Category: design
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F-15 Eagle – Part Two – Flaps, Gaps, And Traps
I used to think traps were for the unwary. Then I found myself carefully sticking my fingers in to get the cheese and reaping a snappy reward. There are also traps in the Academy F-15 kit – mainly slight sinks in the intakes and screeching big troubles between the top and bottom halves of the…
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Yak 3 – Part Four _ Speed Is As Speed Does
When you are not bending up connecting rods from brass PE sheets for a 1/72 kit, it seems to go a lot faster in the construction. Not as liable to win Best-of-Show at the Anorak Expo, but you have to be realistic. And Hobby Boss are the most realistic moulders I know. The Yak 3…
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North American Yale – Part Three – Canadian Peculiarities
It’s a nation that pours tree sap on its food. That eats strawberry jam pies. That considers chips in gravy and cheese to be healthy. Peculiarity is in the air. This also extended to the products of Canadian Car Foundry and the training airfields. Hence the odd hole in the side of the engine cover…
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Pinkish Semi-High Intensity Green-Brown
Or The Colour That Time Forgot. The most accurate recreation of something that never existed outside a paint designer’s cheese dream. It has no FS number but that’s okay – IPMS approves of it. The question of the right shade of puce to paint a Percival that has pancaked in Portsmouth has always been a…
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Legendary Scale Modelling
The dictionary says a legend is someone or something that has been written about*. It doesn’t specify that there has been any truth, or proof, or goodness involved the deal – just that it’s been recorded. That being the case I think we can look at legendary scale modelling… a. The kit that was just…
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Hillson Praga Air Baby – Part Four – It Was A Good Idea At The Time…
Plywood wing, tube-frame fuselage, tiny 4-cylinder engine. What could possibly go wrong? Well you have to hand it to Hillson Praga. They were stylish. The little Air Baby looks good from many angles, and if the history of the type in Australia is to be believed, the three examples that got here were successful. Part…
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Hillson Praga Air Baby – Part Two – The Human Dimension
Or perhaps that should be human dimensions. The small size of people reflected in the small size of aircraft. You wouldn’t think that with a lot of kits – the fighters, bombers, and transports of WW2 are a level bigger than their counterparts in the interwar period – and these again bigger than the WW1…
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Hillson Praga Air Baby – Part One – So Niche
Okay. Beats Me. Who in Prague has ever heard of Australia? Well, someone did. They sent out three of these little light planes before WW2 – probably because they had a manufacturing deal going with Manchester. The kit is on two sprue trees – one clear and one silvered. A tiny rime of flash but…
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The Valid Decision
If you want to drown in Official-Speak, go to Google and start looking up ” valid decision “. I often go and see what poking the bear will do before I write these things. In this case I have been preceded by academia, politics, and the sort of management that can close down a successful…
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When I Am In Trouble
When I am in trouble I hesitate to ask for help. Not that I fear it would be denied – quite the opposite; more advice would be tendered me than could be acted upon. It would come from all sides and in many cases would be diametrically opposed to itself. I should be hard-pressed to…
The Little World 