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Edit: How can I be this stupid? My build is not one of the Port Moresby defenders from early 1942, but from the Milne Bay a whole year later in March 1943. How could I mix the place and the year so completely . Well I'll build it as described below anyway. V-P I'd like to thank several participants and posters in this group build. I hadn't planned to build any of my P-40:s as an RAAF Kittyhawk. Like several uninformed, uneducated modellers I had skipped their significance in the defence of Port Moresby and the severity of the air battles over New Guinea. No longer, I can say now. I can wholeheartedly recommend reading the "44 Days - 75 Squadron And The Fight For Australia" by Michael Veitch. I myself thank the BMer who recommended that to me! I have an unstarted Special Hobby P-40D/Kittyhawk Mk.I, with four guns, in my stash. The plastic, though, is the same for the P-40E/Kittyhawk Mk.Ia, with six guns. The kit comes with a template to re-scribe, and fill, some wing panels, and to remove two of the gun barrels. No need for that, in this case. The Special Hobby Mk.Ia kit comes with a decal option for a 75 Sqn Kittyhawk and I have that in my spares. I thank @Rabbit Leader and @Ed Russell for your replies in this GB's Chat thread where I posted questions about the accuracy of the SH instructions, and learned they are reasonably accurate, but a DK Decals sheet is even more accurate and I shall follow that in the painting of the kit. Excellent, with canopy masks and all, am I all set to go, then!? Well, I did mention the paint scheme, didn't I? Again, excellent information in the Chat thread and in the various other Kittyhawk build threads already started. Thank you again! I won't go the extra mile in the search for accurate paint hues. I think I will test the looks of Revell enamels in this build, with #49 for the Sky Blue, #68 for the Dark Green and #82 for the Dark Earth. The latter two are what Revell recommends for an RAF DG/DE scheme, and I will live with that however different that would look compared with the DuPont paints the Curtiss factory used. If it will look like what our cat dragged in, I'll post the pics in b/w . V-P P.S. The Silver Spitfire? Not forgotten, just put to correct chronological order with the Kittyhawk

Here's mine!; Probably she'll end up (sorta, knowing my builds... ) as a NM Cigognes bird. I'll probably won't start until the weekend. Cheers, Andre

What, a full five years have passed since the P-40 STGB that saw me fail miserably in finishing this Special Hobby trio of very fine plastic model kits?! Most of the irrelevant build pics have been removed since, to save free on-line space. I have actually taken some baby steps with the Kittyhawks in the last few days, since I finished a GB entry and didn't want to start any new kits. The rest of 2024 will be a very heavy KUTA- season, I wish! V-P

When this topic was offered prior to the Bunfight I excited as I have a number of 1/72 options in the stash. Unfortunately the dates turned out to be the worst option for me. I've family home from Aus, including my 8 month old grandson, for the month for my wife's 60th, heading off to Spain and then a cruise for most of September so to complete something and do it justice will be difficult. I really want to support the GB so I could go with a relatively low part count option. I wanted to build a few initially, Special Hobby Barracuda, MPM Albacore, SH Skua, possibly Airfix Buccaneer!. I've chosen to give the Skua a go and take it from there .... Its a 2009 tooling from Special Hobby. It comes on 3 sprues and a clear sprue. Also included is a resin engine and some PE for the cockpit. Markings options are for two Scharnhorst attack machines. Ill chose which to go with later, thought the only difference is the seriel number. The instructions came with 2 x page 5/6, no page 2/3 but Scalemates is my friend as this is the entire interior assembly. Get started as soon as I can Derek

Happy New Year everyone! I sat in the cockpit of one of these beauties a few months back which inspired me to pick up Special Hobby's JA-37 1:72 kit shortly afterwards at the Scale Scotland model show. I decided to model Red 12 of F16 Uppsala Wing from 1992 (Upplands flygflottilj). I think it's a great kit to put together (I don't know if it's got innaccuracies though) and I didn't have any fit issues at all. It's an OOB build. The splinter camo... Well, I thought how hard can it be to cut my own masks?? Yeah, it was utterly beyond me! After several nights of torture and still with small pieces of masking tape stuck to my hands (and likely everywhere else) I surrendered and ordered the Maestro models mask set. This masking set was for the Heller kit which has a shorter fuselage but worked reasonably well. I numbered each of the 'splinters' to make the reattachment between coats easier. I'd been beaten by the masking before - not this time Miss Viggen! It's airbrushed with MRP-005, MRP-175, MRP-177, MRP-178, MRP-179 and Tamiya XF-16. Waiting on the highway: Without the background: Cockpit from the real thing (taken in the Aeroseum near Gothenburg): Thanks for looking. Stay safe everyone and happy modelling!

Here is the next in the brace...Special Hobby's 109G-6 kit with the very colourful markings of Yellow 5, Utti Finland, 1950. Now that Eduard is slowly releasing 1/72nd scale Messerschmitts I assume they will release these markings as well, since they've already done so in 1/48th. But until then, this is what we have. A quick glance at the sprue tells me that they are the same moulds as the AZModel G series. Thats good. No surprises. There is a bit of PE and, of course, very snazzy markings. Here's some box art... And the profile... The booklet has a better decal layout... The decals...Looking very nice. I'll jump in later... --John

In September 1939 during the "phony war" Sidney Cotton flew his own modified Lockheed 12 on a covert photo reconnaissance mission over German ports at the request of one Ian Fleming of the Admiralty. John