Category: camouflage
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Junkers Ju-86 – Part Two – The Four-Part Scheme
You have no idea how hard it was to resist writing ” Four-play “… The horror I experienced painting my first four-part camouflage scheme still exists in my display cabinet – wrapped around a Morane-Saulnier fighter of the French air force in early WW2. I was relying upon a back-of-packet colour call-out and masking fluid.…
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General Dynamics F111 – Part Three – The Masked Bandit
Every model you build teaches you something – this little one showed me how to conquer the tri-tone scheme. Normally I hate ’em – the Armée de l’Air or USG or Italian three-colour camouflage that looks so cool and takes so much masking and spraying time. I have been known to chicken out more times…
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General Dynamics F-1 – Part Two – Viper!
Well, I have decided to go with the Air Force crews and call this the Viper. I am also less than impressed with a company the calls itself by such a generic name; General Dynamics. Sounds as if they could be making light switches or selling time-share weeks. I think they should change the name…
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McDonnell Douglas Phantom – Part Two – Vietnam Era
Little of my aero collection so far shows schemes of the Vietnam War period, but gradually this will change. Many of the kits now seem to have decals for the period and If I can overcome my aversion to both stencil decals and three-colour camouflage schemes, I can go right ahead. The call-out for this…
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The Low-Vis Paint Scheme
Or how to survive on the battlefield. See them before they see you – then run away. This also works with blind dating. The almost universal adoption of low-vis paint scheme and insignia by the world’s air forces has been founded on a number of assumptions – but not all of them seem logical: a.…
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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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Should Tiny Models Have Lighter Paints?
I don’t know, but I intend to experiment. Most of my aircraft building is in 1:72 scale, with the occasional foray into 1:48 when someone donates a kit to me. I tend to use lacquer paints and keep the colours strong and pure. The fact that this renders the models somewhat toy-like is a positive…
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Sukhoi Su-22 Fitter – Part Three – Up and Flying
The 1/144 scale model is a wonderful thing – but you have to remember that it is an abstract of a thumbnail sketch of a miniature painted on ivory. The average person will not be able to rig the hydraulic hoses in the wheel wells. The person who can do this is watched carefully by…
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Sukhoi Su-22 Fitter – Part Two – The Pied Piper Of Budapest
More than one premiere for this little kit. I was puzzled at the box art for this ground-attack aircraft – The markings seemed to show a bomb strike on a highway amongst green fields – yet the plane was possibly a Middle Eastern one. My silly – it turns out to be a Hungarian aircraft…
The Little World 