Category: Model Airplane
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RWD 5bis – Part Two – The Solo Monoplane

Whenever you see the word ” monoplane ” you know you are looking at a period design. Because there were other choices – biplanes, triplanes, sesquiplanes, etc. These still exist today, but only in oddity or X-plane form. The big feature of this little airplane is the fuel tank – sandwiched into the tiny interior…
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Vickers Viscount – Part Four – Smooth Success

My internet enquiries have failed to turn up a list of names given to the Vickers Viscount aircraft flown by Trans Canada Airlines and then by Air Canada – just a corporate change. However they were titled, they seem to have been quite a success on the Northern American routes – passengers noting the smooth…
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Vickers Viscount – Part Three – The Picture of Dorian Grey

All beautiful and serene on the stand…but up in the attic… Under three layers of masking tape and two vinyl gloves… If you can’t stand horror, do not start airbrushing your models. At some stage of the game it will all start to look like a Hammer film. You must screw your courage to the…
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Vickers Viscount – Part Two – Dry Fit Morning

When a kit has 18 parts, you do not need to spend much time building… One morning at the club, with time out for coffee and a slice of cake ( We celebrate birthdays in the correct style…) was all that was needed to assemble the major components of the Viscount. The surface of the…
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RWD 5bis – Part One – The Dollar Flier

I have no idea where the original owner of this kit obtained it. Like as not, it was sent to the UK during the Warsaw pact era as a foreign-currency earner and was probably sold quite cheaply. I obtained it for a dollar – rough cardboard box and all. I have had a number of…
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Vickers Viscount – Part One – A Dollar Bet

Ever the gambler, I decided that this one-of-a-kind Hong Kong kit was going to be built. It was one of a legacy stash, and totally unique. The firm that made it, Kader, seems to have started in 1970 with a range of British-prototype aircraft kits. Internet searching turns up a number of box-scale offerings and…
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Norcanair DC-3 – Part Five – CF-CTD

A nearly good model… The basic structure of CF-CTD is fine – Italeri make a first-rate moulding of this aircraft. The military modeller who makes a D-Day C-47 will be delighted with the result. The invasion stripes should make for a spectacular OOTB build – even though research seems to show that the real stripes…
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What Do You Do When It All Starts?

Starts to go pear-shaped… Make cider, possibly. Or begin to panic. Panic is always a good choice as it gets the circulation going nicely. And you get a lot more done when you are screaming. Some kit builds progress well – they are logical procedures that flow from one to another as the structure matures.…
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Norcanair DC-3 – Part Four – Trying To Read The Pictures

As soon as you decide to change a scale model kit from what the manufacturer has given you in the box, you should be cautious. What did the real thing look like? Hopefully like the mouldings in the box. What was the finish and what were the markings? Well, if it isn’t on the decal…
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Norcanair DC-3 – Part Three – A Return To Sanity

One can only build obscure European designs from the 1930’s so long… Eventually your gall bladder starts to complain. There is only so much weird and ugly that it can take. A French bomber in the block-of-flats style tends to stretch the imagination past the snapping point – eventually you have to return to reality…
