Category: American aircraft
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Douglas RB-66B – Part Five – Super Snooper
The first B-66 Destroyer I had was a Monogram model with lots of moving parts and a bomb bay that worked. I remember destroying a small city with it. Play was more robust in the 1950’s, I can tell you. But the Italeri RB-66B is no bomber – it’s an electronics warfare and reconnaissance bird.…
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Douglas RB-66B – Part Four – The Butchers Chart
Well, that’s what it looks like – you expect to see terms like ” rump ” and ” chop ” on the airplane in the divisions. As it is, a lot of newer USAF jets have so many stencils on them that you wonder if they are made by Fisher Price. At least in the…
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Douglas RB-66B – Part Three – Knuckle Down
And buckle down and do it, do it, do it… Roger Miller was right – you just have to make the cockpit eventually. This was not as bad as some – the amount of detail was enough to populate the space without demanding excess bending and fiddling. The basic grey could be done with exactitude…
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Douglas RB-66B – Part Two – Postponing The Office Work
Every instruction sheet for a model airplane seems to commence with work on the cockpit. This may be a simple as an old Airfix pilot-on-a-shelf to the most complex brass and resin aftermarket kit. I sort of like doing this are and sort of don’t. So I look around for a way of postponing the…
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Douglas RB-66B – Part One – The Shelf Queen
Some kits fly out the door of the hobby shop as soon as they arrive. Some stay until the sales. Some stay until the owner dies and the executors hacksaw the door open. The reasons for this can be many – the kit is horrible – the kit is so obscure than no living being…
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Northrop BT 1 – Part Seven – Why Was It Not Named?
Dauntless, Helldiver, Avenger, Hellcat…all good historic names for US Navy aircraft. The Army Air Force had Mustangs and Thunderbolts and such. Why was the BT 1 just a code, instead of a name? I suspect it is because it never established itself in the affections of the press – or at least in the press…
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Northrop BT 1 – Part Six – The Arcane Scheme
I occasionally go to our local bottle shop and buy beer or wine. It is a big shop and has hundreds of varieties of booze, and the only way to differentiate before you buy is by the labels. I have given up being a gourmet or a gourmand and have finally come down to being…
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Northrop BT 1 – Part Five – A Pit Of Cocks
Settle down class. Stop giggling. You in the back, too. The cockpit on the BT 1 had every chance of being awkward – PE rudder pedals and control knobs and such Czecherie – but I refused to let it daunt me. I have already made a Douglas SBD-4 and I am dauntless… The green colour…
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Northrop BT 1 – Part Four – The Donkey
And I spent a morning pinning the tail on it. No blindfold. Czech and other short-run airplane kits have many flaws, but one of the most worrying is the fact that they often provide no way of attaching the tail securely. If there is a tab and slot it is rudimentary, clogged with flash and…
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Northrop BT 1 – Part Three – It’s A Böhm
With apologies to Peter Sellers… The 500 lb bomb that the BT 1 is carrying is the first resin-cast weapon I’ve encountered. It is very encouraging, though I generally refuse to pay aftermarket prices for accessories. But the fit of the fins and their cross-pieces is superb. It is almost a pity to bury it…
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