Category: Italian aircraft
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Fiat BR.20 – Part Two – What Are You Lot Waiting For?
Italeri are very wise kit makers when they include crew members for their aircraft. They and Airfix are two of the few who recognise that you can fill a cockpit with something rather than etched brass. And the modeller will have less hassle and frustration all during the build. My people-painting skills are non-existent. I…
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Fiat BR.20 – Part One – Birthday Bomber
Part of my big birthday buy-up last year was this Fiat bomber. It was a last-minute selection in a shop I rarely visit – but I am delighted with the prospect. Italeri kits always please me, and none more so than their Italian aircraft. They seem to put an extra level of care in the…
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If You Were Asked To Pick…
Your favourite airplane, or ship, or car, or tank…you would spend hours going over the possibilities. Then you could spend more drinking time debating it with other modellers. What a great idea! Now suppose the discussion turned to the favourite model making company… and here the discussion was serious. Exacto knives would be drawn and…
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Fiat CR.32 – Part Four – Under A Chinese Sun
The Fiat CR.32 is now ready to fight off the hordes of invading Japanese bombers from the Xú Jichâng airfield. The period of time between the last post and this one was spent painting the wheel sub-assemblies – an easy task – and putting them on the fuselage. This was also an easy task, giving…
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Fiat CR.32 – Part Three – Subassemblies
The call-out and the box art for this Italian/Chinese fighter show sub-assemblies bolted onto the basic structure. The pictures provide a valuable clue that the instructions fail to show; you need to pre-paint the assemblies before you attach them – or you’ll never get clean demarcations. So, emboldened by the Slovakian jigs, I tried a…
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Fiat CR.32 – Part Two – Rosatelli Rocket
I had never heard about Celestino Rosatelli before I read the instruction sheet for this kit, but the story there was enough to send me looking at some of his other designs. They were mostly successful and few of them looked like clunkers, but as with most of the designs of the period I long…
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Fiat CR.32 – Part One – ” Chirri “
Not just the bare bones, but the entire animal! A nationalist Chinese fighter of the 1930’s straight out of the box! And it is one I haven’t built before. How could I refuse the email lure from Metro Hobbies? And it’s an AZ model from the Czech Republic so I know it’ll eventually be good.…
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Savoia Marchetti SM.81 – Part Four – Stop Laughing
This is serious. That’s an Australian joke, for the overseas readers. For the locals, its a historic Australian cartoon. Go look it up. The Bulletin long ago. In my case the risible arose because I needed to occlude the window spaces of the Pipistrello before painting. I’d deliberately left out the bulls-eye plastic windows that…
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Savoia-Marchetti SM.81 – Part Three – Airframe
We have an aircraft – not just parts in a box. The wing fit of the Italeri SM.81 was darned near perfect – a few scrapes of a modelling knife on the internal bearing surfaces of both wings and there was hardly a gap to be seen. It gave excellent purchase for a slightly thicker…
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Savoia-Marchetti SM.81 – Part Two – Club Model
The discipline of building specific models in specific circumstances seems to be working out reasonably well – I keep two separate model kits for the two clubs I attend, and one kit a’building in my home workshop. Of course there are cross-overs when one comes to the painting stage – then I use my own…
The Little World 