Category: Australian aircraft
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Airfix Boomerang – Part Two – Furrows And Fillers
How appropriate – I am writing this post on Australia Day 2023 – about a distinctively Australian airplane. And I’m eating a sausage roll and drinking a XXXX. I may go out and wrestle a crocodile later… The Boomerang has distinctively British grooves in it – down the wing roots and in the tail assembly.…
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Airfix Boomerang – Part One – Back Again
The problem with building CAC Boomerangs is they keep on coming back… Airfix have re-issued their CAC CA-13 Boomerang again in the Vintage Classics line and I am absolutely delighted. I’ve had experience building a Tasman Models resin kit of this plane and lived to tell the tale – this one promises to be a…
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Lockheed Vega Model 5 – Part One – Legacy Stash
John Evans bought this model from Stanbridge’s model shop may years ago. Unfortunately neither John, Jack, nor the shop still exist. But that doesn’t stop us from remembering them fondly. My part in this will be to build up the MPM model of the Lockheed Vega Model 5. I suspect that John planned it to…
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Why Don’t You Build…
Most people use the phrase ” Why don’t you…” to tell someone to do something. They are not really asking for a reason why something is not being done. They save that for ” Why didn’t you…” and that is just criticism. In my case I have been asked why I don’t build more Australian…
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Hillson Praga Air Baby – Part Four – It Was A Good Idea At The Time…
Plywood wing, tube-frame fuselage, tiny 4-cylinder engine. What could possibly go wrong? Well you have to hand it to Hillson Praga. They were stylish. The little Air Baby looks good from many angles, and if the history of the type in Australia is to be believed, the three examples that got here were successful. Part…
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Hillson Praga Air Baby – Part Three – See What You Get When You Listen To Yourself
Particularly when it is the voice of experience and has arrived at wisdom through previous bad decisions. The Australian civil registration code on this plane is on clear decal film – the sort that the Czechs do well. The sheet is finely-printed and seems to be in register, but I know from past jobs that…
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Hillson Praga Air Baby – Part Two – The Human Dimension
Or perhaps that should be human dimensions. The small size of people reflected in the small size of aircraft. You wouldn’t think that with a lot of kits – the fighters, bombers, and transports of WW2 are a level bigger than their counterparts in the interwar period – and these again bigger than the WW1…
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Hillson Praga Air Baby – Part One – So Niche
Okay. Beats Me. Who in Prague has ever heard of Australia? Well, someone did. They sent out three of these little light planes before WW2 – probably because they had a manufacturing deal going with Manchester. The kit is on two sprue trees – one clear and one silvered. A tiny rime of flash but…
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CAC Boomerang – Part Four – Green And White
Readers of this column may be wondering why I build so few Australian aircraft. It is not that I dislike them – it is just that I know so little of them that I fear making errors. I know that other modellers are much more accurate and I respect their judgement. Yet I would not…
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CAC Boomerang – Part Three – Let’s Take Stock
The start of this build was unpromising. The cardboard box from Tasman Models had all the appeal of a damp surgical appliance and the instruction sheets looked like a practical joke. A Kiwi practical joke at that. It was the sort of kit that you sold on eBay if you were lucky, or bought on…
The Little World 