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I have had the “I Love Kit” boxing of HMS Ark Royal III in the stash for a little while. After struggling to finish my build of the KGV, I had planned to leave it there for a couple of years and focus on clearing some of my aircraft backlog, but my unexpected success at SMW has given the motivation needed to make a start on it. Unlike my previous build on this site, I am starting this log at the very start of the project. So far I have the model, and the Tetra Model Works detail up set and aircraft detail set. I am of course looking at other aftermarket from Micro Master, Black Cat, and others. I did use quite a few items from North star on the KGV, but they seem to no longer be active, which is a shame. I have not yet decided when or where I will be depicting this ship, though I am leaning towards depicting her as she was towards the end of her life, the worn paint scheme seems to be an interesting challenge. As far as can tell, there were not many significant changes to her through her short life, so I will get on with the build and hopefully when I know a bit more about her, I will be able to nail down a date and configuration. Here are the obligatory box shots. In terms of references, I only have the British Warships of the Second World War by John Roberts and a copy of the Profile Morskie plans at the moment. I have of course also searched IWM for every picture they have along with scouring Google for anything else available. Detailed photos do seem to be particularly hard to find for this ship though. As others have said, there are some issues with this kit, some more significant than others. On the less significant end, I honestly don’t think that the level of detail is much better than the Tamiya KGV kit which is 30 years older. A lot of the parts are simplified, and will need to be replaced, and surface detail is lacking with scuttles and some basic hatches, but not much else. They also seem to mostly be in the wrong place. In terms of more significant issues, the first thing I noticed when I first looked at the parts, is the thickness of the hull pieces, which is particularly visible around the cutouts at the bow and stern. In the second picture you can also see some of the oddly shaped scuttles and one of the backwards hawsepipes. Pretty much all of these cutouts seem to be too tall, significantly larger than in the plans, but many are also not quite in the correct place. I would like to try and do something about this plastic thickness issue and the general sizes of the cutouts, and I have some ideas, but I will need to do some testing before messing up the model. I have reduced the side profile from the John Roberts book to 1/350 and made some comparisons to the kit. I believe that the length is okay, but it seems to be too tall (~4mm), and too wide (~6mm). Also, the bow profile is quite different. Interestingly though the stern is much closer. The error seems to be mostly in the top two decks which appear to have been stretched upwards, and possibly outwards as well. With the exception of the bow profile, which needs to be more bulbous and less pointy, I really don’t think there is anything I can do to correct this, short of binning the whole lot and scratch building it instead. Anyway, I doubt many people will pick up on these issues. I am sure there are various other things which I will find during the build, but for now I thought I would point out the main things which I need to think about. I don’t want to seem entirely negative, and I am happy that there is a kit of this ship, but if I can spot these issues with my relative inexperience and lack of resources, I don’t know why Merit would not have bought copies of the shipbuilders plans to get these basics correct. I suppose on the plus side, it will give me more of a challenge than if I was able to build it straight out of the box. Anyway, on that note, enough moaning, onto the build… Cheers Peter

The Airfix Whirlwind helicopter was one of the very first kits that I built, sometime back in the early 1970s (possibly even the late 1960s!). This is the latest Airfix Vintage Classic release, but using Model Alliance decals for HMS ARK ROYAL's SAR flight in the early 1960s. Those who have built the kit will know of the kits many shortfalls and I wondered how my current modelling skill-set would manage with it. I tidied up the rotor head, folded the blades, added window and door rails, opened the pilot's window and moved the front wheels, adding some sprue detail into the (slightly trimmed back) engine compartment at the same time. The Model Alliance decals were disappointing - some of titles and the roundels were badly oversize - almost as if they were 1/48 scale. The end result is pleasing, but I rushed it as a fast 5-day "side build" whilst painting a bigger kit. I know I could have done better with a little more care and time - so stand by for my next one ! Here she is with my converted Italeri HAR.1 - an interesting comparison !

This build started a bit of a while ago in a Group Build and latterly was a labour of love. But it is finished. It is also an example of what's great about BM. Rob G in Australia gifted me a replacement set of tailplanes and Brianthemodeller a set of Airfix stencils. Its finished as an 892 Squadron aircraft from HMS Ark Royal in 1969. It's not quite OOB as the fin was recharged and shaped to remove the RWR fitment, which took a fair while due to the hardness of the plastic. I added some seat belts from painted Tamiya tape but otherwise to keep the Matchbox feel nothing else was changed. The upperworks were painted in Xtracrylix Extra Dark Sea Grey and the underside in Citadel Ceramite White finished off with Kleer. As well as Brian's stencils I used the original MB transfers, which considering were probably 30/40 years old went on fine, albeit a little yellowed on the underside serials. The build thread is here: An underside shot to show the multitude of stencils if nothing else And a comparison with a Seafire from 1945

Hello, colleagues! I'd like to present another model from the FROG/NOVO contest - the british naval fighter McDonnell Douglas Phantom FG.1. It is the repack of the old FROG model F262 by Industrial Group "Mir" (Minsk). As usual I built this model in "Out of the box" nomination, so no modifications to the original kit were allowed. The only modification allowed to me by the contest administration was the extension of the nose landing gear. This gives the model more "british" look. The model is of poor quality and was difficult to build. According to the rules of the contest I had to stay within the limits of the kit - rised panel lines, geometry inaccuracies and so on. So, the result is before you. It is the naval fighter XT872 005/R, Naval Air Squadron 892, Royal Navy, HMS Ark Royal, 1973. Thanks for looking!