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My first place marker is this -B version by AZ Model in 1/72. The box with the obvious direction of the subject being foreign and in this case, Swiss or Swedish or Chinese. I'm liking the pretty Swiss option. The plastic Instructions and decals. Stuart

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.

Hello All, so this is my first WIP post as a relative newcomer to the Forums. While I currently have a few different models on the go (I assume I'm not alone in biting off more than I can comfortably chew), I felt that this subject has minimal coverage on here (and anywhere else on the 'net for that matter) and would be more interesting than another Lightning or TSR-2 (although I do have an SR.177 and SR.53 in the early stages too, so might post them). So I bought the resin Fantastic Plastic (Anigrand) Vickers 559 since I love a "might have been", and decided to go down the route of FAW.2 spec, with it being introduced to service (I'm not going to make up some story about the rest of the F.155T competitors) and then the first round of upgrades and revisions being hastily introduced (par for the course with 50's British jets it seems). I have actually already made a reasonable amount of progress on it before I felt it might be nice to share the pain journey with others. First impressions when I unboxed it were that the quality of casting was really very good. Tolerances seem decent, and dry fitting wings, for instance, shows I can comfortably paint various parts separately and then assemble with no filler needed (mostly). However, some areas need attention to deliver realism: - Jet pipes show the turbine face just inside the pipe, really this needs to be about 40-50mm deep - Intake ended in a flat face just inside the shock cone ( too late for a photo of this) - Shock cone lower lip is not accurate to design (already tweaked) - nose gear bay was very basic, too wide, and gave a nose down stance (again, already remedied) - while the kit fit lines are good, the wings were a little slack in their locating tabs (fixed) - cockpit details non-existent really, simply a pair of 1/100? scale seats, control stick and that's it - canopy is one piece, and very thickly cast - a single pair of Red Hebes as weaponry - main gear bays are basic and lacking any convincing detail - main gear itself may or may not be sturdy enough, it seems to flex easily, so we'll see. - Main gear doors are obviously quite thick being resin, but also I'm not sure they'd have ended up one-piece So, to remedy the above, I plan/have started/done the following: - Eduard F-4J resin tailpipes (on order). The speys are ~90% the size of the Gyron, the tailpipe looks broadly similar, and the depth is also roughly correct. Certainly, its close enough for me. - I've already cut up the front of the model's innards and scratch-built some inlet ducting that is in keeping with the minimal diagrams available online and in "Cold War Interceptor". Note cockpit bulkhead too. - I've trimmed the lower lip to match the drawings (edges need sharpening still) - I cut out the front gear bay and have used a TSR-2 front wheel-well, cut down for a single wheel, and blended into the inlet described above (the front bluff face aligns with the shock cone, and isn't crooked like it looks in the pics... honest) - Added some 0.3mm shims to the wing tabs; wing alignment to fuselage using the Mk.1 eyeball now looks bang on, so no jig required. - I've got a pair of resin MB4 seats (assuming similar in-service dates to Lightning and Mirage etc). Also, on the basis that side-by-side seating is less common, certainly in British jets of this era, I'm going to have to use an Eduard etch set for a Sea Venom FAW.21. I've got some Eduard B-2 Spirit undercarriage etch to liven up the main wheel bays, and finally a Jaguar pitot since the kit doesn't have one at all. - Currently, I've managed to split the canopy so I can display it open, but I intend to make my own vacform to get the right thickness - After a discussion with some more knowledgeable gentlemen than I about missile placement and the effects on aero and such, I'm going to assume that Red Hebe still came to nothing and that Red Top was utilised but in a similar location to the Lightning (launch safety - think D-21 etc, maintenance ease). I'll add a second pair under the wings (since the 559 would have replaced the Javelin which had 4 missiles), and finally a single Aden mounted in the front of the ventral tank (since a few warning shots are sometimes desirable) for which I've used one of the upper nose gun recesses from an Airfix Lightning F6 kit. The compound curvature matches perfectly. - Main gear doors I think to split into upper and lower, like a TSR-2. Maybe with lower closed after gear is down. In terms of colours, I think to go with 56 Squadron, since I like that scheme and think it will look good. More the F.1A scheme than the F.3, but without the red wing leading edges. Also, for interest, here she is compared for size against a TSR-2 and Lightning T4...

