. It worked well and I'll definitely do it on my next Trident build. I used the 26 Decals BEA Red Square sheet, but had problems filttng the black nose decals. I struggled to get then to lay down around the compound curves of the nose, and they started to split as I endevoured to line them up. So I removed them and decided to mask and spray all the black, including the cheat lines along the sides. It worked well and I am pleased with the result. I did the black on the fin top at the same time. This is all paintwork with no decals yet applied: It was a lot of work, but very satisfying! Thanks for looking, John

Hi everybody, just finished this Zvezda A320 neo in TAP colours. Overall a simple livery, but I personally really like it and have a special connection to Portugal where I am at least once a year and flew TAP a couple of times. It could have been my fastest build ever, as the Zvezda kit is really neat and easy to build and clearly better than the Revell, which one can make look nice as well, but it will be definitely more effort of sanding and filling, which is certainly my least favourite part. The only question I cannot answer, is why it has zero details on the outside and then antennas that come with it have an odd shape. So I built my own details for the fuselage and used some antennas from other models. So why didn’t I finish it earlier? Because of the decals. A never ending story. First I bought decals from PAS, but when I received them I immediately realized that the colours are odd, nowhere where they would need to be. I looked for alternatives and went for the Nazca ones (yeah next mistake there). They were certainly not accurate colour-wise, but looked close enough to be used, but when I applied them I found out that the titles were just too small and looked odd. Certainly the last time I bought Nazca decals, as they are just full of faults. Okay new set needed so I went for the 8adecs from Mexico (there’s also a nice 26decals set, but it is the old version without the AIR). Well the shipment made all the way from Mexico to Frankfurt Airport but got lost by German Post on the short way from the Airport to my home. Jon from 8a decs was so kind and sent me a replacement. So 4 weeks later it made it but the decal was damaged once it arrived. So I reached out to Jon, wjho really cared and sent me yet another set that arrived just 3 days a go..and finally with the 5th decal set (!!) I could finish the plane just yesterday. The 8a decals are great…and yeah with that story I will certainly order again from him. A nice guy that cares..we all know that that’s not always the case. Detail are from a Revell sheet I have as spare and the cockpit windows from Authentic Airliners, as usual. Otherwise the plane is painted with Tamiya and Mr. Hobby colours. Now enjoy the photos, I appreciate any feedback / comment. Julien

Hainan Airlines operated 4-5 Dreamliners in different Kung Fu Panda liveries. I found the golden one from PAS Decals. Windows are from Authentic Airliners,details come from the Zvezda and Revell decal sheets. The PAS decals have no white backing,but they come with a set of masks for the panda head shape. For the fuselage I used Gunze copper,as the gold paint would have been much too bright compared to photos of the original. After application of the panda head decal,I realized that the masks were a bit off in shape and size,so after clear coating,I had to correct and fill the gaps carefully,so that the panda would be embedded in the copper. The rest of the build and decaling was troublefree. The only problem are the door decals,as they stand out a bit on the metallic paint even though I gloss coated the whole fuselage prior to decal application Cheers Alex

Another one for my collection of special liveries. This particular 777 entered service with this livery in 2013 and will be repainted back to its standard scheme this year. EVA AIR's Hello Kitty aircrafts have proven to be vety popular among travelers,so they had many different Hello kitty planes in their fleet. The decals are from 8A decs and are very nicely printed allthough on a very thin carrierfilm,so application of the large segments has to be done very carefully. The kit is the well known Zvezda 777-300. The build was straight forward with no major issues.The installation of the landing gear and doors is the most tricky part. The fuselage was spray painted with Gunze white surface primer 1500,clear coated prior and after decalling with Gunze Premium Gloss. All other parts are also painted with Gunze paints. Light weathering and highlighting the slats and flaps was done with a sharp pen. Two more of this giant airliner are on the bench currently,both with special liveries as well. Stay tuned Cheers Alex

Started somwhere in 2020,I finally managed to get this off my bench. I already built a 747-400F by using a Revell -200 fuselage and the wings of a Revell -400. For this build however,I used the fuselage of an incomplete Airfix 747 kit and the wings of the Revell -400, I had in my spares. Mating these parts was a major task,as the Airfix kit has no wingbox,the wing root had to be built up with sheet styrene and putty. I also tried to correct the front end as good as possible, Many sessions of puttying and sanding were necessary to make everything look smooth. The decal for the Singapore Cargo comes from V1 decals and are very well printed and nice to work with. Painted with Gunze white surface primer 1500 for the entire fuselage,and Gunze enamels for the rest of the model. All in all,I am pleased with the result and happy to have been able to use parts from the spares entirely for this 747. Cheers Alex

still have to decide on the scheme. But looking forward to the build.

