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Heinkel He 111 – Part Six – The Irresistible Shot

If you go to any book on the Battle of Britain or any Google site that deals with the Heinkel bombers you will eventually see a shot of the crew inside the glass-nosed cockpit. It will have been taken from the bomb-aimer’s position looking backward at the pilot’s seats and will likely have been shot…
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Heinkel He 111 – Part Five – On Your Feet

I am always eager to get a plane on its feet. And then I’m not, when I look and see what the manufacturers have moulded. So many of them make a set of landing gear that can never support the plane and is miserable to install. It is one of the stations on the model-building…
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Heinkel HE 111 – Part Four – The Elegant Wing

Some aeroplane wings are ugly things. Go look at the Junkers Ju52 in broad daylight. Some are incredible – get out a picture of a B-36. And some, like this Heinkel HE 111 wing, are pieces of real sculpture. Don’t look too long at the engine nacelles – they were covered in an earlier post.…
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Heinkel HE 111 – Part Three – The Aerodynamic Engine

I do not know enough about the differences between British and German aero engines to be able to debate their good and bad points. Suffice it to say I think the British practice of mounting the Merlin engine upright seems to be a darn sight more sensible than the inverted Daimler Benz of the German…
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Heinkel HE 111 – Part Two – Nothing Looks Like An Airplane…

You can get into a rut in model airplane building. I do planes that are mostly British or American types. Sometimes a Soviet job, or the rare Japanese one. In all these cases they have distinctive national characteristics quite apart from paint jobs or insignia. There are styles of fuselages, wings, and engines. Some are…
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Heinkel HE 111 – Part One – Welcome To The Rafwaffe

Yes, you read that right. Rafwaffe. Specifically 1426 Flight RAF. The unit that took captured and abandoned German equipment and tested it for the RAF. At Duxford and RAF Collyweston. They got one of the Heinkel 111’a that had been downed to a soft landing early in the war over the UK and repaired and…
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Don’t Tell Anyone…

In my other three weblog columns I used the lockdown earlier in the year to write about the business of social distancing, working from home, getting supplies, and being brave and stouthearted. I didn’t give it a tinkle here in the Little World – and it wasn’t until I watched the Flory Vlog that I…
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A Modest Proposal

Kit makers are always trying for another use of a previous model. The tricks of new decal sheet and box art plus a hike in price mean that even if you have not invested any money in a new cash cow, you can milk the old one again. The problem is there are only so…
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Fokker F-27 Friendship – Part Six – Spirit Of Airdrie

The Canadian civil registration codes for airliners has changed over time – in the period depicted by this Friendship the CF prefix was used. The AC portion of the code defines Alberta Central Airways and the final A was given by the then Department of Transport but has been incorporated into Alberta Central advertising. To…
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Fokker F-27 Friendship – Part Five – Leak, You Bastard…

I am half-way pleased and half-way annoyed. The trim stripe on the Fokker F-27 went down in two coats over and between flexible Tamiya tape. It had a lot of sealing and dodging to do, that tape – and I expect it did it as well as could be expected But the first coat of…
