Confrontational (1/72 Revell Hawker Hunter FGA.9)

[CedB]

Nom nom nom... I want a Parmo please. I guess though, like the cheesy scones in the canteen at Gateshead's QE Hospital, they're a delicacy that will not be exported and we'll have to "go to the mountain".

[keefr22]

Nom nom nom... I want a Parmo please.

Mmmm, me too. But I guess if they deliver it'll be cold when it gets down here. And I hate to think how many times the delivery guy (or gal) will have to stop to fill up his/her Vespa (do Vespa still make scooters?)

Those chips look a bit weedy though, even if they do count towards your 5 a day...!!

K

[amblypygid]

I've wanted one for years but never found anywhere dahn sarf that serves it. But I've seen Staffordshire oatcakes emerge from the stygian gloom of Stoke into the wider world, so there's hope yet for the parmo.

[stevehnz]

I'd be up for trying one of those, heavens knows what it would do for my blood pressure & cholesterol though, send them well north of where they currently dwell I'd imagine.

Edward, I'll have to have a rummage for some SAS books, its the sort of thing that is part of a larger story rather than a volume directly on the Dhofar conflict. I'm not sure if there ever has been such a book?

Steve.

[perdu]

Rowland White of Vulcan 607 fame wrote about the Dhofar/Oman 'interlude' and the SAS's involvement in Storm Front which involves the Jet Provost/Strikemasters of the SOAF and is mostly about the ground war in 1972 although the aged Hunters get the odd mention

And further reading I'd recommend, if the period interests you is "Where Soldiers Fear To Tread" by Ranulph Fiennes* who was appointed to a 'Team' working there from the Royal Scots Greys in 1967

Very good books about a really awful war

*Yes him...

Of course if we're talking about Adnams I could be here all night

Adnams Bitter N E C T A R

Edited July 18, 2016 by perdu

[Procopius]

So it's clear to me that I haven't been modelling enough, because when I ventured downstairs tonight, I couldn't find the gunsight -- I always loose them -- and when I looked under my workbench, I found...a dead mouse. WARNING: behind the spoiler tags is the photo of the poor little guy's mortal remains.

My best guess, given the dried blood pooled around him and extensive forensic training borne of watching over two hundred episodes of Criminal Minds at Mrs. P's behest, is that he was mortally wounded by one of the clan of feral cats that more or less benignly stooge about our garden, waiting to eat one of the birds at the bird feeder, and then he staggered into the house and expired in my workroom, a place of peace and beauty. Alternately, he was embezzling, and it was a suicide.

Since Mrs. P is a bit neurotic (and yes, it takes one to know one in this case), it was essential that I dispose of all of the evidence in total secrecy, unless I wanted her poking around the stash and obsessing over the fact that mice can get into buildings and die there. Fortunately, I was calm, collected, and cool, and effortlessly disposed of the body and sanitized the scene with what we in the biz call forensic countermeasures. I am not a man you should cross, clearly.

I also put the wings together. The gunsight remains lost to the world.

Mind the gaps.

I like what Revell's trying to do here, and my understanding is that in real life, the dogteeth and wingtips really were discrete components, but really, the only reason to do this on a kit is if you're going to make other versions, which they didn't have the courtesy to do! (My preference, incidentally, is for the Hunter F.5, probably the most functional of the early Hunters, and with greater purity of lines than the F.6s and onwards, with their new tailpipes and dogteeth. etc.) So we have these mammoth steps that as mentioned by others earlier, will need a furious sanding down. By the by, I forgot to drill the holes for the ejector cartridges on one wing and had to do the old "hold it up to the lightbulb trick".

My knowledge of Orwell has many gaps in it so I was interested to read this poem. I haven't the quote to hand but I believe it was from his writings also that 'the home-comforts you so enjoy are underwritten by rough men killing each other in far-away fields' Those aren't the exact words but I'll see if I can re-locate the original.

It is, I gather, a misattribution -- someone was summarizing (accurately) several Orwell quotes and the sentence was attributed to old Eric Arthur Blair himself. Orwell first makes a comment along these lines in his essay "Kipling and Empire", written in 1942:

"It would be difficult to hit off the one-eyed pacifism of the English in fewer words than in the phrase, ‘making mock of uniforms that guard you while you sleep’...He sees clearly that men can only be highly civilized while other men, inevitably less civilized, are there to guard and feed them."