I've got some time off uni at the moment aside from a few practical sessions I need to be here for, so I'll be going home at some point this week. That means I'll have plenty of time to build something. I intend to build a V Bomber of some description for this, and of course I have plenty of options in the stash. I won't be back to full time lectures until the first week of February so I think that's enough time to build something a bit more complex than a simple 1/200 Vulcan (I'll save my last one of those to build at uni). I'm undecided what I'll build, but here are some the options: 1. FROG 1/96 Victor B1 This is a very old kit, a 1958 tooling and honestly well ahead of its time. It has recessed panel lines, and although they won't stand up to today's standards they aren't bad at all. The shape has some errors, primarily the oversized intakes and the very complex shape of the nose; the modern Airfix kit is the only one to ever get this entirely right. In 1/96 these are a respectable size, it's a huge shame that 1/96 or 1/100 were dropped as a common scale because it's a really nice halfway point between 1/72 and 1/144 for aircraft of this size. 2. Mikromir 1/144 Victor B1a/K1a Although this kit is labelled as a Victor B.1 on the box, it actually represents a B.1a or K.1a as it has the extended outer wing leading edge which replaces the early leading edge flaps. Obviously the pure tanker variants would not qualify for this group build, although some did retain the ability to carry bombs so perhaps would, but I would be building a pure bomber. The box art portrays Duxford's Victor B.1a(k2p), XH648, one of a handful of Victor B1as which were converted to two point tankers to make up for the sudden lack of available tankers due to the grounding and retirement of the Vickers Valiant fleet, the two point conversions were simpler than the letter three pointers which made up the majority of the Victor K1a fleet. Unfortunately the artist has portrayed a combination of Victor B1 and B2 intakes, which let it down a little, but regardless the plastic inside the box is an absolute gem. It's fairly accurate especially for a short run kit, but will need new airbrake fairings as the photo etch ones are just wrong. New decals are advisable as Mikromir's ones aren't the best, I'll print my own for the serials and if I choose a white scheme I'll do the roundels and fin flashes as well. I do have one of these already, but it is not really up to my current standards so another one would be very nice. 3. Airfix 1/72 Vulcan B2 This one is a challenging one given the time I'm working with, it would quite possibly have to be a part 1 now and part 2 when I'm next back home for any time. But I do like my Vulcans and would love a 1/72 anti flash example in my collection. You may have seen my first build, which I thoroughly enjoyed rivet counting my way through, although there were some moments of burn out throughout the build. I intended to build two, I started my second kit but never got past the cockpit of that one, so it will qualify for the 25% rule. This second build would be be completed to the same standard as my first, but taking into account some of the mistakes I made the first time around. I have decals to represent a 9 Sqn Vulcan, the anti flash 9 Sqn scheme has my favourite tail markings of any Vulcan scheme and you can see those on my 2020 build of a GWH Vulcan as XM601. The serials I have are for XM603 or XM605, but lately I've been thinking that I will likely change to building the ill-fated XL385 or XL388 in their early configurations because I was to do an Olympus 201 engined aircraft since @FZ6 kindly sent me some 3D printed engine fronts for them which I haven't had a chance to use yet. 4. Trumpeter 1/144 Vulcan B2 Another one I'll likely do in anti flash white, I want to convert this to an early B2, perhaps XH539 or XH556, with the early narrow intakes which the first ten B2s had as they were converted from B1s early in production. Unfortunately this kit is very much the opposite of the Mikromir kit, great box art which is much more accurate than the plastic inside (aside from the inexplicable presence of the TFR blister on the nose, yet they got details such as the Skybolt and MRR blisters right). 5. Kader/Lincoln Intl. 1/148 Valiant B1 The final V Bomber option for this group build will be another kit of 1950s vintage. This is a very old and basic kit. I bought it from kingkit's incomplete section, thinking it was only missing part of the stand but it was actually missing half of one of the wings, they had put in a FROG Gannet wing which is about the same size and the same colour so given their single not particularly good quality photo they put on, I did not notice this detail and so I ended up with a kit missing a vital part. Not very happy. I thankfully managed to find another one in pretty poor condition on eBay which I have taken the wing from. So, which one will I go for? I'm not sure. I'll make that decision when it comes to actually starting this group build.

