BradG

Muchly! lol

I picked this up second hand a few months ago, having built the larger 1/35 model a few years ago. I was impressed with the fit, mold and detail of these 1/72 kits. Box options are either Russian or Czech, but I chose to build something based on the Syrian systems, which had any number of brown over green camouflage patters, including miss matched camouflaged or white missiles. The most complex part was the painting as you can easily build this model in an hour or two. I glued it down to a simple base made from a coaster and some sandy looking grout. I might get a few more of these Trumpeter 1/72 armour kits in future now.

@PanzerWomble Damn I didn't even know that Frog kit existed, hell I showed that to dad and he had not even seen it and he grew up building Frog! As for the other kit, 270 quid is a little beyond my budget, but it does look nice.

A larger missile would be even better, maybe 1/35?

I'd always wanted one of these as I've stood at the very base of the Bloodhound at RAAF Base Point Cook many times and it still impresses me, so when I spotted it at the local toy store I pulled the trigger, thinking hey it would be an easy weekend build. Hahaha no, it took a lot of Mr Surfacer 500 and elbow grease on both the launcher and the missile itself to get it decent. I had an old trophy base laying around and knocked up a little something for it to sit on. I left the missile pretty clean, pictures in service show them nice and white and besides I think they look mean being nice and clean. Decals came from the spares box, they are perhaps a little big but I do have a picture of a missile with larger roundels. Overall I'm pretty happy with how this turned out and really think Airfix should invest in a new mold one as this is very long in the tooth and the molds are showing it, I'm sure it would be a big seller.

Poor Alec....

No wife, happy life my friend lol

Remember guys, ladies love equality.

Phew, my test results came back today, thankfully I don't have covid!

Ah for the old days.

When the post nut clarity hits. lol

Yeh I know, I was hoping no one might notice I stuffed up the fin insignia lol.

I believe this is the Gavia kit inside the Eduard box, which is now over 20 years old. It's not too bad, although I will say it does benefit you to test fit everything at least twice. The Czech Air Force had several batches of La-7s delivered just after the end of the war. Designated the S-97, most served less than 2 years front line service as the factory would only guarantee the glue bonds in the wooden airframe for 2 years. Upon inspection, some aircraft soldiered on until about 1950 when they were all withdrawn from service. I found some profiles which show some of these aircraft painted in the green over blue, probably towards the end of their service life. They should have some white, or black squadron letters on the fuselage side, but I didn't have the appropriate size letters, so this will just have to do. I also added a pilot figure from the spares box, I think he was a Luftwaffe air gunner, but he's changed sides. Thanks for looking.

I'll say that I've built worse kits, but I've also built a lot of better ones. I found that the fit of the prop, the upper cowlings and windscreen were troublesome. I also found the photo etch fret difficult to use due to how thick it was. Decals are ok, as long as you don't need to put them over any bumps or around any curves (there are significant paint touch ups on the shark mouth). I also found that the 2 fuselage roundels were glued to the backing paper somehow, so these were replaced with spares from a Tamiya Spitfire (hence the slightly different yellow and red). I used Gunze Middle Stone and Dark Earth over SMS Paints azure blue. Weathering was done wish washes and dry pigment. 'K' was the regular mount of P/O and later Squadron Leader Jack Bartle, an Australian pilot flying with 112 Squadron RAF in Egypt, 1941. Bartle would do 2 operational tours of duty and 2 non operational tours, eventually commanding No 1 Air Ambulance Unit and 450 Squadron RAAF. Bartle survived the war with 6.5 victories. 'K' however was not so lucky. On December 12 1941, while being flown by P/O RJD Jeffries, was posted missing in action.

Nah I just like them.

The resulting haul from 2 swap and sells over the last couple of weekends. I also picked up the Tamiya Vosper torpedo boat before this.

I picked this up real cheap from my local retro computer games store as he bough it in a lot of diecast models. Fortunately this is better than their 1/48 offering which I attempted to build a few years ago. Detail is ok, the same with the fit of the parts, nothing the average modeller couldn't contend with. The one fault with the kit is the decals, mine were badly out of register so I painted on the yellow ID stripe and sourced spare IAF insignia from the decal stash. AK Interactives RC229 'Army Helo Drab' (FS34031) was used for the base colour and it looks spot on. Weathering was achieved with MiG pigments and washes along with Tamiya pastel kits. i also chose to mount some inert blue Hellfires for a little colour. Thanks for looking.

This is P-51B Mustang registration 43-27460 as she appeared when owned by Colonel Jacqueline Cochran. It was her first Mustang and was registered NX28388 and was used to set 4 air speed world records and appeared at multiple air races in the late 1940s. The combat record, if any is unknown but the serial number both before and after saw combat with the 361st Fighter Group and both were lost in action. Cochran bought the aircraft in August 1946 for 10 points and other considerations. Following her third place in the 1948 Bendix Air Race, she asked her friend and test pilot Sampson Held to ferry NX28388 back to California, however on route it suffered a catastrophic wing spar failure and crashed, killing Held. The model is the duel boxing from Hasegawa in 1/72, you get a second kit and decals for 'Thunderbird', also owned and flown by Cochran at one stage. The model is showing it's age a bit, with very shallow wheel wells and the landing gear seems a bit short. That said, it goes together well and the decals are excellent. For the air racer, they give you some extra sprues for what they call an Aeroproduct's propeller, however looking at pictures I think the Mustang was using an uncuffed Hamilton Standard, which unfortunately you don't get in the kit. I decided to use the kit supplied cuffed Hamilton Standard, because I know at one point it did use this prop and in one race she had propeller issues so it might have been changed after that. It's also worth noting that they do give you both slogans that were painted under the exhaust stacks and this is not mentioned in the instructions. I am unsure of when the motto was changed. Cochran mounted P-38 drop tanks under the wings to ferry the aircraft, but these are not supplied in the kit. Leave off the kit supplied hard points. Apart from this, the guns and ejector ports were filled over and the resin fin fillet was glued in place and sanded down to fit. I painted her overall Gunze gloss bright green straight from the bottle and applied 3 coats of future, 2 before and 1 after decals. I decided to weather her as she appear after a race with big black and white exhaust stains that extended down the fuselage. Now I have to get to building 'Thunderbird' in the blue.

This is the Fine Molds Kit in 1/72 that I picked up last year. There isn't a huge amount to this model, but it was a little more than a weekend project. Fit is good enough, but you will have to sand through the nicely molded welding seams. I replaced these with a fine brush and Mr Surfacer 500. There are a couple of options in the kit with regard to submarines used in different operations so pay attention to which version you wish to build. I chose to represent one of the boats used to attack Pearl Harbor on December 7th. The ships were overall matt black, with the torpedo being painted in oily steel. The instructions say black, however the torpedo that washed up on the attack on Sydney Harbour appeared to be unpainted. Weathering was kept pretty restrained. I had no problems with the decals and I finished things off with some EZ line and a small base whipped up with some pine and stain.

I noticed recently a lot of aftermarket isn't coming into Australia. A large retailer that use to stock a lot of that pulled the pin and post from anywhere is expensive to down under. Not to mention the issues on the docks here with unions threatening strikes and recent go slow work conditions, a lot of stuff is probably still sitting in sea containers.

I sent this one to my vegan mate....and yes, his wife is vegan....

Hans, wo ist Wally?

It totally is.

Straight from the box, decals and all. A pretty nice kit all up, just be careful to get the interior all aligned so the fuselage goes together well.