Category: American aircraft
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Douglas Skyraider – Part One – Abandoned On The Shelf
Started, but incomplete. Very low price – my kind of kit. And a definite prototype in mind for the finished build. The previous owner had cemented the wing and fuselage halves together and done a pretty careful and precise job of it. The kit is designed so that the cockpit tub slips inside before the…
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US Navy Phantom II – Part Three – Repeated Masking
Sometimes I make work for myself, and sometimes people make it for me. This Airfix US Navy scheme is really quite simple – the top light gull grey and the bottom white – but the navy decided to complicate things by painting some of the flying surfaces in white as well. Indeed they also apparently…
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US Navy Phantom II – Part Two – The Sixties Return
In my case, without the hair… I don’t care – if the era came back with half this much success, I would be delighted. So far the old Airfix Series 3 kit is doing very well indeed. The basic structure went together at one afternoon session. However, it was never going to go together without…
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US Navy Phantom II – Part One – Airfix Series 3
This older Phantom came as a part of a legacy sale. It is a Series 3 Airfix kit – boxed, and from 1965. Even if the actual production of this box was in later years, that’s a long time, and the instructions, decals, and moulding are bound to have suffered. Since then, of course, many…
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Finnish Brewster Buffalo – Part Three – 1945
Let us be delicate about this… In 1945 the Finns were on the winning side of a losing war. Actually several wars. They had fought the Soviet Union on their own behalf, as partners with nazi Germany, and then fought the Germans for their own territory as part of the Allies. It was a situation…
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Finnish Brewster Buffalo – Part Two – All In A Day’s Play
I have given up days of work. Now I slave away at a hobby… it is much more trouble… And I should not have it otherwise. I can remember employment and practice and professional education and have no desire whatsoever to go back and re-commence them. If I had to do it all over again,…
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Finnish Brewster Buffalo – Part One – The Herd Increases
As a child I once had an unbuilt balsa model of a Brewster Buffalo. It was well beyond my skills at the time but the design always intrigued me. Perhaps that is why I have built four of the beasts so far for my 1:72 collection. This one is the Hobby Boss version – a…
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Chance Vought Cutlass – Part Four – Ensign Killer
That, unfortunately, was the nick-name applied to this fighter in US Navy service. It was not a long service life. The type was found to be difficult to land, dangerous, and of marginal performance. Better offerings came from Grumman and McDonnell. The navy knew when to fold the cards and return these things to shore-based…
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Chance Vought Cutlass – Part Three – Bit By Slow Bit
And if you rush it, the demons leap on you out of the shadows… I have rushed it before – and I can show you the demon scars. Kits that started well and finished poorly – because I rushed a stage through. This Cutlass was not going to be one of the sad cases. The…
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Chance Vought Cutlass- Part Two – Fit
Whether it is dry or wet, the fit of a kit is the factor that most determines our satisfaction. Or to put it succinctly – it either will or it won’t. My praise to the Fujimi people for this one – it did. Not all their offerings in the past have, but here we have…
The Little World 