Simon great looking Do17! Love the kit and this kit now resides on my "I WANT IT" list.

Matthew it would appear that the front wheels of your Grief now stand a few millimeters off the ground? The tracks look fantastic though!

Chris, yes, at the moment the tracks are glued onto the main wheels, the outer layer, the front wheels and the track units are all unattached. This was the the set up to try to ensure the tracks more or less matched on each side. It is possible however that it will need some nose weight as the tracks weigh about as much as the rest of the model....

Dornier has such an interesting camouflage.

Thanks Chris,

I have really enjoyed building the Dornier, it really is a very nice kit indeed.

Si

Great work Simon!
I hope to get back to my build this coming weekend.

Simon, great work on the Dornier. I'm going to build one for the Battle of Britain campaign.
First though, I really do need to get cracking on my Airfix build.
The Jet Provost is a very simple kit so I'm just going to do an OOB. I could spend ages trying to improve it but I'd probably never finish it if I did. So I'm going to keep it simple.
First off I painted the cockpit dark grey and the instrument panel black and painted the seats. They look nothing like MB mk.4's but they'll be ok under the thick canopy. I live in hope that one day someone will do a new tool. If Airfix carries on with the trend of producing RAF trainers, we may get one in the near future.


Now, about the final colour scheme. I was looking through some old copies of Warplane magazine and found this photo of a JP of 79sqn in the old RAF cammo scheme. Certainly very different to the red/white or silver they usually wear. I'm very tempted by this.

This is actually quite temping.

That's a good price, if you can get it

I'll pass this time. I have too much on my plate as it is.

I have gone about as far as I can go with the Defiant. Last thing today was to add a final coat of flat varnish, I masked off the canopy, and promptly broke off one of the guns which flew away to the great spares box in the sky. I will replace it when I feel like it,
Good points, The kit fits lovely with options for in flight, in action, on ground, good detail for non-AMS modellers.
Bad points, sprue attachment gates are chunky and very careful cutting is required, trailing edges need thinning (I didn't), difficult to fit the wheel scrapers. no seatbelts.
My good points, replaced the pitot with Albion Alloys tubing, added etched seatbelts, first time I tried Humbol washes.
My bad points, trying to use Clearfix for landing lights, having to use the rear aerial at the front as the other broke,
Overall I enjoyed the build but the finishing less. It's all education as I find my modelling skills have tended to evaporate due to a long hiatus in my building, ah well, onwards and downwards



These are in the gallery

Nice work Mike!

I'm struggling with the Spit and still getting my butt kicked.

Here is my build with some primer on:-



Some clean up to do!.

Pigment mud:


Checking the fitting of the track unit:



With the tracks units on:



Trying the jerrycans out for size in the cut-down rack:



Need to work out some strapping to hold them in place.

Next challenge after that is the tyres, one of which is OK, the other is a bit crummy looking, with a few places where the rubber is kind of pealing off and the central seam is more of a groove than a ridge.

That Half track is looking better every time I see it. I'm sure you'll be able o sort the tires out.

Afraid to say that I'm going to have to unenlist from this campaign. A look at the campaigns I've signed up for, the growing collection of half built models on my work desk and the fact I have managed so little on my Provost meant I had to do some prioritizing. Sadly this was not of them.
I will keep watching everyone's builds and can't wait to see them all finished.

Stephen

Great builds going on,

Just posted a couple of pics of the Dornier in the gallery.

Si

Matthew nice work!

Hello! Off to a late start, but I thought I'd give this campaign a shot.

I don't do a lot of aircraft, but with all the buzz about the new high quality Airfix 1/72 airplane kits coming out, I just had to give one a try. I selected one of my favorite aircraft, the P-39 Airacobra:

Imagine my surprise when I opened up the new red box and saw before me not one of the recent Airfix wunderkits, but what is obviously a repop of their old 1960s molding!



I guess I need to be more careful in future! Not too impressive, but a kit is a kit and I'll go ahead and see what I can do with it.

Nice choice Tim,

I have just been mugged on memory lane, remember the late 60's issue with Russian markings.

Still keeping an eye on this thread, great stuff going on.

Cheers.

Si

Hi Si,

I like the Soviet markings too, think I'll do her up that way. With the fuselage together my future "Bellochka" already shows the sleek lines of the Airacobra!

The cockpit consists of just a blank space and a seat. Since it will be hard to see in there anyway, I simply painted the interior black and the seat green with tan masking tape seatbelts. I think I’ll leave off the side windows (like on a car, on the real aircraft these could be rolled down).

Welcome Tim to the campaign!
You should have a quick build with the model and lot of time left in the campaign.

I'm getting a late start to this fun but here goes. First off I wanted to say Airfix is my favorite brand. It comes from the days when my English relatives would send Airfix models to my brother and me for Christmas every year. I especially like the newer kits they've been coming out with over the last few years. What great value they are.

Here are a few pics of kits I've done over the last couple years. These are NOT for the contest, just to show what I've done.

The newer Gladiator



The ancient Devastator



Mig 15 and F86



109 and Spit



Now for the campaign entry. This is the ancient Bristol Beaufighter TFX. Goodness only knows how old this kit is. I'm really looking forward to the new tool kit coming to this side of the pond eventually. Until then here goes...



This is after about 45 minutes of work. Now the fun comes, filling and sanding. I'm going to hang this from the ceiling when I'm done so I'm modeling it with gear up. The gear doors fit terribly so I'll be doing a lot of filling.

With initial assembly completed, it’s time to do a little filling.

This will be a bit of a challenge as the top of the aft canopy is too short to reach the frame, and the forward windscreen doesn’t reach back quite far enough. Time to shim!

Great to see a couple of late entries. That Devastator certainly brought back memories; my big brother had one, I seem to remember it being very chunky to hold, with those folding wings. The Mig / F-86 set up looks great.

So, little update (more on "Big A")

Door now installed with its new handle, along with number plates (Verlinden), rear reflector (brass strip and section of plastic tube) and some additional painting of the jerry can straps.


Now the thing I'd been putting off - partly in the hope that Airfix would rush me my replacement tyres, but they didn't - and in the end they literally scrubbed up better than I had imagined.

This one is in relatively good condition:


This tyre not so good - on the side just near where the valve is on the wheel rim a bit of peeling is visible. I guess we could put it down to the driver kerbing it really hard...


Checking that they sat flat on the ground...seems OK on this block of foam.

I don't suppose that you could turn that tire around on its rim so that the 'scuffed' spot is hiding on the inside?