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Hi All, having recently embarked upon a themed build of the Messerschmitt Bf109 and its Hispano-built offspring in Spanish skies, I thought I'd kick off another similar project. This time, though, it'll be a major departure for me in that it will feature only civil aircraft, to whit, racers. My plan is to build a representative collection of Golden Era racers, such as competed in the Bendix, Thompson, King's Cup, MacRobertson, Schneider etc air races. The subjects will only be ones that particularly appeal to me so there will ultimately be an eclectic mix, I'm sure! The occasional post-WWII ex-military example may well creep in, too - who can resist a much-modified-Mustang? This is likely to be another long-drawn-out trial-by-waffle that I dip into occasionally, and I'll build only one of these birds at a time. My intention is to edit this first post with links to the introductory post of each build as it begins so its easier to "jump" to a specific build. That's assuming anyone's still with me and interested enough to want to, of course I've already got a couple of the old Hawk/Testors 1/48 racers in my stash, namely the Travel Air Mystery Ship and the Laird Solution, but my first subject will be: Seversky S-2 Buckle up - it's gonna be a bumpy ride! Cheers, Mark

Me again! This was a model I built when IPMS was still at Donington, a venue which for some reason held a great appeal for me. It started life originally as one of a set of historic road bikes made by Aoshima. These were all in the odd but pleasing scale of 1/16th whereas most bikes are in 1/12th scale. I like 1/16th because it allows enough detail for a very manageable size but with Tamiya going for the larger scale, anyone else was out on a limb and these kits were very much under-rated, the original set not being followed up. I bought three, the Henderson, the Harley and the Ace, all American and was impressed with the level of detail and fidelity. The fit wasn't over great but what can you expect from a 40/50 year old kit? It was an old kit even when I made it. Being me, I had to make something a little different. The bike is a real Harley restored racer which I came across in a book but if I were to tackle it again, I'd choose a more stripped down version as raced on the board tracks in the States. All in all it was a lovely little kit, plenty of scope to produce something a bit different and plenty of work, not just a case of leaving off the road bits and making a racer from what's left over. Still, it's unlikely to ever be kitted again, more's the pity. Eventually, I got rid of the Henderson (just that bit too archaic), but the Ace and Harley both gave many hours of fun. Dave

Maurice Arnoux was a french aviator. A fighter pilot with 5 kills in the WW1 and killed in action in 1940, he did quite a bit of air racing in the 1930s and was one of Caudron’s pilots in the 1935 Coupe Deutsch de la Meurthe. That year Coupe Deutch was a 2,000 km long affair to be flown in two 1,000 km legs over a 100 km triangular circuit, with a one hour stop between the legs. Caudron had several aircraft in the competition. In fact, all other marquees/teams either didn’t make it in the qualifications or dropped out before actual competition due to technical problems. There were altogether five Caudrons at the staring line. Flight International Magazine reported the event very descriptively under the title ”A Family Affair”. Arnoux was to fly a Caudron C. 460, while Albert Monville took a Caudron C. 450 to the sky. Arnoux ran his engine hard and set new speed record (averaging 469 km/h) for 100 km closed circuit on the 7th lap but, as a consequence, exhausted his oil reserves and had to quit on the next lap. Meanwhile Monville’s race was foiled by trouble with the ignition at take off. He got in the air far behind the others. When Monville arrived at the half-way stop, he and Arnoux switched places; Arnoux flew Monville’s plane for the second leg of the race. In the end, Arnoux came in third while Raymond Delmotte, Caudrons chief pilot, won the race. He made highly consistent laps with little variation in speed or course. I wonder if the different strategies were agreed beforehand by the pilots or maybe even mandated by Caudron? After all, the Coupe ended up being an all-Caudron affair so they could’ve used it to test different strategies without being afraid of Caudron loosing the race. The two planes were essentially the same design. C. 450 had a fixed undercarriage and C. 460 a retractable undercarriage. Apart the differences related to undercarriage solution, the planes were similar. I’ll be building both Arnoux’s mounts in the race, a C. 460 and a C. 450 in 1/72 scale. I’ve sourced SBS Model’s resin kits for the build, and quite probably I’ll be doing the planes straight out-of-the-box. The kits have enough detail. Besides, my fatty fingers ain’t the tool for adding detail in this scale 😉. As a reference, I’ll be using what I’ve found on the net. Have to be careful though and read with critical eyes. Cheers, -M

Hello, I'm happy to share my second RFI, my Williams Bros. Seversky SEV-2 Racer. It's a basic kit OOB, but the shape is good and the build pretty straightforward if filler-heavy. It's taken a while, but this one was always a project, and I wanted to test my self with scratch-building the interior, and then decided to improve on the base kit's undercarriage, engine, wheel wells... The ancient decals fell to pieces, causing some concern, but overall I'm pleased with how things ended up. My brother ran off some bespoke prop and sponsor logos to replace those that came with the kit. The WIP is here, if you like scratch-built bits and pieces (and filler). I've thoroughly enjoyed it, and welcome all your comments as ever. Take care, if it's ever sunny again I'll take some better pics outdoors! Matt

Modified P-51 Precious Metal. This P-51 is re-engined with a Rolls Royce Griffon to compete in the unlimited class at Reno. It is based at the Kissimmee Air Museum in Florida where it was photographed by Bootneck Mike.