Category: Model Airplane
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Swedish NA-16 – Part One – The Beechnut Models Company

You’ll want to remember that name – in case you are ever faced with one of their kits. If so, you have choices: a. Buy it, spend days of your life coping with its awful nature, and eventually turn out a masterpiece. Then die. b. Save time. Fall to the floor grasping your chest. c.…
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The Freedom To Explore

Includes the opportunity to achieve great things. And to fall down holes. If you can do this cheaply you are all the better. I use the opportunity provided by donated model kits to try out fresh ideas. Being honest, some of them are thrust upon me by the nature of the kits – and they…
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Aero Vodochody Delfin – Part Three – Uganda

How could you not love an air force that puts a chicken on their roundel. After the Entebbe raid in the 70’s Uganda got a transfusion of ex-Soviet and Warsaw Pact aircraft including this Czech L-29 Delfin. The net says that it was used as a training aircraft with occasional military operations. Whether that meant…
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Aero Vodochody Delfin – Part Two – If You Call For Your Czech Early

You don’t have to leave a tip. A morning at my scale modelling club begins with 45-60 minutes on the road – coping with a series of traffic lights and a clogged-up river bridge. It is wearisome but I figure you have to pay for your pleasures somehow. The comes up to 3 hours of…
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The 1/285th Scale Model

Don’t let those pedants force you to 1/350 or 1/200 or anything else. If 1/285th was good enough for the 1950’s it is good enough for now. All we need is for the kit manufacturers to cut new moulds to this scale and box them. We desperately need another MISSOURI and BISMARCK…preferably with box art…
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Ansaldo SVA 5 – Part Three – And There It Is…

The sting. The bit where the kit bites back. The inter-plane struts that look so promising lure you on to fasten them to the bottom assembly and then offer up the top wing – only to have your hopes dashed. I do not mind parts that fit where they touch, but that argues that they…
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Ansaldo SVA 5 – Part Two – López De Media Cara

Or, in English, half-face Lopez. Because that is all this little 1:50th Spaniard has – his body is moulded well and he has a uniform, flying boots, and a helmet, but half his face is still in the mould. Just as well that he has been depicted facing to Port – the deformity is masked.…
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Ansaldo SVA 5 – Part One – Czech, Box, And Soviet

Normally a set of red flags for me. In this case a boon. This is a gift from my club – an abandoned kit that sat on the shelf in the storage room for all the years I’ve been a member. It is box scale – 1:50th. It is early Czech production, and is presented…
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Hawker Hunter FGA 9 – Part Five – Singapore 1962

A squadron brought into Singapore for ground support in what was to become a confrontation of the Cold War. This one was with Indonesia – at that time backed by the USSR and Communist China. The Hunters worked with spotter aircraft to deliver effective air support for Commonwealth and Malaysian troops on the ground. The…
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Hawker Hunter FGA 9 – Part Four – Clearing The Air

Or ” Glossing Over All Problems “. Hey, it works for federal politicians – it should work for me. However, it can sometimes be harder to do than you’d think. I have invested in more types of varnish than you’ve had hot dinners. From bottles of clear lacquer to gloss coats in alcohol solution to…