He returns to the theme in "Notes on Nationalism", which en passant is perhaps a bit too on-point about my love of your country to be entirely comfortable reading for me, but in any case, there he says:

"Those who ‘abjure’ violence can only do so because others are committing violence on their behalf."

Good 'Neo-Futurist' anecdote! At least your attempts at impressing the opposite sex had some credibility. As a callow youth I fancied a lass in Scotland so badly that I went line-dancing with her >shudder<

Don't worry, I would have gone line-dancing for a British accent too. Incidentally, I'm so bad at dancing that Mrs. P walked away from our wedding dance. True story.

I want you all to know, I spared you a bit on Derrida here.

Allow me to introduce you to the Parmesan or 'Parmo'.

It's so beautiful. I must have one.

I hope that hasn't frightened you off wanting to come over

Mrs. P has long been instructed that if I die before I make it over, my ashes are to be scattered in the UK, though she's threatened to keep half for herself as a special reserve. I can only imagine what a necromancer would get from half of my ashes...perhaps I'd finally lose this pesky two stone.

But I've seen Staffordshire oatcakes emerge from the stygian gloom of Stoke into the wider world, so there's hope yet for the parmo.

This is a really beautifully-formulated sentence.

[CedB]

Poor mouse - "nature red in tooth and claw" indeed. You did a good job disposing of the body Dexter Egbert - a wise move. If Mrs P is anything like Mrs B the resultant cries of "mice in MY house - get them out!" would have had all sorts of ramifications, all detracting from your modelling time. I think we share the planet with other creatures and they have their place - Mrs B not so much...

Nice work on the wings... those 'sticky out bits' (technical term) are weird aren't they? Not seen on many types, I guess they were a "Oh for goodness sake Cyril, try it if you must" and were later dropped. Hmmm.

[TheBaron]

and when I looked under my workbench, I found...a dead mouse.

You're (relatively) lucky it was deceased! Our two fang-ed felines bring live birds (usually sparrows) in that they've caught, and release them inside the house. You know when it's happened because you walk into a room and a faint and slightly uncanny rustling of feathers makes you realize that you are not alone. It's an odd domestic variation on Freud's uncanny...

Thank-you for filling in the blanks in my Orwell knowledge BTW. I have to get the collected essays now.

[Rob G]

That chicken thing... Here, we know it as Chicken Parmigiana, or a Parmie. A menu staple for pub counter lunches all over this Great Southern Land, alongside such other delicacies as crumbed prawns, crumbed steak and a 'mixed salad' (wth THAT is.) In posh places, you'll be offered the Parmie with added garlic butter... INSIDE! Quite something, impresses the sheilas no end when you order that, it shows a bit of class.

Feral cats... Can't you shoot them? There is no such thing as a benign cat, unless it's dead. I'd rather have cockroaches.

Pete, my passport is safe. I may not praise the Hunter, but I have taken photos of Stonehenge.

[Procopius]

If Mrs P is anything like Mrs B the resultant cries of "mice in MY house - get them out!" would have had all sorts of ramifications, all detracting from your modelling time.

Mrs. P is very focused and determined, which can be good (she overcame severe dyslexia to get a Masters degree and successfully completed Montessori training for two age groups -- most teachers can only do one), or bad (her dad once mentioned that if our neighbours mowed an 18-inch patch of grass on our lawn, they could eventually lay legal claim to it, and she thought of NOTHING ELSE for four long months, we had to see a lawyer about it; mercifully her brother is one).

Nice work on the wings... those 'sticky out bits' (technical term) are weird aren't they? Not seen on many types, I guess they were a "Oh for goodness sake Cyril, try it if you must" and were later dropped. Hmmm.

The dogteeth? Yes, I think they were pretty common on early jets, mainly because everyone was so excited to be making JETS! that they just churned them out and tried to fix all the problems as they popped up. The Swift and the Phantom are the other two types to have them that I can think of offhand. I think it has something to do with pitchup? The whole point of developing the Swift alongside the Hunter was to have insurance because of its many teething troubles (gun problems, engine surging, short range, etc.), but ultimately all the Swift did was throw those problems into sharp relief...

