Category: French aircraft
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Nieuport-Delage 622 – Part Three – On A Wing And A Half
If you don’t have enough materials to make a complete lower wing, just shrink it a bit and no-one will notice… The sesqui-wing is a much-maligned design. I count several in my collection and they are nearly all sleek things. They lower wing is functional to some extent – much like the small wing that…
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Nieuport-Delage 622 – Part Two – Canadian Club
I have chosen this title because of the shape of the Nieuport-Delage 622’s fuselage and sesquiplane lower wing. It reminds me of a baby seal. Coming from the Frozen North as I did, some things are ethnographic… Stop shuddering. If you can eat Vegemite on toast within the sight of decent people, you can stand…
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Damn The French
Not for their food, or wines, or railway trains – which are excellent. Not for their beautiful women or their wise philosophers. Damn them for their aero camouflage schemes. Particularly the three-colour ones used in the 1930’s and 1940’s. They are hell to paint. The colours are fine – I like grey undersides. British Sky…
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Potez 540T – Part Four – Allons Enfant…
Le jour de gloire is here – under a week after starting…The Potez 540T is ready to fly! The discovery of this long-neglected kit in a back drawer was made last week – It was a kind gift from John, a club mate. It was a classic case of a sleeper – hiding under a…
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Potez 540T – Part Three – It’s A Fish…
But not the sort that you choose to eat – Rick Stein would throw this one back. Dick Stein is not so fussy. The addition of the nose fairing is marginally better than the glass turret, but it has given a deep-sea blobfish look to the poor old Potez – in grey primer it is…
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Potez 540T – Part Two – Two Days Later
My faith in this old Smêr kit is being vindicated at every stage. The paint came off – the parts came apart – and the reconstruction began. The windows are still running on the original cementation, so they got masked for the internal re-spray. The FF company harkened to their pre-war colour with a very…
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Potez 540T – Part One – From The Back Of The Cabinet…
Another forgotten orphan comes in from the storm – a Smêr kit of the dear old Potez 540 from 1986 – a rebox of a 1967 Heller kit. I welcome it as a companion of my youth. Well, not exactly my youth – but someone’s. This kit was started but never got past the fuselage…
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Foam Core For The Win Yet Again
Using foam board is now becoming the new trend around here. We’ve stopped using sheets of pasta when we make lasagne – it’s foam board instead. It also makes pretty good non-lethal ninja stars, if you’re into sex games… It also solved a problem in the decaling of a new fighter plane. I built an…
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SNCAN Martinet – Part Two – Pre-Armed
I am never quite sure whether I want the good news or the bad news first – but in any case I want to be warned what is coming. In the case of the Martinet I looked up another modeller’s build of the same kit and learned that Czech Sneeze had made a slight error…
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SNCAN Martinet – Part One – A Siebel By Any Other Name
Christmas was coming to the hobby shop and it was time to choose my present. In this case before the actual day, so I got a fresh choice. The SNCAN Martinet was a Siebel 204 produced in France during the occupation and afterwards. It was used by the French air force and then sold on…
The Little World 