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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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Morane Saulnier MS 230 – Part One – RRAAF Trainer Number One

The Smēr model of the Moraine Saulnier MS 230 that was kindly donated by my friend Paul is destined to enter service in the Royal Ruritanian Army Air Force. It will be completed as Trainer Number One and assigned to Hentzau Field in Alberta. The kit looks reasonable upon the sprue trees. No flash, few…
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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 Three – In Soviet Union…

Decals put you on. On the spot, on the griddle, on the booze. I’m going to give the Novo factory a pass on this one – and for all I know they are long gone. They may have done their best at the time. Unfortunately the time was the 1970’s and 80’s and this is…
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Ryan Spirit Of St. Louis – Part Two – Lonely

Well, he is lonely. But to give FROG/Novo their due, he is a pretty good representation of Lindberg dressed in period flying gear. He gets three slightly foggy windows to peer out of and a hard plastic seat, but then the real aircraft has a wicker seat in it that doesn’t look much better. The…
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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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Aaaaand There It Is…

The error. The mistake. The blunder. The failure. Every build has one, and some builds have many. And there are a variety of them: a. The bad kit. Some kits are bad. Badly designed, badly moulded, badly boxed and badly shipped. In this case you are being beaten up by the manufacturere and the only…
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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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Cessna Crane – Part Two – It’s Not A Trainer

At least, I don’t think it is. I think it’s a small transport aircraft that can be disguised as a trainer. The Cessna Crane that I speculated about in the first post appears in bright yellow RCAF trainer livery in every historic shot I can find of it. Nowhere so far does it appear in…
