Category: 1:144 scale
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Handley Page Heracles – Part Four – Night Flight To Hyderabad

This aircraft model gave two choices of registration – G-AAXC or G-AAXF. I chose the latter – ” Helena ” and noted that it was assigned to eastern flights for Imperial Airways – when there was an empire in the east to fly to. As I intend to do with most 1:144 models in my…
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Handley Page Heracles – Part Two – Wings Over Wetaskwin

This kit build has nothing to do with Wetaskwin, but if you have been waiting for 60 years to use that line, you just go for it. The sprue trees that made up this kit looked like a picket fence – or a game of pick-up-sticks; there were that many struts. The box art was…
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Handley Page Heracles – Part One – A Present From The Past

I recently asked my daughter to pick me up a fresh model kit when she passed through Melbourne. There are several good shops there and she might encounter something new. Well, she was taken by something old – an Airfix vintage Classic re-issue of a 1965 kit – the Handley Page HP.42 ” Heracles ”…
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General Dynamics F111 – Part Three – The Masked Bandit

Every model you build teaches you something – this little one showed me how to conquer the tri-tone scheme. Normally I hate ’em – the Armée de l’Air or USG or Italian three-colour camouflage that looks so cool and takes so much masking and spraying time. I have been known to chicken out more times…
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General Dynamics F111 – Part Two – Library Day

Every fortnight I repair to the Cambridge Library in Floreat for an afternoon of modelling, coffee, and chocolate biscuits. As it is a public place there is no booze allowed, and I drive home clear-headed. Except if there has been a lot of cementing and painting. Fortunately 1/144 involves very little of either and the…
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General Dynamics F111 – Part One – A New Maker

I am never happier than when building a kit from a maker that I have not encountered before. It is a new land to explore. This Arii kit from Japan came with very rudimentary instructions - really nothing to help with decal placement or colouring save the box art. Yet the individual components and the decals…
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Mig 23 Flogger – Part Two – Homeland Defender

I have gotten jaded in my old age – the effect of having internet images to turn to. I no longer follow the maker’s colour call out slavishly if there is another scheme that attracts the eye. The fact that the decals may not be exactly right is of little consequence. Don’t judge me. Thus…
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MiG 23 Flogger – Part One – Swinging Wing Again

From what I read, the MiG 23 was a bit of a Soviet bust…nowhere near as successful as the previous MiG 21 on the world market. Not my problem. This 1/144 model was kindly donated and looks like it will build up well. It has the swing-wing feature of the period, and in this case…
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General Dynamics F-1 – Part Two – Viper!

Well, I have decided to go with the Air Force crews and call this the Viper. I am also less than impressed with a company the calls itself by such a generic name; General Dynamics. Sounds as if they could be making light switches or selling time-share weeks. I think they should change the name…
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General Dynamics F-1 – Part One – Falcon?

Not, apparently, to the people flying them. They call them ” Vipers “. And they ought to know… This is my third F-16 - two others having been completed in 1/72 for the USAF and the IDF. I am starting to like the type a lot. The Academy kit is simple, small, and well-moulded. The only…
