Category: research
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None of My Work Is Written With Artificial Intelligence
It is pure, natural stupidity. I have what is apparently an inexhaustible supply of this and it seems a shame to waste the opportunity to turn it to good use. I have long since ceased to plague the general populace in a professional sense and even my trade days are done. Now I just build…
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Tupolev SB 2 – Part Four – Taipei
It is unfashionable nowadays to think of air raids from mainland China on Taiwan. But there was a time when it was a good idea… As when the Soviet Volunteer group that operated these bombers for the Nationalist Chinese Government essayed to fly to Taipei and bomb newly-arrived Japanese aircraft at the airfield before they…
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What Everyone Knows…
Can be absolute truth, malicious nonsense, or anything in between. When your scale model building intersects with public knowledge, you would do well to determine exactly which sort you have. I have built glaring mistakes, and made a good job of them, too, based upon what everyone knows. In most cases, even if everyone agrees,…
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A Pad Of Paper And Box Of Pencils
And the world is yours. Put on your pyjamas, get a hot drink, settle down at the table, and draw up the Universe. It is not blasphemous – Someone Famous did it a long time ago… Don’t draw a layout – that would be too committed – a table upon which you can move the…
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Martin Canberra – Part Three – Da Nang 1966
With three good choices for a scheme, it was only the toss of a coin that painted this bomber high speed silver. The paint itself is the good old French silver grey melange now topped up with more fresh silver for a shinier finish. One of the extant B-57 aircraft at a museum in the…
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Čmelák – Part Four – Flying Fertiliser
I was fascinated with the instruction sheet for this Czech model as it detailed the service life of the Z-37A agricultural aircraft. It would appear that they are used for crop dusting and spraying in equal measure in middle Europe and are in some areas of the west as well. The planes are working for…
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Netmodelling
The computer rules nearly every room of our house – save the toilet. There are still uses for paper… I’m not a Luddite. I like my computer and the facility it gives me to communicate to others…until they block me. Sometimes that can be done in remarkably short order. But until then, the net is…
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Tell Me About It
Tell me aaaaaalll about it… And make sure I know that you know, you know? The expert on any subject can derive their knowledge from a number of sources: a. Casual personal experience. b. Deliberate experimentation, c. Extensive research. d. YouTube. a. It is difficult to argue with the first category, unless you dispute the…
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No Box Art
No colour call-out. No decal sheet. No safety instructions. No history of the prototype. Just sprue trees and a basic diagram. If this describes a lot of the kits you buy, congratulations – but only if you got them cheaply. If you paid full price you deserved all the added extras. What good would a…
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Hannover CL III A – Part Three – Auferstehung
And not a zombie, either – a good-looking model for the collection. The Hannover CL IIIA was apparently a success. It could function as an observation or ground attack aircraft and a number of them were successful as fighters when newcomers on the Allied side pulled up behind one, thinking it was a single-seater. The…
The Little World 