claidheamhmor | Recent Entries

It was a daunting task building these, but I was undaunted. I built four tiny Trumpeter 1/350 scale Douglas SBD Dauntless models. It's actually quite simple: the build is easy, and then it's masking and airbrushing, followed by details in enamel, and I did oil washes for weathering and to get the red of the characteristic slotted dive brakes on the Dauntless. Each of these tiny planes is an actual example of one of the real WW2 aircraft. I spent much more time on research than on the actual models. The decals are fun: each individual number and dash is a separate decal, and even the stars-and-bars consist of 3 decals.

Leppla's Scout: This is the SBD-3 Dauntless flown by Ensign John A. Leppla of scouting squadron VS-2 from the carrier USS Lexington (CV-2) on 7-8 May 1942 during the Battle of the Coral Sea (Lexington was lost on the 8th). Leppla and his gunner had previously scored 7 kills from their dive bomber, and the kill markings are on the left side, along with the "red Indian" squadron emblem. Leppla, by then LtJG with Navy Cross + Gold Star, was shot down and MIA on 26 Oct 1942. It was painted in the early war blue grey/light grey colour scheme.

Barbara Jean: This is S-1, the SBD-5 Dauntless flown by Maj. Christian C. Lee, commander of VMS-3 "Devilbirds", based at St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, in Spring 1944. VMS-3 was the "Atlantic" squadron, painted in dark gull grey and white, used for anti-submarine patrol and convoy escort, though they didn't see combat. "Barbara Jean" was painted on the starboard side on the Dauntless nose.

Bomber 18: This is a Douglas SBD-5 Dauntless dive bomber, number "18," from Bombing Squadron 16 (VB-16), part of Carrier Air Group 16 aboard the other USS Lexington (CV-16). It's based on a picture taken on 15 June 1944 showing the aircraft over Saipan en route to bomb Aslito airfield during the opening days of the Battle of Saipan, part of the Mariana Islands campaign. It was painted in the mid-war tri-colour scheme.

Yellow Wing: This is 9-52, an SBD-5 Dauntless training aircraft assigned to VN-9 at NAAS Saufley Field in Florida, USA, in 1945. It was painted in sea blue with high visibility yellow wings.

Full album here

Revell 1/96 Avro Vulcan and Handley Page HP.80 Victor

The Vulcan and the Victor were two of the trio of Britain's "V Bombers". The Revell kits are actually reboxed old Lindberg kits, with very incorrect box art and painting instructions. The markings supplied are actually for the second prototype of each aircraft, Vulcan VX777 and Victor WB775, painted in white and cerulean blue respectively. Both prototypes first flew in around 1953.

The kits themselves are old, the fit is poor, and detail and accuracy is very limited. That said, they were quite easy to build, and even included pilot figures in the spartan cockpits (though the Victor pilots looked like blobs). A fair bit of white paint was needed for the Vulcan to get the very white finish, and I gave them a nice satin coat. The Revell decals were very yellowed, so I got a superb set of replacement decals printed by MAV Decals. The Victor model has opening engine panels revealing the four Sapphire turbojets tucked into the wings. Both planes are 18-wheelers - lots of wheels to mask and paint!

I quite enjoyed building the kits; it's nice to build really simple ones once in a while.

Full album here

The Airfix 1/48 BAC TSR-2

The TSR-2 was a beautiful supersonic strike/reconnaissance aircraft that was tested and then cancelled for political reasons in the 1960s, first flying in 1964.

The Airfix kit of it is huge but fortunately not wide, and it looks good in white. I built it as XR222, which is in the Imperial War Museum Duxford. The kit was not the greatest, but not terrible either. Fit was mostly OK, but there were some issues: the windshield doesn’t fit without rounding it off, the instrument panel glareshield is way too big, and actually blocks the windshield, some part numbers in the instructions are wrong, one part shown wrong way around, and some decals incorrectly labelled.

The model includes a single Red Beard nuclear bomb in the bomb bay. The cockpit was quite nicely detailed. I did have a bit of filling and sanding to do, but many of the seams were well-placed. My kit was second-hand, and some clear parts were missing, though luckily not the canopies, which had already been painted; I did need to repaint and add the gold tint to the glass. The decals had a long cut across the decal sheet. The fine blue walkway line decals on top were really stressful to apply.

This pic includes in the same scale the first ever jet aircraft, the He-178, as a size comparison.

