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The Messerschmitt G-2’s and G-6’s played a very important role in halting the Red Army's massive attack in the Finnish Karelian Isthmus in the summer of 1944. The very existence of Finland as a nation was then at stake since the USSR’s plan was to break the Finnish army’s defences and to conquer the whole country. All in all, a total of 159 G-2’s and G-6’s were delivered to the Finnish Air Force . At the hight of the battle new Messerchmitts were flown to Finland from Germany almost day and night by different squadron pilots. Some of the planes still wore the German crosses in the wings and they were just painted over and replaced with the Finnish roundels. I chose to build the Messerscmitt G-6 number MT-492 since I wanted to build a one with the tropical filter, the erla canopy, the spiral motif in the spinner and the radio antenna on the underside of the wing. I went through a lot of info and finally ended up with MT-492, This fighter did not however, achieve any aerial victories before the end of the war. I built my 1/48 scale model from Hasegawa's G-2 series, which had all the additional parts needed for the G-6 except for the erla canopy which I found in my spares box. The quality of the kit was excellent and there were no problems in assembling it. I additionally enhanced the cockpit with Eduard's photoetch set and used the flattened tires from Airwaves. The toned down light blue roundels and other decals are from InScale's FAF G-6 sheet. The overpainted German crosses can vaguely be seen in the wings, too. The most challenging part of painting the model was the German mottled camo. For that I bought Eduard’s brass mottle masks. For the camo I used the following shades of Xtracolor: RLM 74 Graugrün - X206 RLM 75 Grauviolett - X207 RLM 76 Lichtblau - X208 RLM 02 Grau for landing gear shafts and landing gear - X201 RLM 70 Schwartzgrün for propeller blades and spinner. - X204 Dark gray cockpit, Revell 78, Matt tank grey Yellow X106 At the air base of Utti, near the Russian border in South-Eastern Finland there is a restored Messerschmitt Bf 109 G-6. The fighter is on display in a glass hut commemorating the brave airmen that fought against the massive Red army. The Utti air base was a very important air field in WWII and it is still in operation. It is nowadays home to the Army Special Forces and the helicopter operations of the Finnish Defence Forces.

As my A-7 Corsair II is getting close to completion I thought I would add another kit. I am somewhat spoiled for choice but I thought I would make a start on what will be my third Sepecat Jaguar, having built the original Airfix kit based on the prototype shortly after its release in 1970, and the revised production version GR Mk I not long after it came out in 1975. This is I believe the 1987 boxing of the Hasegawa kit originally released in 1985. I guess the "politically correct" attitude to depicting war/violence on box top art had not taken effect back then! It is a fairly simple kit and I suspect I will be building it pretty much OOB unlike @Mr T who is adding a certain amount of AM goodies it seems. I was seriously thinking of entering it in the Gulf War GB a while back but that never happened as I would have to buy more decs. It might be a week or two before I make a start as I have quite a lot on the go at the moment - most of the GB's I want to enter seem to start in the first half of this year! As a consequence, whether or not I will have time to start my A-6E and F-15E remains to be seen. Cheers Pete

Hello Happy Modelers! I am almost of the end of my USAF Phantom saga with this the F-4C. For this version I chose the well known Hasegawa kit I had in stock since years but, quite disappointed by the level of details, I modified it quite a lot with PE, resin and other aftermarket goodies. So what I did: - Cockpit entirely reshaped with PE and some scratch build; - Resin ejection seats (forgot the brand); - Canopy from Taurus; - Resin wheel wells (AIRES), very difficult, needing heavy surgery! Quite a challenge to respect the correct thickness of the wing, the resin parts need to be sanded A LOT to be correctly inserted. - dropped airbrakes 🤬🤬; Shame on Hasegawa not providing this option! - dropped auxiliary belly doors; Shame on Hasegawa..... - Rear "hot area" reshaped to show extra metal sheets, riveting etc... - Resin wheels with the correct threads; - ...and obviously, a hard work to reshape the inner air intakes tunnels and front end of the engine... The whole kit was riveted slightly, I engraved the AAR receptacle and added/corrected some panels. I wanted to do a Vietnam-era F-4 and I found on the web a jaw-dropping series of F-4C/D color photos taken in Thailand and Vietnam airbases here: http://www.piccianiaircraftphotos.com/f-4c_phantom_page_one (highly recommended for Phantom Phanatics) and my choice was obviously this one, an old warrior/mig killer well worn from the 497th TFS: The old CONUS camouflage shows below the SEA scheme, which has been patched with different shade of green. Quite a challenge! After some investigations, it appears that the aircraft were ferried from US in their ADC camouflage then painted SEA "on the spot" with a disparate stock of poor quality paints, not necessarily the FS. Some sources said that the underside was kept white, but to my opinion, it is more on a case by case basis. Painting the model was time consuming as I wanted to reproduce as best as possible at the 72 scale the weathered effect depicted on the photo. I used various technics and I hope its OK! Markings are home made from surplus and Microscale sheets for letters, numbering and the owl emblem. For the ordnance, the bird is heavily loaded with bombs, missiles and ECM pods obviously not included in the Hasegawa kit 🤬 So I used aftermarket for that. the ECM pod comes from the Monogram kit and was also tweaked. It seems unrealistic or exagerated that the beast can haul such a large amount of stuff but the photo is the proof! Enough blabla, here are the pix, made by a poor photographer (me): I made a little and simple dio to put the beast in situation with two elements: a bomb trailer, coming from the Hasegawa Weapon set but heavily modified because it is too basic and a MC-1a High pressure compressor, also from Hasegawa but entirely modified because completely false! Hope you will enjoy that build, critics most welcome!