This is Miniart's new 1/72 StuG III. Very nicely-done kit for their first foray into small-scale armour. One of the best 1/72 scale kits I've ever seen.

While waiting for paint dry on the Ki-45 and the latest round of filler on the Canberra I’m building in the Frog Squad II GB to set up, I made a start on this MPM P-70 Nighthawk which will be finished as “Dusty” operated in New Guinea. The sprues: Lots of parts as several versions of the A-20/P-70 are catered for. So far I have cleaned up the fuselage and wing halves. Little or no flash, but quite large sprue gates and the plastic is very hard. Dry fit is good but the wing attachment tabs are about .5mm thicker than the slots in the fuselage and required thinning. The tailplanes have been assembled but are camera shy and have gone into hiding. Thanks for looking. AW

Greetings! Now that the beautiful F-16 is being replaced by the less beautiful F-35 within the Koninklijke Luchtmacht (KLu, Royal Netherlands Air Force) my thoughts went back to the late 1970s, when the beautiful F-16 replaced the even more beautiful F-104. When the purchase was final the official magazine of the KLu, 'De Vliegende Hollander', published an F-16 special in 1977: As I pulled this copy off the bookshelf again, an article I had long forgotten about caught my eye. It describes ('especially for modelers') what the F-16 in Dutch service would look like. I won't translate the text, but you can see from the illustration that the initial camouflage pattern is quite different from what it eventually became! However, as you might know KLu F-16's eventually got the somewhat boring three-tone grey scheme. The reason is that the grey and green paint, applied to the NF-5, caused a lot of trouble (corrosion, for example) and to avoid more mishap the grey scheme was chosen instead. I thought it would be fun to build a model in the original scheme, and to capture the zeitgeist even better I purchased a 1980 Italeri kit. Apparently, Italeri also didn't yet know exactly what this new fighter jet was going to look like, as the instructions are rather basic. No proper colour codes for example, just 'light grey' (twice?!)... I found the correct camouflage pattern and colours in this brilliant book. However, just when I wanted to start I came across a kit from Revell, who somewhat prematurely released an F-16 in the grey-green scheme back in 1977! I could remember this box, as a 15-year-old I had held it in my hands many times but never bought it, and this time I could not resist the temptation. The contents are rather to my liking, to be honest of a better quality than the newer Italeri kit: Now, it is my intention to make the Italeri kit like the illustration in De Vliegende Hollander, i.e. from the Leeuwarden 322/323sqn pool, wheels retracted, on a stand, and the Revell kit standing on tarmac, from 312 sqn, to honour the last squadron within KLu still flying this wonderful machine. To be continued! Rob

For my axis build for this GB I have landed on perhaps the prettiest of all Japanese twins of WW2, the Kugisho P1Y Ginga attack bomber. This is quite a sleek, aerodynamic machine, designed (at least according to Wikipedia) by the same designer responsible for Japan's earliest Shinkansen bullet trains. I reckon you can see a resemblance! The Ginga (Japanese for 'Milky Way') - allied codename Frances - was designed by the Yokosuka Naval Air Technical Arsenal, also know as Kugisho, as a fast attack bomber for the IJN. Most production machines (about 1000), such as my subject P1Y1, were built by Nakajima, while a night fighter variant was built in much smaller numbers (>100) by Kawanishi. Here's the sprues from what looks to be a beautifully-engineered kit from peak Hasegawa (circa 1995): Not sure if the decals have yellowed just a little bit or the white band around the Hinomarua is meant to be an off-white? Kit also has a small PE fret for (I'm guessing?) HF antenna? I've made a little bit of a start on the cockpit. Interestingly there is a clear part for a bulkhead with small windows to mask off. Good practice for the masking to come! It's an elegant little thing, and, especially in 1/72, a fair contrast for my big 1/48 Beaufighter! Am looking forward to chipping away at it. Cheers, Gerard

