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My build rate has been abysmal of late, but I've really been looking forward to this STGB, and have been un-packing my stash after a recent house move revealing my enthusiasm for the 1/72 Arma Mustang: Now, I knew I had ordered two of the F-6C sets based on the lovely box art alone, and the MkIII has already been built, but upon inspection, it had full sprues inside! Wow, three high back Mustangs when I thought there were two! What a day. Further rummaging revealed two more sets of sprues swaddled in bubble wrap - five?!? Well, what to do with such a bounty? I'm going to try and build them all. I'll almost certainly fail, but who could say no to such an adventure? Spent Sunday evening pre-painting some parts on the sprues: I think I'll try for "My Buddy" of the 332nd FG, and an attempt at the French subject on the box art of the F-6C, and then we'll go from there.

Please may I enter this super looking group build with this, my first ever Me262? Started yesterday with a little bit of cockpit progress.

This will be my second entry to the GB to go along with my Beaufighter. As I mentioned in the chat, I put a £15 bid in for this on eBay with no real thoughts of winning it, but I did. As an added bonus it had the Eduard canopy mask included which was not mentioned in the description. So, a right result! During WW2 the PE-2 (nickname “Peshka”) was the most extensively used Soviet medium front-line bomber. This is the newer 2019 Zvezda version. The mouldings look good. My eye was drawn to the 3 figures, which have separate arms, legs and heads. Something you don’t see very often in 1/72, but might be a bit tricky to put together. I think i will give them a go as they do look nice. 5 marking options provided. I will hopefully make a start on this in the next few days 🤞 George

Hi all Been working on this one, the kit goes together very well and quickly too. I built mine OOB and was enjoying up to a loss of mojo when I had trouble getting the panel line wash to stick , my fault, I should have deepened the panel lines with a blade or Olfa cutter first, thanks to Stuart @Courageous for pointing out something I used to do , use a brush to clean away the excess and it worked well. The model was brush painted with Humbrol enamels, the parts of the codes in the bkack stripe area under the wings were a different colour yellow so painted over them with Humbrol 24. I am pleased with the overall look of this one. Thanks to those that commented and liked, the support and encouragement given is very much appreciated. Thanks for looking in Chris

Hi guys! A short introduction. My name is Alexander. I live in Ukraine and English is not my native language. Fortunately, there are “crutches” - Google Translate. But still, I may be inaccurate regarding termenology and model slang. So, you can correct me and give clarifications, this will improve my knowledge of English. Unless, of course, this forum thread will be of interest to anyone at all. And so I will build a kit from Condor 72016, Mig-25. This is a very old set, this plastic was sold in “Eastern Express”, “zvezda”, “IomKit” boxes, you can see all this on https://www.scalemates.com/ru/kits/condor-72016-mig-25pd--137575 As well as review of what's inside the box, for example on youtube. This kit is no longer relevant today. I cannot recommend this set to anyone. It is not very accurate geometrically, very low quality and poor detail. And I didn't plan to buy this kit. I got it as a prize at a scale model exhibition that took place in Mariupol in the autumn of 2021. And I tried to sell it, exchange it, or even just give it away. But in the end I decided to build it. Despite the fact that my box says Mig-25PD, and even added some parts, this set corresponds to the Mig-25P (Миг-25П) version. P(П) literally means "Interceptor". This is interesting because no one else has released this version. If you want to build the “P” version, it is much easier to conversed it from the ICM set, even though the ICM also has many shortcomings. The Mig-25 “red 31” flown Belenko, hijacked to Japan, was from version P. This modification was exported only to Libya. And I absolutely do not want to build anything with red stars. For this reason, I will build a Libyan Air Force aircraft.