Full album here

There have been some really good Korean TV series this year. My two favourite 10/10 are:

A Bona Fide Killer

Yoo Bo Na has a lovely husband and toddler child, a family she adores, despite her broken past. Her husband, a reporter, thinks she works in a sales team at an appliance company. In reality, she is the infamous Kingfisher, a sniper who was killed dozens of evildoers who escaped justice. Now she's returning to work after her 3 year break, and the killings start again..

Such a brilliant series. Gong Hyo-jin plays the role of a dedicated woman who seeks justice, but also found love, and Jung Joon-won plays her husband who adores her, even if he knows little of her dark part. His best friend is a detective assigned to the Kingfisher case...

Every bit of the series was good, especially the ending.

Perfect Crown

Perfect Crown is set in an alternative Korean present day where the Josean-era monarchy survived, and Korea now has a constitutional monarchy like the UK. There is still friction between nobility and commoners.

Korean music megastar IU (a thoroughly amazingly nice celebrity who has the same eustachian tube issue I have) plays a chaebol heir who wants to raise her social status by proposing a marriage contract to the Grand Prince, regent for the child king. There's intrigue, palace infighting, and love. A really good series. (Everything IU has been in has been excellent, so not a surprise).

I'm still busy with my model of the British BAC TSR-2 prototype bomber. It's completely white, and only after about 20 coats of paint have I managed to get rid of grey and black bits from showing through. It's a big and quite unwieldy model in 1/;48 scale.

For September, I'm building two British V-bombers, the Vulcan and the Victor, both quite incredible machines for their day. The kits are Revell (ex-Lindberg) kits in an odd 1/96 scale, so rather lacking in detail. The markings are for the second prototype of each, so the Vulcan will be in white, and the Victor in cerulean blue. Should be interesting.

At the GRSM August club meeting, it was auction day! I bought three kits for R105, including a Revell Gannet for R10; nobody else wanted it. It turned out to be a simple rebox of the very simple Frog kit I built exactly two years ago, so I may do this as something a little more interesting, like an Australian version.

Lots of people bought models on auction. Disappointingly, I saw one guy was selling everything he'd bought on Facebook Marketplace. It sucks because it's essentially taken away the opportunity for someone else who actually wanted to build a particular model to have got it in the auction at a reasonable price.

I've finished 3 little planes: Trumpeter 1/350 TBD Devastators. I found other decals and did a little bit of custom painting to get three specific aircraft. It's hard work at that scale, but most of the painting was masked and airbrushed. The canopy frames and a few other bits were brush painted. These little things are about 3cm long.

The TBD Devastator torpedo bomber was most known for the battle of Midway. Three squadrons, VT-8 (USS Hornet), VT-6 (USS Enterprise), and VT-3 (USS Yorktown), attacked the Japanese fleet on 4 June 1942. All 15 from VT-8 were shot down, 1 survivor; 10 of 14 from VT-6 were lost; and 10 of 12 from VT-3 lost. 41 left, 6 came back, and no torpedoes scored a hit. Dauntless dive bombers then sank 3 of the 4 Japanese carriers.

The one in the Yellow Wings pre-WW2 scheme is 2-T-1 from VT-2 (Torpedo Squadron 2) from USS Lexington in 1938, based in San Diego, with squadron commander Lt Cdr W Stinson as pilot.

The lighter blue one is T-6-3 from VT-3 at the Battle of Midway, flown by pilot Ens E Heck Jr. and gunner Arm3c D I Richey, the only crew to return to Enterprise.

The darker blue one is 8-T-1 from VT-8, based at NAS Norfolk in Feb 1942, flown by commanding officer Lt Cdr John C Waldron. A few months later he died at Midway attacking the carrier Soryu.

Full album

Completed, the Octopus 1/72 IMAM Ro.43 seaplane biplane. The Ro.43 was one of a line of Italian seaplanes used for reconnaissance in WW2, and this particular one was flown off the Eugenio di Savoia light cruiser in 1942.