You're (relatively) lucky it was deceased! Our two fang-ed felines bring live birds (usually sparrows) in that they've caught, and release them inside the house. You know when it's happened because you walk into a room and a faint and slightly uncanny rustling of feathers makes you realize that you are not alone. It's an odd domestic variation on Freud's uncanny...

My wife has six birds, so I experience the uncanny rustling of feathers all too often. They're supposed to stay in one room, but she leaves the door open, apparently because after twenty years of having them as pets, she hasn't yet realized they're not in fact sessile and they can fly.

I hate them.

Thank-you for filling in the blanks in my Orwell knowledge BTW. I have to get the collected essays now.

I hope it wasn't too pedantic, it's a problem I have.

In posh places, you'll be offered the Parmie with added garlic butter... INSIDE! Quite something, impresses the sheilas no end when you order that, it shows a bit of class.

Sort of like the ur-Chicken Kiev, from whence all other Chicken Kievs sprang in the beforetimes.

Feral cats... Can't you shoot them? There is no such thing as a benign cat, unless it's dead. I'd rather have cockroaches.

I may be the only American left who doesn't own a gun, so no. (I do have an Illinois Firearm Owners ID card, permitting me to, for instance, use a firearm not owned by me at a shooting range [iL's gun laws are relatively strict for the USA], but I don't particularly feel the need for a firearm, especially with a curious little guy in the house. If I ever did own a gun, it would be a blackpowder weapon like a Colt Dragoon, because they take to long to prepare to fire, it's hard to do something rash with them.)

I have owned cats and am fond of them in an ambivalent kind of way, but the birds and Mrs. P's allergies tend to mitigate against them. I do prefer them to cockroaches, having once had a shower of dead roaches fall out of the ceiling onto me while riding a recently-fumigated bus in the city.

[Blogs On]

How could I have missed this!!!!!!!

One of my all time favourite aircraft, during a period of great turmoil and a squadron my father worked with as a air radar fitter during the start of the "Confrontation "

With regards to the comments about being effete. These, I think, are a little misplaced when the old girl would haul around 4 x 30mm Aden and enough ammunition to decisively end any argument with style, grace and power. Even in the eighties, Omani Hunters could give the mighty US Navy a good and costly match! *

As for the bulges on the upper outer wings you're absolutely right, they do not start appearing until the late sixties.

Please keep up the good work. If it's ok, I'll keep cheering from the sidelines

*(Not sure if you've noticed, but I'm a bit of a fan!!!)

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Cats are just so unambitious.....Lurchers will happily vomit a whole nest full of those little fellas onto your dining room carpet!

[Navy Bird]

I may be the only American left who doesn't own a gun...

No, there are at least two of us.

Cheers,

Bill

[Procopius]

No, there are at least two of us.

As long as we stick together, we're safe!

Cats are just so unambitious.....Lurchers will happily vomit a whole nest full of those little fellas onto your dining room carpet!

My sister has an Australian Shepherd, and it is simultaneously the most beautiful and most stupid creature alive. I once saw it run into a wall in a state of high excitement.

How could I have missed this!!!!!!!

One of my all time favourite aircraft, during a period of great turmoil and a squadron my father worked with as a air radar fitter during the start of the "Confrontation "

Alright, buddy, let's hear some reminisces.

Even in the eighties, Omani Hunters could give the mighty US Navy a good and costly match! *

A friend of mine's dad was a civilian air traffic controller exported to Oman in the late 1970s, so he spent his early boyhood there, and he has a vivid memory of what I'm extremely sure was an Omani Hunter flying past him at very low level, inverted, with the pilot giving him a friendly wave.

As for the bulges on the upper outer wings you're absolutely right, they do not start appearing until the late sixties.

Dammit! Already drilled out the holes for them.

[Blogs On]

"Alright, buddy, let's hear some reminisces. "

Ahh now, where to begin..... Well, one of his claims to fame was that he was kicked out of the Raffles Club!

Something to do with drunkenly trying to build a camp fire on the dance floor may have had something to do with it!

Also, practicing crowd control the empire way with the Chinese cooks!

"A friend of mine's dad was a civilian air traffic controller exported to Oman in the late 1970s, so he spent his early boyhood there, and he has a vivid memory of what I'm extremely sure was an Omani Hunter flying past him at very low level, inverted, with the pilot giving him a friendly wave."

