Category: American aircraft
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North American Mitchell – Part Six – Lead Ship
The B25 Mitchell is complete – the lead ship of my Northwest Staging Route air convoy. It’s not in Soviet colours – this one will be based in Alaska for defence of the Aleutians. The USAAF basic scheme is really very simple – Olive Drab on the top and Neutral Grey on the bottom, with…
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North American Mitchell – Part Five – Nothing Is Uglier…
Nothing is uglier than a handsome or beautiful person before they are ready to be seen. Dressing-room portraits are invariably a strained thing and the more of them you don’t see, the better you feel. The B-25 Mitchell bomber is no exception – The heading image may be excused for showing the prima donna with…
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I Don’t Think I’m Working Hard Enough At Being Lazy
I mean, procrastination starts with ” pro ” and you’ve gotta be dedicated for that, right? I’m typing this because there is a backlog in the Little Workshop – but it is a deliberate thing. I’ve been working on the A-20 Havoc, several P-39’s and a B-25 Mitchell. They’ve all got to the undercoat stage…
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North American Mitchell – Part Four – The Tail Gunner
Every good bomber needs a tail gunner – the chap who sits at the back and is the first one to get killed. And every model airplane build needs a tail gunner as well – but for a better reason. Unfortunately the model of the B-25 I am making is one with no rear gun……
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North American Mitchell – Part Three – Cementing A Friendship
The world seems to be divided into two camps – those who don’t care about Brexit, and those who don’t care about Justin Trudeau. There are a few of us who have sought to bridge the gap and heal the rift by not caring about both subjects at the same time. Given a cup of…
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North American Mitchell – Part Two – Sparring For My Attention
The Airfix company are pursuing a theme with their latest moulds of multi-engine aircraft. They are giving us far more detail than ever before and the walls of the fuselages and the wings are becoming thinner. When we see the edge of a window or an opening it is far more in-scale than the old…
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North American Mitchell – Part One – The Lead Ship
The purchase of the Airfix B25 Mitchell was a bit of a coup – a local shop supplied it and I saved the cost of postage from the eastern states. But I did not realise until I opened it that it was a trap*. Oh, I knew the model itself was good – I do…
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McDonnell Banshee – Part Four – Ready For The Canadian Hall, Eh?
The decals have gone on the RCN Banshee and it is ready for the display hall of Canadian service aircraft. The suspect upper grey is still on it and sealed in with varnish. I am actually delighted with the thing – and it is rather a massive fighter compared with some of the Korean War…
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McDonnell Banshee – Part Three – The Paint Call-Out
At a certain point in the construction of the McDonnell Banshee in Royal Canadian Navy livery I needed to consider the paints required. I took to the Academy instruction shoot and looked at their colour call-out chart. It confirmed what I already knew from looking at internet pictures of the plane ( I had never…
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McDonnell Banshee – Part One – The Holiday Kit
On my holidays to Melbourne, I slipped into the new Metro Models shop in Bourke Street to see what I could find. This Academy model of the McDonnell F2H-3 Banshee did not call to me at first until I turned up the side of the box and was staring at three colour profiles of Royal…
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