Category: American aircraft
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Lockheed S-3A Viking – Part One – Price?
So Why So Cheap? How come a perfectly good Hasegawa jet is about half the price you’d expect to pay? Perhaps I am looking a gift horse in the molars, but I do puzzle at some of the pricing in some of the shops. The Hasegawa S3A Lockheed Viking was under $40 in a rack…
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Never Throw Nuthin’ Away
You might very well love it some day. The formation flying team you see started life as four out-of-scale plastic toy fighters that were packaged with Plasticville airport buildings. Made in the mid-1950’s these structures populated thousands of O-guage and S-guage toy train layouts in North America. The lettering and insignia on the planesare in…
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Nothing To Excess
This is a fine philosophy, but I wouldn’t go overboard on it… It is also good counsel for the people who make the moulds for plastic kits. I was dealing with an old Revell B-24 D kit from the late 70’s that had recessed panel lines and raised rivets. They were the size that would…
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Grumman Hawkeye – Part Two – Filling And Filing
And not just in one stage, either. When you take on an older kit, you accept the limitations of the art at the time that it was made. You can build it with the skills of that time or with modern ones. Either way is a sort of compromise. Here we have a combination of…
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Grumman Hawkeye – Part One – Never Before Considered
Some model kits can be like that – you go along in your regular rut and never even give them a thought. Then a stash sale or clean-out of the back store-room of a hobby shop brings something to light. And you wonder why you had never wanted one. However, you want one NOW! This…
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Martin Canberra – Part Three – Da Nang 1966
With three good choices for a scheme, it was only the toss of a coin that painted this bomber high speed silver. The paint itself is the good old French silver grey melange now topped up with more fresh silver for a shinier finish. One of the extant B-57 aircraft at a museum in the…
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Martin Canberra – Part Two – Dry Fit Champ
As soon as the cockpit tub went in – along with the 3/4 of a musket ball – I knew I was on a winner. A fuselage cementation stage can be heaven or hell, depending on whether the moulders have proportioned the cockpit tub or platform to the actual inside of the shell. Many Czech…
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Martin Canberra – Part One – Old Italeri
I am always on the alert for Italeri kits – I find them an ideal blend of simplicity and precise moulding. This Italeri No 144 box was no exception – it was half-way down a pile of unwanted kits at a recent stash sale for the very reasonable price of $ 20. I balanced my…
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Stealth Aircraft – Part Four – B2 Spirit
Northrop are finally vindicated. After suffering the indignity of having their pioneer flying wing bombers canned by the US Air Force in the 1940’s due to commercial and political pressure, they have won the day by producing the B2 Spirit stealth bomber. It is in service and has done service. It will likely be replaced…
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Stealth Aircraft – Part Three – F117 Nighthawk
Do Not Place In Dark Cabinet… Or you might as well have not built it. This is four parts and a stand, there is no glazing except over the eyes of the modeller. There are few details, but I shall attach a note saying the cockpit is fully detailed. It looks as if it should…
The Little World 