HubertB

Absolutely. But for FFP2 masks, which filter the incoming virus, but, because of their scarcity, should be reserved for people really needing them, like hospital staff, security forces, firemen, etc. , the N95, and for that matter the home-made cloth, masks, do not filter incoming air, but retain splutter, and prevent you from spreading the infection. So, if everybody wears such a mask, everyone is perforce protected. Plus there is the psychological benefit of signaling to others you care for them, whether you are ill or not ... Good reasons to wear them, even it is not very comfortable (but then IF you have the choice of going out wearing a mask or staying home, you can always go for the latter) (And I will not comment on the incredibly daft attitude of a certain VP visiting a hospital, and being the only one without a mask on ) Hubert

Beautiful result, Mike. This is not a « shake-and-bake » kit, but you have demonstrated it could be built in a masterpiece. Extremely well done ! Hubert

Methink that the #@!% autocorrector of your phone or ipad has stricken again, Ernie Hubert

Whatever you choose in the end, she is going to be a stunner. Hubert

Greta videos. Really like the purring of the Lightning’s Allisons. Hubert

And one more .... Hubert

X-32 ... the « unlucky » competitor to the X-35 ... Even a flying turd on a brick has more sex appeal Hubert PS: I can’t tell why, but in this angle, it reminds me of Sponge Bob

And just for the fun Hubert

It looks like you are "nearly" there with this one, Cees ! Great work ! Hubert

4 per engine., and 8 in total, to be precise .... And the too-conical shape of the cowlings goes well with the undernumbrered engines. I’ d keep an alert on Shapeways for correctly-shaped cowlings, to house your AM R-2800s, if I were you . I’m sure there soon will be some. Hubert

I always wondered, provided the wing was thick enough, whether it would be possible to tie one extremity of the PE wire to an elastic hidden in the wing, that would maintain the PE under tension ... To me that would be the only way to use these flat wires. The better alternative is to find some flat monofilament. I found some, but it’s a bit big for the scale, buy maybe for the Swordfish (or for 1/24). On my Fisher Ryan ST-M, I followed Paul Fisher’s advice and did not use the supplied PE wires, but some round monofilament, and only the experts will know it is inaccurate . Hubert

Nice one, Dale. Looks like an hybrid of the Hawk and the Alpha-Jet ... Hubert

As I said, I quite like the look of the « flying pencil », hence my preference for the early marks of the Do-17. But so many modellers, and perforce manufacturers, seem ONLY interested In Nazi swastikas ... Hubert PS: if a Nazi swastika ( you guys have noticed my choice of words and the association of « Nazi » with « swastika » ? ) is #1 on my « To avoid » list , #2 is « camoed » . I know I’m weird, compared to the average modeller. Can you imagine: I am a niche within a niche within a niche within a niche modeller ? Certainly not a reference for market studies

Let’s not play games. I know the origins of the swastika, and that’s ok for me, and have no issue with Finnish aircrafts, for instance. But I am struggling to understand the fascination of modellers for Nazi stuff. Just MHO. Hubert

First, as everyone knows, I will not buy a kit of an aircraft adorned with a Nazi swastika. So my opinion is not even worth the famous two cents But If I bought a German bomber, it would be a DO-17, no doubt about it. And an -E even more than a -Z Hubert

There are plenty of civilian guises for this one, with all the colors of the rainbow ... I agree with you: it is a genius choice, and that’s why I started the project of a 1/32 resin Dragon Rapide in 2012. So I guess it also makes me a genius ... The only thing is I forgot Edison’s quote about the « 99% perspiration » behind great ideas, and the project got caught in the doldrums of life. I still have an expensive master to tease me about this unfinished stroke of genius Hubert

Great video ! Now, where are the Zeros ? Hubert

Aaaaargh ! Why spoil the gorgeous design of the Rapide with a #& »! Swastika ? Hubert PS: and, of course, I have duly preordered the Lukgraph kit

Not CA. CA is only good for resisting tensile forces, and the LG design of the OV-10 implies torsion and shearing forces for which CA is not the best. So, use two-component epoxy instead. The queen of epoxy glues is JB-Weld : old product, but still unbeatable. And, yes, the KH kit absolutely needs replacing. The Aerocraft landing gear is really great. Hubert

