Gondor's Grumblings

NARSES2 · April 15, 2016, 03:38:06 AM

Best of luck with that. Had one a few years ago and the medicine they gave me to do the clearance didn't have any effect what so ever

I think the nurse at the hospital was secretly glad when I told her. She definitely had an evil grin when she said "don't worry I can sort that out"

Procedure it'self was ok though

zenrat · April 15, 2016, 04:44:59 AM

Hope everything is OK and they give you the thumbs up.

As it were.

You might want to make sure the car contains chocolate for the drive home. Mrs z had this procedure a couple of months ago and I have never seen a kit kat consumed with such speed. I think she inhaled it.

Gondor · April 15, 2016, 10:38:49 AM

Thanks for the best wishes, the procedure went well though I agree whole heartedly about the liquid

No point about the chocolate in the car, I drive but Susan my girlfriend does not so we used the bus to and from her place to the hospital as I am not supposed to drive for 24 hours from the time of the procedure.

Hope to get the last few bits done on a couple of models tomorrow evening/night.

Gondor

NARSES2 · April 16, 2016, 05:06:21 AM

Glad it went ok mate

Gondor · April 16, 2016, 09:27:34 AM

I'm glad that prep is over with, incredible stuff they have you drink. A sort of clear thick water with a hint of sherbet but difficult to drink or swallow much at a time.
Don't think I will have to do that again not that I would like to either as far as the prep goes, the rest of it was ok.

Gondor

Gondor · April 17, 2016, 04:27:05 PM

Well that's another Group Build over. However this time I managed to finish a build or three which for me is a fantastic build rate. I even have another model half way through which I started late in the build so I was not too surprised that I have not yet finished it, maybe I can get it done by next weekend, not very hopeful though as I have other things on for some of the week but I will try anyway. I also have a couple of builds unrelated to the group build that are mainly requiring decals and a few items added so I may even finish one of those.

As a pat on the back to myself for finishing the three builds, two of them today, I am sitting here as the time reaches half past midnight having a bowel of ice cream for a treat. Shortly after I finish that its bed for some sleep.

Don't forget to look over the builds I have completed, the SEA F-106, the Swifter F7 and the Indian Air Force TSR2. Hope you like them as I enjoyed building them, some parts more than others.

Gondor

Gondor · May 01, 2016, 03:10:05 AM

It's been a week since the Scottish Nationals and I have done no actual physical modelling at all so far. I definitely want to get some of my part build projects done and out of the way, top of the list if probably the F-4L as that is partly decaled and has been since October last year and I don't want it to be in the same state come October this year.
I have of course been thinking about future builds particularly with possible Group Builds in mind. I have one kit that will fit into the proposed Soviet GB and two builds that would fit into the Frog/Novo old kit based GB.
Other than that I have been looking at converting a Maintrack P.1154 RAF into a P.1154 RN version which would be armed with Air Launched Sea Dart missiles which will be based on these but with new wings and fins.
Also having ideas about building an RAF F-4M in all over white with pale red/blue national markings. Armed only with under wing fuel tanks and a Red Beard on the centre line. Decals for the markings would be from the TSR.2MS Stratos 4 boxing of which I have enough to fit all six positions, the serials are the only sticking point in the plan so far although I am thinking that only the rear of the fuselage would need any serials applied.

Gondor

Gondor · May 01, 2016, 06:52:35 AM

Thinking further about a possible F-4M in all over white, a Red Beard armed version could be either a Bomber or Fighter aircraft as Red Beard was considered for taking on mass bombers. Another option would be the three fuel tanks and a couple of Genies under the inner wing pylons. So far though its just a thought experiment.

Gondor

Gondor · May 02, 2016, 02:43:34 PM

Did a bit of research and found that Read Beard was probably on it's way out of service when the F-4 was entering RAF service so was the WE.177 so I am going to have to source a few of those for use on various aircraft I think.

Gondor

Gondor · May 03, 2016, 03:58:09 PM

Ordered decals for my G.91 and they should be here on Friday so with a little luck in a week's time, give or take a bit, I should have yet another model finished this year

Gondor

Thorvic · May 04, 2016, 02:31:07 AM

Quote from: Gondor on May 02, 2016, 02:43:34 PM
Did a bit of research and found that Red Beard was probably on it's way out of service when the F-4 was entering RAF service so was the WE.177 so I am going to have to source a few of those for use on various aircraft I think.

