Category: French aircraft
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Dassault Ouragan – Part Four – The Colour of The Underwear

The colour of the underwear is always important. And not just in the gusset, either. Trying to find authoritative material about the insides and undersides of aircraft can be a problem. There are air museums, of course, and you get to peer from a distance at what the wheel wells and control surface recesses look…
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Dassault Ouragan – Part Three – The Grey Ghost

I like grey primer on aircraft. It makes them look like the old hard rubber recognition models you used to encounter in yard sales. I wish now that I had taken advantage of those buying opportunities. And it raises an interesting question – could a person build up a valid aircraft collection with the planes…
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Dassault Ouragan – Part Two – Taming The Pit

I must complement Valom. They are not terminally annoying. The fuselage halves for the Dassault Ouragan fit with few gaps. The wings go together sweetly – very little fettling in the landing gear well. The nose intake splitter and tailpipe are paragons of precision. Then there is the cockpit… It is well-moulded and reasonably proportioned…
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Dassault Ouragan – Part One – Right To The Door

This is one of the kits that was brought to our model club by a chap selling a stash – though another member has suggested that they were the result of a trip to the orient and a suitcase full of plastic brought back home. Some people think this an imposition on the builder –…
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Caudron C-635 – The Blue French Gem

To be specific; Bleu Baltique Metallique. This is the only post for this build – because I forgot to picture the early stages of it. They were fast ones – this Heller kit has only 34 pieces. But how lovely they are. The plane itself is a light aircraft of the 1930’s – purchased in…
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Focke Wulf 190A – Part Four – Et Voila!

Voici le NC900. Produit de l’SNCAC a Cravant en France. This is a product of the S.N.C.A.C. from parts and items found in a disused chalk quarry in Cravant near Auxerre in the centre of France. These were made up after the war as an interim squadron for the French Air Force – some 20…
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Boy, Was Flory Ever Right

And more correct than even he thought. Phil Flory is making some bite-sized videos for modellers to introduce them to basic concepts – and right at the start of this series he has advised people to sit down with the instruction book and plan out their build. Good, good advice, and something that no-one else…
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Dewoitine D.520 – Part Three – C’est Fini

And fini’d very well, I might add. The usual number of minor errors and hidden mistakes, but then that is par for the course. The D.520 paint job is not perfect – I was trying the freehand spray technique with the pressure on the airbrush turned down to 8 psi and a very thin mixture.…
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Dewoitine D.520 – Part Two – C’est l’Avalanche

One cannot do a Hobby Boss kit slowly – the very nature of the simple moulding does not lend itself to the dawdler. You either do it in normal speed and accept that you will progress rapidly or lapse into ennui. That is my philosophical explanation for the Dewoitine on a stick that you see…
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Dewoitine D.520 – Part One – Allo, Allo…

I have passed the Hobby Boss Dewoitine D-520 kit on the hobby shop shelves for a couple of years now with no regrets. I’d built a Morane Saulnier and a Caudron and the prospect of an diminutive French plane was no urgent call. But I’ve recently borrowed one of those profile books of WW2 fighters…
