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Hello peops. It’s been a while. Been busy at work, yes, but I have also suffered a major Mojo Failure since about Christmas. Of all the things I could have been building, it was the Lynx(es) wot did me in; I just cannot get myself going - and it’s been going on for so long that I need to do something else, so onto the shelf of doom they go. The shelf is getting a tad crowded, too - what with a Ton, Dido, Ark Royal 1988, Walrus, Seafire 47 and Seafang sitting there in various stages of semi-completion. [Just thought I’d say that before anyone else dropped it into the conversation]. Several of those are awaiting paint, and since my current job means living in a London flat during the week, and 90% of my free / modelling time for the foreseeable future is on weekday evenings, painting is definitely out. That leaves the Seaking and Ark 5, and both of those are not in a state to carry up and down to & from London on the train. It needs to be small / portable, engrossing and time consuming - and a bit different. But I’m here, aren’t I, so you’ll have guessed that something has got my juices going again. The something was reading David Hobbs’ “The Royal Navy’s [sic] Air Service in the Great War”, published in 2017. I knew some of the highlights, I guess - Dunning’s deck landing, the Tondern Raid, Naval 8 over the Western Front, Warneford & Bell-Davis with their VCs, etc. - but this book really opened my eyes. It’s easy to get sucked into thinking that WW1 was just the Western Front, with a dash of Jutland, Dardanelles & the occasional airship thrown in - but there was so much more, and so much of it instantly recognisable as the Fleet Air Arm that I love; slightly maverick / improvised / piratical, a bit mad, but innovative, effective, brave... just brilliant; these guys were totally making it up as they went along, and without them Naval aviation might have gone down very different paths. I cannot recommend this book strongly enough. Yes, yes, but what about the model? I have in my stash the Merit 1/350 Ark Royal 3 (1941), and the Atlantic Models 1/700 Ark Royal 4 (1978), as well as my own Ark Royal 5 (1988), heavily converted from the Airfix 1/350 Illustrious. [There is even apparently a kit available of Ark Royal 1 (1588)...] But all this talk of the RNAS will tell you that I am going for Ark Royal 2 (c.1917), using the AJM Models 1/700 kit that I stumbled on while looking something up about RNAS operations in the Dardanelles. This is the ship: [Edit: on further reflection I suspect this is her in her Pegasus guise; different rig aft, altered cranes and I think the large flat thing forward is the catapult... but you get the general drift] ...and this is the kit: It’s certainly small (note the Swann-Morton scalpel at bottom for scale), but it looks a really nice kit - though I am not sure how much I am looking forward to building a 1/700 Shorts 184 made up from 17 tiny pieces of resin and 24 even tinier pieces of PE! [Mind you, it’s got a Sopwith Schneider and a Sopwith Baby that are even tinier...] A quick question for @Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies [since my knowledge of WW1 colours is almost nil]; what colour hull, operating in the Med & Gulf in c.1917? Anyway. I’m back with more madness. More soon. Crisp