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.... next up, a dirty mud-moving Phantom, trying its best to do Air Defence. 111 Sqn formed up on the FGR.2 Phantom at RAF Coningsby in 1974, but quickly moved to RAF Leuchars as the Phantom took over most Air Defence activities from the Lightning. In comparison to 43 Sqn's (RN surplus) FG.1s already at Leuchars, the FGR.2 was optimised for ground attack and reconnaissance and not quite so suited to QRA. As soon as ex-RN Phantoms became available in 1979 as HMS ARK ROYAL Paid off, 111 swapped over to the FG.1. This and the RN's extra dark grey Phantoms are what I envisage whenever someone says Phantom. Ugly and mean looking, they convey brute strength and aggression in a way that no modern aircraft can do. These are a mix of Xtradecal markings with a few smaller Modeldcal ones thrown in to backfill those that were missing. I've fitted a gorund attack weapon load just to emphasise that it is not an FG.1. I asume that 111 retained this capability throughout their time on the FGR.2 and certainly one of the roles of the Leuchars based aircraft was support to RN ships, for which it would be a reasonable load (not as good as a Buccaneer though!). Once again, I really love these Fujimi kits, this one being the improved (H19) version with dropped flaps and corrected auxiliary air intakes. I didn't use the vinyl wheels as I have heard that they deteriorate quickly with age. As usual, paints are Humbrol enamel, applied by hairy stick and trembling hand..... FredT With a"pretty" F-4N: When the sun comes out and i can find a bigger table, I will do another group shot with the rest of my F-4s,

Hi all. Here I present my recently completed RF-86F that I started back in Oct 2019, can't remember why it stopped but here she is. Built mainly OOB with the only addition being a Pavla resin seat. Build log here: Basically, a Sabre kit with additional sprues for side blisters and camera housings. No problems during build. Painted with Tamiya AS12, kit decals for a JASDF unit. That's all folks. Stuart

Hi All, With my F-86F-30 fighter-bomber now at home and heading for the spray booth, it's time to ready-up my next Sabre build. So, by popular request, I'm doing an RF-86F Recon Sabre of the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force using the 1/72 Fujimi kit, my first Sabre from this manufacturer. Usual intro: Pretty box. Wing sprue. Starboard fuselage+ sprue. Port fuselage+ sprue. Side blisters and 'blank' gun-port panels. Underside camera fairings. Cockpit glazing. Decal sheet. And obviously an instruction sheet. This will run alongside my Caudron build at my 'works' work bench and will be built OOB, unless somebody knows something I don't with this kit. Laters... Stuart

Here is my latest finish. A little break from AFVs and dull yellows, greys and greens. Probably my favourite car but as a lottery win wouldn't be enough to own one, a £30 plastic model will have to suffice. The kit itself by Fujimi; The good: It is on the whole a really nice kit with good parts that can build OOB or give you a good base for some super detailing. Fit of parts, for the majority, is very good. The bad: The wheels are a pig to fit so properly dry fit and tweak at the beginning or else you will have a miserable time at the end. They're still not 100% right. The shell is also a bit of a struggle. You have to get the front in first and gently flex and bend to get the back in. The ugly: No prancing horse for the grill so you have to use a decal, which doesn't give a good effect. There is also a tiny seam on the back window but using the fingernail test I couldn't figure out what side it is. So rather than sanding and a potential mess it's been left. The locating hole for the wing mirror is too big so fix this at the beginning. Paints used; Tamiya Laquer LP21 Italian Red. Mr Color 80 Cobalt Blue. Mr Color Super Metallic Chrome 2. Vallejo Metal Color Chrome. And assorted brands of black and metallics. Thanks for looking and happy Easter to all.