I generally build WW2 Allied aircraft, but I do have a bit of a thing for early British jets. So, I am going to go with an aircraft that amazed me in late 70’s at Duxford (I think) going pretty much straight up off the end of the runway. My dear old Dad used to drive me to quite a few airshows, so it might have been somewhere else. On reading up on the EE Lightning I discovered it was nicknamed the “Frightening”. I presumed this was to do with the rate of climb, the ceiling or more likely the speed. Some pilots said it was like being saddled to a skyrocket, but no…….. The Lightning was nicknamed “Frightening” because of its challenging crosswind landing characteristics. I would never have guessed that one! This is the 2013 tooling from Airfix. All the bits look pretty good. A little bit of flash here and there, but nothing bad. I did notice when I got the plastic out of the box how heavy it seems for 4 smallish sprues. I am planning on doing the green/aluminium scheme as I served in the Army in West Germany in the 80’s not long after these beasts! I've seen that @Enzo the Magnificent has beaten me to it on this one, so will keep a beady eye on his build for some tips 🙂 George

Good day, Here is my second submission for the year. The highlights of the kit are as follows………… 1. Paints / colors used A. Airframe : AK Gunship Gray FS36118, Model Master Dk Ghost Gray FS36320, Lt Ghost Gray FS36375, Vallejo Med. Gray FS36270 B. Exhaust : AK Extreme Jet Exhaust, Titanium, AK Buff C. Interior : Life Color Dk Gull Gray, Mission Models Dk Gull Gray, Tamiya Flat Black XF-1 D. Landing gear and bays : Tamiya Flat White XF-2, Tamiya Gun Metal X-10, Mission Models Tire Black 2. Washes : Vallejo Black, Lt Rust, Lt Gray, AK Medium Gray, Tamiya black, brown 3. Kit decals used 4. Master nose metal pitot tube ( Angle of Attack / AOA probes lost during construction and awaiting shipment of new probes ) 5. Hasegawa GBU-10 bombs. 6. Eduard photo etched seat belts 7. Plumbers putty and lead fishing sinkers were used as ballast to have the Viper sit proper. Continuing with my Fiftieth Anniversary of the F-16`s first flight in January, 1974, I decided to add this somewhat unique Viper to the display cabinet. The Revell kit comes with very nice detail and construction was straightforward without any issues. I used the kit supplied ejection seats, decals, AIM-9 & 120 missiles, and external tanks. The decals went on very nice without any problems. The colorful tail markings all fit together nicely. I enjoyed putting this one together and I believe you will too. Recommended for those with a bit more than novice skill level due to many parts and significant amount of decals required. Thank you in advance. With much respect, Mike

Back in 2011 I saw that Airfix had announced a Valiant and so I put in a pre-order and waited - probably for around 6 months. Eventually it arrived but has been gathering dust in storage ever since. It was issued too late to be eligible for the Airfix Classic GB but is I believe eligible for this one and also the NATO one later this year, so if I have time I will have a shot at building it. Airfix describe it as a BK Mk 1 though I am uncertain if that is correct as initially the Valiants were pure bomber B Mk 1 I believe. Some were later converted to a PR version, and others to a tanker and in 2012 Airfix released a conversion pack for both of these versions, and in 2021 I understand that they released a re-boxing of the kit complete with at least part of the conversion set. Perhaps the nomenclature was changed to recognise the fact that the bomber could be relatively easily converted to a tanker and back again, but I will be building it in the bomber configuration, perhaps in the all over "Anti Flash White" scheme as I remember seeing them flying high overhead once or twice on my way home from school in the early 1960's. The Valiant entered RAF service in October 1952, and was phased out in 1965 shortly after the switch from high level to low level as the wing spars were found to be suffering from metal fatigue. The Valiant was considered something of a stop-gap design and so as the "more advanced" Victor and Vulcan had entered service by then it was apparently decided not to bother repairing the Valiants, and the B2 low level version was not ordered into production. The kit comes with markings for 4 aircraft - the second prototype WB215 in NMF, XD823 used in Operation Grapple to drop what was claimed to be the first UK hydrogen bomb in 1957 (there is some doubt about whether or not it was a fusion event rather than a fission one I believe), XD857 in 1963, and WZ404 in 1964, and has the option of either a single nuclear weapon or 21 x 1000lb iron bombs, though I will probably model it with the undercarriage down and the bomb doors closed. I suspect this was one of the first of the "new style" Airfix kits, following their Bf 110 of 2010 so it will be interesting to see how it goes together compared with some of the more recent ones. Pete

Although the Special Hobby kit is a better option, the Sword F84F is quite buildable. I 3D printed a correct ejection seat as the kit only includes the early seat. The incorrect wheels were replaced with some new ones I designed and printed as well. The build saga is here.