The kit itself is terrible, one of the worst I’ve built. The plastic parts were not great and were mixed with an odd selection of resin bits. No locating pins or holes for anything, and placement of many parts was sheer guesswork. The cockpit section was too small for the fuselage; I had to build a floor for it to rest on. I drilled locating holes for many parts, and attaching resin bits with superglue was an annoying process. Tail and tailplanes were just butt-joined; I actually drilled holes and used wires to help support the tailplanes. The small floats are really fragile thanks to the poorly-attached resin struts. Many parts or sections just did not fit properly at all. The canopy and clear sections are vacform. Since it’s a biplane, there is a lot of wire rigging, and there’s even more because of the big central float. I drilled dozens of tiny, tiny holes (breaking a few tiny expensive drill bits in the process) in order to thread and glue a whole bunch of fine threads in place. Assembly was quite piece-meal; because of the difficultly of painting with everything assembled, painting was done before the upper wing, struts, and floats were glued in place. Of course, paint touch-ups were then needed for the glue marks.

There’s stuff I’m not altogether happy with, but all in all it came out OK for such a terrible kit.

Album of finished model

Completed, the Antares 1/72 Curtiss SC-1 Seahawk. The Seahawk was a naval scout floatplane used in the latter part of WW2 in the Pacific Theatre, brought in to replace the OS2U Kingfisher. It was a neat little plane, single-seated but with enough space behind the pilot for another person. The kit was neat and straightforward, easy to build, and with options for either floats and beaching gear, or wheels. It’s my 6th seaplane model of the year.

Album here

This monstrous beast is Big Wind, a fire-fighting machine built in Hungary for putting out oil well fires during the first Gulf War. It comprised two Mig-21 turbojets mounted atop a T-34 tank chassis. After the war, the machine was rebuilt on top of a T-55 chassis.

This 1/72 scale model is based on the later, cleaner T-55 version. The model is a 3D print with some scratchbuilt parts. The mesh cage is made from plastic strips and fabric; the water nozzles are made from bent nails; and the water hoses are made from soldering wire. It’s a fascinating machine. I also have the T-34 version to build sometime and that will be a lot dirtier.

Read more here: Machines in action or Hackaday

Album here

Completed, the Frog 1/72 Grumman Avenger Mk.II torpedo bomber model kit, depicted as flown in the British Pacific Fleet, HMS Indomitable, 1945. Decent enough for its age, with a surprisingly sturdy undercarriage. Lots of masking of the canopy and turret to do! It technically uses the same colour scheme as the Fairey Barracuda - Sky underneath, with Extra Dark Sea Grey and Dark Slate Grey (that's the green) camouflage on top, but the Avenger was a lend-lease aircraft, and the American factory, Eastern Motors, painted the Dark Slate Grey in a slightly different, more olivey, green. You can see the difference in the pic of the two of them together.

Full album

Completed, the Frog 1/72 Fairey Barracuda Mk.II torpedo bomber model kit, depicted as flown by the Royal Navy in the Pacific war in 1945 off HMS Vengeance. Not a bad kit considering its age, though a little lacking in detail. I added an extra seat and the machine guns inside, and did some aerial wires. The landing gear is quite fiddly, and the glasswork - canopy and side windows - were quite tedious to mask. Mistakes were made, but I quite like how the paint came out.

Full album

Completed, the Airfix 1/72 Bristol 192 Belvedere model kit. It's basically a 1959 kit, and I have the 1970s edition of the kit. The kit itself doesn't match the actual helicopter it's modelled on, since the kit was based on a prototype. It was definitely too much work to convert it to the final production helicopter. The kit itself is terrible; poor detail, terrible fit, and a canopy that is straight out of model hell. The decals were yellowed, but I trimmed around them, and with nice white and silver paint, the strange, slender helicopter model actually looks OK. For the canopy, I found pictures of a canopy mask online, printed it, and used it as a template to cut masks that I placed; there are no markings on the canopy itself.

Full album

I'm busy with three model kits for June.

The Bristol Belvedere is a 1950's British helicopter, and the kit is from 1958. It's terrible - not accurate, and doesn't fit well. The canopy masking is a nightmare because there are no lines on the canopy, so I found and printed a rough template online and used it to cut masks.

The Grumman Avenger Mk2 is a Frog kit, pretty simple. The Fairey Barracuda Mk2 is also Frog and simple, though I added a little extra interior details. Both will be done in Royal Navy WW2 markings from the Pacific theatre. Both have long canopies that need lots of masking, and the Avenger has a turret, while the Barracuda has several side windows.

