Category: Model Airplane
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Airspeed Oxford – Part Four – The Central Flying School
The third partner in the Training Trio. My BCATP airfield: RCAF WET DOG – has struggled on for years with an Anson, a Harvard, and a Crane – all good trainers. Of course there is a Tiger Moth and a Grumman Gosling as well, but up until now the Airspeed Oxford has eluded me. Now…
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Airspeed Oxford – Part Two – Pink Dot Special
You’ll note the pink dots on the wings and fuselage of the Airspeed Oxford – these are the lesions of Moulder’s Pox. It was a disease that afflicted scale models in the 1950’s and 60’s. It was caused by styrene mixtures that tended to shrink. This was exacerbated by pulling the sprue tree from the…
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Airspeed Oxford – Part One – The Leaky Frog
A recent estate sale brought this creature into my life; Lermontov the leaky frog. He is so named because he is from Russia, is made up of old parts, and is leaking sand all over the photo table. He is an apt analogy for the Novo Airspeed Oxford model. Lermontov cost nothing – the Airspeed…
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The PE Pests
No, I’m not talking about the people down the club who can make perfect PE parts every time and cement them on with no problems. I admire them. I’m talking about the Bohemian types who dream up the extra-thin parts on the PE sheets and expect you to be able to manipulate them into components.…
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SERIOUS Modelling
Here in Australia we have Yahoo Serious. He is not an internet server….but he has served us well over the years as a comedy actor. Serious laughter is a Serious matter… In the scale modelling hobby we can also encounter a spectrum of involvement that goes from the Terribly Serious to the Delightfully Comic. I…
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English Electric Lightning – Part Four – The Cold Warrior
The English Electric company made several notable aircraft in the 50’s and 60’s. This interceptor was designed to tackle Soviet bombers before they could get to the UK – hence the high speed climb and short range of the prototypes. The over-wing tanks were a novel way to supply enough fuel to permit this remarkable…
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English Electric Lightning – Part Three – Cross My Palm With SIlver
Very few aircraft are made of silver* – yet that is what the kit maker would have us paint them. And there is no one silver – as there might have been in the dear dead days of Humbrol tinlets. Now we have lacquers, clads, super metallics, etc. Some experts swear by certain brands and…
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English Electric Lightning – Part Two – Club Day
When ya hot, ya hot. The heading image is the Lightning at the end of the second club morning – wings, tail, nose and exhausts all firmly in place. And there will not be a trace of filler needed on any of the flying surfaces. Laugh, if you will, at the raised panel lines. Snigger…
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English Electric Lightning – Part One – Sad Box Special
Yet another orphan of the storm – a tattered, neglected box at the back of a shelf. An old decal sheet. An outdated model. Just my meat. The inner plastic bag was sealed and every part was there. And I have never built a Lightning before. This is a one of the classic early series…
The Little World 