Narses2's Blog - or what I'm slowly making progress on

[Radish]

Thank you for all the kind comments. My wife says "Hi," too.....she's devastated to miss out on Telford and can't wait for next year!! I think that's what she meant, anyway!!
The Decor is improving slowly. After all, I need frequent coffee breaks, etc., and what's the rush?
Colouring in more stuff and have formed a group on FB called "4711" related to the secret science and activities related to refugee scientists from Central Europe who escaped just before WW2 and worked "secretly" first in GB, before moving to the USA in 1945/6.
Also, colouring different profiles for another little-known unit, "Transvestites For Stalin." So far, an La-5, MiG-3 and P-400 Airacobra are coloured. Looking forward to transferring it all into plastic, mostly 1/72.
When the decorating is done...a bit anyway....there's a huge cull in unmade plastic coming.
Sadly, heard that a couple of friends are ill with Covid, and recently tonight, another friend, who years ago I taught, has a very poorly son due to Covid.
Keep safe, everyone.

[NARSES2]

Cheers for the update Radish 

Meanwhile in what passes for the real world  I tried to do a little work on the Fokker this morning, but my brain and body had obviously fallen out with each other overnight so I gave up and did some housework instead. 

[NARSES2]

Slow progress on all projects this week, but at least it's progress  More information in their perspective threads.

Been picking over the stash, or the small pile on the settee anyway, for a couple of kits for the next tranche. Anyway after much deliberation and a bottle of Pinot I think I've settled on a Hurricane Mk IIc trop, a Wildcat Mk VI and a Arsenal-Delanne 10C.2.

The first two will be Real World and the third will be Wiffed. Thinking of either French AF in service 1940 (although I'm not certain what it would have been put into service as  ) or perhaps at Farnborough circa 1943 with yellow undersides and a big yellow "P". Maybe it was somehow shipped to the UK before the fall of France and tested once things had settled down a bit ? It did fly in 1941 and was shipped to Germany in 1943, but then it seems to disappear ?

To show the old saying "for want of a nail" can be so true the reason the 10C.2 didn't fly prior to the Armistice was that the tail wheel wasn't delivered/ready until mid May, so maybe if it had arrived in April it could have flown to the UK.

Getting on a bit of a French kick at the moment (I blame the Pinot  ) and been looking at the Azure/Special Hobby section of the stash, but they weren't on the settee so missed this allocation to pre-build status 

[PR19_Kit]

Oh yes, looking forward to the 10C.2. 

That's one WEIRD aeroplane!

[NARSES2]

Oh yes, looking forward to the 10C.2. 

That's one WEIRD aeroplane!

Tell me about it.

[Nick]

Arsenal-Delanne 10C.2.

The first two will be Real World and the third will be Wiffed. Thinking of either French AF in service 1940 (although I'm not certain what it would have been put into service as  ) or perhaps at Farnborough circa 1943 with yellow undersides and a big yellow "P". Maybe it was somehow shipped to the UK before the fall of France and tested once things had settled down a bit ? It did fly in 1941 and was shipped to Germany in 1943, but then it seems to disappear ?

To show the old saying "for want of a nail" can be so true the reason the 10C.2 didn't fly prior to the Armistice was that the tail wheel wasn't delivered/ready until mid May, so maybe if it had arrived in April it could have flown to the UK.

Getting on a bit of a French kick at the moment (I blame the Pinot  ) and been looking at the Azure/Special Hobby section of the stash, but they weren't on the settee so missed this allocation to pre-build status 

I looked it up, saw a picture and said "That can't be for real". Then I saw the photos 

I bet the Miles team would have a field day with such a strange machine and use it improve their M.35 Libellula ideas. That or Westland with their P.12 plans.

[kitbasher]

The 10C.2.  Its quirks are today manifest in Citroens!

[Rheged]

William Green, in  "War Planes of the Second World War: Volume One Fighters" (London: Macdonald, 1967. ISBN 0-356-01445-2.) tells us that after completion of the initial test programme in 1941, the aircraft was ferried to Germany for further trials.  I wonder what the Reichsluftfahrtministerium   made of it?   I think that even Andre Citroen himself would have thought it a bit odd.

[jcf]

That or Westland with their P.12 plans.

The Westland P.12 was basically a Delanne:

After Petter and Penrose visted him (Delanne) during the spring of 1940, and Penrose
had flown this light aircraft (Delanne 20T) Petter quickly redesigned a Lysander with a
shortened fuselage, to be fitted with a tail turret of either Frazer-Nash or Boulton Paul
design, and an aft cantilever wing with tip-mounted fins and rudders.

-page 244, Westland Aircraft since 1915, Derek N James, Putnam/NIP 1991.

I bet the Miles team would have a field day with such a strange machine and use it improve their M.35 Libellula ideas.

Miles conceived the M.35 Libellula after seeing the P.12 at Boscombe Down.

[NARSES2]

Got a little to cocky yesterday and suffered a couple of self inflicted cock-ups.

Until a couple of years ago I could put a solid 12 hours in at the modelling bench if I wanted with no real consequences to either how I felt or the standard of my work. However over the last 18 months or so that hasn't been the case and I've slowly been coming to terms with the fact. So I've been doing a couple of stints of about an hour/hour and a half max separated by a break and a nice mug of tea. Some days I've felt good enough to put a short extra shift in latter in the day, but that's been it. It's also helped that I've had a plan to work to and once I've achieved what's on that plan I take a break.

Unfortunately yesterday was going really well and I pushed it. Didn't take long for the hand/eye co-ordination issues and depth perception issues to kick in and what do you do, pack it in ? Of course you don't you push on  Anyway after a couple of errors and much swearing I did give in.

I corrected those errors first thing this morning before I went out for a walk and the paper. So square one has been returned to, but I think this time I have learnt my lesson (how many times have I said that before ?  )  and will be returning to my hard learnt "shift" system and drawing up some achievable goals that I will stick to.

On the eyesight front the specialist at Moorfields reckons they can sort some of the issues out but it will have to wait until next year at least, partially because of Covid but also because of other factors.

[Rheged]

Very pleased to hear that the specialist at Moorfields  reckons that at least some of your issues are capable of being sorted.

I've found that I can no longer concentrate for more than about an hour without things going wrong.   My late father  said he got worried if any of his design engineering team  DIDN'T stop and have a coffee/ go to the loo/at least look away from their drawing board/computer monitor/ make a mug of tea at least once every hour.   

Time spent drinking tea is NEVER wasted.

[NARSES2]

Time spent drinking tea is NEVER wasted.

Well said sir 

There's a piece in a book I have on the War in Italy where a US officer apparently made some detrimental comments about a group of Tommies having a brew up in a ditch and how US troops were far more "dynamic" where the reply (heavily edited) was basically " why rush, the Jerries will still be there when we've finished"

[kitbasher]

Fingers crossed for 2021, then, Chris.

[PR19_Kit]

 
Time spent drinking tea is NEVER wasted.

At Pressed Steel we noticed that the test results in late morning and late afternoon always came out better, presumably AFTER the tea (or coffee in my case...) break.

At BR we never had enough time for such luxuries as 'tea breaks' and at MTS I set my own time frames anyway. 

[zenrat]

British Rail was once described to me as being a raft of paper afloat on a sea of tea.