It’s a simple rule to remember: NEVER EVER buy a SAC white metal gear for a 1/32 kit. If you have doubts about the strength of the plastic part, you can be certain that it still will be twice stronger than the crapium used by SAC ... Hubert

Don’t forget (but I am sure you know ) that the exhaust collector ring was heated steel - and not brass, nor black. Hubert

Good point, Ernie : in fairness, I did not read the instructions that far (who need instructions anyway ? ) and they clearly show the stub pointing downwards ! Now, I assumed they could not be on the bottom, because this is were you have the attachment point for the landing wire. The Kagero book I have with a detailed walkaround of the Krakow PZL P11c show that the brake cables were running inside the rear, angled, LG strut (there is a pic of the brake cable pulley at the top, near the fuselage attachment point), but does not show where they end wheel-side, knowing that the wheel of the surviving P11c is not the original one. Having watched at the pics in the Kagero book, I would venture that the stub (assuming it represents the brake actuating lever) is not on the top, like I have done, nor on the bottom, like kitted by IBG. If you look at the wheel from the inside towards the outside, the lever seems to be at about 8 o'clock, just at the extremety of the rear angled LG strut, where the cable would logically exit. You cannot have it in this position with the IBG wheel, as it is aligned with the rectangular slot that serves as an "axle" to the wing-to-strut connection. For me, it won't matter as it will be hidden by the fairing, wether it is up or down. I'd rather have it on the top, where it helps me get the proper alignement for the wheel, and I have enough plastic there, rather than on the lower part of the spat cover, where I would end up with a very thin bit of plastic. HTH Hubert.

I have started buidling the kit, and done some initial assemblies like the engine and part of the cokpit. More of that later, but Ernie has shown to a good advantage what you will get. The key challenge for my plan is producing the wheel spats. I had to find credible drawings. It also seems that, like the P-24 exposed at the same show, which you can see on the forefront of one the pics above, the LG struts were faired with the spats with a somewhat complex, organic, shape. Later in the life of the P-24, this was simplified with no fairing, for instance on the Turkish P-24s. I found on-line a copy of a Polish book on the P-24. In it were many pics of the initial spats and strut fairing. My working assumption was that the P11/IV had the same, so I used the drawings from the P-24 to develop the spats for my P-11 prototype. The basic shape was drawn on thick (1.5 mm) plastic card, four times, cut and laminated. Herefater you can see the left basic shape, with the finished right spat. It was then just a matter of taking out the center of the spat, to finish with the cavity that will house the wheel. This was done with a burr, then a snadpaper drum, in the motor tool. When you have the basic shape, you need to add the covers. Here they are, with the core of the spat, cut in 0.4 mm plastic card. The finished right spat is to show the end result. The outside cover could be removed, and had a number of screws or fasteners for that . This is reproduced using a divider, and a beading tool: I also need to have a kinf of fairing to accomodate the wheel central nut. This was done using a forming cube and round head, and pressing the cover in-between The inside of the spat need a clearing cut for the brake drum. A hole was cut in the inside cover, file with sandpaper around an exacto handle, a notch fir the barke arm cut, et voilà ! Here the left spat in progess, with the finished right spat next to it. And with the wheel in position ... And the outsisde ... Next is the fairing of the strut with the spat. It a fairly complex shape. I have done the right one, and will show in a later psot how I do the symmetrci left one. The basic idea is to laminete 4 parts in 2mm thick plastic card, and shape it by sadning and carving. As long as I was not sure I could do it properly, I wanted the LG strut to be separate, in case I messed it up and to revert to another plan.I therefore let a hollow in the layered sheest pf plastic to insert the strut. Viwed from the side in contact with the spat fairing ... ... and from the strut side ... And more importantly, mocked up (not glued) with the LG strut and the spat : I still need to smooth and blend everything, adding filler, etc ... but you get the idea TTFN Hubert