Beriev Be-200ES

Completed, the Zvesda 1/144 Beriev Be-200ES fire-fighting plane. The Beriev Be-200ES is a Russian jet-powered flying boat used by the Russian Navy and here as a fire-fighting aircraft that scoops up tons of water and drops it on fires.

It's my 5th seaplane model of the year. The kit fits together really well, and because I wanted it shown dumping water, I did it with wheels retracted. However, to do it "in flight" with water bay doors open, you need to cut the doors out. That was a poor design - too thick, and the instructions just left the doors out. I fabricated thinner doors and mounted them in the right places. The build otherwise was easy, and painting it in white, grey and blue too (though I had to make dead sure the white/grey border was exactly where the decals would be. The decals though! Lots of tiny stencils (sometimes like 5 tiny dots on one large decal). Almost the front half of each fuselage half was a single large irregular decal - it was very stressful cutting it out, placing it, and making sure it lined up with the continuous lines from the rear sides. There were a few lines too, that needed to be all lined up perfectly. Fortunately it all came out well. Then I used the kit stand, and glued cotton wool to give the water dump effect; I think it looks reasonably good when comparing to real pictures.

Full album

Completed, the Classic Airframes 1/48 Boulton Paul Defiant T.T. Mk1 target tug. Fascinating aircraft, converted from the Defiant turret-fighter to tow targets for fighter pilot training. This one was used by the USAAF, and they plastered US markings directly over the RAF markings, so the plane has both US and RAF markings. The kit comes with resin parts for cockpit, rear cockpit, winch, propeller for the generator, the tug stuff underneath, and wheel wells.

The kit itself is terrible, unfortunately. The resin parts are nice, but that's all. The rest is not nice. Parts don't fit (like, the nose is a couple of mm narrower than the fuselage, and the wing needs trimming to fit the fuselage), and there are no locating pins (I drilled holes and made my own pins for tailplanes), and more. So much wrong. The decals are thick and don't settle nicely over detail, and I think an entire decal sheet is missing (the instructions indicated lots of stencils that were not there, and one RAF roundel was absent). At least there are recessed panel lines (though I rescribed them anyway to make them a little deeper). The Defiant’s undercarriage is a little complex, but fortunately I got it right. I cut the front canopy open so that the inside was visible, but of course the sliding section didn't fit over the fuselage; I had to do lots of sanding.

Interesting subject though; the black and yellow underside is cool.

Album here

Finished, the Italeri 1/72 Dornier Do-24 flying boat model kit. The kit comes with Luftwaffe markings, but I depicted it as the Swedish Tp 24, number "90". This particular aircraft was stolen by a German mechanic in 1944, and he and his Estonian girlfriend defected to Sweden. The aircraft was then formally purchased, and used in the F 2 Wing near Stockholm for air-sea rescue. It was repainted in a very dark green. It was in service with Sweden until being scrapped in 1952. The Do-24 was a superb flying boat, legendary for its ability to handle rough water (better even than the Catalina).

The mechanic, Wolfgang Gerhart (later Gerts) became a Swedish citizen and worked in the aviation industry. He and Agnes did not remain together, though she too stayed in Sweden.

The kit itself was really good. Nice detail, engraved panel lines, and it fitted well. The tricky bit was attaching the fuselage to the huge wing with all of the struts, which I did only after fully painting everything; thankfully, the fit was excellent. I used RLM70 black-green paint, and I scrounged Swedish markings and the yellow number decals from various places. Fortunately there were a number of contemporary photos of the plane for reference.

Full album here

Finished, the Airfix 1/72 OS2U Kingfisher observation floatplane. The Kingfisher was a widely used floatplane used off merchant ships, warships, and from land bases, by the US, Royal Navy, Soviet Navy, and RAAF. It most famous use was the rescue of Eddie Rickenbacker. Captain Eddie Rickenbacker was the top US ace of WW1, a racing driver, airline owner, and aircraft builder, and in WW2 was conducting a tour and delivery of a secret message in the Pacific in a B-17. The B-17 went badly off course and ditched, and Rickenbacker, his writer friend Hans Christian Adamson (no relation), and several surviving crew members drifted in rafts for 24 days. Three were rescued by a Kingfisher, and unable to take off, the Kingfisher taxied on the water for 64km to the nearest base.

In another incident, a pilot rescued 9 downed airmen at Truk Lagoon, and taxied for several hours with the men clinging to wings until they could be transferred to the submarine USS Tang.

