Revell 1/72nd Fairey Swordfish, I guess the old Matchbox product.

Definitely Matchbox, they didn't rebox the Frog one.

From Vintage Emporium in Stockport, a couple of tatty die-cast vehicles for the princely sum of £2 each:

1. Matchbox 1/75th(?) Snow-Trac.
To feed my British Antarctic Survey kink. Bit tatty and missing it's tracks. You can get new tracks for it (one trader on Ebay has sold 790 sets!    ) and new decals, but I'm holding off for the moment. The thing is, the original running gear looked pretty rubbish even when the model was brand new. The tracks are white (why?) and way too thick, and the middle section of the roadwheels is just moulded in light relief on the sides of the body, so from any distance it looks like it only has three wheels per side with a huge gap in the middle. I'm wondering if I could whiff it up with some model kit running gear that actually looks the part.

2. Airport Apron bus in ? scale.
Thought this might be handy to pose next to 1/144th airliners, but it's very difficult to find any details on. There's no toy company marking on it. I believe it might have come from a Daron airport play set, but then die-cast websites tell me that it's probably a re-pop of other company's molds. I'm pretty sure that the real vehicle it's based on is a Neoplan N 940 Apron Bus. It has two sets of doors in each side and another set of doors at each end, with, apparently, driving positions at each end too. I suspect it might be electric too, since there's no apparent engine compartment and large boxes on the roof (batteries). However there's very little info on apron buses on the web. Even the bus & coach spotters don't seem very interested in them since they aren't road-legal and even Neoplan's website is no help. That means that so far, I've been unable to find out the dimensions of the real thing, so I can't scale the model yet.

Quote from: scooter on December 16, 2023, 07:35:56 AM

Quote from: Old Wombat on December 16, 2023, 07:28:26 AMOrdered yesterday;

2 x Reskit 1/48 AIM7E Sparrow III Missiles (4pcs) for F-4 Phantom II, F3H Demon (RS48-0320) - fairly obvious;, weapons, aircraft for the use of
1 x Eduard Models 1/48 Bristol F.2B Fighter [Weekend Edition] (ED 8452) - my second kit of my favourite WW1 aircraft
1 x Eduard Models 1/48 Bristol F.2B Fighter Weekend Detail Set for Eduard kits (ED FE1381) - upgrades for above

You're gonna mount them on the Bristol, right?

Tempting, but "No!"  

My club had a white elephant exchange at the meeting tonight. I brought an Academy 1/35 AH-1W Cobra and ended up with a Tamiya 1/48 B Mk4 Mossie. I think I came out ahead. I know I was never going to build the Cobra so maybe this way it might get built. Now I have the Mossie, a Meteor and a Beaufighter to build.

Quote from: chrisonord on December 16, 2023, 02:53:46 PMDoes anyone know if there are any Fleet Air Arm sheets in 72nd scale for around the time in question? I am thinking everything fixed wing will be sea harriers, so markings and colours will be completely different from what I want to do, unless I can get hold of 3 lots of sea harrier FRS 1 markings, and put them on top of the EDSG, like I did with my Sea Jaguar.

Let me have a look in my decals stash over the next couple of days, and I'll PM you with the results of my ferreting.

Quote from: Old Wombat on December 16, 2023, 07:28:26 AM1 x Eduard Models 1/48 Bristol F.2B Fighter [Weekend Edition] (ED 8452) - my second kit of my favourite WW1 aircraft
1 x Eduard Models 1/48 Bristol F.2B Fighter Weekend Detail Set for Eduard kits (ED FE1381) - upgrades for above

There's always the Wingnut Wings kit. UK Ebay price between £230 and £280   

Quote from: Accidental Loggie on December 17, 2023, 01:00:45 AM

Quote from: chrisonord on December 16, 2023, 02:53:46 PMDoes anyone know if there are any Fleet Air Arm sheets in 72nd scale for around the time in question? I am thinking everything fixed wing will be sea harriers, so markings and colours will be completely different from what I want to do, unless I can get hold of 3 lots of sea harrier FRS 1 markings, and put them on top of the EDSG, like I did with my Sea Jaguar.

Let me have a look in my decals stash over the next couple of days, and I'll PM you with the results of my ferreting.

Thankyou, that would be brilliant, much appreciated.

Quote from: NARSES2 on December 17, 2023, 01:08:20 AM

Quote from: Old Wombat on December 16, 2023, 07:28:26 AM1 x Eduard Models 1/48 Bristol F.2B Fighter [Weekend Edition] (ED 8452) - my second kit of my favourite WW1 aircraft
1 x Eduard Models 1/48 Bristol F.2B Fighter Weekend Detail Set for Eduard kits (ED FE1381) - upgrades for above

There's always the Wingnut Wings kit. UK Ebay price between £230 and £280   

I may be insane but I'm not suicidally insane!

