Category: American aircraft
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” Adopt And Honour “
A phrase spoken by our club President – Rob – when giving me the Grumman F9F Panther model you see in the heading. It is a product of the late John Evans – a prolific and skilled member of SMCWA for many years. He built any number of USN aircraft, as well as RAAF, RAF,…
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Boeing Clipper 314 – Part Five – A Soul At Rest
It took an extra week, but the time was worth it. The aggravating mistakes of the first Boeing Clipper 314 have been corrected. The mental image I had of the result has come into focus. I can rest easy. The duraluminium surface has been all I could ask for – taking decals perfectly and keeping…
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Boeing Clipper 314 – Part Four – The Horse
When we fall off a horse we are counselled to get right back on – before we develop a fear that would paralyse us. Sound thinking, and as I was unhappy with the finish of the Boeing 314 DIXIE CLIPPER I considered it advisable to go out and buy another kit…and finish it to a…
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Boeing 314 Clipper – Part Three – President’s Plane
When Only The Best Will Do. This aircraft – DIXIE CLIPPER – flew Franklin D. Roosevelt to the Casablanca Conference in 1943. He maintained a Douglas for Continental flights – the SACRED COW. This build fell together but as usual it also started to fall apart as it progressed. The Mr Color 2028 Duraluminium went…
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Boeing 314 Clipper – Part Two – Slicker
And as slick as only a flying boat can be – particularly if it is not an amphibian. Not too many designs of the flying boat era eschewed outboard pontoons or floats. Whether they were local or overseas designs, few used the hull-and-sponson configuration to stop the boat tipping to the side once landed. And…
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Boeing 314 Clipper – Part One – It’s Not Old Gold
It’s new – in the shops and on my workbench. If you have never built a certain model made by a certain manufacturer of a certain aircraft, it is, by definition, a new model. It might be reissued, it might be remaindered, it might be stash-sold…no matter. You and that model are meeting for the…
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Sikorski Sea Dragon – Part Three – Grey On Gray
I just did that to gee up the Pommie Pedants who will insist that there should never be two spellings of the colour…or the color… The helicopter is surprisingly handsome for something that hangs its engines out on stalks and puts rubbish bins in front of them. I could have asked Italeri to mould the…
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Sikorski Sea Dragon – Part Two – Changed My Mind
Not the JMSDF – this one will be the US Navy version. It has the big refuelling probe and the Gunship Grey overall finish. I was given a bottle of Model Master Gunship Grey enamel a few years ago and this is exactly the model for it. Model Master worried me for a whiie as…
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Sikorski Sea Dragon – Part One – A Matter Of Numbers
I think there is trouble in the Italeri printing works where they make the boxes for their kits. The top of the box has superb artwork depicting a Sikorski MH-53E Sea Dragon helicopter in US Navy colours. One end of the box repeats this. But one end and one side are marked as MH-47E –…
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Seahawk HH-60H – Part One – The Wounded Box
Hard to say whether the original owner of this Italeri kit sat on it or rolled over it…but the effects were slightly dire. The windscreen is cracked and a couple of parts missing. Someone thought so little of it that they put a $ 5 red sticker on it and our committee cleaning out the…
The Little World 