The kit itself was a very old kit, and fit was so-so, with poor detail. I depicted it as a Fleet Air Arm plane, with British markings with the red removed. Unfortunately, the kit decals disintegrated, so I scrounged the "Royal Navy" and numbers, and masked and airbrushed the rest of the markings.

Full album here

Finished, the Condor 1/48 Heinkel He-178. The He-178 was the first jet aircraft to fly, and was actually rather unimpressive, considering. The condor kit is quite awful. There are a few nice bits: there was a lovely three-later instrument panel, photoetch seatbelts and pedals (which were too big and didn't fit), and side consoles (which weren't even mentioned or shown in the instructions. All the plastic parts fitted terribly, and I had to do lots and lots of sanding and filling. The colours were partly bare metal and partly RLM02 green-grey, with lots of careful masking. It came out OK, considering. I cut the canopy open so the cockpit is visible.

Full album here

I painted and put together a bunch of 1/72 3D-printed bits: two Hanomag SS-100 tractors for use on Luftwaffe airfields, and a bunch of airdrop containers, fuel drums, jerrycans, and oil cans. These are all going to be used in a future Luftwaffe airbase diorama.

Full album here

Finished, a filament 3D-printed Porco Rosso seaplane. The 1992 Studio Ghibli animated movie "Porco Rosso" features a red seaplane somewhat based on the Macchi M.33 and Savoia S.21, and is set in the Adriatic. Porco Rosso is a fighter ace and bounty hunter cursed to have a pig's head. The model itself was 3D printed with filament by a friend, so it's very rough and layered. I sanded it for hours with 320 grit sandpaper to get it less rough. Still with the bright colours, it looks pretty nice. Pretend you're watching the movie in 320x200 resolution.

Full album here

I built a really ancient ('70s vintage?) Airfix 1/72 Curtiss Helldiver kit. Initially I was going to chuck the kit, because when I checked it, it seemed there'd been a moulding issue: the top half of the inner starboard wing was just a tiny piece of plastic. However, I turned it into a bit of an experiment: "Weather...or Not?". I built and painted it with the port half clean and neat, with folded wing, and the starboard half heavily weathered, with paint chipping down to metal or primer, different faded shades of paint, exhaust stains, oil leaks, dirt, the works, right down to half of the prop, half of the bomb, half of the cockpit. I used He-177 bomb bay doors and some plastic to fabricate a wing surface structure, then made a tarpaulin to cover it.

Cockpits front and rear were detailed a bit. Along with the Helldiver, I found and painted up a set of old soft plastic American ground crew. Quite a fun little experiment.

Helldiver picture album

Completed, the Swedish Heinkel He-115 seaplane. In WW2, Sweden's seaplane squadron operated 12 of these planes they'd bought from Germany. I did extensive research (I spent much more time on research than actually building the model), and based on what spare decals I had, chose number 8. The 12 varied in minor details, but 8 had yellow float undersurfaces, red on the float tips, white "8" on tail and nose, and the "2" for the squadron marking was black. The kit was a 1/72 Matchbox kit, which fitted pretty well, though the old plastic was a little brittle. It was so smooth I had to sand it down with 3000 grit sandpaper so that the primer would stick. I did a bit of cockpit detail too, though not much is visible through the huge paned canopy.

I also completely scratchbuilt beaching gear for the plane, using Ar-234 engines, He-177 wheels, and bits of plastic, based on pics of the real thing. I also had a ground tractor 3D-printed, and painted and decaled appropriately. It was actually a lot of fun taking this ancient Matchbox kit and doing something

Album of pics here

I decided to add a bit of litter to the cobblestone base of my model tank, so I created tiny, tiny coke cans and wine bottles.

And here's the result:

Finished, my first proper tank model in decades. This is the 1/35 Zvesda kit of the Russian T-80UD tank from 1991. The UD was for "Ukrainian Diesel", a fairly rare variant fitted with a diesel engine instead of a turbine, giving it better range and fuel consumption at the expense of speed. This one is only lightly weathered; I don’t think they were used in combat. I could be somewhat casual with airbrushing since the Russian factories were too. The Zvesda kit is not bad at all, except for terrible fit between the hull and top of the tank; I had to grind down the top of the tracks to get it to fit. The base is a cobblestone street 3D print from Fallout Models, with hand-painted cobbles, and a bit of water and dirt.

