Category: British aircraft
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RAF Wellington – Part Three – Bow Pen For The Win
If you do not have one, get one. Get two. Get several. You can never have enough bow pens. I have three – one from a drafting set my Grandfather used – one from a set my Father used, and one from a cheap eBay buy. The first two are best, the last adequate. Whenever…
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RAF Wellington – Part Two – The Inside Job
I am starting to model in four dimensions. Outside for length, width, and height. Inside for detail. Of course the general viewers will never know what’s inside, but I will. I will treasure the vision of a jewelled interior telling intriguing stories. And I will have beaten the old Airfix/Revell/Aurora monster of the hollow fuselage.…
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RAF Wellington – Part One – Another Legacy Bomber
This kit is the second legacy purchase from a deceased estate. The club member who passed away had not started it. A short google search turned up a number of RAF squadrons who flew this type and several clear illustrations showing camouflage pattern and squadron markings. As I had built a Wellington Mk 1c before…
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Gloster Gladiator Mk I – Part Three – The Mandate Of Heaven
Or of the Gloster Aircraft Company. The Gladiator is complete and ready to join the Swu Ping Provincial Air Army. The delightful thing about the SPPAA is that they have a variety of paints with which to decorate their aircraft. Oh, they do follow the guidelines provided by Nanking, but Nanking is a long way…
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Gloster Gladiator Mk I – Part Two – One Day’s Work
Every fortnight or so I visit a private home for a friendly scale modelling session with a group separate from my normal modelling club. The experience can be quite different. I enjoy the routine of each experience, but I keep them separate in my mind. Oddly, one of the other participants in the home sessions…
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Gloster Gladiator Mk I – Part One – I’m 14 Again
The last time I built an Airfix Gladiator I was 14 and had 50¢ to spend. I am older than that now, and richer, and glad to see that Airfix have kept up the pace – issuing this new kit a couple of years ago. It is vastly more detailed, with weighted tyres, alternate propellers,…
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Westland Whirlwind – Part Three – The Admiral’s Barge
Part of my research material about this green -and-white helicopter suggests that it wore these colour so that it could function as an ornate flying Admiral’s barge for part of the Royal Navy. Other sources assign it a training role at a Naval Air Station. Whichever is correct – and they both may be –…
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Westland Whirlwind – Part Two – Building Someone Else’s Memories
This Westland helicopter model of the late 50’s from Airfix seems to figure largely in the memories of other people. Everyone I have shown the box to seems to have built it back in the day and are scathing about it. I am fresh to the neighbourhood and am starting to feel somewhat wary –…
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Westland Whirlwind – Part One – A Green Stranger
The Vintage Classic shelf again – this time something I have never built before – the Airfix Westland Whirlwind HAS.22. In reality, it was a Sikorsky S-55 sold to the Royal Navy. The original kit is apparently of late 50’s vintage though I never saw one in shops in Canada. Basic, as you would expect,…
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The Royal Fly-Under
At the recent coronation of the British king we saw a fly-past by the RAF. Helicopters first, for some obscure reason, then the Red Arrows trailing multicoloured smoke, then a Royal anthem, and then nothing… The RAF may have been booked elsewhere for the day. At least the Royal Navy did them proud. As the…
The Little World 