Category: 1:72 scale
-
Lockheed Hercules – Part Four – The Office

But it may, or may not, be official. It’s hard to tell. I do like accuracy in aircraft. When I am a passenger on a commercial jet I applaud accurate navigation and safe landings. Yet I can be led astray easily when constructing my models and it often doesn’t bother me. Thus I can read…
-
Lockheed Hercules – Part Three – Enough Meat On The Bone

In my recent builds I have concentrated upon small aircraft. This is fun and fine – it delivers quick satisfaction and another plane for the collection. But it sometimes seems as if there is very little going on – that the thing flies together in a day or so. I start to miss the meat…
-
Lockheed Hercules – Part Two – First Sprues

I may have been typecasting myself at the model club. Everyone who saw me start on the C-130 commented that I was building a big model at last. Well, it is big, but not much more than the Italeri Fairchild Flying Boxcar of 2018. The seams between panels are raised, but discretely so. The polish…
-
Lockheed Hercules – Part One – Club Build

Every year I like to let myself go with a biggish build and use my time at the Scale Model Club Of Western Australia to do it. I know it’s going to be a leisurely affair with occasional stops for home air brushing, but I can still make good use of the Tuesday Men’s Shed…
-
Can A Manchester Or Lincoln Be That Far Away?

I am a solid fan of the Airfix company’s plastic model kits. I cannot remember ever having a really bad, unbuildable one from them. Some of their offerings could be a little crude, but they were of their time and reasonably priced withal. They did concentrate on British marques and that was fine – they…
-
Hangaring Out With With The Big Birds

I do love a good hangaring, don’t you? Walking around a vast space filled with extremely expensive aluminium and trying not to let any of it drip hydraulic fluid on you. Occasionally hitting your eye on a propeller blade ( or on a turbine blade if you are nosy and short-sighted…). Tripping over hoses and…
-
Henschel Hs 123A-1 – Part Three – Lt. Yuen

Lieutenant Yuen* has command of his aircraft. He’s joined the 15th Squadron flying Henschel dive bombers. Let’s hope he is successful. Lt. Yuen was a bit of a handful to sandwich into the cockpit. I had originally thought to follow normal practice and finish the fuselage before cementing the pilot in. Not on the Hs…
-
Henschel Hs 123A-1 – Part Two – After Dinner

I washed the kit parts for the Henschel before dinner – they sat drying as I browsed and sluiced, and were ready for a start as soon as the coffee was served. What you see in the heading image is less than two hours later – all the major parts de-burred, edge-cleaned, and assembled. Tomorrow…
-
Henschel Hs 123A-1 – Part One – 15th Squadron

Well here we go again with the Airfix Classics. And this one is destined to be quite different from what Airfix envisaged. The plane is intriguing – one of the last of the serving biplanes…or this might even be considered a sesquiplane. It is deceptively fighter-like but in actuality is a dive bomber. When the…
-
The Weak Link

In every chain they say the weak link will break first. So with every scale model. It changes with each type that you build. Do a few and you’ll know what to expect. You can fortify yourself against the troubles if you get in first. a. Aircraft are weakest in three areas; landing gear, antennae,…