The detail on Hasegawa's D3A1 is already quite good, I just added a few copper wires and photo etch.

1.From Scalemates this is a 1997 reissue of a 1977 release. It's described as a 'Special Series' presumeably because you get a pre painted canopy..which is fine if the colour they use is the same as yours. I'll leave you to judge. 2.My spreadsheet of reviews reads for this, "Basic with sparse cockpit-despite the small size of the canopy a fair bit can still be seen- and shallow u/c bays but accurate and easy to assemble.The parts are all crisply moulded and their breakdown is conventional. Good fit." I would agree with that but add "not many parts which means small details are missed. Decals good (as no 'Hasegawa white' is used) with excellent register and adhesion" 3.OOB using Uschi fine line. 4.Paints were White Ensign ACJ-10 Kawanishi Green, ACJ-12 Underside Grey-Green and ACJ-4 Nakajima interior grey green; Humbrol 24 for wing stripes, 60 for Hinomarus and 27002 for fuel tank as well as Tamiya Weathering Powders. 5.Lessons learned. 5.1. Don't attempt to brush Humbrol Satin Varnish, always use Spraycan 5.2. Don't place fuselage stripe decals on 1 at a time, do both together or they won't meet on the undersurface no matter how careful you are. 5.3. If panel lines are too faint to use a wash, then, when using a pencil, always use a ruler and don't get cocky thinking you can do it freehand. 6. Having posted the photos I see that the prop decals need trimming as does the aerial wire but most importantly despite using white glue the 'prepainted canopy' which is the USP of the kit doesn't fit at all well. 🤷🏻‍♂️

With all this WFH the Rufe is speeding to its finish and it's time to pick the next one. I was looking at the boxes on the upper shelves trying to notice a rise in the Mojo level. Then I noticed a bag of nylon with parts in it. It turns out it is a kit I picked off eBay and it came in a bag. With some parts off the spruces, some decals missing and the lower wing broken. A kind of a mule bought cheap to hone it my skills. I looked inside and saw its the perfect next build after the Stuka and the Rufe - an IJN dive bomber with fixed landing gear !!!! As it turns out - its also a more complicated kit compared to the last couple of ones so its a good choice. With a bunch of small parts and a total count of 119 parts - its a more challenging kit. The plastic itself is dark green and quite brittle - these will add to the challenge. (I got this off the web ) I started with trying to fix the lower wing: That's it for today Ran

As we are now on a 3 week stand-down courtesy our microscopic friends' world tour, why not maximize modelling efforts in between bouts of spring cleaning and entertaining the cats. To this end I will crack open this kit. I plan on doing it as a standard line jet, liberating FAF markings from another Draken kit in the stash. After taking this pic I found the Aires cockpit and Master Model pitot probe in the stash so they will be used as well. I think I have a weapons set, so I can add some ordnance. Cheers, Rich

With my current project coming to an end, I dug up an older kit from my stash. On "order" from she who must be obeyed, I chose the Hasegawa P-51D Mustang "Nose Art". An oldie. Upon opening the box, I discovered that I already started it (not too much though ). But the instructions are missing the blue print on the inside. Since there was no internet then (yes, it is that old), I couldn't proceed then. Started to lay down the green interior layer and the zinc yellow wheel wells. Not sure about the decals, though. What is the quality and how will they hold after all these years? Upon invitation, I decided to add to the Group Build too...

Hi, I just finish this kit. I built it straight out-of-the-box. This is a very nice kit with nice details. It is easy to assemble with no major problems. Painted using Tamiya paints. Let me know what you think. Thanks.

Next Project! This one is for my old man, he worked on this very jet during his service and is one of two as I'll be doing another Phantom for him in 228 OCU colours. Throwing the boat out for it, I want this damn near perfect. Aftermarket is going to include... Aries Cockpit and Ejector Seats Master Model Pitots Hypersonic Canopy Set True Details Wheels (Which need some work, the sidewall tyre bulges are silly, looks like they're flat!) CAM Decals - The kit decals are all multipart and yellowed so I'm replacing them. Eduard PE Kit PE & White metal. Flightpath PE Ladder Normally, I like my models all buttoned up and sealed but Dad wants all the options open so that's the plan! The actual airframe was spotless so that's the way the model is going to be. I'll have a little bit of freedom on the metal surfaces as they wouldn't be so easy to clean. Photos to Follow.

Calling this one finished, done some little touch ups since the WIP. Kit is the Hasewaga boxing with kit decals, Eduard wheels and painted using Alclads for the metallics and Mr. Hobby/Tamiya for the main scheme with ProModeller wash. I decided not to weather this bird any further, I like the finish I've got just by fading the panels a bit. My first attempt at seatbelts, really glad I tried a bit of detailing, it makes a big difference compared to my RAF Phantom! And parked on the flightline! Thanks to the guys who helped me out on the various threads I put up