I suppose that like many of you, when I was building kits in the 1960's I had no problem getting Airfix, Revell and Frog kits locally but except for the late 60/early 1970 Frog reboxings of Hasegawa kits, very few Japanese or Italian made kits were on the shelves so I had to resort to mail order. During that period a company called BMW in Wimbledon used to advertise all sorts of “exotic” kits in Airfix Magazine, and so when I happened to get a job interview with Marks and Spencer in Baker St. London in early 1970 I though I would pay BMW a visit – in those days they paid for your trip and put you up in a hotel! This being my first visit to the capital I arrived early on the day before the interview and did a bit of touring about, and the following day, after the interview I took the tube out to Wimbledon. After quite a long walk out past the “All England Tennis Club” I finally found their small “shop” - BMW stood for “Builders Merchants, Wimbledon” and that is exactly what they were, but they had started a sideline in Mail Order kits etc a few years previously. Unlike H.J. Walker (Hackney) Ltd who I used a lot in later years, where Tony had a lot of space on two floors in his parents' Post Office on Homerton High Street, BMW were a bit out of the way and must have had very little passing trade, so the shop was just a small single room stacked with all sorts of kits I had never heard of. I ended up buying a couple, probably both by L S – one was the “Yasukuni” - one of the Ki-67 Hiryu aka Peggys that the JNAF borrowed from the JAAF and used as torpedo bombers, and the other was a D4Y2 “Judy”. After a few years the latter was replaced by the Fujimi kit, which was part built when my wife decided to decorate my work room, and during the move it got smashed when something dropped on it. I eventually got a replacement kit but never built it, and when digging out my Ki-100 for this GB I found it. In some ways the story of the D4Y resembles that of the Ki-100 in that it started out with a water cooled imline engine - initially one based on the German DB 600G, though after the prototypes a version of the DB 601A was substituted, and later it ended up having to be converted to take a Japanese radial engine, but more on that later. I guess that is why the front end is on a seperate sprue. This will therefore be my third attempt at a D4Y2 and I have also got the D4Y3 which is in need of a good refurbishment so I will do that in parallel. The kit was originally released in 1983 I believe and is pretty basic but it does at least have the makings of a cockpit, so the build will be pretty much OOB. A brief note on Japanese inline engines. The vast majority of Japanese aircraft were powered by home grown air cooled radial engines, but between the wars a few had inlines. The Kawanishi E7K floatplane for example had a Hiro 91 inline with three banks of cylinders in a so called "W" layout rather than the more common twin bank "V" whilst the Kawasaki Ki-10 fighter and Ki-32 light bomber were powered by Ha-9 engines which were licenced built copies of the BMW VI. During the early days several companies had arrangements with German manufacturers to help them with design - Aichi for example submitted several designs which were slightly modified Heinkel aircraft, though as time went by the Japanese content increased though German influence remained for a time. Likewise Kawasaki had an arrangement with Dornier, who actually lent them designer Dr Richard Voght (later of Blohn und Voss) for a while, and of course there was a certain British influence as well as a result of the Sempill Mission. These arrangements probably go some way to explaining the Western view that Japanese planes were just copies of obsolete foreign designs! Aichi eventually got a licence to build the DB 600 engine, but soon switched to the later DB 601, which they produced as their Atsuta, whilst Kawasaki also licence built it as the Ha-40 (later renamed Ha-60 under the joint Army/Navy system). Unfortunately the Japanese aero engine industry was not capable of getting the very close tolerances needed by these long engines and this resulted in lubrication and other problems such as crankshaft failure, and a shortage of parts/raw materials saw the inlines falling from favour. Pete

This is my build of the Italeri 1/72 Grumman EA-6A Electric Intruder Electronic Counter Measures aircraft, with a little help from the Fujimi kit and a simple nose mod. Italeri and Fujimi are the only big plastic companies to kit the EA-6A (Tamiya does a rebox of the Italeri kit) . I read that the Fujimi kit was the "better" of the 2 fit and detail wise, but the Italeri kit comes with folding wings and was more accurate. To save shelf space I wanted to do one with folding wings. Wolfpack makes a resin set of folding wings for the Fujimi kit but it is out of production and impossible to find. My first plan was to use the Italeri wings on the Fujimi kit. But when I put them together I realized that the Italeri wings were wider in cord then the Fujimi ones. So I broke out my scale drawings* to see which, if either, was correct. It turns out that while the Italeri ones seem to be spot on The Fujimi ones were too narrow So now I decided to go with the Italeri kit. One of the issues with the Italeri kit is that it is basically their A-6 kit with some jamming pods and EA-6A decals. But the EA-6A has a longer nose then the standard A-6 so it could fit more ECM equipment, so the Italeri nose is too short by ~8 scale inches. I first thought that I would use the Fujimi nose, which is the correct length, but the contours didn't match the Italeri Fuselage, and it would have been difficult to get it to match, so I ended up using a styrene strip spacer with the Italeri nose. While I had the drawings out I also compared the 2 fuselages. What I fond was the The Italeri tail was a bit too small in cord While the Fujimi one was a better match So I removed the Italeri tail and used the Fujimi one. I also found out that both fuselages were too long behind the cockpit I cheated the Fujimi tail a little forward but I couldn't move it very much and didn't see a good way to fix it, so I just ignored it. Here it is after the mods One final problem was that both kits had ALQ-76 pods that looked more like the later ALQ-99 pods used on the EA-6B. The ALQ-76 pods have flat side while the ALQ-99 are much wider at the bottom then the top. I ended up filling the insides of the Italeri pods with super glue and then sanded then flat, I also somehow managed to loose the Italeri speed brakes. Luckily I had the Fujimi ones and they were close enough to use if posed open. Once the mods were done the build progressed smoothly. The Italeri decals where the basic markings while the Fujimi ones had all the little "No Step" and other stencils. Neither kits had stencils for the jamming pods. On the Fujimi decals the white in the stars and bars was more of a cream color while on the Italeri decals white was white. So I used a combination of both. After all that I am happy with the results. Next up is the Sword T-38 Talon. Enjoy * I used drawings from the Detail & Scale EA-6B (that covers the EA-6A too), and the Aerophile EA-6B & EA-6A books. The D&S drawings where done by @Dana Bell and I could not find out who did the Aerophile ones, maybe Mr. Bell did them also. They both agreed but that does not mean that they were right, but they were all I had so I used them. I am sure Italeri and Fujimi had drawings that they thought were correct.

