A little work in progress

[kitbasher]

Pretty Cessnas, Martin.

[zenrat]

Cessnas are lovely Martin.
What are the clear parts like?  they can be thick and opaque on those kits.

[NARSES2]

Martin, you've only had those kits a couple of weeks 

They are both tremendous mate, well done 

Chris

[Martin H]

Cessnas are lovely Martin.
What are the clear parts like?  they can be thick and opaque on those kits.

Yeap they were thick, but clear enougth with a little distortion in places. Nothing I couldnt live with thou.

[DogfighterZen]

Great work on all of them birds but that Phantom...

[zenrat]

Cessnas are lovely Martin.
What are the clear parts like?  they can be thick and opaque on those kits.

Yeap they were thick, but clear enougth with a little distortion in places. Nothing I couldnt live with thou.

Thanks Martin.  Good to hear some of them can be acceptable.

[AeroplaneDriver]

Loving the Cessnas!   

[Scooterman]

The Phantom is excellent but the Cessnas are just the dogs parts!!!

SOOOOOOO stealing that. Sorry.......not sorry! 

[Martin H]

A few more done, 2 new builds and a pair of long term shelf of doom residents finally escape...............

New builds first. More Cessna's

Cessna O-1 Bird Dog AOP-1. British Army Aircorps someware in the Middle east in the 1960's.
This one very nearly hit the wall while it was being painted. The xtracrylics light stone reacted quite badly with the Gunze Light aircraft grey and RAF dark earth. I manged over a few weeks to deal with it to a degree. I'm still not to happy with it but is close enough..............

oh look! another Rhodesian!


Both are old Airfix kits. The UK one is OOB bar the paint job, The Rhodesian bird is armed to the teeth. The RP pods were CMK add ons for the Special Hobby Fouga Magistair, the bombs are locally made lightweight anti personnel bombs that were taken from an S&M Provost kit that I did as a real world RhAF build a few years ago.

And the two Dog's together......


And now the Hanger Queens.



The Fairey Desert Fox. Of 6 sqn RAF based in Palestine in 1938.
A Long term  Hanger queen, the main build of this model happened at least ten years ago, but new and shiny projects distracted me until I dusted it off a few weeks ago and started throwing paint and decals at it..........
Matchbox Fairey Sea Fox float plane converted to a land plane for RAF use. It reminded me of one thing modelling wise.   I dislike building Biplanes!



Fockewulf FW 190 D-15. General Adolf Galland's personal mount in the post war Luftwaffe.
A planet Models resin kit that I picked up at the 2nd Eday show I went to in Prague. That must have been around 12-15 years ago.
This one was started not long after I brought it, and got to about 95% done, then as with the desert fox, I got distracted. And then missplaced the wheels and prop............These resurfaced around the same time I restarted the Fox.
In reality Galland was kept at arms length by the post war Luftwaffe. the fact he was in the wartime high command ment he was considered toxic politically.

[NARSES2]

Nice builds Martin, particularly like the Rhodesian Bird Dog

[Martin H]

Cheers Chris, those Airfix Bird Dog's arnt bad little kits for their age.......

And now for a kit that is bang upto date..........





This the new (ish) Hasegawa Mil Mi-24 UAV kit. Built 100% OOB.
As far as I know its a whiff in a box. You get a full Mi 24 Hind E kit plus the resin cockpit plug and sencor ball.

I've been on leave since last weekend (didn't cancel the time I booked for the Scots Nationals) I started this on Friday while waiting for my main project (Fine molds YT1300 Millennium Falcon) to dry off and the last fiddly bits went on this morning.

I've also knocked out another hanger queen. Pics likely to happen tomorrow once the last bits of ordnance get hung on to it........

[TheChronicOne]

Looking good!!!  I love them little bird dogs.

[strobez]

It seems to be the season for cleaning off the Shelf of Doom. A lockdown in the Springtime will do that for you, I guess.

These are all looking very good. I particularly like the Fairey Desert Fox.

[NARSES2]

The lack of canopy makes that UAV look even more evil for some reason 

[Martin H]

I've also knocked out another hanger queen. Pics likely to happen tomorrow once the last bits of ordnance get hung on to it........

I lied. Theres two ex hanger queens tonight.



McDD A-4B Skyhawk S Mk-1 of the Fleet air arm. based on HMS Centaur in the mid 1960's.
This is one of the six American built A-4's acquired by the Royal navy, the rest were built under licence by Armstrong Whitworth in place of the now cancelled Hawker Seahawk order.
And after a decent stint as a trails aircraft was brought up to the then current configuration for RN Scooters and issued out for front line use, the update was roughly akin to the A-4E.
HMS Centaur served until 1968 when she was sold to the Dutch to replace their previous carrier, Becoming the 3rd Karel Dorman.
The RN scooter force carried on in service operating off Centaurs sisters, Bulwark, Albion and Hermes well into the 1980's. Even seeing A-4 on A-4 combat in 1982 over the Falklands along side the then new Sea Harriers operating from the new VTOL light carrier HMS Invincible.
This one XE289 now sits quietly in a corner of the flight deck display at the fleet air arm museum enjoying a well earned retirement.

Italeri Kit with some resin bits (shorter intakes, and gear doors), and other stuff robbed from a doner kit. Decals are a mix from my decal stash. This one was started about 2 years ago along side a 2nd example that was being built OOB. Both were intended to be RN birds the 2nd was to be as they appeared in this back story over the Falklands.
As it happened I put them to one side for one reason or another and then lost the box with the remaining bits, Gear doors, pylons etc.
I then went about acquiring doner kits for the scooters and made use of the time I had off in the past week to get at least one of them finished.

2nd hanger queen


BAe Hawk 100 LCA (Light Combat Aircraft) of the Lithuanian Airforce in 2012. A direct competitor to the Czech L-159 LCA these single seaters were quick and dirty conversions from 2 seaters for those air arms seeking a cheap and simple combat type. The rear cockpit tub was simply plated over after the tub had been gutted of anything not required.
The Lithuanians were given a rather hefty discount to buy the Hawk over the L159, which had been considered a shoe in considering the long use of 1st gen Albatross trainers since Independence from the old USSR. BAe has spent the last few years fending off claims of down right dirty tricks to score a sale. Something they vermently refute.
How ever the Hawk has been well received by the LAF and is deployed along side the NATO air policing force over the Baltic and can routinely be seen shadowing Russian aircraft operating near to Lithuanian airspace. Hence the air to air weapons load out.

Another Italeri Kit built OOB bar the removal of the rear bang seat and the hole left being covered with thin plasticard.
Two British shades of grey (Light Aircraft & Medium Sea) make up the paint job. Decals are from a Blue rider sheet (for an Albatross!)
This one was only on the shelf of doom for a few months. I simply got bored and moved on to newer build. Ive built so many of these Italeri Hawks that I can throw them together in less than an hour before throwing any paint at them...............

And lastly a peek at this leave periods main build...............Not a whiff but you cant win them all 


Yes the Fine Molds Falcon is finished. Im not that good at weathering hence why she looks quite clean compared to how she appears in the films................
904 parts and 84 decals done over 7 days............That rear upper deck has nearly 200 parts alone, alot of them are bleeding tiny! But in the end its was a holy grail kit and I've had a ball building it.