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My latest completed model is this one. It is the Magna Resin Handley Page (Reading) Marathon T.11 and depicts XA251 'H' of 2 Air Navigation School at RAF Topcliffe in 1956-7. The Marathon was originally designed by Miles as a feeder liner for BEA and first flew in 1946. When Miles became bankrupt in 1947 the company was taken over by Handley Page, but retained the factory etc. at Reading. After trials, BEA rejected the Marathon and only a handful were sold on the civil market. The airframes built for BEA were eventually refurbished as navigation trainers for the RAF, a total of 28 were modified and designated Marathon T.11. It had a short service that was undistinguished apart from a fatal accident and out of service by the end of 1957 after only about three years service. Kits of the Marathon are not common. In 1/144th I think Welsh models did a vacform and Contrail/Sutcliffe did one in 1/72nd, I have only seen one built and I reckon it has some shape issues around the tail, but it was one of the early kits. My model is from the Magna kit in resin with white metal undercarriage and vacform transparencies. The model was started some while ago and was a fairly typical Magna kit with thick resin pieces and fairly crude white metal bits as this was one of their earlier kits. The main airframe went together with generous use of gel superglue and epoxy resin as with the weight I could see the fuselage splitting. Brass wire of various thicknesses was used to keep wings and tail together. The fun really started with the transparencies as the main canopy had yellowed as had the spare. A new one was cast in resin using the kit one as a female mould and the resultant cast used to plunge mould a new clear canopy. amazingly enough the new canopy was not a worse fit than the original, although that was not saying much. The other problem was with the cabin windows that used a strip if clear acetate that rested in a recess in the fuselage side with the window openings behind it. This did not work very well at all despite several goes and this resulted in the model being put to one side for a couple of years. In the end the whole thing was made flush and the windows represented by decals. The model required a lot filling and sanding of imperfections and numerous coats of primer before the paintwork was sprayed on. The Yellow 'T' bands went on first courtesy of Xtracyrlic and then the deicer boots were added. The 'silver finish was represented with Vallejo Metal Colour White Aluminum and this came out no as even as I would have liked, but the airfames towards the end of their service did not seem to look their best. After gloss varnishing the decals were added., these being a mix of Modeldecals for the national markings and home made ones for everything else, including the windows. The white metal undercarriage with resin wheels (although metal ones were provided as well) were added as were the props, which came from Aeroclub as the kit ones was seriously bad in my kit. The props on RAF Marathons seemed to come in a variety of colour combinations, some were all black, some has aluminum blades with black leading edges and some like my model had black blades and shiny metal spinners. Various aerials were added and after a final varnish coat the astrodome and two fuselage blister windows were added, these were from the kit and had not yellowed. Share and enjoy as the Sirius Cybernetic Corporation would say. Martin