The Little World

Fired with enthusiasm for a new technique, I set out in quest of a Buster – a kit cheap enough to act as sacrificial styrene so that I could see in 3D what I had just ben trying on scraps of wood. The trip to Hobbytech is always fun, but it is always anguishing as well. I see many kits that would be cheap enough for the purpose but they are of subjects that do not interest me. I see things I want but they cost serious money. The supply of wholesaler’s unwanted runouts is thin on the ground.

I finally settled on the Academy model of the Hawker Tempest V. I have a Hobby Boss made-up model of a Typhoon and I am always confusing the two aircraft – Typhoon and Tempest. So up until now I have shied away from getting one. I’m pleased to see that there are real differences in this kit from the other.

But the scheme is very much the same, and I know how to make that scheme, so I thought it could serve as a Buster – it was cheap enough.

The kit is a delight – clean sprue trees and a good clear canopy. Easy instructions, good decals, and sensible mould engineering. There’ll be a bit of a cockpit but no maze of brass.

As was my wont, I started googling for variations on the two kit schemes – also looking in vain hope of seeing one in RCAF colours. The RCAF only ever had one example of this plane and that was postwar for a very brief period of time. New Zealand has some but they had no distinctive markings. And then I turned up a surviving museum example in Northolt that was used as a post-war target tug…

And here is where the Buster concept becomes difficult. It is a good scheme and I think I can reproduce it, but I should be loathe to lose it at the last moment to an as-yet unperfected technique…However, I can proceed when I get to that point in very careful steps and if I foul up one panel of the plane I can desist with the experiment and revert to a time-tested satin spray.

I’m not sure I like to gamble with my model building.