Album of display pics

Full build album

Finished, the Airfix 1/48 kit of the Hawker Siddeley Buccaneer S.2B. This one is Longmorn, one of the Buccaneers sent by the RAF to the Gulf War in 1991, painted with a sandy camouflage called "desert pink". They typically carried a slipper fuel tank, laser designator pod to designate targets for Tornados, an ECM pod, and a Sidewinder for self-defence. The paint wore off fast, so there was quite a bit of weathering on the aircraft, and the colour ranged from pinkish to yellowish. I used pink mottling under Mr Color’s "Flesh" paint, and I think it’s a pretty decent match; I used an entire bottle of paint. The kit itself had some poor fit issues (especially the air brake!), but detail is not too bad.

Album of display pics here (16 pics)

Full build album

I've been busy with two models for a while now, both of 1991-vintage military equipment.

One is a Russian T-80UD tank, and I'm finishing up the camouflage on it. It's been interesting building a bigger scale tank. There's a lot of work on the wheels an tracks before you get to put it all together.

The other is a Hawker Siddeley Buccaneer, an extraordinary Cold War bomber used by the RAF and by South Africa. I'm doing it in a Gulf War colour scheme, which essentially means it was painted in a colour called "desert pink", designed to be able to be washed off.

I'm really enjoying the process of doing panel lines (thin black paint, cleaned up with turpentine), and next I'll do some gentle weathering on it.

A few days ago I needed to check which way the propellers rotated on my Hornet model kit, so I asked Chatgpt. It told me they rotated outward, and that the top of the blade tips rotated toward the cockpit (and it offered up an ASCII-drawn diagram that looked like a lozenge). That seemed contradictory, so I asked more questions. I was asked which kit I was building, and Chatgpt offered up some suggestions for improving the kit's accuracy - like lengthening the nose wheel. The Hornet did not have a nose wheel.

Then it talked about the clean lines, and how the tail wheel doors closed. The Hornet did not have tail wheel doors. It suggested lengthening the tail wheel so that the model would sit more nose-up. That is not how it works.

At this point I couldn't trust a single thing it was saying, so I went to other sources to check which way the propellers rotate. They rotate inward, not outward as Chatgpt said.

How much do you trust AI? I picked up those errors only because I'd been researching the aircraft.

Incidentally, I've tried Deepseek, which got the answer drastically wrong, saying the propellers are not handed, despite knowing the Hornet had different model engines on left and right.

Copilot says the props turn inward, quoting a pilot reference. Copilot is right. It got the different engines right too.

Gemini was correct too, and provided a video as reference.

With my winnings from the Model of the Year, and at the last club meeting of the year, I bought a few cheap but interesting model kits. Should be fun.

I finished a really old model kit while I was on holiday: the blue-and-gold armour of Kaiser Maximilian II. I had painted the face during the year, aibrushed the armour in a dark metallic blue enamel (with a gloss coat), and spent a long, long time doing all the gold in Bright Gold. Not a fantastic result, but the gold looks good.

For Model of the Year, I also dug out the Erzherzog Siegmund armour I did many years ago, painted in Humbrol polished metal paint.

Finished. The Heller 1/72 kit of the Bloch MB.152 fighter from early WW2. An ancient kit - I built one as a kid. Not too bad though, and I completely scratchbuilt a cockpit for it. It was quite a struggle researching the colours; it seems there was very little consistency at the time. The decals were old and yellowed, so I carefully trimmed them first. The Bloch engine was slightly pointed to the left to counter torque.

Full build album here

Another old kit finished: the Airfix 1/72 Westland Whirlwind. I built one of these in 1981 in boarding school. A nice neat kit of a pretty WW2 plane. It's relaxing to build these old kits; they lack detail, but they're quick, easy builds.

Full build album here

I'm busy with two model kits at the moment.

The first is an ancient Heller kit of a Bloch MB.152, a French WW2 fighter plane that did really badly in the early part of the war. I scratchbuilt an entire cockpit for it, and I'm busy doing the camouflage painting at the moment. One peculiarity is that the nose points left by a couple of degrees in order to counter torque. Finding accurate colours is a challenge; the French at the time were not good with documentation or consistency.

The other kit is an old Airfix Westland Whirlwind, a little twin-engined British WW2 fighter. Like the Bloch, I built one of these back in the early 80s. It's a simple kit, and I'm not doing anything fancy at all, just building it as is.