I'm having enough problems hiding my purchases as it is, if I bought one of those (undoubtedly as awesome as it would be) I doubt I'd survive the week!

Stumbled over another Airfix Hunter FGA.9. Yes, the Revell is much better, but the Airfix is so lovely to work with. Nice, soft plastic, making it very accommodating to any PSR you might think of. And cheap as dirt, not least important.

Speaking of cheap - what's the verdict on the old Lightning kits out there? So far, I've based my builds on the old Matchbox kit (whose main benefit is that's it was an F.6 at a time when the only alternative was the venerable Airfix F.1A) but these days, those are rare, and instead, various repops of either the original Frog or the Hasegawa F.6's (confusingly also repopped by Frog) are more common.

Which would you prefer, and why?

Early Christmas present from the parents of the Ukrainian mum we hosted up to the end of last month, a Zvezda Il-62M. 

1/144's not my regular scale (built several of the Airfix airliners in the past, more recently a Revell Typhoon F.1 and (still ongoing) a MiG-25), but hey, the 1/48 Airfix Hurricane I built earlier this year was very enjoyable and the Il-62 looks very good in the box and I'm looking forward to making a start on it next year.

Matchbox scale is 1/64th, ditto Hot Wheels and Johnny Lightning. It's one of the standard diecast scales.

Looking at the Neoplan pages on Wikipedia etc. the last two digits in the model number are the overall length,
feet in the US and meters elsewhere. Which means that the N 940 and the N 912 are the same vehicle. It'd
be a little over 83mm in 1/144.

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Collected my Xmas order from Uncle Frank, comprising
Takom Sanger Silbervogel - RAF captured. Might have it sitting next to a Hannebu.
AZ Heinkel He 162 two seater
Tamiya Fw 190A - Spain
Zvezda Fw 190 - Spain

And then found I'd won the following on the Bay of E
Revell Junkers Ju 290
Revell/ICM Heinkel He 70
MPM Aero A300 - I only bid on it to bump the price up as it was being sold by a charity.  Still, it's attractive enough.

Quote from: Pellson on December 17, 2023, 04:03:36 AMSpeaking of cheap - what's the verdict on the old Lightning kits out there? So far, I've based my builds on the old Matchbox kit (whose main benefit is that's it was an F.6 at a time when the only alternative was the venerable Airfix F.1A) but these days, those are rare, and instead, various repops of either the original Frog or the Hasegawa F.6's (confusingly also repopped by Frog) are more common.

Which would you prefer, and why?

Concerning 1:72, IMHO, the Hasegawa F.6 is O.K., and you can get it from Revell, too (and typically a lot cheaper). However, Revell also re-boxed the FROG kit with a very similar livery (both grey/green RAF machines, IIRC), so better check Scalemates what you might actually get! I personally like the Matchbox Lightnings, despite their raised surface details, but they go together well and come with optional parts. The old Airfix F.3 is poor (*shudder*), but there's a Sword alternative that looks nice (haven't built it, though) and one from Trumpeter, too. Sword and Trumpeter also did a F.1/.2 kit.
The new F.6/F.2A are nice but very specific in their content - you can only build the version that's inside, there are even no optional missiles. These kits tend to be overpriced, though.

Quote from: Dizzyfugu on December 18, 2023, 07:00:46 AM

Quote from: Pellson on December 17, 2023, 04:03:36 AMSpeaking of cheap - what's the verdict on the old Lightning kits out there? So far, I've based my builds on the old Matchbox kit (whose main benefit is that's it was an F.6 at a time when the only alternative was the venerable Airfix F.1A) but these days, those are rare, and instead, various repops of either the original Frog or the Hasegawa F.6's (confusingly also repopped by Frog) are more common.

Which would you prefer, and why?

Concerning 1:72, IMHO, the Hasegawa F.6 is O.K., and you can get it from Revell, too (and typically a lot cheaper). However, Revell also re-boxed the FROG kit with a very similar livery (both grey/green RAF machines, IIRC), so better check Scalemates what you might actually get! I personally like the Matchbox Lightnings, despite their raised surface details, but they go together well and come with optional parts. The old Airfix F.3 is poor (*shudder*), but there's a Sword alternative that looks nice (haven't built it, though) and one from Trumpeter, too. Sword and Trumpeter also did a F.1/.2 kit.
The new F.6/F.2A are nice but very specific in their content - you can only build the version that's inside, there are even no optional missiles. These kits tend to be overpriced, though.

Quite comprehensive indeed! Thanks lot, Thomas.