Category: French aircraft
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French Lancaster – Part Four – The Flying Bribe
I’ve been reading about the donation of WU 16 – a Lancaster patrol aircraft of the Aeronavale to Australia in 1962. The story is detailed elsewhere so do go google it up. It seems to have a number of amusing elements; requests from the local RAAFA for a time-expired Lancaster – refusal by the French…
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French Lancaster – Part Two – Part Works
No, not one of those wretched Paul Hamlyn newsagency schemes that sell you a part and a line of guff each week until you either spend $ 2000 or throw the remains in the bin… This is about the little sub-assemblies you can deal with as the main parts are setting. Cockpit, tailplanes, engine nacelles,…
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Mirage III CJ – Part Three – Let’s Give The Customers Something…
What shall it be? Accurate instruction sheets? Flawless mouldings? Adequate colour information? I have it – let’s just give them trouble. It’ll be fun and cheap and we can do it by making bad decisions. Like avoiding a centre seam on the top of the Mirage fuselage that could be smoothed and polished easily –…
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Mirage III CJ – Part Two – The Approximate Cockpit
I confess myself mystified at the philosophy that spends money to mould a resin seat of truly superb quality and then cannot make adequate provision to anchor it accurately within the fuselage. I admit that it is unlikely to escape once the two halves of the thing are cemented together, but the business of deciding…
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Mirage III CJ – Part One – The Very Thing
I set myself the task of building Israeli aircraft for a desert museum airfield – this kit was sitting on the shelves of a specialist dealer when I went to look for decals. How could I resist? It shows a horrible modification of a beautiful aircraft on the box top…but the sides promise the original…
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Équipe Super Mystère – Part Two – Fleur de Lis
Well, what else would it be for French aircraft… The concept has become reality. Three Heller kits, a base from Spotlight, and a length of 3mm brass rod. The kits are of a period and at a low price. I am grateful that the ancient Heller decals worked perfectly and that the factory moulded guidelines…
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Équipe Super Mystère – Part One – L’idée Dormante
For years these Heller kits have lain on the shelves. Ignored, discarded, unconsidered. Rather the story of many lives, eh? Well the reforming zeal of the SMCWA committee swept them from the storeroom and into my stash cabinet. Whence they have flown to the workbench and photo table. They are 1:100 scale – not a…
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Curtiss Model 75 A-4 – Part Five – Jean Tulasne
It must have been difficult for the French Air Force to realise that they were beaten. And beaten before they started. Handicapped by their government’s penurious attitude to developing new aircraft – coupled with the vicious labour infighting that crippled their factories so often – they started WW2 with few planes and fewer good ones.…
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Fouga For The Win
The rivets may have been numerous and the decals may have fought back… But the little Heller 1/100 scale Fouga Magister is actually a nice model. It is now perched on one of the older plastic model stands – I save ’em all for just these occasions – and will never land. But it does…
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Snowed Into The House With A Fouga
On a Saturday, with a new model kit, no homework, and a whole Coffee Crisp chocolate bar to myself. If you are English you can equate this to Christmas afternoon, a tin of Bullseyes, and a new Airfix kit plus a James Bond movie to watch. Religion has a lot to offer the thinking adult,…
The Little World 