Gondor's Grumblings

[The Wooksta!]

There isn't any gap in the RLM numbers - Heinkel were allocated the numbers 111-119 and all were used.  Henschel were allocated 120-132.

[Thorvic]

I am following a build on Britmodeller where the build is a Sea King HU.5 modified from the recent Airfix HAR.3. I have not exactly decided what I intend to build with my HAR.3 kit but thought I would look in my stash for a Revell Sea King to possibly provide the Radome for the spine. I didn't find the kit as I found a box with two Airfix Sea King AEW.Mk2/ASaC.Mk7's in it which one of the modellers got for me as they were on offer at a shop local to him. On looking through the box I found one of the larger radome's that I would require. I also looked at the sprue that had the filter box on it and compaired it against the filter box in the Airfix Sea King HC.4 box or the new HAR.3 box which has an identical filter. I found that the older kit has the better filter box! 

Now I am wondering if I should build one of the older filter boxes and have a go at casting the result, unless there are after market products available elsewhere.

Gondor

Yes they included the parts to do the HAS5 as a SAR version as well as the AEW bits so we get the larger radar, and yes the moulded details on the Sand Filter are better on the earlier kit than the decals on the latter. Air Graphics do a resin radome and Sand Filters for the Sea King.

Model Art Decals have just done a new set of SAR RN Sea King decals.

However it would be rather nice to have a dedicated ASW interior set for the Westland Sea King, as all we have is AEW, SAR or Commando without a correct interior for its primary role !! 

[Gondor]

There isn't any gap in the RLM numbers - Heinkel were allocated the numbers 111-119 and all were used.  Henschel were allocated 120-132.

I may have this aircraft built by one of the German Allies then as some were building other Heinkel products.

I am following a build on Britmodeller where the build is a Sea King HU.5 modified from the recent Airfix HAR.3. I have not exactly decided what I intend to build with my HAR.3 kit but thought I would look in my stash for a Revell Sea King to possibly provide the Radome for the spine. I didn't find the kit as I found a box with two Airfix Sea King AEW.Mk2/ASaC.Mk7's in it which one of the modellers got for me as they were on offer at a shop local to him. On looking through the box I found one of the larger radome's that I would require. I also looked at the sprue that had the filter box on it and compaired it against the filter box in the Airfix Sea King HC.4 box or the new HAR.3 box which has an identical filter. I found that the older kit has the better filter box! 

Now I am wondering if I should build one of the older filter boxes and have a go at casting the result, unless there are after market products available elsewhere.

Gondor

Yes they included the parts to do the HAS5 as a SAR version as well as the AEW bits so we get the larger radar, and yes the moulded details on the Sand Filter are better on the earlier kit than the decals on the latter. Air Graphics do a resin radome and Sand Filters for the Sea King.

Model Art Decals have just done a new set of SAR RN Sea King decals.

However it would be rather nice to have a dedicated ASW interior set for the Westland Sea King, as all we have is AEW, SAR or Commando without a correct interior for its primary role !! 

Thanks for the info Thorvic, I'm currently reading a book on the Sea King to help me decide what to build with mine, probably real world or based on real world such as deployed on a Phantomised Eagle.

Gondor

[Thorvic]

Eagle did get her Sea kings for her final tour but they would be HAS1, had she been Phantomised then she would have soldiered on longer than Ark so the HAS2 and possibly HAS5 are viable  .

[Gondor]

Eagle did get her Sea kings for her final tour but they would be HAS1, had she been Phantomised then she would have soldiered on longer than Ark so the HAS2 and possibly HAS5 are viable  .

I take it you like the way I am thinking 

Which squadron markings would that be? I take it the tail code would be the letter "E"

Gondor

[Thorvic]

826 Squadron was Eagles Sea King unit.

[Gondor]

826 Squadron was Eagles Sea King unit.

Thanks 

Gondor

[Gondor]

As some of you may know, I recently started building the Master M61 A1 Vulcan gun although so far I have not had much time to work on it. I have found that I needed more self gripping tweezers to help build the kit and on Saturday I bought some from the nearest Hobbycraft store.

The history of the build will hopefully progress more smoothly in the future that it has, due to my dropping two parts on separate occasions and then finding them after an extended period of time, well a very, very small piece of etch metal is not easy to find even if it is quite bright against a grey carpet. While opening the packet of tweezers there was a sacrifice made to the modelling gods which ended up with me holding a finger above my head while the finger was wrapped in kitchen paper to stem the flow of blood 

Oh well, hopefully the gods will be pleased.

Gondor

[Gondor]

Not been up to much recently. That's mainly due to my comming down with a virus, at least that's what the Dr told me when I saw here yesterday.

Sort of half a flu is what it feels like, at the start of November I had an underlaying cold which didn't help much, thankfully I was over the thing enough to enjoy Telford. Just hope I am over this round to enjoy Christmass 

Gondor

[TheChronicOne]

Feel better, my man...    That stuff is going around everywhere.

[PR19_Kit]

That doesn't sound like fun Alastair, I hope it  doesn't spoil your Christmas.

[Gondor]

Thanks guys, not been a great few days, completly lost the will to model other than visiting here although I am going to dig out all my Airfix Sea Kings to do comparisons between them and to decide on what I intend to do with each one.

Gondor

[Gondor]

A Happy New Year to all who read this and theirs. Hope your having a better time than I am.

The last few weeks have not been great, at the start of each of those I have had some virus which gave me flue like symptoms so nothing modelling has been done for ages.

So what am I looking forward to /planning to do this coming year?

Finish off the M-61 and also build a couple of kits, an Airfix 1/48 TSR2 with all the accessories and a 1/48 Kinetic Harrier T2/4. These are my must builds for the year, the aircraft I want to finish for Telford, hoping that the TSR2 can be taken by someone to Sweden as the person I am building it for moved there. The Harrier is for the Harrier SIG and was donated by the manufacturer to the SIG so it would be nice to finish that in time. The Airfix F-4K should be out later this month so that may jump the que a bit as I have a couple of Fujimi F-4M's to build too as well as my Lynx, "The Last Fart"

Everything is of course subject to change

Gondor

[Gondor]

So far this year the nearest to actually "modelling" has been to shuffle a few kits around the stash, pre-order the Airfix Wellington and to poor over the new Airfix Phantom 

I am mid way updateing my dropbox list of Phantom kits and what I am intending to do with them as the two new Airfix kits I have so far are intended to be real worl builds which free's up a couple of the Fujimi kits I have so they can be repurposed, or in other words whiffed 

Part of the update to my dropbox list is a new page containing a breakdown of all the sprues in the FG.1 boxing. Loads of spares in the kit due to the number op options provided although I am curious about the in-flight option when there are no crew included 

Only three parts are not used in any of the options, the strengthened under wing part, A1, and two clear parts, F8 & F11 which will be used in the later Air Defence FGR.2 kit.

Gondor

[Gondor]

Just updated the Phantom list on Dropbox, here is the link https://www.dropbox.com/s/uzth8byiqyn6pwn/Phantoms.xlsx?dl=0

Not decided firmly enough what I intend to do with the previous Fujimi kits so I hve yet to add the new Airfix kits to the proposed build list, I have added a listing of the sprues.

After a little research maybe an HMS Eagle F-4 which as the last Sea Vixens they operated would be ab 899 Sqn machine, very tempting....

Gondor