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This was Supermarine’s first jet and was, I believe, basically the wing of a Supermarine Spiteful fitted to a fuselage containing a RR Nene. A second prototype was ‘navalised’ by fitting an arrestor hook and wing-folding and guns. I don’t think that it was known as the ‘Attacker’ until the first production variant, the FB1, was produced. Not the most graceful of a/c and nowhere near as nice as Hawker’s first effort, the P1040/Sea Hawk. Not the most interesting a/c either but one that belongs in my collection of early jets. This model was built from the AZ Attacker Prototype kit. The tailplanes were reduced in size, the guns were reduced to stubs, the arrestor hook was removed and the ejector seat converted to a non-ejector version. I suspect that there are a few bulges and panels present more appropriate to the production version. The only data I could find relating to the reduced tail size was a drawing of the E10/44 in Phillip Birtles book of the ‘Attacker, Swift and Scimitar’ but as this pretty well matched the shape of the rest of the kit I used it as the basis for the smaller tail. The kit is infuriating because the surfaces are nicely detailed but the parts themselves are less than wonderful. The wing trailing edges are too thick and the leading edges too blunt, something that I only realised after glueing the top and bottom surfaces together. Fortunately the LE was corrected by some careful scraping but the wing is too thick and needs filler to fair it into the root. The fuselage was a problem in that the top and bottom surfaces did not match vertically. I got around this by glueing along the top surfaces then when this joint was thoroughly dry the fuselage was squeezed with a clamp until the halves matched then superglue was used to fix them together. This was done in several steps along the length of the fuselage. The tailwheel fitting is weak and I fitted a reinforcing piece inside the bay to give some support. There are a couple of problems with the decals. The positioning given for the fuselage roundel looks too low so I moved it up a bit but I could be wrong. The second concerns the registration markings. They cover the u/c bay doors so I put the doors in place, applied the decals and then cut the decal with a sharp knife. This is a lot easier if you make sure the doors fit the openings BEFORE assembling and painting the kit. The finish is Alclad Airframe Aluminium over Gloss black enamel. The last picture shows it alongside the 510, Supermarine's first swept wing jet, which was basically an Attacker with swept surfaces and eventually led to the Swift. 510 is from Maintrack. Any corrections or observations welcome John

My main interest is in experimental aircraft and prototypes, especially those 'G-Whizz'aircraft of my childhood when new and exciting types appeared regularly. All are 1/72 scale Supermarine 510, Maintrack Vacform (my first vacform) Hawker Hunter prototype, PJ Hunter F6 resin with 'knobbly' bits removed. Anti-spin parachute added and home-made registration letters. The font I used to make the letters didn't match the photo I had, so I spent some time modifying the figure '8' only to find that when the registrations were cut up and spread over the u/c legs you couldn't tell the difference! Saunders Roe SR53 Kit was of Polish origin, bought from Hannants several years ago. I suspect it is a copy of the original Airfix version Fairey Delta One Olimp resin kit, Alclad finish. I thought that I had 'cracked' doing Alclad after the P1 (next pic) but found that I hadn't English Electric P1a Aeroclub vacform fuselage, Airfix F3 wings and tail, RAF roundels from Xtradecal, home made warning stencils More to come ( the foreigners) John