BradG

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.

I've been wanting to build this model for around 20 years, but I was never good enough with painting natural metal to attempt it. However skills improve and new products hit the market. I recently picked up some SMS Super Silver and wanted to give it a try. The kit itself from Tamiya is very nice, but it does lack a little detail and I had a small etch set to improve on the cockpit, undercarriage doors and other small items. SMS Jet Black was used as a base for the Super Silver and I'm pretty impressed with it's look and durability. I've handled this a fair bit and it has not caused any damage to the surface. The tail decals, excluding the fin flash which was masked and painted, came from Dying Sun II decals from Rising Decals, the US insignia was from the spares box. This particular aircraft was captured at Clark Field in the Philippines. Repaired to airworthy, she suffered a landing gear collapse and was grounded, with the intent to take her back to the US shelved, it's probable that 'S9' was scrapped onsite sometime after the end of the war.

There was only 1 or 2 known to have survived so I'm not surprised it went for that price.

Between a swap and sell and the local Cash Converters. I paid less than half sticker price for the ones you see.

This is the Yak1b of Sergey Lugansky, who was one of those lucky individuals to fight almost the entire war and survive. Joining the Red Army in 1936, he would fly various aircraft starting in the 1939/40 Winter War. In the Summer of 1943 he was presented with this Yak 1, which was built with money raised by the city of Alma-ata. He would end the war at the Air Force Academy in Moscow, after flying 390 combat missions and gaining 34 victories. He was also twice awarded Hero of the Soviet Union. After the war he held various high ranking Air Force posts until retiring in 1968. He passed away in 1977. The kit itself is nicely molded with good decals, although you only get one decal option. Detail is nice, the fit on the other hand does require some patience. The wing fit in particular requires some work, but it is not beyond the skills of the average modeller. It did make me feel a bit better reading that the Yak 1, especially early production aircraft suffered from poor quality control, requiring modification on the production line meaning that parts between individual aircraft were not interchangeable. Paints used were Vallejo Air range; AMT 11, 12 and 7.

I'm freezing my cods off here guys, -1C last night and it looks like it will get close to freezing again tonight.

It can get very humid, especially up north where it's in the tropics. Last summer was humid though as we had a lot of rain up till December.

*laughs in Australian*....mate our heat out cut off for cricket is 104F, or 40C. 98F is just a good day to win the toss and bat.

You'll be lucky to get enough useable bits for one. You'll find the tubular frame and probably the wings, the articles say they were stripped and I imagine that included the engine and pretty much anything the Russians would find useful. "Broken apart" probably means smashed to pieces with a bulldozer. Honestly I've seen and heard of so many of these "recoveries" over the years, it all starts with people being enthusiastic about the find and thoughts of rebuilding aircraft etc etc only to end with a bunch of twisted, corroding metal being dug out of a hole and dumped in or on some poor museum who then, after all the enthusiasm and back slapping dies out, quietly dumps it back in a hole because it wasn't worth recovering in the first place.

Are you STABLE? STash, Acquired, Beyond, Life, Expectancy.

That's interesting, I didn't know that. I guess every bit of armour you can get is a good thing!

Super work. Did you miss taking off a canopy mask or was the forward port quarter panel painted over?

For a new kit this presented a few challenges when being built. OOB, just the addition of a couple of RBF tags on the seeker head covers on the weapons.

Sadly I hear these stories a lot. We all do in my group. I'm sorry man, that's women for you. The more I hear of these kinds of things, the more it confirms that life long batchelorhood is the only way to go. Go your own way my friend.

Bought some large scale armour as an early birthday present to myself.

I really hope someone revisits a large scale Mk 22/24 Spitfire.

It's telling that you don't see many of these uber kits actually built. I see even fewer when going to model comps, but there are no end of Tamiya and Hasegawa LSPs that are without all the open panels. I'm sure these kits sell well, but they seem to just sit in many people's stash forever.

I was looking at getting this kit, but looking at your thread I'm kinda glad I didn't as it was in excess of 200 dollars down here. That said you are doing a nice job on it.

I was going with 'Moister than an Oyster' but whichever.

Just to add the other perspective, I built one straight from the box and though it looked pretty good. I hardly notice the main issue which are the cannon bulges on the nose when she was in my cabinet.

Does the CAF have another Fortress project or will the simply look to rebuild Texas Raiders?

That's looking pretty sharp mate.