Category: Canadian aircraft
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Bell Model 47 – Part One – Sheer Terror Over the Brazeau

Being a kid whose dad was the project manager for a big construction project had its advantages – you got to ride out with him after supper when he made the evening round of the construction site and you got to climb all over the big tractors and earthmovers. In some cases, if they had…
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Boeing Vertol CH 147 Chinook – Part Five – Whatever Happened To Sky??

Specifically, whatever happened to the colour Sky as applied to the underside of British and Commonwealth aircraft? The underside of this Canadian CH 147 Chinook seems distinctly visible, as the bronze-black and deep green camo scheme – as admirable as it seems on the top and sides of the helicopter – wrap around down under…
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Boeing-Vertol CH 147 Chinook – Part Three – Miniature Misgivings

When constructing a kit I have learned to look at the instructions carefully. Then ignore a certain percentage of them – in particular the ones that ask me to glue on small breakable bits early in the piece. If I do so, I condemn myself to great anxiety over them ever after. There is a…
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Boeing-Vertol CH 147F Chinook – Part Two – You Want What?

I was taken aback. Normally the makers of plastic models do not expect you to saw them apart as soon as you open the box. Italeri did, though…and it was in a good cause. ‘Cause the Boeing company had made drastic changes to the sides of their Chinook helicopter and Italeri had to follow on.…
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Boeing-Vertol CH 147F Chinook – Part One – The Flying Bread Box

Okay, okay, I know. But that was what it looked like when I opened the box. It is the first of the modern twin-rotor helicopters I’ve encountered and I had no idea what the size of it was going to be. This is the second part of my fee-for-service I earned taking portraits and it…
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Lockheed Lodestar Part Six – Finished For The Time Being…

The Mannix Ltd Lodestar – CF-TDI – will land at Wet Dog Regional Airport tomorrow and be hangared for a space. It waits on the appearance of clear Testor’s decal film in the local hobby shops – there is really no other practical way to get the speed lines and the company logo on the…
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Lockheed Lodestar – Part Five – My Father’s Son

I’ll say this now, at the risk of a haunting tonight – my father had some strange ideas. Not strange as in socially strange or religiously strange – his were more mechanically strange. They were generally a result of a problem that had to be solved, no fancy equipment at hand, and the availability of…
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Lockheed Lodestar – Part Four – The Grey Ghost

Limited as I am to only a half-dozen photos of the actual plane I’m modelling – CF-TDI – I am having to squeeze the last drops of information from each image. The heading one is the chief image I use, as it was evidently taken with Kodachrome in the late 40’s or early 50’s and…
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Lockheed Lodestar – Part Three – But Wait, There’s More…

I am starting to get smarter when I open the box of a new kit – I dive for the instruction sheet. The thing I want to see straight away is the diagram of the sprues with the ID numbers on the bits that I will use and the greyed-out portions that indicate things that…
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Lockheed Lodestar – Part Two – Knifing A Lockheed

Those of you who have never seen me in a tee-shirt may be a little startled at the top image. I am hoping it has that effect on the owners of the construction company that used to own the Lockheed Lodestar CF-TDI…the one I am building at present. I sent them a letter yesterday asking whether…