Well, now that Ernie's build is nearing the end, now comes my time to "keep the flame burning" I have always liked the puny little Polish fighter, the brainchild of the gifted Zygmund Pulawski, one of the great aero-engineers of the between-the-wars era. When Silver Wings released their resin kit of it, I of course got it, but, like so many other boxes, it stayed nested in the stash ... Then came the annoucement that IBG was going to release a 1/32 kit injection-molded kit of the P-11c ! And of course, I had to get it, the compulsion growing as I saw the first pics and the fist test-shot build. Fantastic ! When it became available, I decided to go for the Premium edition box. In it, on top of the standard kit, you get a nice resin pilot by Bitzkrieg, the Master brass gun barrels and venturi, and an extra decal sheet to reproduce a (slightly) more colourful aircraft, with a top-wing white "lightning". With hindsight, the extra cost is probably not that justified, as you can get the extra parts separately. It is up to you to decide if you want the extra cost for the unique decal sheet ... In my case, it may prove not such a wise investment, as I am after producing something different with this kit. I make no secret that I largely prefer non-camoed aircrafts, preferably civilians, but colourful yellow- or silver-winged aircrafts can be a good second choice, in my preferred Golden Age era. The P-11c was not camoed : it was for most of its career covered in even more boring khaki, a blander version - if that is possible - of British WWI PC-10 . Not for me ! When I bought the SW resin kit, it was because I thought I could model it as HA-NBN, a PZL that was flown to Hungary at the beginning of the war, and interned there, and subsequently used for training and tug-gliding in a colourful crimson and yellow trim. So my initial plan for the IBG kit was all traced : I would finish it as the Hungerian PZL. Only then did I discover that the original aircraft was not a P11c, but rather a P11a. They look the same, but are in fact very different, the P11c being an almost all-new airframe (a bit like the F-18E vs the F-18C). Compared to the P11a, the "c" had a thinner wing, a lower (by 10 cms) engine thrust line, a longer fuselage by 30 cms, with the difference split both ahead and aft of the wing, with the cockpit further aft, and finally a different fin and rudder. Backdating the kit to an "a" version, without losing the fine surface detail, or reproducing the fin and rudder with the same surface detail as the kit's one was not undoable, but still too much of a challenge for my liking ! So exit HA-NBN ! But that is not enough to let me go for a khaki bird ! I finally found that the P11c prototype, dubbed P11/IV, sported an interesting livery when exposed at the 1934 Paris Air Show : white with a red trim. It was presented with wheel spats, which made it look even more "racy". Apart from that, it was very much like the production versions, with wing and fuselage guns, the same cockpit, etc.... Hereafter are two pics of the time, plus a color profile I found in my old "Plany Modelarskie #91" of the late 70s. The color profile is wrong, in that it shows a silver aircraft with red trim, when all other information point to the fact hat the P11/IV sported the Polish national colors, i.e. red and white. So now, I could get to work ! Next post will show the work on the big difference : the spats ! Hubert

It’s too easy to be smart when you have insight of what happened after the decisions were made, and to shoot on ambulances, but one can list many strange choices, like (it’s not a complete list) : 1) At the same time as they decided to stop the free shipping policy, transfer order and shipping management to Weta, who made a disaster of the move, and were not organised to ship small parcels worldwide. 2) Not only did they include shipping charges, but they also added VAT on many transactions. I am sure that triggered a massive drop of sales as prices skyrocketed and service plummeted ... 3) Sticking to a policy of weird releases and ignoring « obvious » demands like the Dr-1 or French - or italian - fighters I was personally never a believer that because it was created on the whim of a passionate and very rich man, WnW did not have to answer the basics of business management, as I read many times... And it now seems that, not only did he not have the deep pockets a lot of modellers were dreaming about, but these pockets may rather have been the Kiwi taxpayers’ pockets... I am grateful that WnW was created. It triggered an extra interest in 1/32 scale, as did Trumpeter beforehand. It enabled many modellers to produce great looking kits without the need to be a superhuman master modeller, and they released projects I could only dream of. Just the Felixstowe will make it a mythical brand in my agenda. And I wish that the unique talents assembled in the WnW team will find sooner rather than later jobs to continue make us dream. Hubert