Category: British aircraft
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Bristol Type 130 Bombay – Part Three – Is It Mistrust Or Distrust?
The dictionary isn’t clear on the distinction. Either way, when I look at the design of some kits – particularly the butt joint of a thin horizontal stabiliser – I start to get sceptical. My experience of adhesives tells me that there are all too many instances when they don’t. I would not ask long…
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Bristol Type 130 Bombay – Part One – Slow And Fat
This model was purchased in panic when I thought a local hobby shop was closing down. I did not want to miss out. Well the shop is still open, but I do not regret the purchase. I have recently built a modern Bristol Type 170 Super Freighter and this older bus will be a wonderful…
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Use It Or Hoard It?
What do you do with the valuable old kit? If you have been stashing or buying for some time, you will eventually stumble across an unbuilt kit that is actually valuable in some respect: a. It has climbed in resale value as it has aged and other similar kits fallen by the wayside. If you…
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Fairey Swordfish Mk I – Part Three – Wings Over The Workbench
I walk in awe of the people who build scale model biplanes and then rig them. They have condemned themselves to the sort of stage act that used to involve Chinese jugglers, bamboo poles, and spinning bowls…and then added the sort of things that would make a spider burst into tears. I don’t know what…
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Fairey Swordfish Mk I – Part Two – If We Are To Believe…
I am often asked to believe – but I pause before I do. It is not that I think people duplicitous – it is just that I know there are only limited methods of actual proof – sight, touch, smell, etc. Thus I regard the colouring instructions in model kits with care. Do the writers…
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Fairey Swordfish Mk1 – Part One – Wheels At Last
And not before time. I made a model of the Fairey Swordfish from the new Airfix mould some time ago and promised myself to do another on wheels – this time with torpedo armament. The previous one was on floats and in pre-war colours. This was so pleasing that I have decided the new model…
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The Glaring Omissions
In hobby shops full of Messerspitstang kits and the space ships of the latest franchise movie, it is actually painful to stride the aisles looking for the missing links. I concentrate most effort on 1:72 scale aircraft and have long built the standards. I’ve built the semi-standards, and a fair few of the obscurities as…
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The Kit That Makes You Say Hmmm
We have all had one…and those of us with bad luck have had several kits that make us doubt whether we should have even started them. Sometimes it has been commenced in a hurry with blithe disregard to warnings from the internet. Sometimes we have been seduced by box art. Plastic porn, if you will.…
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Supermarine Swift FR.5 – Part Five – NATO Eye
Call me suspicious and cynical if you wish – I mean a person like you would…but I suspect that the ranks of photo reconnaissance aircraft are generally made up of fighter failures. They are either not fast enough, nimble enough, or well-enough armed to succeed on the battlefield, and are relegated to flying above it…
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Supermarine Swift FR.5 – Part Four – Get Thee Behind Me, Stencils…
You cannot escape decals on model aircraft – they are needed to complete everything. But they can completely ruin the job. Or your day, if you let them. I’m thinking of the friable, misprinted, graphic horrors that flow out of eastern Europe. You can tame them somewhat, but you are never really satisfied with the…
The Little World 