Category: Model Airplane
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A7 Corsair II – Part Five – On Her Feet
When next you see a charity tin marked ” Italeri “, stop and put a dollar in. They are good people. In particular, they have respect and kindness for builders of their 1:72 aircraft – they always provide decent landing gear and attachment points for gear legs in the engine nacelles, wings, or fuselages. If…
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A7 Corsair II – Part Four – Two-Tone
I puzzled about the white horizontal stabiliser and trailing wing surfaces on this Corsair II when I saw the colour call-out. Of course I was bound to follow the diagram, and as it was the same for most of the variants I knew it was deliberate. Then it struck me – if you did not…
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A7 Corsair II – Part Three – A Grey Eminence
I am always a little daunted when I see a paint call-out that calls for different shades of grey…I am never certain whether they should be gray. The only thing about which I can be certain is that I will pick the wrong one. No, I’m wrong – the second thing I am certain of…
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A7 Corsair II – Part Two – Library Day
Somewhat of a novelty – an afternoon spent scale modelling at the Cambridge Library in Floreat Forum. It was as a member of a Saturday club that hitherto has met at one chap’s home. This was an experiment in connecting with his local library – a place where we also display a cabinet of our…
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A7 Corsair II – Part One – A Childhood Dream
I always admired the Ling-Temco-Vought Corsair II when I was a boy and dreamed of flying it. Had I dreamed up some way to see without glasses I might have saved myself some heartache., This childhood infatuation eventually petered out when I discovered girls, but it is somewhat surprising that I never built a model…
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Vultee Vanguard – Part Five – Hint of Wings To Come.
Look closely at some lines on this Vultee fighter and mentally add a bent wing and bigger engine. Yep. It would have been interesting to see what might have been if the later Corsair was available for China in the early 40’s. lad-based aviation would have been less critical in landing than naval service and…
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Vultee Vanguard – Part Four – Mind The Gap
Fitting an eastern European model together is like opening Forrest Gump – you can never tell whether you have a soft centre or not. In the best kits the parts fit, and in the rest they nearly fit. You are fortunate if the gaps are symmetrical and the surfaces parallel. Plastic strip and sheet can…
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Vultee Vanguard – Part Three – Hate, Loathe, And Despise
If I told you I hate, loathe, and despise kits that have separate blades and hubs for their propellers you might get the wrong idea. Many 1/72 planes have this feature and the two, three, or four-bladed props sandwich in between a hub and a spinner and end up looking fine. I reserve my negative…
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Vultee Vanguard – Part One – Stash Sale Star
The acquisition of a Vultee Vanguard was one of those serendipitous moments – a stash was being thinned, the sales day was ending, the owner was marking things down, and I had $ 15 left. Now the painful part – the decision whether to assign this one to the USAAF, the RCAF, or the Nationalist…
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Who Decided My Childhood?
No, I don’t mean my parents or the school teachers or the rock and roll industry – I mean who decided which prototypes to make into the plastic models that I built? Bear in mind it was a childhood in a part of North America that was under both American and British influence. Airfix, FROG,…
The Little World 