Category: Scale Models
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Douglas Skyhawk – Part One – The Experimental Craft
Never mind your Bell X-1 – your Douglas Skyrocket, X-3, or X-15. I’ve got a real experimental airplane. One on which I intend to try out new things, hell, Hay, or bust. The canopy of the A-4D was missing from the kit. I needed to make a new canopy shape so that I could weather…
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Genug
Genug ist genug. And when you have arrived at that point with your model build, it’s time to stop. One bite more than enough pie makes the dish nauseous – one minute more of the best conversation risks hearing or saying too much. The same applies to kit building. There is a point at which…
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Macchi Saetta MC. 200 – Part Two – Achoo!
Gesundheit. Thank you. I had a bit of a sniffle just then and when I sneezed a Macchi came out. Pass me a tissue. The completion of the Saetta came as a surprise as I did not seem to be doing anything at all in the shed over the past couple of days. Yet, there…
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Macchi Saetta MC 200 – Part One – The Revell Ship
Readers of this column will remember that I built a Hobby Boss Macchi MC 200 in Italian Co-Belligerant colours a couple of years ago. A very pleasing aircraft and the blotchy camouflage came out very well. Now I am embarked upon construction of another example of this plane – but this time a 50¢ baggie…
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The Collection
Do you have a collection of scale models? Congratulations. Whether they are your own production or the result of careful shopping and buying, they should be a real source of pleasure to you. If you are fortunate enough to be able to display them you gain another source of pleasure – the interest others may…
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Fairey Barracuda Mk II – Part Five – The Whistler
The Fairey Barracuda that I built bears a nose name of ” Hell’s Bells “. Even the FAA has a sense of humour, as well as a considerable mess bill. I call it The Whistler – because of the number of aerials, masts, racks, and protrusions that dot the fuselage and wing. I’m sure they…
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Fairey Barracuda Mk II – Part Four – Dark Slate Grey
The Fleet Air Arm and Coastal Command aircraft in WWII were painted in many cases with Extra Dark Sea Grey and Dark Slate Grey on top – and either Sky or White underneath. I find it a particularly attractive combination but have struggled heretofore – the EDSG is easily got in bottles but the Dark…
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Fairey Barracuda Mk II – Part Three – The Skylight
The canopy of the Fairey Barracuda sits over the top of the three crew members as a sort of an afterthought. The design places the two riders so deeply within the fuselage that their chief view of the world is through picture windows set in the side. The vast wing above them shelters the from…
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Fairey Barracuda Mk II – Part Two – Aha, Now I See
I’m starting to appreciate scale model kits more and more these days – particularly the ones where someone makes an effort to put an interior into the makeup. I don’t want a Telford winner cockpit that takes me six months to glue and paint, but the fact that they give me the basics means I…
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Fairey Barracuda Mk II – Part One – The Ugly Duckling
I’m being unfair. I should have written in the plural. Because the British Fleet Air Arm for a long time seems to have been somewhat of a duck farm. Flocks of ’em; Fairey Fulmar and Barracuda, Blackburn Skua and Roc. The Swordfish and Walrus and Stranraer. All were perfectly flyable and in some cases quite…
