The Little World

The interval between today’s post and the previous Seibel Si 204A one was a surprisingly brief one. I owed this to my experiment with refraining from the Facebook feed. The amount of time lost to sitting in front of a screen staring at advertisements and fake questionnaires seemed to amount to more than an hour a day – considerably more – and if you returned this time to general stores it could be apportioned  out in a lot of different ways. I used some of mine to move on with the Seibel.

Here is the Kings Airplane ready for service. You’ll note that it is in pristine condition – as any royal transport should be – but that there are a number of features to be seen:

1. The aircraft carries the RRAAF roundels and fin flashes – it is part of the RRAAF fleet and can be called upon for war duty as well as royal transportation. The only things that are added for this are two bomb racks under the centre of the fuselage. There is no bomb sight, though there is a cocktail cabinet.
2. The civil aviation code for Ruritania is ” RT “. The aircraft is dedicated to His Majesty, the King ( König in German ) so the registration is ” K “.
3. The national flag is displayed under the pilot’s cockpit and when His Majesty is aboard a small flag is flown from the LH cockpit window.
4. No provision is made for de-icing boots or radar navigation.

The decision to order the airplane in sand/beige was not deliberate – it was the only option provided by the German salesman when he found he could not sell the paint job after May, 1943. They had one on the showroom floor in the colour and this was it. So the RRAAF painted their insignia, the royal coachmakers installed the armchairs and liquor cabinet, and the King was flying.

In painting this model I opted for the yellow lacquer made by Mr. Color as it is the paint I know – however experiments with the Australian-made SMS paint in a similar shade suggest that it may become a viable thing in the future. The paint they sell is in 30ml bottles at a price double that of the Mr. Color, but the fact that it is pre-thinned for an .03 airbrush means that there is no extra thinning needed. The prices work out roughly the same.

The paint doesn’t mix with Mr. Color Levelling Thinner – I believe it needs its own proprietary thinner – but I experimented with standard Supercheap lacquer thinner as a brush clean-up and it went brilliantly. The result on a test airframe was absolutely perfect.

The other interesting thing was to observe the performance of the Testor’s paper for the inkjet decals. I was anticipating the worst after a recent experience with New Zealand-made decals on an older kit. I expected that the Testor’s decals would also bunch up and silver over the raised rivets on the Siebel. Not a bit of it – the roundels went down like an oyster into a seagull. And they did so with no use of Micro Sol or Micro Set at all – just plain water. If I can conquer the cracking in the black areas, I’ll have all I could want.