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Nothing to see here any more. I think I need to take a break. Thank you for the support! For a moment there I felt like Jamie Oliver when he presented his take on a paella! I didn't want to offend anyone, and I don't think I did, but such is the world these days - some people will get offended just because they want to. That's a hobby, I think, but not one that I would take on. Anyway, I like my Mirage and most importantly, so does my wife and my friends. I don't want to put the pictures up again - water under the bridge, but I'll just say this: I have 2 more Hasegawa 1/72 Mirage F.1 and a lot of decals, and I'm not afraid to use them! Will I put pictures of them up here? Perhaps, if I'm in the mood that day -there are somethings you just shouldn't do! Cheers Hans J

For my entry in the GB I am going to be building the recent Kinetic 1/48 F/A-18A/B/CF-188 as a Spanish Air Force example, but not in the usual grey scheme (even though some of these get spectacularly dirty and weathered) but rather as one of several ex US Navy aircraft that were sold to Spain after they were retired from VFA-127 (Cylons) where they were used in the adversary role. As adversary aircraft they had been painted in a disruptive desert type camo scheme of sand and brown and they were delivered to Spain still wearing this scheme, they were re-painted when they went through scheduled maintenance later in service but looked very good in their adversary scheme with touched up areas where the US Navy markings were over painted and with the colourful Spanish roundels applied. So onto the kit. This is the boxing that I shall be using; Lots of plastic bags full of sprues; And a very nice, large and comprehensive decals sheet; Enough codes there to build any Spanish Hornet, happy days! Though as I will be doing an ex adversary the warnings and stencils need to be in the original adversary colours so I have bought a set of decals from Hi Decal which has one of those as an option on it to take care of that issue. The model should like the aircraft shown on these images of the scheme on the instruction sheets from a decal set by Series Espanolas which also do a dedicated set for these aircraft; Now having finished my Draken a couple of weeks ago I decided to make a start on this but keeping it below the 25% margin, fortunately there is quite a bit that can be done before you are in danger of breaching this limit and ( surprise,surprise) I started with the cockpit. The cockpit tub and IP come with nice raised details for switches etc which I thought would look good with some detail painting and drybrushing rather than removing it all and replacing with 3D decals so that is what I did and this is what the cockpit tub looks like now with the Joystick and pedals fitted; The IP got the same treatment, now Kinetic supply decals for the screens which represent the MFD's if they were powered up which is not appropriate to an aircraft parked on the tarmac without someone sat in it running through checklists so they were painted instead and the decals for the instruments are way too big to fit into the recesses on the IP so they just got a basic paint job too. This is how the IP looks; I have also built up the undercarriage legs; And painted the main undercarriage bays; Now while this is a modern kit I have to say I am not impressed by the amount and location of some ejector pin holes on some parts, the undercarriage legs being particularly bad, and the sprue gates which are really big in places and on the mating faces of the parts too. The instructions are pretty bad too, being very vague about how some parts fit together and on where to drill holes for parts to fit and also being just plain wrong with the part numbers they tell you to fit, there are at least 2 parts which the instructions call A6 which are completely different! Having built a Kinetic kit before (Harrier T.10) this is not the first time I have come across this issue but there really is no excuse for it at all, might be an idea to have someone proof read them first or even to try and build a model using them, shock horror!! Anyway lots more to do so thanks for looking in and hopefully it won't be much longer before there is another update. Craig.

Recently completed this... 1/72 Special Hobby Mirage F1. Hasegawa decals which were printed way too dark. Added scrap plastic antennas to the tail fin, everything else out of the box from a donor Special Hobby kit. Xtracrylic XA1138 ADC Grey, Hataka blue grey for the upper part of the fuel tanks. All metal areas using Vallejo Metal Colour. Custom thinned Klear gloss coat, then used Ammo Mig Blue/Black PLW, & a final coat of Xtracrylic matt. Thanks for looking! Martin

Hello everyone, This is Eduard's 1/48 Polikarpov I-16 Type 10 that I finished in mid-September. The kit is inaccurate for a Spanish aircraft, so I've replaced the windscreen with a vac-formed example from Falcon and rebuilt the fuselage spine with plastic card and CA. The ailerons have been extended as well. Paint is mainly Mr Color applied freehand with an airbrush. The national markings are airbrushed and the only decals are the serials on the tail (which are the wrong font). The plan was to build this in 48 hours, but rather than two days, it took two weeks. I've written an article on this which I believe will appear in the November issue of SAM, so grab that if you want the full story Comments welcome, Cheers Jon

Latest completion the Revell boxing of the F-5B or SF-5B in Spanish Air Force operation. Started as part of the single type F-5 build and only just completed - oh well! Simple enough kit built OOB and using kit decals. Painted with AK Extreme Metal, which is very easy to use with good results. Not perfect, but I am reasonably happy with the way it has turned out. I have a single seater following this.