The last of the batch. The decals for the Gulf Air version also come from an older Revell 767 release. Their 1992 kit with British Airways/Gulf Air decals and RR engine option. These decals were in similar condition as the Lauda ones,but at least they stayed on the model. Utmost TLC was necessary to get the decals layed down and around the nose.They were quite stiff and brittle in some places,even after the application of liquid decal film. Some touch ups with paint were unavoidable but it came out better than I expected. Same paints used on this as on my previous 767s. It was quite a task working on 6 767s simultaneously but also fun and I learned a lot about the type.The many door and window layouts in particular,which lead to careful research of the subject.A good thing that I have a very informative book about the 767,it was a massive help during those builds. Thats it for now with this type,3 more Revell 767s are in my stash,but they will be done another time. Now I am off to my 777s and 787s that are in production. Stay tuned Alex

This I had originally planned to finish in the old Lauda colors by using the decals from the 1991 Revell first release. But unfortunately the decals were beyond use,even after clear coating them prior to application. They simply would not stay on the model or were silvering very badly. So I had to use plan b and repaint the whole model and finish it in its last scheme. I had a decal set from BRAZIL decals,which offers a selection of different 767 liveries,among them this Lauda CS and the Lauda Air Italy. Those decals worked well and the project was solved. After completing I came to the conclusion that this livery is actually more elegant than the earlier variant. Windows are again from AA. The most complicated part on each 767 was their respective door and windows arrangement used by airlines.During my builds I came across 4 !! different layouts🤪 All paints come from Gunze,the numbers I dont have in mind right now,but if anyone has questions about them,I can certainly recheck the exact Gunze paints I used.😉 Cheers, Alex

Finally my (for now) last batch of Boeing 767s are off the production line. It took a bit longer than planned as life got in the way. Now here we are again and I continue my Boeing 767 parade. This is the very good Zvezda 767-300 kit,which in comparison to the Revell version,is more detailed,esp. the landing gear and engines. The fit overall is very good,although for some reason the kit I used for the Qantas version suffered from a seriously warped fuselage. It took quite a while to straighten it out. The other Zvezda 767s were fine,so I assume this was an isolated incident. Qantas had often painted some of their aircraft in special liveries,so this came probably not by surprise when they promoted Disney's animation hit "Planes" The decals come from PAS decals and are of very good quality. The kangaroo logo is a white printed decal which is surprisingly opaque on the red paint. The decal sheet itself has many details but as they have no white backing,some of the details or the windows are useless as they will either disappear or become too dark on surfaces that are not white. Another note to be taken ,is to use any solvents sparringly or not at all ,while applying the decals.Much better to use only enough water to slide the decals into position. The paints are Gunze,the white for the fuselage was done with Gunze white surfacer 1500,gloss coated with Gunze Premium Gloss prior and after decalling. The windows are from Authentic Airliners. Cheers Alex

