Category: British aircraft
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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…
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Supermarine Swift FR.5 – Part Three – PRU Blue
I suspect there might be as many debates about PRU Blue as there are about Azure Blue but since I have been given a ready-mixed bottle of Testor’s Model Master I do not care to argue. This model also lets me use two other MM enamels thinned with lacquer thinner. The choice of type was…
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Supermarine Swift FR.5 – Part Two – The Inside Job
And a lovely job it was, too. The modern Airfix kit will please and delight the builders of cockpits as a great deal of effort has been put into this first stage. Gone are the days of a lumpy pilot figure plugged into a plastic rod from one side of he fuselage, or a bare…
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Supermarine Swift FR.5 – Part One – A Christmas Belle
Yes, I did get this for Christmas, and yes, I did select it myself. I know how to operate a holiday… This is a new Airfix kit – meaning that the plastic is a perfect consistency, the mouldings are accurate, and the instruction book is detailed enough to cope with even weird parts. There will…
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The Arrogant Strut
Those who saw Mussolini were impressed with the way he strutted. Likewise with Al Jolson and Kaiser Wilhelm II. However, none of them were as arrogant as the Airfix company when it comes to strutting…as witnessed by their production of a 1:72 Bristol F.2B. They have produced a kit that is nearly impossible to assemble.…
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Landing Hard – Part One – Spindly Is As Spindly Does
And if you occasionally collapse onto the airfield in a welter of tin tubes and screaming passengers…well, that’s British engineering. Also French and Russian aero design. For people too cheap to build proper airports with runways, they seem to have had a propensity for iffy landing gear. Thin legs splayed at impossible angles guyed up…
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No Lincoln
But you can get a model of a Leomontichvskyovic Lemon 8 from Moldovistan at your local Hobbyhell. I cannot decide whether this is because Airfix are not game to invest in a new mould that is not a Spitstangschmitt or whether the name ” Lincoln ” is seen to be too American for the British…
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SE5A – Part Three – The Roundels Wearing An Airplane
The basic structure of the little ESCI kit for the SE5A was rewarding – things fit and lined up. But that did not make the 30-year old decals any better. I tried, folks. I honestly tried. John France saw me trying and lent me some Micro Sol to try and get the things to lay…
The Little World 