Here's my first entry. Something I've wanted to do for many years, is build a half decent kit of one of the Shepherds Grove Thunderstreaks. A base which is quite close geographically to me & the nearest base that had Thunderstreaks so it has to be this historically popular subject, 52-6675 of the 78th FBS 81st FBW. So this is it, the Microscale sheet which I really hope has survived & doesn't disintigrate into a million specs when I get to apply it. I've got a collection of Sword kits but will be starting off with the fantastic new Special Hobby kit.

Hello! Some intro for my choice: I wanted to do something easy and recreational this time so I decided to do my EF-111. Many yaers ago I have built already an Italerikit but it crashed unfortunatly. I wated to have an other one and I saw a Revel boxed on a forum for a little money. Before buying I didnt noticed that this ex-onogram kit have raised panel lines. Anyway its a nice kit, much more detailed then the later Italeri. Back then I didnt know that somewhere exist a third, Hasegawa version of this giant. Anyway later I get in my hands an Italeri kit. One way or an other I become avare of the Hasegawa kit but that wasnt available then. In the meanwhile I got a set of aftermarket wheels and a resin cockpit some years ago from an other modellers stash, so all in all I am gathering this stock of plastick for a while and I left the idea of getting the Hasegava kit at all. Anyway while I was viewing the two kits I decided to use some parts of the Revell-Monogram kit in the Italeri. I noteced that tha overall shape of the two kits are very much close to each other and the parts breakdown realy similar. I started the building some weeks ago and the first stem was to fit the aftermarket cocpit (probably a Verlinden) into the Italeri nose section. Well this def. too small to just put it in, so I had to give it some extension. The dashboard of the resin upgrade doesnt match to an EF variant, but the ex-Monogram is realy nice, only a minor extra was needed. As I was inspecting more and more I decided to keep the Italeri nose wheel well and detail it up a little, but the more I was watching the main wheel well of it, the less satisfied I was. I decided to use the Revell-Monogram wheel well but the total thing wast totaly obvius first... The ex-Monogram, the Italeri and perhaps the Verlinden tubs. Two different noses, but close enough, not? Here is the resin tub in the Italeri nose. It needed soe support to stay in place. I made that I could do: Either the nose wheel well was already a subject of upgrade: Some plastic sheets were built in here and there: The two sides of the two wells I wasnt satisfied with my first try however so I did it again: Also I started to thinkgabout the main well too. This is that section of the two kits where they the most different are and I wasnt sure how to pop in the details from the donor kit. My first thoughts were to use just some part, cut the walls from the Revel(-Monogram) kit and fix it to the walls of the Italeri one. But, however I realised that I will need more and more parts of the donor. It has the fan blades and intake and so on! So I started to make some place... My plan was to cut the intake parts from the other kit and glue it onto the parts if it. As I was wathcing it more and more I realised that I have to be more drastic. Also the drastic way would be much faster too and maybe either easier! I am goint to use a bigger section of the donor kit from the fan blades forvard until the EW bay. And now I have two questions to you, fellow modelers. Could somebody give me some references to the left side of the nose wheel well and tell me if the assimetric front section of the EW bay and EW radome correct or not, please?

I am a little late to the party, but here I am! I know I'm not alone building one of these 1/72 Eduard Bf 110 kits for this GB, and it looks great! I won't bother with sprue shots. I'll be building it OOB as one of these Bf 110 that the Luftwaffe sent to Iraq. I think I attempted to build a Bf 110 (must have been Airfix) in the 1990s as a kid, but pretty sure it never made it to the finish line, so let's hope this goes differently!