Dear Friends This is the Revell Ju 88A-1 which has the short squared off wings compared to the A-4. The best part of the Revell kit is the beautiful cockpit. I felt some of the fuselage panel lines where a tad deep so sanded the whole fuselage right down, particularly near the cockpit. Here I added the Eduard PE cockpit and Eduard MG-15 machine guns. The decals are from the Xtrakit BoB set. This aircraft went out to bomb Woodley airfield in October 1940 near Reading under clouds, couldn't find it so went to alternate target of Hatfield and hit the de Havilland factory (with Mosquito prototypes damaged). The airfield defences weren't asleep and the hit the Ju 88 which crash landed shortly afterwards. Hope you like it? Andrew

At the start of this GB I was thinking of building perhaps 5 kits, 4 of which were biplanes. So far I have built the PV.6/Wallace and am hopefully close to finishing the Vimy but now I feel the need for a change from planes that need rigging so I thought I would build a monoplane. When I was but a lad there were perhaps 4 places in Bradford where I bought models - initially Woolworths for Airfix, and later WH Smith and the "Sooty Shop" opened by Harry Corbett but there was also a shop called Carters where I spent many happy hours, particularly in the 1960's when I had to pass it on my way to and from school. Carters had 4 floors - as I recall the ground floor and basement were for sporting goods such as my school rugby and cricket kit, whilst the first floor was mainly for model railways so I spent some time there over the years. However my main interest was up a narrow flight of stairs to the third floor where they sold plastic kits. At the side of the stairs was a small glass display case which at various times held an "O" Gauge Flying Scotsman loco, a rather nice post war RAF rescue launch about 18" long, and the box of a Frog Mitchell kit, which I rather fancied but for some reason never bought, though I did buy the B-26 Marauder kit from there. Some 30 or so years ago I came across an inexpensive Chematic re-boxing and now may well be the time to build it in parallel with the more recent Airfix B-25C/D in another GB, as that should give me some ideas on how to improve the old Frog version. , The original box art was for a plane in Dark Earth and Dark Green over Sky I believe though I think that may not have been a common scheme - I will have to check! The OD over grey scheme on the Chematic box was probably more typical The interior of the fuselage and wheel wells will no doubt need a fair bit of work, and I expect the guns and turrets will be the usual somewhat crude Frog renditions though I may be able to improve them a bit. Sprue shots etc to follow in due course when the Vimy is finished. Pete

Hi everyone, This is a kit I was not supposed to enter. In fact I was not even supposed to join this GB... And then I realized that it may be a very long time before I can build a good-fitting kit with panel lines already scribed. So here I am, hoping to find this kit ridiculously easy and rewarding. First, a few photos: This is the box art: And now the plastic: And last, the decal sheet: I will not be using this sheet, but a Xtradecal decal sheet. More later on that one. Have fun, all of you. JR

At the risk of over committing (this will be the fifth concurrent GB I’m entering) I would like to join in with this: which will be a 3 squadron jet from RAF Germany in the short lived NATO green over Lichen green scheme. Place holder for now as there is a Lansen and three Mustangs ahead of it in the queue. AW

Tower, this is Theplasticsurgeon, requesting a flyby. . . Rejoining the circuit with this Mustang kit, bought in 2020 for £8.99. To build like this, modified as a two-seater. Instructions, strangely blank, not saying anything about the Mustang's history or performance. Parts. Familiar - as this is my 5th build of this P-51D kit. And scheme, with superb decals.

This will be my third build for the GB - I have another two possibles but that depends on how things go as I will probably be involved in one or more GB at the same time. Ok, I know this has a lot more parts but the box is enormous - at least 3 times the volume of the boxes for the original Airfix B-25 and the Frog one, though in fairness it is quite full. As I mentioned elsewhere I pre-ordered it when first Airfix announced the release so it is the first boxing and I am not altogether happy with the two colour schemes offered. As I will be doing the old Frog one in RAF markings this will almost certainly be a US one, and as it seems they preferred the B-26 for Western Europe then I suppose it will have to be something appropriate to the Western Desert or Italy unless I go for the Far East., so I will have to have a think about that. Airfix have subsequently reboxed it as an RAF Mitchell II, a B-25B, and another desert version, and looking at the parts breakdown I suspect one of the later versions may be on the cards. Pete

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 excited for this GB! There are several subjects I may want to build as part of it, but first up will be a representative from my "Minor Gustavs" project, a 1/72 HA-1112 from Special Hobby. Should be able to build this OOB. The Minor Gustavs project involves modelling BF 109Gs (or their derivative versions, such as Spain's HA-1112) in service with the "smaller" air forces (i.e., not Germany or Italy). Some of these are minor Axis (e.g., Hungary) and others are post-war or neutral operators (e.g., Switzerland). Here are the first six Minor Gustavs I've built, representatives from Romania, Finland, Slovakia, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Croatia. I think a nice blue HA-1112 will make a great addition!

