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Pilatus PC-21 – Part Five – RAAF Roulette
The Pilatus PC-21 were ready to fly – the next batch of pilot trainees due to make their solos. One of them was the son of my niece. I have a short reel of him flying that first solo taken by a squadron mate. It is detailed enough to make out the number of the…
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Pilatus PC-21 – Part Four – Decal Phobia
Fear of water-slide transfers, if you wish to be pedantic… It strikes us all at one time or another. We see a commemoration scheme on the box lid and are lured into getting a kit with complex curved surfaces. The real-life plane or vehicle is painted by professionals with masks, spray guns, and a lot…
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Pilatus PC-21 – Part Three – The Double Mask
The look of this Swiss trainer in RAAF service is a bit daunting – all that colour and complex markings. Yet, like every paint job in the world, it yields to careful study of individual parts. You just have to mentally look past the complex decals to the basic colours – red, blue and white.…
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Pilatus PC-21 – Part Two – My Faith Rewarded
Remember I said I was confident in the new Swiss kit? Well, it is getting better. A dry-fit stage is not a perfect thing – you can miss slightly less obvious gaps and misalignment…only to have them show up and bite at cement time. However this time it looks as if the cockpit tub fits…
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Pilatus PC-21 – Part One – Serendipity
The definition of the word links random occurrences that produce a beneficial result – in short good luck. It has started for me with the donation of this new kit. The firm that makes it – 3D Blitz Models – seem to be Swiss. This will be one of the few occasions when I have…
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You Cannot Educate The Ignorant
Not with a scale model – so don’t set yourself up for disappointment. The public display of scale models of any kind is best done to other enthusiasts. They will be critical of your work, but generally sympathetic enough to see what you are trying to show. Joe Soap who just slings along with nothing…
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Making A Public Exhibition Of Yourself
This is not as dire as it sounds. Of course the upright, uptight, upper class Victorian would never do it…but then they never did. They reserved their showing off for a funeral cortege and a statue in the local gardens. I plan on two show-off shows this year; one at the annual scale model festival…
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Seeing The Remnants All In One Place
Is good for the mind and bad for the soul. Or the other way round… The big boxes full of little boxes – in their turn full of unbuilt plastic kits saved from the wreck of a Perth hobby shop – that greeted me at my hobby club were an amazing sight. Part of the…
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Barrier In Action
The experimental exhibition barrier went into action today. Fits on the standard trestle very well and is secure. The colour does stand out, and people capable of reading it do so. However, it was no use against a 2 1/2 year-old grabbing up over the edge – one model was damaged before the attending parent…
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Queen Mary – Part Three – Hughes Transport
Or what to do with a wartime leftover… If it is a plate of powdered egg scrambled with Spam, consider how many decades have passed since VE- Day,,,If it is an old QMT, also consider what time has done to wartime metal construction – particularly British metal with British engineering. The QMT trailer is marked…
The Little World
Close focus on the world of scale models
The Little World 