Category: American aircraft
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Target Tug Cat – Part Three – Friday Lunchtime
And it was hot. Hot enough to dry solvent paint on the way from the nozzle of the airbrush to the surface of the model. Time for a thinner paint mix with more retarder and a lower air pressure. All you need to do is be prepared for what the weather throws at you. Fortunately…
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Target Tug Cat – Part Two – The Tuesday Soviet
My Tuesday Soviet session has proved very productive. The Hasegawa Hellcat was opened and I commenced the cockpit at 9:00. I had wings and fuselage nearly ready for closure by leaving time – 12 noon. A session at home and the parts just slipped together. You’re looking at no filler whatsoever, and I suspect that…
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Target Tug Cat – Part One – Sunday Browse
A Sunday browse in a strange hobby shop brought me up short this week – I found four items which I had coveted for months and which I had despaired of ever seeing. These are the occasions for which the credit card is made, and I have been abstemious of late. I was able to…
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Stop Laughing – This Is Serious
Stan Cross fans will recognise the reference… The red plastic cup is my scale model club coffee cup. Taken faithfully every Tuesday for my 50¢ cup of coffee in preference to the club cups which are washed every coentury or so… It is a Decor cup with a plastic lid and keeps things fine and…
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Northrop P-61 Black Widow – Part Six – Any Colour You Want
As long as it’s black. Henry Ford woulda been proud… The Northrop night fighter is ready to roam the dark skies. I have a feeling that it was just good luck on the part of the Japanese and Germans that it was so late in development. Had the Northrop designers not footled about with that…
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Northrop P-61 Black Widow – Part Four – The Black
If you want to be nervous, spray an undercoat of grey or white on your model kit. Then you’ll see just how good you were at spotting gaps and crevices. Of course then you’ll get a chance to correct them with putty or paint and you can get set to get nervous a second time.…
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Northrop P-61 Black Widow – Part Three – Under Tension
Remember I mentioned that the disparate parts of the P-61 Black Widow fit well together? Well that was before I tried to mate the belly pan to the rest of the fuselage. The basic fit is fine, but tight. The makers have exercised computer machines to measure where the parts slide over each other –…
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Northrop P-61 Black Widow – Part Two – The Parts Are Greater Than The Whole
I am often overwhelmed when I open a new kit and see the dozens of sprues that they pack in the box. Well, make that several, rather than dozens, but you get the idea. Seeing the bits laid out on the runners makes the whole project seem more formidable, mysterious, and complex than it often…
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Northrop P-61 Black Widow – Part One – My Second Widow
Ninth grade – Christmas in Calgary, Alberta. The tree held a number of real surprises…a Guillows SE5A and and Aurora 1:48 Northrop Black WIdow amongst others. It was the first time I had ever seen the aircraft and I was astounded. The Aurora kits were fun for their time but their time was a long…
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Douglas Dauntless – Part Three – Perhaps It IS A Dountless…
Maybe they know something I don’t. In my relentless pursuit of knowledge – also known as surfing the net – I discovered that there were quite a few RNZAF Douglas SBD-4 and SBD-5 aircraft used in the South Pacific. There are a number of period photos of them in flight and on the ground in…
The Little World 