I thought I would also build another classic Baby Boomer - the Hawker Hunter. I built the original Airfix Mk 6 released in 1960 in black plastic to represent one of the "Black Arrows" display team from 111 Squadron, and then one of the remoulded FGA 9 kits Airfix released in 1983, and still have at least one of the later 1994 boxings in my stash which I was thinking of converting to an earlier mark, but more recently I picked up a Revell kit cheaply and so I thought I would try that. I was never entirely happy with the Airfix remoulding - something did not look quite right but I have no idea why. I will now have a chance to see if the Revell kit looks better. It was first released as a Mk 6 in 2005, reissued as a Mk 9 in 2008 and this is a 2018 reboxing. Pete

Following my comment on @John Masters's thread, I realised that I had not shared that build that I completed at the end of 2020. If my memory is any good, this aircraft is an F.6 that received the rear part of an FGA.9 with the parachute housing and not an FGA.9 as Revell state on the box. Final pictures: The build: Moulding: This picture is typical of what was in my box: Flash, heavy sink marks and soft surface details caused by the moulding issues. Nothing major but frustrating nonetheless when it comes to a kit that is not supposed to be short run... Having said that, a fired of mine who had acquired several boxes right after the kit was released did not have the same issues. Cockpit: The cockpit tub is very nice OOB and the seat was improved using my usual process (lead wire, Tamiya masking tape strips, plasticard, aluminium foil, Magic Sculp and stretched sprue): The cockpit sides were detailed using plasticard and a punch-and-die: The backplate was the area that needed more improvements: I also added a collimator before gluing the windshield: Once painted, it looks really nice. I did not use the decals but painted everything by hand using a sharpened toothpick and Vallejo acrylics: Air inlets: It is advisable to add a shim of plasticard where the wings meet the fuselage around the air inlets. Otherwise you will be left wth a nasty gap at the top and bottom junctions: The air inlet cone is missing and the resulting empty space is quite noticeable. I made some off 0,2mm plasticard sheet: Painted white at the front and going black at the back to give an impression of depth: Parachute housing: It had a very nasty sink mark and the panel lines had nearly disappeared. It took quite a bit of time and effort to bring it back to a decent condition: I had to rescribe and add missing rivets to quite a few hatches / covers, mostly on the wings. Overall fit: In spite of the moudling issues, the overall fit was good and little filler was needed: Painting and weathering: The model was painted using Mr Hobby Aqueous over an Ammo One Shot black primer: Grey: I sprayed a highly thinned H331 DSG in a mottling fashion, building up slowly the coverage and letting the black show through around the panel lines. Then, I made some highlights using H337, insisiting on raised details and the centre of the panels. I finished with some post-shading using Panzegrau. Green: I used H73 DG follosing the same process and made highlights by adding H313 sand to the dark green. I toned down the effect with several light mists of H73. Red: I primed the area in white, then applied a coat of yellow and finally the red base coat (H13). I applied some shadows using a highly thinned dark brown. I then applied the decals, though most roundels , the code and fin flash were painted using masks cut with my Silohouette: I like to get the landing gear and weapons out of the way as quickly as possible, as I consider them as a chore: Then, I applied the washes: I used True Earth Neutral brown on the underside, Black on the camouflage and Dark Brown on the red. The weathering was done using mostly felt tip pens and aluminium and dust weathering pencils: Finally I applied a light coat of VMS matt varnish. In hindsight, I probably should have been more restrained on the weathering. But at the time, I wanted to give it a worn out look. On some pictures, they are in a worse condition than shown here with large patches of white showing underneath the red on the wings, for instance.