Hello one and all, This is a project I have had in mind for a while, probably about 5-6 years now I think about. It was always pushed to the back of the pile as the boxes are pretty small and I had the bits all over the show due to 2 house moves. I was thinking what I could add to this GB over new years as I really want to increase my build rate from the pitiful 3 completed models last year (well I did have pneumonia last year!). Anyhow, I was wondering if I could stretch the rules to add the F/A-18F from Ace Combat (like I did in the F-14 build) but I didn't think the Ace Combat/iDOLM@STER collab would go down well, plus I couldn't make it fit into the rules, see below for what it looks likes... I think I will save this for when I have more time, and about 20 more AMRAAMS. So I was left with my supply of 1/144 F-18's, and I have a fair few (I think about 20 kits of the top of my head), then I remember the Chippy Ho! decals I had floating around - result! I know this build might please one member in particular at least due to what is going to be put into it, the main model will be the F/A-18C of the VFA-195 "Dambusters" aka "Chippy Ho!", the decals are labeled as the "Final Legacy" - I am going to assume this is the last scheme the CAG aircraft wore before they upgraded to the Super Hornet? I don't normally go for CAG birds, but there was something about this one that I really liked. I will also add an F/A-18D from VFA-125 "Rough Raiders", but that isn't the main point of this build, but if I can get it done that will be a bonus. Anyhow on to the pictures... So I will be using the Revell 1/144 F/A-18C as a base kit, I have built this kit before about ten or so years ago and really enjoyed it. I think this was when I was started using an airbrush. Anyhow, the kit builts up really nicely out of the box, but that would be too easy for me as I like to make things more difficult for myself (see below as to why). The two kits together, there isn't much difference between the C and the D models except for the canopies as you can see in the sprues, pay attention to the bottom of the tree to see the main different parts. I purchased these resin upgrades absolutely ages ago and I have used them in my previous builds. They are straight swaps for the kit parts and fit beautifully. I will not be using the tailplanes for these models as I have put them aside for an F-15 SMTD/ACTIVE (clicky-linky Wiki link) that I *will* get around to building one day this decade. I used to buy Domi's parts on an almost monthly basis, as they are really good and easy upgrades for these kits. If you can, I would recommend you check the bits out. You'll just have to trust me when I say the parts in in there, they are in the bottom right of the collection. I also have F-16/F-15 and possibly Alpha Jet bits in here. I think the other cockpit tub is for an F-104... but I really can not remember. About 80% of the parts here are from RetroWings. I will also be adding the Brengun 1/144 upgrade set for this kit. These parts will be mainly put on the Chippy Ho! aircraft, but I will use some bits on the D model as well. I don't think I will be using the mutions upgrades though. There is also a Vacform canopy and resin upgrades for various parts of the aircraft. The pack the decals came in, I haven't seen anyting from MYK in a while, then again I haven't really looked either. Hope they are still around and producing their decals as they are rather good. Hopefully the finished product will look something like the above... I gurantee nothing however. I do really love the eagle though, probably why drew me to this version. The decals themselves, I find it weird that we have the decals for the black stripe that goes on the spine and wings but not the green. I also do not see any obvious colour call outs for "midori" which means "green" in Japanese, I can't read much Japanese, but I can read that much... just. I will have to see what the other kit manufactuers say as I am sure someone else has produced this version. The D model box, I have also built this version before and it was a good model. I have only just noticed the dodgy missile on the 1st wing station. Is that meant to be a Harpoon? That is was is in the kit and what I built all those years ago... who knows? And the scheme I am going for with the D model, it is very basic and shouldn't prove to be any issues. This is a rare example of Revell providing call outs for paint other than their own brand which used to annoy the hell out of me, but not so much now. Depending on how well I get on with these kits, I do also have the Dragon 1/144 carrier deck to add, but we will see what happens. So welcome to this build thread and feel free to laugh/cry/shake your head along with me as I probably give up on this half way through. All feedback welcome and encouraged! Kind regards, Dazz

Completed my COVID isolation project (though I think my cat has run of with some of the landing gear, so technically it's not done, but whatever) Pretty pleased with it, these revell neo kits are great! I've retained the spare P&W engines to upgrade an old A319 kit to a neo (to come soon) I made it with minimal equipment and only spray cans, so the quality could only go so far, but I'm pleased with how it's turned out. I had a nice pair of flights with TAP a few month ago on this aircraft so thought I'd replicate it. Ps: don't touch the aircraft, it's probably covered in Corona. Kit: Revell Decals: TAP by 26Decals and windows by Authentic airliners

My first entry, as I have committed to many GBs this year may be my sole entry ( although my local art and hobby do have a 1/72 Hornet and I did get a voucher for my birthday, hmm, but it’s the top gun 2 boxing, hmm)