Hi all, With the hope of getting a more simple and swifter build under my belt before tackling a SH F-84F I have embarked on another Tamiya Mustang! Many of you have built them and so I wont labour it with repetitive posts but I will post things that are particular to this build. My subject is a post-WW2 machine that served with the Nevada ANG while detached to Iceland in 1952-53. It is the second in this row - '474482' seemingly called "Nancy". So far the build has been pretty much standard fare for a Tamiya Mustang kit, particularly the flaps. This time around, though, I am using a set of Armycast resin items. Other aftermarket will be the canopy (Falcon), although if it ends up looking wrong, as I am no good at vac form stuff, I will revert to the kit parts. Also I will use resin exhausts, PE seat belts and a Yahu IP. The cockpit needs a bit of modification to accomodate what I believe to be an ARC-3 radio set up behind the cockpit. However, while my drawings show these as fitted horizontally these seem to be vertical. My efforts are a bit of guesswork but I think it will look okay 🤞. You can see this a little better in the following image: Today I am at the fuselage half mating stage. The following are some build shots: The internal parts painted Dry fitting I'm feeling better already! Martin

This Tamiya 109 is my latest build, and I have to say one of the nicest kits I have ever built; the fit is perfect and no modifications or putty were needed. This was also my first time doing mottling, I had to redo it at least 3 times but, I am pleased with the result. I used Ak real colors acrylics. The only aftermarket items used were Eduard Photo-etched in the cockpit, a master pitot tube and cannons, and Decals from Aeromaster, Eduard and Italeri. The sand filter, which wasn't included in the kit was taken from an Eduard 109. I used Abteilung 502 oils to wash the model and Tamiya weathering powders for the exhausts. Happy modelling! Anna

So I got the French flag and looked in the stash for what would suit and found this kit and these decals; both give me an option of a camouflaged Hun from Djibouti; which fits the GB, but I would rather do one from Metropolitan France if I can fiddle the decals. I am not keen on NMF and the French NMF look doesn't appeal. Chris

So: Hasegawa F-104G, still bagged Paulus Victor decals Master pitot tube New Ware mask Humbrol 116 Some images from the net Should give me a model of RDAF F-104G R-699, US serial 63-12699 first flight June 5 1964, to Denmark November 1964 (NMF?) painted green October 1 1969 and a bit (a lot?) worn at RAF Gutersloh in September 1975, which fits the theme? Just waiting for Quinta 3D cockpit decals but we've got 11 days still? Chris

I dug through the stash and found the Williams Bros Boeing 247 kit. I am not a fan of either scheme in the kit, the racer or flight test article. I will see if I can find some other decal options on the net.

My second place marker is this Unlimited racer "Roto Finish" using the VERY limited run High Planes kit in 1/72. The box, no colour here. The plastic, some white metal and a vacform canopy. A quick inspection reveals some very rough plastic and I feel that I may be raiding a donor mustang for better options. Instructions . Stuart

My entry for this group build, the Martin B-57B Canberra operated by the 8th Bomb Squadron out of Bien Hoa AB and then Da Nang AB in 1964/65. It didn't take the Canberra long to become well-known on the tactical scene and they picked up the call sign 'Yellow Bird' based upon the squadron colours (the sister13th BS were 'Red Bird'). I am building the 1/72nd Italeri B-57B Canberra OOB and it will be finished in aluminium. I will be using the decals from the kit. I will also 'ghost' build a second B-57B which will be in the later SEA camouflage scheme coded as 'PQ'. I am looking for a straight forward build of these kits which I have had in the stash for many years now. Michael. Canberras2 by Ghostbase, on Flickr

My latest effort - am quite happy how it turned out. I decided to do a little ekstra in the cockpit area and to dress up the turret a bit. The build was quite uneventfull, allthough the decals was a bit 'challenging'! Thick and demanded a lot of decalsoftener, but it looks alright now - as you would say - a good 3-footer! A couple of things: My reference (B-25 Mitchell in Action and Google) Didn't show any ventral turret on this one. I couldn't find any pictures of the top turret, and Google provided a lot of different types of B-25 turrets, so I went with the - to me - most interesting one, which wasn't painted. I hope you will like it anyway! Cheers Hans J

