Tag: France
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Potez 63-11 – Part Four – The Fishbowl Of Sadness
I refer to this rather sleek French aircraft in this way as it was witness to the failures of its own armies in the spring of 1940 – from an elegant vantage point. The design is deliberately biased toward the primary mission – reconnaissance – with the pilot up above like a hansom cab driver…
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Koolhoven Fk 58 – Part One – One Of The Few
Not the RAF Few – the Dutch few – few made and few supplied. An export order from France. This Azur kit has fallen into my eager hands through a stash sale and is everything that the proper Czech short-run kit should be; obscure, and composed of styrene plastic, acetate, brass and polyester resin. The…
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LeO 45 – Part One – The French Fish
This title is prompted by the shape of the Liore et Olivier 45 bomber – the last time you will see the entire name in this report. It is a fish – a codfish or salmon, by the look of it – attached to two streamlined wings, two streamlined nacelles, and two inverted rudders. This…
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Mureaux 117 – Part Two – The Green Frog
Not FROG – this one is the Heller kit of 1967. The kit has fallen together beautifully. I lost a part, made a replacement, and steamed right on. The struts I worried about went in with absolute precision, and there was no filler needed anywhere. I feel myself fully rewarded for the price and will…
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Renault R 35 – Part One – The Little Frog
I bought this Tamiya tank kit on a whim – and a case of mistaken identity, too. But I am not disheartened. Because I went to another shop and purchased the one I was originally thinking about later. Yet this Renault light tank is the one I’ll be building first. The kit is pure Tamiya…
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H-34 Choctaw – Part Two – The SMCWA Club Build
Tuesday mornings are sacred round here – that is the morning I get to go to the SMCWA clubrooms and build a scale model. Ignore the fact that I have two other modelling stations – here inside and out in my shed. Ignore the airbrush booth and the assembly bench and the rack of 157…
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Damn The French
Not for their food, or wines, or railway trains – which are excellent. Not for their beautiful women or their wise philosophers. Damn them for their aero camouflage schemes. Particularly the three-colour ones used in the 1930’s and 1940’s. They are hell to paint. The colours are fine – I like grey undersides. British Sky…
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Curtiss SBC-4 – Part Three – The Bad Bargains
The French paid through the nose for the Curtiss SBC-4 Helldivers. They were compelled to pay in gold bullion hauled to the USA by the aircraft carrier BÉARN, then forced to load them in Nova Scotia after they were towed over the international border, then forced to abandon them in the West Indies when metropolitan…
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Curtiss SBC-4 – Part Two – In Praise Of Heller
It is unfashionable in the British Commonwealth to speak well of the French. The old prejudices born of war and ambition stretch back as far as William the Conqueror and have been topped up and re-aligned every century since then. It goes the other way, of course – the French despise the English nearly as…
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North American F-100 – Part Four – When NATO Meant France As Well
And the French needed American aircraft to fulfil their own defence needs. A long time ago… Long enough to be before the Area Rule in aircraft design – allowing the designers of the Super Sabre a big fuselage space in the mid-rear for the engine. A contemporary of Soviet fighters and interceptors of similar bulk.…
The Little World 