Greetings, and welcome to part 2 of my contribution to this GB. [The GB is amazing. I just can't keep up with all the different threads. So much industry and good modelling going on. And how the guys looking after it all manage to encourage everyone is almost super-human. Well done chaps and thanks. ] Anyway, to reprise the initial photo in the first part and set the scene, I am doing 2 older Airfix twins; and doing both as the big gun variants sort of balances things out I think. I started the Hs 129 thinking it was a lot simpler and hence quicker build. It's not bad but my penchant for being a little ambitious compared to my skills led to a few pensive moments, shall we say. Anyway, it's almost finished but as I'm awaiting some paint to dry I thought I'd fire up this second thread. (First one here if you haven't seen it https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235134900-flying-artillery-part-1-hs-129/) Since I first saw this picture in a book (included here from the IWM collection (© IWM CH 14113)) I've wanted to build it. So when I saw a re-boxing of the Airfix Mk II/VI/XVIII in 1982, although I'd almost given up modelling by then due to career/family etc, I couldn't not buy it. But it's lain dormant in the loft for 40 yrs, so now's the time to do it. I believe it's the 1972 mould standard. I will be leaning very heavily upon the excellent restoration build by Charlie @Johnson which is here https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235131297-freemans-folly-mossie-restoration-2/ a Master-class in my opinion. Hope you don't mind Charlie, but I will be borrowing a heck of a lot from you on this. Unlike Charlie who built his 50 yrs ago then totally restored it very recently, I will be trying to to start the kit from original bits and then use his modern input as well and compress the build time down to a few weeks. Well that seemed to make sense when I was typing it .... I'm, starting here It doesn't seem bad in outline but there is a gaping void under the canopy behind some dodgy looking seats. At least there's an IP of sorts but I think I will cheat and make use of some of these bits I know the Eduard set is for the bomber variant but sure I can make the cockpit look a bit more busy than it would be OOB, if not entirely accurate. And it hopefully saves me printing too many of my own decals as Charlie did. Whilst I can do them I find them a challange, so I swapped the decal challenge for the PE challenge instead . I couldn't get the same set of wheels that Charlie used but taking a hint about the hub (spoked vs solid) issue I found this set from Brengun that gives the option of either, as well as having the block tread. I am in no way comparing my skills with Charlie's but I hope to get something that looks about right and if I do so I'll be well pleased. But the fun is in the trying. Will just go and give the sprues a bath. Thanks for looking. Rob

Hi all. Here is my recently completed build of a Centurion Mk. V MBT using the Ace kit in 1/72. This was built as part of the the 'Baby Boomers' Group Build. Build log here: Had a bit of a love/hate relationship with this kit; love the detail but hated the parts count, the clean up and fitting. I have a number of Ace kits so I know what to expect in the future. Thanks for looking. Stuart

After last week's débâcle with the Arado 240, I think I am on safe ground (or even water) with this one. Curious fact: There have been only two injection-molded kits of the He 115 in 1/72, both by British companies: Frog and Matchbox. Both molds were acquired and re-issued by Revell. I built the Matchbox kit back when dinosaurs roamed the planet, and I know it was this boxing because it's my scan: Here is the kit for this build, the Revell reissue from 2008, the second rebox in two years: The contents: A very nice Cartograf decal sheet: The plastic lacks a certain je ne sais quoi because it's not in 3 colours, but it will be easier to paint: For some reason, I still have the original Matchbox decals, begging the question of what exactly I put on that kit. Whether or not I will use any of them for this kit, who knows? I won't start this kit in earnest for another few days, not until I'm finished my P-70/Boston double build. But I might find the time to paint the crew figures.

