The Little World

This is the first aircraft that I’ve built in the Cambridge Library – not in the UK, but in Floreat, Western Australia.

The venue has allowed a small group of plastic modellers to have a facilities room on alternate Saturday afternoons for a model-building meeting. We share the space with slightly bemused students who effect to ignore us – probably dreading the thought that they might end up like us when they are old guys. News for ya, fellas – it is all good this side of 60.

The Corsair turns out to be bomb delivery truck for a number of aircraft carriers from the 60’s onward. the amount of iron they hung under them was amazing. I’ve followed the Italeri call-out for the USS SARATOGA plane from the late 70’s and put on two big fuel tanks, 8 bombs and two Sparrow missiles. There are two empty fuselage racks that in another configuration might carry Sidewinders or umbrellas or whatever.

The livery is not the brightest that has been carried but is colourful enough to make it rewarding. The options do include a more modern scheme that is greys and blues but I am more of a Sesame Street fan – the bright colours are fine. If you are going to attack it, the pilot can always drop the 2 tons of iron bombs on whatever he is flying over, speed up, and come after you with the Sparrows. Be careful which car you chase, puppy.

The 2-weekly building schedule is actually beneficial – it gives the poor young students a week when we’re not there – and it gives the cements and paints a good chance to set and dry between work sessions. If I can conquer the desire to touch the fresh paint here at home when I am spraying…and that is a matter of weakness of character and intellect on my part…a good finish results.

Kudos to Italeri for providing an intake cover that looks real.