My current model is a Heller model of a Bloch MB.152, a Fresh fighter plane from early WW2. It's not a great kit, so I'm scratch-building a complete cockpit for it, including instrument panel. Finding the right colours to use is a challenge; French military aircraft were not consistent nor well documented, and there aren't any survivors.

Finished, the Lindberg 1/48 XFY-1 "Pogo" VTOL aircraft. The Pogo was a weird beast, and only one pilot ever managed to successfully repeatedly fly it. The model kit was barebones, so I scratchbuilt the entire cockpit. I'm especially pleased with the bare metal and aluminum finish; I used Mr Color "Gun Chrome" for the bare metal, and it gives an excellent finish. The contra-rotating prop is geared - they actually move opposite directions.

Full album of pictures

I finished the Revell 1/72 BAe Hawk T.1 model, depicting a plane flown by 208 Squadron for their 100th anniversary in 2016. Nice kit, very detailed for the size. The all-black colour scheme is eye-catching.

Full album of pictures

I'm busy with two model kits at the moment, hoping to have them done by the model club meeting on Saturday.

One is the Revell 1/72 BAe Hawk, a little trainer aircraft. The kit was actually a birthday gift to one of the guys at the club, and he asked me to build it for him. The tricky bit is that it's all-black, which leaves limited scope for weathering and highlighting. Still, neat kit.

The other is a Lindberg 1/48 XFY-1 "Pogo". It's an old kit, with very little detail, but a super interesting subject: a weird aircraft with giant contra-rotating propellers, designed to take off vertically from a tail-sitting position. Only one pilot ever managed to take off and land with any regular success. I scratch-built the entire cockpit, and so far it's coming along nicely - lots of bare metal paint.

Along the way I tried a new substance: Gauzy Glass Coat. For years I have used Future/Pledge floor polish to dip the aircraft canopies in; it forms a clear, glossy protective coating that looks good. Gauzy supposedly replaces that, since Future/Pledge is hard to get hold of. I tried it on the Hawk canopy, and it was a mess - it left bubbles and bumps, and looked horrible. I was able to strip it off, luckily, by soaking the canopy in rubbing alcohol for a few minutes, and the canopy wasn't damaged. Back to Pledge, which works just fine. You can see the Pledge-coated canopy here:

At the last club meeting, I bought a few really old model kits, of interesting aircraft. I seem to make a habit of building ancient, rubbish kits, and making them look nice. Maybe my next one up will be the old Heller model of a French WW2 fighter, the Bloch MB.152.

I've watched the following shows since the last time I posted:

Watched:

Healer (2014) - interesting one

Melo Movie (2015) - good

Chocolate (2019) - enjoyed it

Taxi Driver (2021) - excellent drama

Hyper Knife (2021) - with the brilliant Park Eun Bin as a disgraced neurosurgeon, who deservedly got awards for it. Brilliant.

Captivating the King (2024)

Rookie Historian Goo Hae-ryung (2019) - excellent, lots of fun; female historian meets prince who is an undercover novelist

Our Unwritten Seoul (2015) - twins swap places, really enjoyed it

Ongoing series:

Beyond the Bar (2015) - legal drama, enjoying it

Bon Appétit, Your Majesty (2025) - chef flung back to the Joseon era. I thought it'd be a rip-off of the amazing Mr Queen, but it's so much fun, with the same talented actress as I am not a Robot.

Partners for Justice (2018/2019) - legal/forensic drama, enjoying it.

Ghost Doctor (2022)

Dear Hongrang (2025)

Kinda abandoned, got bored:

Where Stars Fall
That Winter The Wind Blows
Man to Man
Vincenzo - good, but long episodes
Alchemy of Souls - apparently good, but I'm struggling with it
The Trunk
Tastefully Yours

The Minicraft 1/48 model kit of the MH-60K Blackhawk Special Operations, the only Blackhawks actually painted black (which faded). It was a terrible kit - fit was poor, few locating pins, and even the colour directions and decals were wrong in multiple ways. For example, it showed it in olive drab colours - except the SO versions were black. I did it with a black primer, then a greenish highlight colour for the black-basing, then RLM66 dark grey, with a light overspray of black over it.

Full album

I finished my model of a historically accurate pink tank. This is the legendary "Pink Tank" as of 2011 in Prague. It was a Revell 1/72 IS-2 kit, nice and easy to do, with a 3d-printed finger. I've included a pic of the real thing.