After a break of 28 years last Summer I dusted off my old modelling tools last year and dug out a Fujimi A-6A Intruder - the last kit I bought before giving up modelling back in 1994. After such a long hiatus much of my old stuff was somewhat past its sell by date so a spending spree was in order. Realising I could buy all the things I couldn't afford back in my youth plus discovering a lot had changed since the 90's the "restock" took a bit of time. So with new paints, fillers, glues, an new Iwata airbrush and compressor and - most importantly - a magnifying LED light I set about building the Intruder. I've learnt a lot, sweared quite a bit, but finally after deciding I'd be pushing my luck to attempt weathering I finished it this weekend. It was built out of the box finished with Vallejo paints, Alclad Aqua Gloss, Vallejo satin varnish and using the original Kit decals. The cockpit was hand painted. It's nice kit for its age with reasonable detail and a nice choice of markings. The decals were a bit fragile, and after so long somewhat reluctant to come off the backing sheet, but mostly went on okay with a bit of Micro Sol/Set.

I'm going to throw my hat into the ring with this one if I may I started it sometime in the summer, but work and other stuff got in the way and it has sat there in primer for months and I need to clear the bench ready for the Matchbox STGB in January, I thought this GB would push me on to the end Today I have dusted all the bits down and applied various blacks and silvers ready for clear coats then assembly Cheers Ian

This is the Hobby 2000 rebox of the Fujimi 1/72 Douglas A-4F Skyhawk kit. Mostly out-of-the-box with the exception of an Eduard interior and MILSPEC decals. I dropped the slats, lowered the rear flaps and cracked open the speed brakes which is how you usually see them when the aircraft is parked. The MILSPEC sheet was their 72-017 that also comes with their 72-010 stencil sheets. They worked excellently with no problems or silvering. The Hobby 2000 kit comes with a canopy mask that consists of a black masking that is a little thicker then the Eduard ones and that fit perfectly This build is the final in a series of Skyhawks I have built over the last year and here is the entire set Front row left to right is the Airfix A-4B, Hobby 2000/Fujimi A-4F, Fujimi A-4M. The second row is the Fujimi OA-4M and the Fujimi TA-4J. Next up will be the Revell EC145 buikt as the US Army UH-72A training helicopter. Enjoy