Yep, could well be. Would be the sort of thing they would do. Either that or the Jags!

Dad also worked in Oman during the late seventies to early eighties at Salalah with 3 squadron (Augusta Bell 205's) and times the fast jet mob could be proper pests.

"Dammit! Already drilled out the holes for them."

No worries old bean, the "Confrontation" was still active to the end of the decade, so bulges would be appropriate for the later part of the action.

[Procopius]

So a, if not the defining characteristic of my life is that I'm almost entirely dependent upon luck. I was plucked out of a call center almost at random to test an email delivery system and survived the culling of every consultant on the project to enter the middle class. I skipped seventh grade because of an aptitude test to see if I was profoundly learning disabled. I started dating Mrs P right after her mom had given her a book on not looking for Mr Right and just settling for what was out there. Basically for every first chance that I didn't deserve and that I blew, a second chance has improbably appeared -- if you exclude entering academia, which is forever lost to me. (I'm checking about officially transferring my good luck to the UK; it seems like you might need it.)

When I went to work on the Hunter tonight (I bought two kits this week, so I'd better start building some of the ones I have), I discovered that one of the splitter plates or whatever the little parts that look like easily lost scrap plastic for the kit was missing. So the session tonight was gluing on the canopy (5 minutes), and then searching frantically for the piece (1.5 hours). In the course of this, I discovered that another Hunter, which I purchased a number of years ago from a fellow American on these very boards "bagged but complete" was in no way complete, and was missing the same splitter plate. Ha ha! How I laughed, because can you really kill a man who's already dead inside?

Finally, in despair, abject despair, even, I decided to go to bed, wheeled about, and promptly almost stepped on my missing splitter plate (or whatever). So we're back on track. Aside from the other kit that's apparently just a bag of Hunter parts, and not even all of them.

Here's approximately where we are now.

Some shots of the blended-in (hopefully) dogteeth:

And, the obligatory photo of my son.

Holger Herwig's "Luxury Fleet" is an interesting book, but a number of errors (saying HMS Warspite foundered under tow at Jutland, calling the cruiser Wiesbaden a battleship, saying British superdreadnoughts had 18" guns, etc) somewhat diminish its value. Probably okay for babies who don't know any better, though.

Dad also worked in Oman during the late seventies to early eighties at Salalah with 3 squadron (Augusta Bell 205's) and times the fast jet mob could be proper pests.

Did you get to go with?

[Blogs On]

As the old saying goes "fortune ( luck) favours the bold"

Therefore, you are bold of disposition Always a good character trait for a future fellow countryman

I was able to take an unaccompanied trip to stay with him out there at the tender age of 16 for 4wks.

Made quite an impression on me.

[CedB]

Awww, sad look Egbert? Chin up (if you need that after the great work on the Hunter)

My credo for years has been 'Work hard, get lucky' but I know how much you like quotes so here are some appropriate ones pinched (quickly) from the 'net:

“Life is not easy. We all have problems - even tragedies - to deal with, and luck has nothing to do with it. Bad luck is only the superstitious excuse for those who don't have the wit to deal with the problems of life. ”

― Joan Lowery Nixon, In The Face of Danger

“Luck?" Drizzt replied. "Perhaps. But more often, I dare to say, luck is simply the advantage a true warrior gains in excuting the correct course of action.”

― R.A. Salvatore, The Halfling's Gem

“The harder I work, the luckier I get.”

― Samuel Goldwyn

“I've found that what most people call luck is often little more than raw talent combined with the ability to make the most of opportunities. (Talon Karrde)”

― Timothy Zahn, Heir to the Empire

Well, you get the idea... blame it on luck if you like - sometimes it's just us not seeing in ourselves what others see in us every day. So there.

(Cute picture of Winnie)

[Blastvader]

Splendid thread as per P. Much too 'intelekchul' for me. I'm dumb as a house brick.

To return briefly to the parmo: my understanding is that it was invented by an American. Apropos of nothing of course, but that's about all I have to contribute at this juncture; knowing, as I do, little about the Hunter (neither ugly enough or possessing of enough engines for me) and even less about 'Britain's Vietnam'.

Toodles,

Paul

[Tomoshenko]

I'd say good Karma and balance in the universe is restored.

