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Life’s left me a bit short on modelling time of late, but things are calming down so I might have a chance of some bench time again. While I probably should continue with the choppers, aircraft are my main interest and this one’s been nagging away as something I want to start on. This hasn’t been helped by reading through @shortCummins and @Pete in Lincs kitbashing threads (though I do swear that the concept & kit purchase predates that). So what am I actually building then? I’ve had this kit in the stash for around a decade. Admittedly most of that time I wasn’t modelling, but coming back to the hobby this sent me on a hunt for possible colour schemes that didn’t require mottling as I don’t currently possess an airbrush and don’t fancy trying it without one. Having failed to find any, I decided to go down the whiff route and make something up, and if I’m going there, I might as well go all out. Not only is this going to be a non-military scheme, but I’m going to put it on floats as well. The backstory I’ve concocted is that at the end of the war a young American pilot managed to get his hands on a reasonably complete Fw190D-9 and “arranged” for it to make its way back home. Our intrepid pilot subsequently made his fortune in the booming economy of the early 50’s and with it had the funds to make his prize airworthy again. Living around the great lakes, he decided to fit it with floats and subsequently used it to explore the Canadian wilderness during vacations. Eventually he felt he was too old to fly and passed the plane down to his son, who had the plane restored and repainted in a livery similar to the Reno Warbirds. He decided the plane needed a name commemorating it’s interesting past, christening it “Dora die Erkunderin” (or Dora the Explorer in German). And yes, the entire backstory was conjured up so that I could make an awful dad-joke with the name of the model. As for the plastic, the main kit is (I think) the 2009 boxing of the 1976 tooling, which would explain the large amounts of flash in places. I picked up a PM Spitfire floatplane to provide the floats, with the side thought that as it’s a simple kit I might be able to convince one of the offspring to have a go at it once I’ve taken the bits I want: I’ve also picked up some etch and a resin cockpit as the Airfix kit is devoid of any real details. Neither are intended for this kit, but I’m hopeful I can make it work: At some point in the past I’ve taken some of the parts off the trees on the Fw, and assembled the prop: (Ominous drums & bass) Flash! Aa-aahhh! I think it’s safe to say I’ll be spending some time on the clean up. I’ll replace the pitot with brass tube: The PM kit has some flash issues as well, to the extent that the port tailplane slot is almost completely filled in. Luckily, I don’t need the fuselage for this build. If I can’t get the kids interested, it’ll probably become a paint mule. The floats are ok, I’ll have to do some work on the shaping of the tops of the struts to get them conforming to the underside of the Fw wings: Looks wise, I found one other D on floats, which was very nicely done https://modelingmadness.com/review/axis/luft/scze190w.htm I also found a couple of A variants on floats (including one nicely done on a 3 float Rufe-type setup), but this one captures the essence of where I’d like to be shape wise. I’m still mulling over the final paint job as well, though the main colour will be Ford Deep Impact Blue, by virtue of the fact that I’ve got a big aerosol of it to do one of the choppers and there’s more than enough to do this as well.

Has anyone seen the Brengun Spitfire floatplane and if so what is the base kit in the box as the airframe and the floats are in different plastic. Dek.