Hello Everybody! Before the F and the G already showcased in the forum, now comes the "E"/Late. I built this Fujimi model I had it in my stock for quite a long time and I know that now far better kits of the beast have been released. However, I struggled finding at that time I started to "produce" USAF Phantoms (even the Hasegawa one was OOS), so I decided to go for only one I got (Fujimi), hoping I have good basis at hand to do a nice model. Alas! I spent so much time and efforts to improve it that, at the end of the day, I was completely disappointed by the result. Here is the list of what I did: - The fuselage is way too short at that scale, and the verdict of the 1/72eme drawings is there: it misses 4 mm. I put resin intakes (forgot the brand) to fill the empty original one and the adaptation was quite disastrous. I had to cut the fuselage aft and forward), added slices of evergreen to have the right dimension and fitting and then finally reshaped the whole stuff. This pix shows the resin intakes, the "plastic surgery" added at the rear portion of the cockpit ("pieces rajoutée" added part in English) For the rest, quite normal modifications for a F-4 kit of that era: - ailerons separated, flats modified, belly straps added, vent doors opened, airbrakes lowered, exhaust "hot area" modified, exhausts, cockpit, canopy, L/G wells and wheels aftermarket, etc... A lot of work! Translation: L/G wheel wells modified, "holes" after intake fitting filled-in, ailerons and slats removed For the marking my preference went to a Texas AFRES machine from the 924th TFG because they had a quite unique variation of the Hill Grey pattern, which I found very attractive: Not difficult to do. All decals are from extra stocks or home made and just little bit of weathering, these birds were kept in pretty nice conditions. I didn't put any armament, just a travel pod and a modified TER (from Hasegawa set but reshaped because they are wrong) and that it! Here are the pix: The real beast: My interpretation: A simple Dio: Definitively not my best Phantom, another good occasion to try the new ones! Enjoy!

Here is one I started in the F-14 STGB - link below. I got this far initially - and I have done a bit more since. As I said in the original build thread there is quite a lot of detail but sometimes the "engineering" is not thought out very well. Anyway it is coming together quite well and I am about ready to start on the decs, which could be fun given their age. You may have noticed the "odd" engine exhausts but apparently when the plane was being parked up it was fairly normal to see one fully open - usually on the Starboard side, and one at least partially closed, The kit provides both options though I would have preferred a partially closed one to the fully closed version Fujimi molded. The tiny clear lights on top of the vertical fins were an absolute pain but I managed in the end - I am not looking forward to the landing light on the nosewheel though! More another day. Pete

So this will be my entry, a little late but I did manage to finish a model before starting this so it's all good. I did think this was an MF but it's a bis, a few differences there. I really like the box art too and was thinking of building her wheels up as you get a nice pilot with the kit too.

This is the very nice Fujimi kit in 1/72 built straight from the box. There are no real issues with the kit, it even comes with a nice pilot figure that I used as I was initially going to mount it wheels up, but the gear doors don't fit that well closed, so I decided not do all the extra work to make them fit. Thankfully these kits also come with weapons and drop tanks, so no need to raid the Hasegawa weapons sets to equip her.

By the start of the 1960's competition between manufacturers of model aircraft kits had started to develop and they had a financial incentive to get a kit of a new design on the shelves first so they started racing each other with mixed results. The Airfix F-4 was of an early F4H-1 whilst their Buccaneer was a prototype NA 39, their Jaguar was I believe based on the French prototype and their MRCA/Tornado was a prototype/pre- production model. I imagine Airfix did pretty well out of all of them but before too long had to issue a new moulding to bring them up to service standard. Incidentally, whilst I don't normally build prototypes I did build at least one of the Airfix P.1127, but tried to convert it to a Kestrel before throwing it when the Harrier was released in 1969 - I wish I had not done that as they fetch silly money now! So that rambling intro brings me on to the the first and indeed only F-14 Tomcat I have built to date, which was the Airfix one issued in 1975 according to Scalemates, a year after the plane entered service in real life. It was rather a nice kit, but not quite representative of the actual normal service version, though Airfix have not as yet seen the need to re-mould it AFAIK. As to the “race” they drew with Matchbox and both were second to Monogram, but they had jumped the gun and issued a kit in 1972 which D&S say is loosely based on the original mock up and so rather inaccurate – there are several other US manufactured kits that fall into the same trap such as the early Revell and Monogram Thunderchiefs. Hasegawa joined in a couple of years later, and looking at Scalemates I was amazed by just how many versions they have since released. I intend to build two kits in this GB, the first of which is this Grey/White Hi-Vis F-14A issued by Fujimi in 1988 – this is a second boxing from that same year but with different decs, and I suspect I bought it around 1990 from Beatties in Cardiff, when apparently it cost me £11.95 More when I start in a week or so. Pete

Hello coleagues, let me present a short summer build this year. Well it should be short as the kit contains a few easy parts. But despite not many sources for Ida available, I realised the kit is too easy. The low detailed cockpit I leaved as it is OOB. I made a light in the wing from scratch. I reworked cowling with a gap on the sides as the circle shape follows with non-circled shape of the fuselage. (I think it is correct). I added some exhaust tubes on the cowling bottom and the bracket in front of shield. At the end I made a bit complicated pitot tube from scratch. On the finished kit I corrected the position lights into the right shape. Unfortunatelly I didn´t manage the part with the canopy. The canopy fitting is poor and the frames are not smooth. For the other builds which I plan, I have to take care to this point. The colour is a mix of yellow-red tamiya acrylics according to my interpretation of some sources about japanese trainer yellow.