Hi all, Here is my Tamiya 1/72 Thunderbolt Razorback, a kit that requires little introduction I guess: great fit, with lovely detail all around. I just added a few details (PE seat belts in the cockpit, brake lines on the main landing gear, vacform canopy, brass gun barrels and DF loop antenna on the spine). The drop tank is from a Pavla armament set. The model represents an aircraft from the 1st ACG, that provided close air support and resupply operations to British troops (the so-called "Chindits") that were dropped behind Japanese front lines in Burma. For this "Operation Thursday" aircraft, I used the DP Casper decal sheet. The sheet provides fuselage stripes and theater bands in both dark blue and black. Reading through Squadron's "Thunderbolt in the Pacific Theater", the fuselage stripes are described as dark blue and the bands on wings and tail surfaces in black, so I settled for this combination. First time I used DP Casper's decals: these are very thin and break easily, so care is needed in handling them but they give a nice result. For the NMF I used a few Alclad shades, other paints are mostly Tamiya acrylics. Weathering was done with oils and pigments. Here is a Wikemedia picture of the real thing: United States Army Air Forces, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons Credits background picture: freepik, https://www.freepik.com/free-photo/beautiful-scenery-green-tree-forest-cloudy-sky_9185373.htm Hope you enjoy the pictures, thanks for looking! Best regards, Patrick

https://www.scalemates.com/kits/remus-play-kits-messerschmitt-bf109f--177344 I came across one of these while looking for something else on the 'Bay recently and it prompted a few memories. Remus was a pocket money toy range sold in general stores and newsagents. My memory is that they were displayed on one of those rotating racks that were quite common back then. Most of their products were bagged or carded and hung from the arms of the rack. Being in my late teens in the second half of the 1970s, when these toys were most common, you could say I was aware of the brand but not interested in it. That is, until the day I climbed to the first floor of Boots the Chemist in Falkirk and came face to face with a FROG Gladiator. Only it wasn't. Boots used to sell toys, and records for that matter, and what I was looking at was a rack of Remus toys with about half a dozen FROG kits hanging from it. At quite a good price too, as I remember. I didn't buy any then, in fact I've never owned a Remus kit so I don't have any insight into the quality of the parts or the decals. I do know that the company must have commissioned alternative box art as later kits were different from the earlier ones. I wonder what the rest of the story behind these kits is? Anyway, this is a place holder for the time being. I'll post photos and make a start when my La-7 and Airacobra are a bit more advanced. John

I am a late starter for the GB as I could not decide on my build. So here it is The box contains two kits, one part started and the other untouched, I may do both if I have the space. As you can see I have decals for both QANTAS and the RAAF. I also have another QANTAS sheet for the later ochre cheatline scheme which I am tending towards.

I'm not the first to offer up a Blenheim for this GB and I think this particular Airfix 1/72 boxing has already had an airing as well! But I fancy doing a Fighter variant of the Blenheim, this one was sitting near the top of the stash and so out it has come. I plan on building this one pretty much out of the box. This boxing has decals for BQ-O (L8679), a 600 Squadron aircraft based at RAF Manston in August 1940, but I'm planning on doing this one as a different aircraft on the squadron during that month so I'll be digging out some extra decals. Haven't worked out which exact aircraft I want to do yet; some reading through the Squadron ORBs (AIR-27-2059) and my two main reference works (Gentlemen in Blue by Hans Onderwater and The Bristol Blenheim: A complete history by Graham Warner) is ongoing. I think (hope?) I've got a masking set somewhere...

With a Japanese nightfighter finished, I thought I’d try an allied machine as well. The Blenheim isn’t as popular I thought it would be, so I’ll add a Mk IVF. Maybe I’ll go with the one on the box cover, unless I can scrounge some serials and codes for a plane in navy colours. Or maybe not. Will do some research, found seceral titles on Scribed. The box: I built the old Airfix as a kid and remember struggling - I expect this to be a bit different. The box contains pieces to do a regular Mk. IV as well, so that is another possibility. Assembled the office - will try to paint it all in one piece. I’m masking the lower window to paint it on the inside as well. The rest of the glass house I’ll paint only from the outside. It’s very thick anyway. This is the first Airfix model I’ve seen where the flaps can be left lowered, with moulded structure inside. Thickness of braces is of course widely overscale. Will see what to do. Some internal structure in the wheel houses too: Fit seems good, but the soft plastic has quite rounded edges, which results in trenches where the pieces mate. I expect some filling.