Category: Canadian aircraft
-
Bristol Belvedere – Part Three – The Mehcopter

Cue enthusiasm…reboot…reboot. I think this is the first of the Airfix Vintage Classics that has disappointed. It is undoubtedly what it was in the original release, but like the original Blackburn Buccaneer, the Hovercraft, the Fairey Rotodyne, and the prototype Harrier, it strangely fails to please. Perhaps Airfix were precipitate in issuing something that was…
-
RCAF Wellington Mk II – Part Six – Dortmund Or Bust

Not ” or ” as it happened…” and “… This aircraft – airframe W5390 – started out from RAF Pocklington near York on the night of April 4, 1942 – heading for Dortmund. This city, close to Essen, Duisberg, and Dusseldorf was very heavily bombed…nearly all the time. Well, W5390, wearing LQ*X code and flying…
-
RCAF Wellington Mk II – Part Five – Night Black

The RAF night bomber scheme is a grim sort of design. Well I guess flying 300 miles in the dark, amongst a thousand other flying bomb dumps, and through radar-directed flak is a pretty grim business anyway. With a German Chancellor at one end and Arthur Harris at the other it seems like a murderous…
-
RCAF Wellington Mk II – Part Four – It’s No Sin To Fill

But it’s no great honour, either… I’ve no idea if Tevye built model airplanes, but if he did, he would have been philosophical about it. For my part I accept the inevitability of gaps and defects and the need for a good fill and sand. AIrfix, on the other hand seem to have decided to…
-
RCAF Wellington Mk II – Part Three – Sub-Assembly Is The Go

When you are building a model in three or four different locations, it pays to view each of these workshops as a separate shop. The real aircraft makers did this – in particular the American ones like Ford who could count on a number of plants in a general area. They assigned a particular sub-assembly…
-
RCAF Wellington MkII – Part One – The New

Well, the newest – this variant of the Vickers Wellington was kitted by Airfix recently and will be built as a Canadian aircraft – likely from the Vancouver squadron. The two other Wellingtons in the collection come from Italeri and MPM. This is the most detailed version, and despite Airfix’s option of leaving interior detail…
-
Pitts S2A – Part Two – Canadian Reds

I wonder if someone will pick up on this one at the next WASMex show. Will I get talked to by the committee? Well, we shall see. If they press me I will say that the sponsors are a fine Canadian company that sponsored a team for air racing and never sells dangerous products. Not…
-
Pitts S2A – Part One – Leonardo’s

My daughter visited Japan some 5 years ago – pre Covid. I tasked her with bringing me back something that wasn’t available in our local shops. Fortunately she wandered into one of the Leonardo’s shops in Akihabara and was able to talk to the sales staff. She selected 4 models that were old, odd, and…
-
Vickers Viscount – Part Four – Smooth Success

My internet enquiries have failed to turn up a list of names given to the Vickers Viscount aircraft flown by Trans Canada Airlines and then by Air Canada – just a corporate change. However they were titled, they seem to have been quite a success on the Northern American routes – passengers noting the smooth…