"...can you really kill a man who's already dead inside?" While I'm not a religious or superstitious person, the Raising of Lazarus and the concept of "making your own luck" springs to mind though, not that your Hunter build requires divine intervention, or recourse to self-help sales slogans; but I think you have the gift of being in the right place at the right time. A very special gift too I believe. If I ever stumble across a genie and whereupon I'm offered three wishes, that would be one of them. It opens up all manner of possibilities. Next time you're in England, check me out and we'll by a lottery ticket...

Young son and build looking good. You got those dog's teeth licked. An welcome glitch to what is a fine kit.

[Col.]

Spent a rather enjoyable while sifting through all the clever chat to find progress on this Hunter of yours PC. Nice work fella.

(I'm checking about officially transferring my good luck to the UK; it seems like you might need it.)

Having seen the two clowns who most of your fellow countrymen are try to elect president I'd keep a tight hold of that luck. I suspect your need will be greater than ours.

[TheBaron]

'Procopius’ writings fall into three divisions'

Encyclopedia Britannica

^{Source: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Procopius-Byzantine-historian}

Philosophy, History....and Modelling!

P. Lying around reading one of your posts on a lazy Sunday morning is like having 'Thought for the Day' come up on Radio 4, with added aircraft

I wouldn't chafe over the academia aspect you mention - take it from one who works part of the week in such environments that you write with greater erudition and compassion than many of the people I work with.

I know from personal involvement that under the guise of 'professional practice', even many (supposedly creative) arts courses now simply churn out graduates on an industrial scale, as if they were producing dentists. That's not to demean dentists - when I go to get the fangs assessed I definitely want someone qualified and standardized in their approach (if you've ever read Woody Allen's essay on the Impressionist Painters as dentists you'll get the drift...), but standardized curiousity and imagination? I think not. In a time of increasing corporatism and uniformity, IMHO it's better to have an independent and questioning mind. And as Ced's post shows, with hard work there is luck...

I experienced a unseemly schadenfreude at your missing Hunter part, only to find just now that I've managed to misplace the elevator from my current Sea Venom build. At least your piece was small enough to satisfy honour, losing my larger bit is just plain (plane?) un-lucky. Or silly, in my case....

That's an excellent T-shirt BTW. Our alpha-female cat has recently taken to holding tête-à-têtes with a visiting hedgehog (I've named him Hedgus Hoggerington, to my sons' dismay) in the dusk by our patio door. You know he's around by a mad snuffling sound from the gathering darkness as he gorges on left-over food from the ducks.

I'm off to make snuffling sounds of my own as the pancakes have been announced by my SO.

Young Winston looks most pleased with existence. Great photo.

Good luck on the Hunter.

Tony

[Ascoteer]

The dogteeth? Yes, I think they were pretty common on early jets, mainly because everyone was so excited to be making JETS! that they just churned them out and tried to fix all the problems as they popped up. The Swift and the Phantom are the other two types to have them that I can think of offhand. I think it has something to do with pitchup? The whole point of developing the Swift alongside the Hunter was to have insurance because of its many teething troubles (gun problems, engine surging, short range, etc.), but ultimately all the Swift did was throw those problems into sharp relief...

They are 'Ram's Horn Vortex Anchors' and are there to prevent spanwise flow (other techniques used could be wing fences a la Dominie, or leading edge notches a la Lightning).

Basically what happens is that, as the wing produces lift, the high pressure air tries to climb over the wing at the wing tip into the low pressure air above the wing (thus producing the tip vortex and 'Induced Drag'). The air below the wing therefore tries to move outboard, while the air above the wing tries to move inboard. This effect is exacabated on a swept wing owing to the way the Relative Airflow meets the leading edge of the wing.

On a straight winged aircraft this isn't so much of a problem (aside from the Induced Drag caused by energising the tip vortices), but on a swept wing aircraft any inboard movement of the air above the wing will cause the Centre of Pressure to similarly move forward (owing to the wing's shape) resulting in a 'Pitch Up' moment This effect is especially marked as the flow goes transonic and could overcome elevator/tailplane authority (it's also why the 'All-Flying Tailplane' was invented).

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Hedumacational!

[Antti_K]

Thank You Ascoteer for your excellent posting

I love to read these as I am an aviation instructor (CTKI) myself. I guess you can easily determine my main subject

BR,

Antti