Full album

I've been quite slow on modelling, but I recently finished an "egg plane" model, an aircraft shaped like an egg: a Hasegawa "RAF Taxi" Harrier, along with a ground scene including an old codger and his got waiting for the bus or taxi. It was a really old kit, and quite fun, but I had to find replacement decals because the old ones were welded to the paper.

All the build pictures

An interesting movie I watched on the plane back from the UK was Companion. It's set in a world with "companions" - basically human-like androids, but most are really fuckbots. The owner of one hacks her overrides in a murder plot, and things go a little wrong when she become a bit to self-aware.

Really fascinating thinking about the implications.

I finished the Airfix 1/48 Sea Harrier FA2 model kit. An interesting kit, a bit of a mix between old and new Airfix kits, with raised panel lines on wings and recessed on fuselage. A good build though, and I thought it came out well. Like the bumblebee, you wonder how it flew!

Another model finished: the PM Model Yak-15. Yakovlev took a Yak-3, and replaced the piston engine with a jet engine. Weird looking, for a jet. The kit was not great at all, and I rescribed all the panel lines, and added some cockpit detail. Looks good in red though!

April seems to be the month for spectacular sunrises and cloud pictures.

Finished, the CMC Leopard model kit, a 1/72 scale Amodel kit. It's tiny! The CMC Leopard was a British 4-seater passenger jet with two engines, and was significantly smaller than a Me-109 or Cessna 172. It first flew in1988. A nice simple kit, though it didn't fit together well. I tried a new clearcoat, Mr Color GX110. Very nice indeed, better than even the normal clearcoat.

Full album here.

Finished, my Focke-Wulf Fw-189 Uhu, a 1/72 scale Italeri kit. This plane was in the WW2 Winter War, and was painted with a whitewash in the winter. The whitewash would wear off or be rubbed off where needed.

I also made a base for it, with snowdrifts and snow on bushes, using snow powder and wood glue.

I built the kit with normal green camouflage with lacquer Mr Color paints, and then applied an acrylic Army Painter over it, and then weathered and rubbed it away with water where needed. That stuff is awful to airbrush with. Lots of mud too, especially where crew would walk (inside as well!)

Anyway, I learnt a lot through the process, and picked up new techniques. Definitely need to work on my canopy masking though. I had some annoying residue on the panes of glass.

Complete album is here.

I finally got around to watching The Wheel of Time TV series season 2 and the newest episodes of season 3. Absolutely loving it. Season 1 was a little slow to start, but 2 and 3 kicked off with a bang. Obviously there are differences from the book series, given the 14-book series's length, but so far the changes have been for the better, or have compressed things a lot.

One thing I do like is the sheer diversity of the cast and the characters. I mean, among the main cast members, we have a few English actors; Irish; American/Korean; NZ; Aboriginal Australian; Dutch; Indian; Nigerian English; Jewish/Nigerian English; Japanese; Lebanese Swedish; Spanish; Indian English; Scottish (with received pronunciation); and more. There's even a trans man actor who plays a woman.

I've also been watching Reacher season 3. To be honest, I'm really plodding through it; it's a bit wooden.

I finished my Arado Ar-234 C-2 model kit last week, in time for the model club meeting. It's an ancient Revell kit, with poor fit and detail, and raised panel lines. I scratchbuilt the entire cockpit, did some post-shading on the panel lines, and used a spare set of Luftwaffe decals to get the Tesla logo for the tail. The C-2 model was designed to launch the V-1 flying bomb, and only one was ever made.

Link to full album

I've watched the following Korean TV series over the last few months

Romance in the House (2024)

Love Next Door (2024)

Marry My Husband (2024)

Do Do Sol Sol La La Sol (2020)

The Doctors (2016)

Memories of the Alhambra (2018)

Because This Is My First Life (2017)

Love in Contract (2022)

Warm and Cozy (2015)

Cinderella with Four Knights (2016)

Shooting Stars (2022)

I finished my model of the Avro Canada VZ-9 Avrocar, along with a couple of 3d-printed visitors looking for transport home. Likely the smallest 1/72 model jet I've ever made. This was a real aircraft (but it did not fly well); it was made in the 1950s, and the service ceiling was a lofty 3 feet, much lower than the design called for! This example is on display in the Smithsonian Museum.