Category: American aircraft
-
Curtiss Helldiver – Part Five – Jackson’s Art Supply
Jacksons Art Supplies – or Drawing Supplies, if you prefer, is a dangerous place to visit. Like Officeworks, Bunnings, or Dan Murphy’s you are surrounded by too many temptations to resist them all – you inevitably succumb to buying something and there’s the food money for the week gone. The kids will just have to…
-
Curtiss Helldiver – Part Four – Euclid Was Never A Scale Modeller
Because he could never get the geometry right… I look fondly on equilateral triangles and acute angles – many of my friends can best be described as angular and obtuse – and I like to see the geometry of the model airplane come out well. I wish this was the case with every short-run kit.…
-
Curtiss Helldiver – Part Three – Green Is The Colour…
As I have written before – it is the colour of my true love’s cockpit. But it is never the same colour as you see in the books, movies, or museums. It is never the same colour as other people use, and it is never the same colour twice. The only thing that cockpit green…
-
Curtiss Helldiver – Part Two – Diving For Dollars
The Sword model of the Curtiss dive bomber is one of the bargain bin purchases I made when a chap came to our club thinning out his stash. The whole thing in box was only $ 20…which made my previous purchase of an A-25 A Shrike from a retailer look pretty sick. The Shrike has…
-
Curtiss Helldiver – Part One – Airplane Rescue Shelter
Some people rescue puppies and kittens – some people rescue bums. Good on them, I say – they are caring and compassionate souls. I’m not normally this good, but I do have one virtue; I rescue kits. I did not start out to do my modelling this way – like most charitable affairs it just…
-
Lockheed Rt 33 – Part Three – Lockup Stage
The point of time when we have an airplane. One that encloses a well fitted wheel well complex, a nose weight, and a cockpit tub. Wings on, tail on, tip tanks on. It went surprisingly fast as the day wore on. The Sword kits are basically quite good – they are square and plumb. This…
-
Lockheed RT 33 – Part Two – Do they Drink At Lunch In Prague?
I’m willing to bet they do – it would explain a number of the design decisions that are found in Czech short-run kits. Not that I should complain, but I am slightly puzzled as to why basic components cannot be moulded as parts of the main fuselage or wing sections. They obviously have the skill…
-
Landing Gear
I’ve just re-glued some landing gear on a Grumman Guardian. It was cemented yesterday but I guess i put weight on it before it was entirely set – the joints gave way. it’s a Ukrainian kit and the fitting surfaces are Soviet-era. To be fair, Grumman asked the gear legs to do a lot with…
-
Boeing P26 – Part One – Two Shameful Confessions
I have two painful confessions to make in regard to the Boeing P-26 peashooter fighter plane. The first was in 1961 when I was in the 9th grade. I formed a friendship with a kid in my grade at school who was also an enthusiastic model airplane builder. He introduced me to matte paints –…
-
Republic Thunderflash – Part Five – Box Art
I tips me lid to the artist who painted this Republic RF-84F Thunderflash on the kit box. His rendition proved to be the most helpful reference I could find for this aircraft. I find colour call-outs fun to look at as snapshots of what one might make from the box. But I still want other…
The Little World 