You'd generally see at least that many groundcrew people.

I am considering an RAF dio in 1/48 - a Typhoon with pilot 'scrambling'. If I were to compete with it would it be considered incorrect unless I added appropriate ground crew ie.: groundcrewman assisting pilot, groundcrewmwn removing wheelchocks, groundcrewman ready with fireextinguisher??

that's amazing! How did you know what I was going to ask!

The forum threading software thinks I'm just that good

That's great, it looks like a timezone thing (check the respective times on the posts).

Based on that, I could respond to almost everybody before they post (except those scoundrels in New Zealand).

Great idea for a dio Biggles, make sure you post up plenty of pics as you go !

Cheers, D

Quick, get it built before Mr. Gaston finds some obscure photo of an RAF outhouse that will invalidate the entire diorama!

No Jim, it will only be invalidated if the diameter of the pan in the aforementioned outhouse is not accurate to +/- 0.0003mm, or the angle of the roof correct to +/- 0.015 degrees. Not to mention the colour of the paper on the roll, that MUST be correct.

And he'll be able to determine all of that from a grainy photograph of a pencil sketch that was hurriedly made by a 10 year old child in the dark. But he'll cover it in so many lines that nobody will be able to see the original picture anyway.

Looks like a bad case of 'Marty-bashing'. Of course, he bashes everything else!

Seriously, though, was there some kind of strut or support for the canopy roof section on the Typhoon B1 'car-door' cockpit, to hold it open for entry or exit?

If there is, it's fairly small. Nothing is visible in this picture and this one shows what may be a small support right at the front left corner of the canopy reaching up to approximately 1/3 of the width of the rear view mirror blister.

Jessie to the rescue again! Thanks. Looks like a handle on the inside of the roof panel. Didn't know that and neither apparently did Hasegawa! I notice there's also a bubble involved with the handle. Is this standard or a later innovation? I'm going to have to double check my Squadron publication again. This is getting to be as complicated as detailing Sherman tanks - as soon as you think you're finished something else crops up!

The bubble is to hold the rear view mirror. According to Falcon (the clear canopy people from New Zealand) the bubble for the mirror was an early production feature. It was fairly quickly deleted and most Tiffies didn't have it. It's been so long since I've had my Hasegawa kit out that I've forgotten whether it has optional tops.

{insert a long wait while Jessie digs and digs deeply in the closet of shame. Sound effects include poorly piled stacks of kits falling over, coughing and slapping off clouds of dust}

Okay, here it is. There's an optional bubble that may be glued onto the canopy top if your aircraft had it. The decal options in my kit both had it installed.

Falcon set No. 31 has one of each type. The later type is also available from Squadron.