I had been intending to have this as one of the second round of builds I hoped to do for this GB after getting the Blenheim and Me-410 done, but a combination of my very poor impulse control and a morbid curiosity to find out if we’ll bring Enzo out in hives if we hit triple figures on the number of build threads proved too hard to resist. I grabbed this one a couple of weeks ago as Hobbycraft started to stock Airfix, and I had a 25% off voucher: It wasn’t the only Airfix kit I grabbed that day, so thanks to the voucher this one was technically free Scheme-wise, I’m a little undecided. I do look the boxart scheme, and coming out of the Desert GB I’m still drawn to desert schemes: However, I also have an Eduard 110 kit, with this rather unusual scheme on the boxart, which is a nightfighter with a temporary application of RLM 72 to the upper surfaces for its role in Operation Donnerkeil. And it has a shark mouth: So the final scheme might be a bit of a coin flip come paint time. Roll on Saturday! James

Time for another old favourite, and my RAF contribution to this build. As Airfix is re-releasing this kit in 2024 in the Vintage Classics line, it means there will be no new tooling in the near future. That's the bad news. The good news is that I can now build this kit, and then replenish the stash in a few months, as I like this kit. I hadn't intended keeping this for the Airfix GB later this year, as I already have more than enough to choose from for that. I bought this kit in June 1999 for 9 Irish Pounds, c. 11 Euro in new money. The box was larger than the standard Series 4 box, and a flimsy 1-part design. The artwork is very similar to the 1968 original, which I assume was by Roy Cross. The first time I built this kit in 1987, it came in the boring "completed kit on the cover" packaging. The only other time the original artwork was forsaken was for a 2010 release. The Vintage Classics re-release will of course revert to the original artwork (and presumably just the one subject). The only missing part (which may be my fault) is one of the cylindrical tail fairings for the bombs. Easy to deal with if it comes to that. The last time I built this I closed the bomb bay, and I still have at least some of those four bombs in the spare box, pre-assembled. Naturally, the Swedish subject is off limits for this build, but I'd like to build it in the future, which is one of the reasons why I will probably be getting not just one but two more of this kit. Of the two RAF subjects. my current preference is for the 106 sq. aircraft, which unusually (to me) has the top camouflage continuing below the wings. I hope to start this in a couple of days.

This one has occupied me since Christmas. It's not an easy kit to build, with quite a few significant pooh traps, not least the 5 part fuselage. As I often find with big kits, I was getting a little tired of it by the end. Nevertheless, I am very pleased with the results and now struggling to find a place to display it! The kit comes from BPK (£99.99 via Jadlam) and the decals from Air Graphics (£21.99 via Hannants). Sadly, the kit does not have an opening weapons bay, and the nice looking Air Graphics resin one was out of stock by the time I looked. Given the problems I had fitting the existing weapons bay door covers, I suspect that fitting the resin might have been challenging. Equally sadly, the RAF have not procured wing pylons or anything to hang on them, so my wings are bare, although I am looking at how I can put together a set of SPEAR 3 Missiles to hang from the wings in the future. Brush painted as usual with Humbrol enamels (I used 127 Ghost Grey, which is a little too blue for Boeing Grey (gray?), but matches my own photos quite well) with a darker grey wash in the panel lines. I added two cockpit crew and one side observer, just to give the kit a bit of life! Like with the E-3D kit I did a few years ago, I have managed to leave the wing and centre section loose (at the cost of a slightly gappy join) which will help with storage and transport. Photographing kits of this size always poses me a problem, so I am afraid I have had to photoshop some extraneous detail (my conservatory, house and cherry tree) out of some of the pictures.

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

I’d imagine that builds are not often inspired by the pages of Society magazines but this one comes courtesy of an image in The Bystander (a magazine that merged into Tatler in 1940) from August 1932. © Illustrated London News/Mary Evans Picture Library Approval from the copyright holder has been obtained for my posting this image here and I’d like to thank Luci and Jessica at the Mary Evans Picture Library for their help with this. I’ve been doing some digging on the Man and his Moth and I’ll spread a bit of the Story of Mr Presland and his De Havilland D.H.60G Gipsy Moth G-AALW through the build. Anyway, on with the kit! This is a Novo version of F169 from my box of bagged Mystery Frogs but the plastic doesn’t actually look too bad and there’s much less flash than I was expecting. I’m going to try and keep this one fairly simple, there’s a few additions needed (a bit more cockpit detail (i.e. some cockpit detail...), and there's an exhaust pipe that needs adding) but that’s going to be it. First job is going to be sanding down the wing corrugations a bit and drilling out for the rigging. I think I must be teetering on the brink to embark on another biplane needing rigging when I already have a Vimy underway with more rigging needed than a Frigate of the line but compared with that this should be an amuse-bouche… Cheers, Richard.