Category: Scale Models
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RCAF Wellington Mk II – Part Six – Dortmund Or Bust
Not ” or ” as it happened…” and “… This aircraft – airframe W5390 – started out from RAF Pocklington near York on the night of April 4, 1942 – heading for Dortmund. This city, close to Essen, Duisberg, and Dusseldorf was very heavily bombed…nearly all the time. Well, W5390, wearing LQ*X code and flying…
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RCAF Wellington Mk II – Part Five – Night Black
The RAF night bomber scheme is a grim sort of design. Well I guess flying 300 miles in the dark, amongst a thousand other flying bomb dumps, and through radar-directed flak is a pretty grim business anyway. With a German Chancellor at one end and Arthur Harris at the other it seems like a murderous…
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RCAF Wellington Mk II – Part Four – It’s No Sin To Fill
But it’s no great honour, either… I’ve no idea if Tevye built model airplanes, but if he did, he would have been philosophical about it. For my part I accept the inevitability of gaps and defects and the need for a good fill and sand. AIrfix, on the other hand seem to have decided to…
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RCAF Wellington Mk II – Part Three – Sub-Assembly Is The Go
When you are building a model in three or four different locations, it pays to view each of these workshops as a separate shop. The real aircraft makers did this – in particular the American ones like Ford who could count on a number of plants in a general area. They assigned a particular sub-assembly…
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RCAF Wellington Mk II – Part Two – Missing The Point
The new Airfix Wellington Mk II has a full set of interior parts. These are proper injection moulded parts – not resin bits on a block or impossible slivers of brass. If you follow the very detailed instruction diagrams you can end up with a fully kitted-out bomber interior. Yet Airfix suggest that you can…
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RCAF Wellington MkII – Part One – The New
Well, the newest – this variant of the Vickers Wellington was kitted by Airfix recently and will be built as a Canadian aircraft – likely from the Vancouver squadron. The two other Wellingtons in the collection come from Italeri and MPM. This is the most detailed version, and despite Airfix’s option of leaving interior detail…
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Douglas Skyraider – Part One – Abandoned On The Shelf
Started, but incomplete. Very low price – my kind of kit. And a definite prototype in mind for the finished build. The previous owner had cemented the wing and fuselage halves together and done a pretty careful and precise job of it. The kit is designed so that the cockpit tub slips inside before the…
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Have I Got The Latest, Latest Kit?
With the photo-etch and the resin and the masks and the pots of paint and the signed copy of the designer’s baby photo? Gee, I hope not; I don’t think I could stand the pressure to perform. The 14th coat of weathering oil/lacquer/authenticity magic would reduce me to tears. I could not win a court…
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Pitts S2A – Part Two – Canadian Reds
I wonder if someone will pick up on this one at the next WASMex show. Will I get talked to by the committee? Well, we shall see. If they press me I will say that the sponsors are a fine Canadian company that sponsored a team for air racing and never sells dangerous products. Not…
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Pitts S2A – Part One – Leonardo’s
My daughter visited Japan some 5 years ago – pre Covid. I tasked her with bringing me back something that wasn’t available in our local shops. Fortunately she wandered into one of the Leonardo’s shops in Akihabara and was able to talk to the sales staff. She selected 4 models that were old, odd, and…
The Little World 