Tag: Canada
-
Martin Marauder B26 – Part One – Million Dollar Model*

No, Airfix haven’t raised their prices again – the heading refers to the fact that I have just discovered that Martin Marauders – the B-26’s – were sent up to Alaska for transfer to the Soviets during the Lend Lease period. The internet turned up a picture of a crashed Marauder in the Canadian bush…
-
Good Morning, Walter – Part One – We Get To Building

Walter, I see your Mum has written a column about you and your life – I just read about your first visit to the dentist. I’m glad it was a good one -I used to be a dentist a decade ago myself. This column is about what I like to call the Little World –…
-
The Royal Ruritanian Army Air Force – Part Four – The Royal Trainees

Every Ruritanian boy has a burning desire to fly – frequently far from home and the endless cultivation of vegetables in the cold, damp soil. In the centuries before flight this urge was satisfied by sneaking over the border into Austria, Hungary, Poland, Russia, or Germany. There, the life choices of the Ruritanian peasant could…
-
Grumman Duck – Part Two – Ungainly Is As Ungainly Does

Like most seaplanes – the Rufe, the Spitfire on floats, the Seamew – the Grumman Duck looks vaguely like a practical joke the designers played on the factory that leaked out past the drafting table, and they were too embarrased to admit it was all in fun. Yet the planes worked and were very useful…
-
Grumman Duck – Part One – The Civil Mould

I have a suspicion that the Airfix Grumman Duck in 1:72 scale is an older mould – the raised rivet lines. Perhaps a Matchbox kit re-issued. I also find that as I am an older modeller – it doesn’t bother me in the slightest. That is the fine legacy of being able to build the…
-
Frugal Week Not Finished

Just when you thought the opera was over… I was idly browsing for OO scale building kits on the internet with the specific of Canadian outline. This sounds like a hiding to nothing, as OO is a British size and most of their card kits and other model supplies are resolutely centred on the their…
-
Boeing-Vertol CH 147F Chinook – Part Two – You Want What?

I was taken aback. Normally the makers of plastic models do not expect you to saw them apart as soon as you open the box. Italeri did, though…and it was in a good cause. ‘Cause the Boeing company had made drastic changes to the sides of their Chinook helicopter and Italeri had to follow on.…
-
Boeing-Vertol CH 147F Chinook – Part One – The Flying Bread Box

Okay, okay, I know. But that was what it looked like when I opened the box. It is the first of the modern twin-rotor helicopters I’ve encountered and I had no idea what the size of it was going to be. This is the second part of my fee-for-service I earned taking portraits and it…
-
Lockheed Lodestar – Part One – Personal Plane

I just barely squeaked into respectability – this column was typed on the 31st of December at about a quarter to midnight. The respectable part was actually starting a kit within the year of buying it. A slow builder, not a hoarder… The Lockheed Lodestar leapt at me from the shelves of Metro Hobbies and…
-
Well Sir,…

The business of looking for scale models to build in a particular size is one thing. Finding aircraft to suit a particular air force is another. And getting a particular period of time… I always look for 1:72 RCAF WW2 through to 1966. To the great credit of the model kit companies, I can sometimes…