Morning all This is the next project. I have to admit I never knew anything about this car until I saw Plasmo's build on YouTube. It is a lovely car have to say. This one will be a OOB build. I'm going back to spray paint for this one as the finish is sooooo much better than brush painting! I've gone with Tamiya bright red TS-49. This might a bit slow to start off with as I will temporarily have two builds on the go this and the Cadillac Eldorado. Reason is I want to get all spraying, decalling and clear coating done on all the parts that require it before the end of the summer. Once that is all done then I'll focus purely on this one. Here is the car primed And compared to the Cadillac... That doesn't show the true size comparison as the Cadillac is in 1:25 scale so should be 1cm longer for 1:24! And the P4 with two coats of red Done in 10 minutes! Certainly faster than 9 brush coats on the prelude! Next step is to add decals but I'm not sure if I should try a very gently sand the paint down first as it is not perfectly flat and I'm worried the decals will then look bobbly. If it does take sheen off the colour then hopefully that clear coat will bring that back... Think there is one part where the final colour isn't red all over so I might try sanding down that area to see how that pans out. Thanks for looking Nick

Dear Colleagues The ‘A Class’ heavy cruiser Chokai was built at the Mitsubishi shipyards in Nagasaki in 1932. Following the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 which capped battleship building, many nations went on a mad dash to build the most potent 8” (20 cm) gun heavy cruisers. Before WWII up to a 1/3rd of Japanese taxes went on the Navy. Of all the Japanese heavy cruiser designs, the Takao Class was probably the most extravagant. Envisaged as flagships, the bridge structure could easily accommodate a flag staff. As Admiral Mikawa’s flagship, the Chokai led the Japanese Navy to its most astonishing victory in the Pacific War over the cruisers defending the transports off Guadalcanal in a night action of 7th August 1942. Eventually Chokai was sunk at the Battle of Samar in October 1944. Her wreck has been recently found and is perhaps the most complete warship on a sea bed anywhere in the world RV Petrel find IJN Chokai - YouTube I have been building the Fujimi Chokai on and off for a number of years. For reasons that still cannot be explained I managed to lose sprue C entirely so had to scratch build quite a lot of parts. I was helped by the 3D printed gunnery control units from Shelf Oddity and a PE fore mast structure from an old Fine Molds set. The 12.7 cm AA guns are Fine Molds NanoDread whilst the 25 mm units are PE from Veteran Models. The boats are also Fine Molds but the Daihatsu barge is from Five Star. I was pleased to add the truly minuscule ships lanterns from Five Star. These are beautifully turned miniatures in brass that can easily be lost inside your finger nails! Here is the ship at an earlier stage in the outfitting yard Hope you like it? Andrew

TA-4F Skyhawk H&MS 12, US Marine Corps MCAS Iwakuni, Japan, 1970 1/48 Fujimi kit of old – Superscale decals There are much better Skyhawk kits of course, but I’ve had the Fujimi 1/48 TA-4F/J for a long long time and it was time to build it. It was one of those builds done just for the pleasure of putting an old kit together and using some just as old decals and I enjoyed it. It was never going to be a competition winning model – I would have bought the Hasegawa kit if I wanted that sort of modelling – so there were a number of compromises and short cuts. It was the discovery of the TA-4F version that inspired me. This was a TA-4J which retained the guns and hardpoints from the A-4F and used by the USMC. I came across this photo and the markings for it were there on an old Superscale decal sheet : I couldn't resist rebuilding the cockpit interior (resin seats by Pavla) and opening the slats, but other than that it's from the box. So this is how it turned out:

