Category: British aircraft
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Gloster Javelin FAW 9 – Part Five – Eighty Three Cents A Day

The Gloster Javelin kit cost me $ 5.00 at a Sunday swap-meet. I built it over the next 6 days. Thus, it cost 83¢ per day. Try getting happy elsewhere for 83¢… I succeeded. The ex-FROG revamped 50’s kit went together logically and easily. The horrors of age were hidden by modern science and devious…
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Gloster Javelin FAW 9 – Part Four – Bang On

I’ve banged on about this before and I’ll bang on about it in the future – the use of a good jig or model support system is wonderful. Mine are from Vertigo Jigs, Slovakian-made and available through BNA here in Australia. I’ve got the WW2 fighter jig and the modern jet jig. The Gloster Javelin…
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Gloster Javelin – FAW 9 – Part Three – Trench Warfare

Try as you might to buy kits that need no major work, you are still at the mercy of the moulding shop. Tamiya may be a safer bet than FROG but do not let the tube of putty out of your sight… This was a case of trying the new sprue goo mixture. I finally…
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Gloster Javelin FAW 9 – Part Two – Evolving A FROG

I have been googling the Javelin kit I bought and have come to some interesting conclusions – it is the Mister Craft mould but there are marked differences between these two and the original FROG sprue trees for the 1950’s. These chiefly revolve about the addition of a long whale-rib probe on the starboard side…
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How Accurate Were They Back In The Day?

Depends on who they were and when the day was… I well remember seeing an Aurora Famous Fighter kit sold in Canadian hobby shops that purported to be a Soviet plane – variously touted as a Yak 25 or a MiG 19, that was nothing like either aircraft. It may have been drawn up and…
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Handley Page Heyford – Part Four – HP Sauce

I did not even make it to March – the Handley Page Heyford that was to have been the crowning glory of Matchbox March was completed on the evening of February 28. And it was the last Matchbox kit in the stash. I shall do my research to see what other kits Matchbox made in…
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Handley Page Heyford – Part Three – All The Appeal..

Of a hairless cat… The period between the wars was a time of increased streamlined elegance in the design world. Cars, locomotives, buildings…they all got sleeker and more aerodynamic. How ironic that the HP Heyford – designed to fly through the air – should do so looking like a washing machine. I attached the upper…
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Handley Page Heyford – Part One – Come On March

I rarely urge the calendar to advance – I am at an age when I appreciate every day – indeed, being retired, I frequently mistake one for another. As long as I can remember scale model club morning and garbage night, the rest of the week can dissolve. But a special month was coming; Matchbox…
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Airspeed Envoy – Part Two – Squeezy

Say what you will about the British being a stuffy and stand-offish nation, when they make a small airliner they make sure that everyone is chummy on the flight. Either that or the moulds for these seats are a little wide. You can get in the door and possibly into the back three seats, but…