Good day to all and Happy New Year!!!!!! Given the impressive numbers and quality of what others have shared here with us, I check in with a paltry nine models for 2021. I am unable to post the 1 / 1 scale home improvement projects that I have been doing along with the nine kits. While I matched the same number from 2020, the nine here were much more simpler in terms of complexity and colors. Airfix Spitfire Mk. I / II Special Hobby P-40K Warhawk Eduard F6F-3 Hellcat Academy P-38J Lightning Academy B-52H Stratofortess ( 1 / 144 scale ) Hasegawa F-86D Sabre Dog Revell V2 Hasegawa AH-64 Apache attack helicopter Trumpeter J-10 Chinese Delta wing fighter Here are my thoughts for the kits I worked on for the 2020 year………… 1 - 10 ( 1 being the worst, 10 being the best ) ranking of the kits……… 1. Airfix Spitfire : 6 2. Special Hobby P-40K Warhawk : 9 3. Eduard F6F-3 Hellcat : 8 4. Academy P-38J Lightning : 9 5. Academy B-52H Stratofortress : 8 6. Revell V2 : 8 7. Hasegawa F-86D Sabre Dog : 7 8. Hasegawa AH-64 Apache : 7 9. Trumpeter J-10 : 6 *Most enjoyable : Academy P-38 Lightning & Special Hobby P-40 Warhawk *Most fun : Revell V2 *Least enjoyable : Trumpeter J-10 *Feel good about : Academy P-38 Lightning *Least feel good about : AH-64 Apache *Most effort : Trumpeter J-10 *Least effort : Special Hobby P-40 Warhawk Thank you in advance!!!!!! Mike

The latest build on the bench for me is the Zvezda 767-300. I typically like to finish a build before I jump to the next one but due to the weather being a consistent -50 Celsius with wind chill here in Saskatchewan and my less then stellar paint booth that really requires an open window my 737 is currently waiting for paint so time to start something new. I am working on building a better paint booth so I can paint without having to open a window so hopefully I can get that done in the next week or so. Anyways back to the 767 I will be building it with the zvezda kit and V1 decals pictured below. Not a lot of progress on the first day but I filled the windows with my usual method of placing a piece of tape on the outside and pushing Milliput through the back this leaves a very nice finish that requires little sanding and messing around. Hopefully tomorrow I can get the gear bay painted and fuselage glued together. I can still use the airbrush for small pieces with my current booth but painting a whole plane just overwhelms it. Anyways I wish everyone a Happy New Year and a good 2022!

Season's greetings to all! This is my last completion for the year. A conversion of the Mitsubishi A5M4 two-in-one kits put out by Sweet in 1/144 scale. I've always loved the shape of the A5M. To me it's one of the prettiest fighters of the interwar period. It had quite a number of design changes too over the years and the shape changed significantly as it developed. I always expected that Sweet would released more versions of the kit over the years, but alas, they have stayed with just the A5M4. Full disclosure: I did start this one several years ago. However I abandoned it when it all went south on me and things got a bit explodey... The main differences between the A5M2a and later A5M4s is mostly in the fuselage, cowling and undercarriage. The 2a is noticeably more slender in plan view and the cowling tapers back sharply behind the engine. The headrest is much higher and more substantial than earlier models to incorporate some protection for the pilot in the event of a roll over. The windscreen was much smaller too and the decking over the two fuselage guns was a more complex shape. Other differences were the smaller wheel spats and a rather attractive slipper tank under the fuselage. When I first started this I was comparing the drawings of each version in my Maru Mechanic book and realised if I could employ some fiendish cunning, it might be possible to cut a wedge out of the forward fuselage and force the two fuselage halves together to make the A5M2a shape. The back end aft of the cockpit would stay the same, but the front end would be forced together in a vice and superglued to make the new cross section... Genius! I diligently set about this and performed the surgery. Then squeezed the ends together and cemented it all in place with my trusty old superglue. Some delicate reshaping of the cockpit opening followed and all seemed well. The wing join was too wide now, so some little wedges of styrene were added to take up the gap on each side. No worries. Once all this was done I pushed the fuselage into place and held the little Claude up by the tail to admire it... PLINK!!! The two fuselage halves flew apart and the cowling took off like a champagne cork. The wings flipped away end over end and I was left comically holding the two halves of the fuselage which had opened like a flower and split halfway down to the tail... So it turns out that superglue (particularly the water-thin kind) has a very definite expiry date and will cease to be super by any stretch of the imagination after a couple of years. Mine had set to a consistency similar to that of a sugar cube which you might feed to a horse that you didn't like very much. The solid plug of cyano that I fancied would keep the front of my A5M safely held together was just a gritty mess that could easily be scraped away with a fingernail. Grrr! 😠 The superglue went in the bin and the A5M went back into the box. There it stayed for several years until I dug it out again in early October. I fancied this would be a quick-ish job to make good on the repairs and get it out the door as a sort of palate cleanser after the Fe2b that I finished earlier. However it quickly got out of hand when I could not decide whether to go a silver one, or a brown/green camouflaged version. In the end I did both.. So anyway here they are. Tiny little things as always, but I'm rather pleased with them. Here's a couple of extra shots to hopefully give an idea of the changes between the A5M4 and A5M2a types. The differences in fuselage and cowling shape are much easier to see here: And lastly a bit of a glory shot with a suitable backdrop... Cheers!

