A little work in progress

[Mossie]

Love those Martin, I particularly like the FAA hawk and Dominie.  Blue looks good on them.

[NARSES2]

Red Arrows could do with using armed Hawks after the Bank Holidays shenanigans 

Red Arrows Bird Strike

[Mossie]

 

[NARSES2]

12 bore might be more practical Mossie 

[Mossie]

There's a whiff idea, modification to the gun pod. 

[Gondor]

There's a whiff idea, modification to the gun pod. 

Use a Punt Gun instead 

Gondor

[The Wooksta!]

Given the state of the public finances, the RAF would be lucky if the can lease some spud guns...

[NARSES2]

There's a whiff idea, modification to the gun pod. 

Use a Punt Gun instead 

Gondor

Fire that and you'd end up going backwards 

[Gondor]

There's a whiff idea, modification to the gun pod. 

Use a Punt Gun instead 

Gondor

Fire that and you'd end up going backwards 

If you avoid the bird stike it's a result 

[Martin H]

Its been a very slow year build wise compared to 2020 and 2021. However. 3 coming up.
1 proper build and two restorations from the collection of the late Venrable Mike McEvoy.

First the build.



A Royal Navt F/A-18E Super Hornet (Hornet F/A mk-5) of 803NAS fleet air arm on board HMS Duke of Edinburgh (CVA02) around 2012.
Italeri Kit which looks great in the box. But was a bit of a pig to build. Armament (4 of each, AMRAAM, ASRAM and Meteor) from various Hasegawa weapon sets. Decals from my decal stash. Paint job is Tamiya Medium sea grey rattle can and a touch of Gunze Dark sea Grey for the nose cone.
Why 803? You might beable to see the 803 sqn hornet badge just under the cockpit. 803's badge has been a Hornet for ages but was last seen on their Seahawks before being dropped when they moved onto the Buccaneer.

The next two now. These were both from the Mike McEvoy collection. Both are amoung those of Mike's builds that are now part of the SIG's collection.
First up was a "quick & dirty" preservation job. Ie. damaged decals were replaced like for like and then the whole thing was varnished and matt coated to keep it as Mike finished it. Warts and all!

Its a Supermarine 559 Interceptor. One of four 559 builds Mike  turned out. Its the Fantastic Plastic kit.
Ive retained two of the four as part of the SIG's collection, The other two have been rehomed. The second example is waiting its date on my workbench, its decals are in good nick but its in need of one hell of a clean before it meets Johnsons Klear and a matt coat. Theres a bit of a spoiler alert for the next one to the left of the photo.........


No prizes for guessing what it is. Its the Planet models kit of the Dornier 31. This was a compleat rebuild from the ground up. Its fair to say it wasnt one of Mikes best but he was proud of it.
It came to me in a bit of a sorry state, time and Mike Storage meathods hadnt been kind to this old girl.
What follows are a few photos of the work in progress to bring this one back to life.


AS it came out of its storage box. Doesnt look to bad here, but pay close attention to the under carrage. They were bent to hell and back.


Especialy the nose gear!

Thankfully after checking my own unbuilt Planet models kit of the type It turns out the U/c legs are white metal. That made straitning them out a lot easier.
It was also missing all bar two u/c doors, my own kit came to the rescue again by giving me the parts to clone in resin as replacements. My kit also provided a repacement set of vacform cockpit canopy parts thanks to there being 2 sets included in the kit. Mike was a free hand painter and didnt tend to mask off his canopies. And thanks to using enamale paint, it ment the originals were beyound my abilities to save.


To start with the model was taken apart, a job made easier thanks to Mike being very sparing in his use of superglue when he built it. This photo shows it under reassembly. The ballast was removed which was most likely the cause of the u/c nose leg buckelling to the degree it did. It was replaced with half the weight of the original ballast with lead shot.

Time to throw paint at it next.

Over all Halfords black as a primer. it ended up with 3-4 coats of black as is the way with PSR.


Then a few coats a Halfords Nissan Blaze Silver before it got its u/c fitted back in.


and finaly ready for a few coats of Klear before the decals go on.

And finaly decal time, for the most part taken from a 1/144th Revell E-3 kit. The size was ideal.

Followed by another coat of Klear to seal the decals in then a bast of rattle can Vallejo semi-Matt varnish. Once all that was dry the windows were filled with clear drying pva.

I went for NATO marking as opposed to MIke's original Tripartite squadron markings as the Do31 was born from a NATO requirement. Plus I was lacking in Tripartite sqnd markings, with out robbing from a now rare Aadvark models Hawker Kestral kit that hides deep in my stash.
All in all, it took around 2 months on and off to get this bird back to show condition. Telford Here she comes!

[Gondor]

Nice work on the Do 31 Martin 

I may get one as a Christmas present to myself

Gondor

[Lost Cosmonauts]

Very nice work

[zenrat]

 

[Mossie]

Nice restoration Martin. 

[PR19_Kit]

Good to see Mike's work living on, well done OGL. 

And the Hornet looks good too, even though I don't really like Hornets................the jet ones anyway.