I have left this a bit late but I have been pretty busy with several other GB. Anyway I have reached a point when I should hopefully be able to complete one entry, and it is high time I replaced my one and only existing F-16 which is the original Hasegawa moulding from 1976. As some of you will know that was based on one of the prototypes and as such is apparently pretty good, but if you don't want to build it in the attractive red, white and blue colour scheme Hasegawa provide markings for an in service "A", though I suspect that like all kits based on prototypes it is not entirely representative. About 30 years ago I decided to spend some of my first redundancy money (I had another lot 25 years later) on an update and bought this from Beatties in Cardiff (long gone of course) for the princely sum of £7.49 apparently. To be honest I don't know that much about the F-16 so I have dug out half a dozen references, but given the fact that I only have 4 weeks before the deadline it is going to be pretty much OOB, though whether it ends up as a C or a D remains to be seen. Whilst I applaud Fujimi's effort to allow both single and two seat versions to be built from one kit, I have had bad experiences in the past involving a lot of filling and filing around poorly fitting fuselage inserts, but hopefully this should be not too bad. It looks quite a nice moulding. It comes with up to 4 Sidewinders, an alternative pair of what look like AIM 120 Amraams, a couple of Mavericks and some tanks but I may use some of the bits in my "modern US Weapons" set from Hasegawa depending on what I come up with in my research. The kit dates back to 1988 and I seem to recall that as with the F-15 the paint scheme may have changed since then as well. The "smoked" canopies are a nice touch. More as and when I start, which will have to be pretty soon I guess. Cheers Pete

The Firefighters wear silver asbestos suits. The crew wearing blue helmets and blue jackets are Aircraft Handlers / Tractor Drivers. Those with white helmets and blue jackets are Aircraft Elevator Operators - Messengers and Phone Talkers. Yellow helmets and blue jackets denote Aircraft Directors. Yellow helmets and yellow jackets are Plane Directors - Aircraft Handling Officers. Those wearing green helmets and yellow jackets are Catapult and Arresting Gear Officers. The white helmet and green jacket is a Catapult and Arresting Gear Crewman. White helmets and jackets denote Air Transfer Officers (ATO) - Medical Personnel - Visitors / VIPs and Purple helmets and jackets are for Aviation Fuellers. Pilots are in Drab Olive suits with white helmets.

Academy Phantom with Fujimi Flight Deck Crew

Hi all This is another Fujimi K-4 (my last one of these, and I won't be trying very hard to acquire any more), finished in the markings of Uffz Anton Brandl's 'Red 2' of 11/JG77, based at Ohlau (now part of Poland) and engaged in Reich Defence East operations against the advancing Soviets. Brandl went missing in action on 21st January 45, shortly before JG77 retreated west and the Soviets advanced through Ohlau two days later. Brandl's K-4 was in the '332' range, and I chose the unusual 75/77 camo speculatively, although there are reports of other K-4s in these colours. Montex masks for the national/tactical markings, kit decals for the hakenkreuze, octane triangles and other minor stuff. Anyway, hope you like...

Hi all, long time lurker, first time poster. Just getting back into the ship modelling. Just finished a half started Tamiya IJN Junyo and then moved straight onto this one. IJN Oyodo. Wouldn't have been my first choice, really wanted to do a Takao class cruiser but prices and supply make choices limited currently it seems. It did tick a few boxes for me however, I was keen to work on another IJN subject, it came with a fairly comprehensive photo etch sheet and I managed to snag it for £15 delivered. It's a late 70s kit, and boy does it show. The hull in particular is absent of any detail save a poorly molded anchor and some port holes. The photo etch I've added so far only replaces two plastic parts, the rest is all new detail so thank goodness I got the DX version with the PE. Saying that I'm enjoying the build and the photoetch is probably just at the right level in terms of complexity and amount for me getting back into the game. I've also never made a sea base so that's on the list of things to have a crack at. I'm trying to decide if it's worth picking up some brass barrels for the main 6.1inch guns but they're so small already I'm not sure if it's worth the money and time to install.

Hi all, Originally want to join with F-4G, but scrap it sonce I don't have the correct marking. But I still have a Fujimi 1/72 A-4KU "Free Kuwait" although I can see the decal has already start yellowing... I will build it without any aftermarket, but will probably add some detail which I will simply scratchbuild along the way. As always, any comments are welcome. Cheers, Mario

Hi all This is my attempt at Bf109G-14/AS 'Black 3' of 5./JG27, which was excavated in 2016 near Wittenburg. No pics of the machine exist, AFAIK, but Claes Sundin created a profile based on details from the excavation. I'm not a huge fan of the Fujimi kit but it went together without too many issues. 'Black 3' seems to have had a rather 'unusual' scheme, with a single fuselage colour which also wrapped around the underside. Whether the scheme is accurate or not - who knows - but I went with it anyway as I quite liked it..