Finally completed my last model of 2021. This one is thanks to John Maxwell, a fellow club member who asked for this 1/144 F-RSIN kit to be completed for a friend of his & also thanks to Norman for creating a very nice base for it. Completely out of the box. The kit was slightly short shot in some places. The wings didn't have straight edges so I had to use my spruegoo mix to correct some badly moulded parts. I say badly, but the kit is a short run kit, so expect imperfections. The decal sheet included the blue sash that had printed panel lines for the doors, which didn't line up with the panel lines on the fuselage halves so I rescribed for just the fuselage & scribed a new cargo door at the front port side. Hataka for the light aircraft grey, Vallejo Metal colour & Vallejo white with a Klear cote. Thanks for looking. Martin

This little guy was a long time coming. I started it in about 2017 I think, and did a lot more during my first lockdown last year. In fact, it was all done bar the rotors, which I did the other night so I could boost my 2021 completion rate... I have (cough cough) five of these excellent little Sweet model kits (Sweet is the brand, it's Japanese). They were under ten bucks each from one or another of the major Japan-based websites. There are several boxings, covering both Westland and Sikorsky versions. In this kit, you can build this Belgian SAR chopper, or a German SAR chopper, or an Australian Navy ASW one (I am three quarters through the decals on my RAN version). There's a few other variants - a special boxing with JMSDF Antarctic exploration markings, a mix of other JMSDF markings, a version I don't have which includes RAF yellow SAR ones, and then a Sikorsky boxing with Marine Force One, the USN 66 helo used in Apollo recovery (I'm part-way through that too) and a NASA version. I am no expert on Sea Kings so I won't comment on their accuracy other than to say "they look like Sea Kings to me" and also "they're simple 1/144 kits" so a few shortcuts have been taken (with the winch, for example). You do get 5 or 6 bladed tail rotors depending on whether it's a Sikorsky or Westland version, and some of them come with the smaller, old-school dome radome instead of the big one I used on this kit. They seem to also come with a choice of sponsons. There's no cockpit detail behind that glass and the hull/fuselage has no windows at all so there's no interior to build. As a result these are incredibly fast with construction, but you can take a while with painting and decals. This one is performing a rescue drill in my backyard. The real Belgian Air Force Sea King SAR choppers were retired a few years back - March 2019. According to this website they'd served for 43 years, 60,000 flight hours, 3,309 rescue missions and 1,757 lives saved. Pretty decent record all round. I did the tint on the cabin skylights with my kid's green texta (marker pen). Works reasonably well for a small area. The paints are Vallejo acrylics, except for the orange which was Testors Modelmaster (I had a few shades of orange for these chopper kits, I forget precisely which one this was). Well, this was the first of my five Sweet Sea Kings. I'm pretty happy with how it came out and I have decided I am a real fan of bright orange on helicopters. thanks for looking!