Category: research
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Morane Saulnier MS 230 – Part Three – The Colour Section of Bunnings
I don’t know about you, but I am in an agony every time I go to the colour section of Bunnings – the paint store. The variety of paints and finishes overwhelms me – what I once knew as a cheap tin of paint is now the price of a suit of clothes and the…
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Morane Saulnier MS 230 – Part Two – End Of The Evening
I am vastly pleased so far with the Morane Saulnier MS 230 kit. I have a wing, a fuselage, wheels, and an aero engine. The fit of the kit is superb. No open seams and no filler needed. I may run afoul of the struts and wheel braces but I am being soothed by the…
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The Under- Wing Numbers
F/O Prune calling. ” Hey, Look At Me! Look What I Can Do! And No-One Knows It Was Me…! “ On the contrary, Prune. They might not see your face but the buzz numbers on the underside of your wings identify your aircraft – coming and going – and if you have been shooting up…
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Ryan Spirit Of St. Louis – Part One – Nyet, Tovarich…
Is not could be Spirit of Amerikan town. Is Spirit of Leningrad. First solos transatlantic airplane fly from Soviet home of revolutionary peoples but capitalistic newspapers disguise this. Soviet union always first in everything. Well, not quite first with this model. We get mould from FROG in decadent England and hero workers of Soviet Union…
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Cessna Crane – Part Three – You May Not Have Noticed
I just thought – you may not have noticed that the newly-completed RCAF Cessna Crane has been painted yellow. They do that in case you are likely to stumble into it in a darkened hangar… So I follow suit. I make up a mixture of Mr. Color lacquer – one full bottle of No. 109…
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Douglas DC-3 – Part One – The C-47
‘Well, duh. Of course it’s a C-47, because it is a Douglas DC-3. And It’s a DC-3 because it’s a C-47. And it’s a Vietnam-era gunship in this Airfix kit courtesy of four Air Force figures and a cargo floor that sports a number of mini-Gatling guns on stands. I’m afraid it holds little place…
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Prop Washing
Well, you don’t want a dirty propeller, now do you. Sign of a badly-maintained aircraft, that. All greasy around the spinner, like… Actually, I got to wondering at who decides what colour the propeller on an aircraft should be, and why. Some reasons seem evident, but some are obscure. a. American aircraft prior to WW2…
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Dassault Ouragan – Part Five – Smile
I suppose if you are going to paint a shark mouth on the front of an aircraft – a la Flying Tigers – there is no need to be discreet about it. You’re not trying to hide anything. You might as well make it as big as possible. This seems to have been the philosophy…
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Dassault Ouragan – Part Four – The Colour of The Underwear
The colour of the underwear is always important. And not just in the gusset, either. Trying to find authoritative material about the insides and undersides of aircraft can be a problem. There are air museums, of course, and you get to peer from a distance at what the wheel wells and control surface recesses look…
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Dornier Do.17Z – Part Four – Interniert
” What! ” you say…” The Swiss Air Force never bought Dornier Do.17Z bombers in WW2! ” you say… You say right. They never bought any – they were given one by chance. One landed by mistake at Basle – Birsfelden in April 1940 and the four crew members were interned. The plane was repaired,…
The Little World 