Gondor

Technically the Phantom was only wired for the US Nuclear Bombs and they carried the MK43 or MK57 dual key weapons when on the RAF QRA until replaced by Jaguar with WE177. You can get the US nuke in the Trumpeter Vigilante kit for some reason ? - no idea why !.

However what about looking at some of the standoff weapons looked at for TSR2, they can be found in various books, as they might look the part on the belly of the Phantom ?. They weren't too hard to scratch build.

Gondor · May 04, 2016, 02:34:59 AM

Quote from: Thorvic on May 04, 2016, 02:31:07 AM
Quote from: Gondor on May 02, 2016, 02:43:34 PM
Did a bit of research and found that Red Beard was probably on it's way out of service when the F-4 was entering RAF service so was the WE.177 so I am going to have to source a few of those for use on various aircraft I think.

Gondor

Technically the Phantom was only wired for the US Nuclear Bombs and they carried the MK43 or MK57 dual key weapons when on the RAF QRA until replaced by Jaguar with WE177. You can get the US nuke in the Trumpeter Vigilante kit for some reason ? - no idea why !.

However what about looking at some of the standoff weapons looked at for TSR2, they can be found in various books, as they might look the part on the belly of the Phantom ?. They weren't too hard to scratch build.

I will dig out my Trumpeter Vigilante kit from the stash to get the "store" from there as I am thinking early in the Phantoms career with the RAF rather than later when a UK designed and built "store" would be more suitable.

Gondor

Gondor · May 19, 2016, 04:28:00 PM

Another week gone by without much done other than sorting out a few parts for a few projects.

After chatting with Thorvic I have decided to go with his version of my proposed White Phantom from my previous posts. This means I can use a Hasegawa Phantom and as I have an F-4E available it also means I get to swap the gun nose from the kit with the radome from a Fujimi F-4M so I get to build two whiffs without loss of parts or having to loose a kit as just parts for others which is something I dislike doing.
The Gun armed F-4M will be in the Air Defence Greys from the end of its career, just got to work out which squadron it will be though. I am hoping that in reality one of the squadrons used for Air Defence didn't last into the Greys period so I can put my whiff Air Defence aircraft into those markings.
This would create two whiffs in one and we can run a count at shows to see how many punters spot just the airframe whiff or the squadron whiff or even both of them

Gondor

Gondor · May 20, 2016, 04:08:01 PM

Well after checking my references I have come to the conclusion that all of the RAF fighter squadrons that flew the F-4 in the Dark Grey/Green/Light Grey scheme also flew them in the Air Defence Grey scheme so the idea of using a real life fighter squadron as I mentioned in my previous posting is a no go. I could always use 60 Squadron although I would have to put the aircraft in some kind of anniversary scheme as the only squadron markings I have are for large 35" roundels which don't go with the air defence greys smaller roundels which I don't know the size of as I have misplaced my scaled ruler.

Gondor

Gondor · May 20, 2016, 05:16:05 PM

Decided which squadron my M61 armed F-4M in Air Defence Grey will be, well at least I have narrowed it down to two with one of the options more likely than the other.
I realised that not all squadrons that were Air Defence converted to the F-4 so if I could not find an F-4 squadron to suit my requirements why not a squadron that used another type of aircraft?
Out came the reference material and I decided on one of the Lightening squadrons, 5 or 11 and what helps is that both squadrons flew aircraft in the last colour schemes that the Lightening wore which fit in exactly with what I will paint the F-4 in

An added bonus is that I have a couple of boxing's of Hasegawa's Lightening F-6 in those very schemes flown by those very squadrons so its looking good as all the pieces are falling together.
I am leaning towards 11 squadron for a couple or reasons, 1) OGL has a 5 squadron F-4, 2)I prefer the yellow/black squadron bars over the red bars of 5 squadron in this colour scheme as I think the red stands out too much 3) I fancy using only the squadron bars on the fin rather than the Eagles often seen on 11 squadron machines at model shows and I like to make my models that little bit different.

Gondor