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Lockheed Starfire – Part One – My First Airplane
If the first plastic model kit I remember building was a Revell 5-ship set in the mid-1950’s, the first plastic airplane kit I remember seeing was a Lockheed F-94 Starfire. It was being built By Mike Baker – a kid across the street. He was also engaged in building a wooden model of a B-50,…
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Polikarpov I-16 – Part Four – Stalin’s Falcons
Well, they had to be different from the Adlers of the Germans and the Bald Eagles of the Americans. And these fighters were tiny things – so it was either going to be Falcons or Tits. And you can play with tits as much as you wish… Actually, I think the Falcon name was attached…
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Polikarpov I-16 – Part Three – Sandwich Size
The primer stage emphasises just how small this fighter is. And how much effort was put into streamlining it in an art-deco fashion. The side panels fit very well, the horizontal tail plane locks the fuselage halves together, and the tailpiece smooths the rear. I’ve followed the practice of temporarily sealing the landing gear covers…
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Polikarpov I-16 – Part Two – The Donk
If someone is so kind as to prepare an entire aero engine for me, I should be very ungrateful not to take notice of their effort. This is the philosophy that compelled me to construct a tiny, hidden component for the I-16. It has worked out beautifully, and I am loathe to close it in…
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Polikarpov I-16 – Part One – What Animal Is That?
Is it a mule, a fly, or an ant? All three nicknames have been used for this small Soviet fighter plane from the 1930’s. It was a somewhat revolutionary craft at a turning point in aviation that went from biplanes to monoplanes. One might have expected the Soviets to follow their standard Russian pattern of…
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Colour Choice In A Paint-Starved World
The racks in my favoured place of worship are looking bare. Time to put some more heretics to the question… Calm, down Torquemada – we’re talking about the paint racks at the local hobby shop. The Tamiya and Gunze sections are getting sparse as shipments are delayed around the world. Other sections are full –…
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Reading The Other Weblog Columns
Contrary to what you might think, I do read other weblog columns. Not the ones that deal with pre-teen poetry and /or how to make money online from home. I also shy away from the ones that have a conspiracy theory about the numbers on the side of cornflakes packets. I read other modeller’s reports.…
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Boeing Kaydet – Part Three – The Hills Are Alive – With the Sound Of Cursing
How so many biplanes and triplanes are sold as model kits astounds me. Every time I encounter one I have ” a time “. All goes well until the step where you cement the struts on and add the top wing. There are rarely any mechanical aids or structures that help the biplane builder get…
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Boeing Kaydet – Part Two – A Hole Lotta Filling Goin’ On
I mentioned the sink holes and ejector post depressions last column. I didn’t realise then how many of them there were going to be. The ones in the tyres were particularly galling. No-one else has this problem. Well, after some Perfect Plastic Putty, neither did I. To their credit, Revell gave me two seats that…
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Boeing Kaydet – Part One – Older Than The Hills
I pulled the Revell baggie of the Boeing N2S-5 Kaydet out of the stash with mixed feelings. On one hand it was a pretty good looking silver airplane and on the other it was so old as to be listed by the National Trust – was I going to build it or desecrate it? The…
The Little World
Close focus on the world of scale models
The Little World 