2018 in models

July 2018

The memory chip in my camera was getting a bit full so I’ve spent the morning decanting it to the places where the images belong. Along the way I found pictures of some models that I’d put out to be viewed at our local club meetings. So, in scale order with 1/72 first, here they are: A Sparrowcastings French Chard D2

A Sparrowcastings French Panhard 178

A Hobby Boss French Dewoitine 520 in Vichy markings

A SBS Models deHavilland DH-88 in French services late in 1938. (There seems to be something of a French theme here.)

A Sword Douglas F3D2 Skyknight in a US Navy scheme from around the time of the Korean War.

A Hasegawa Grumman F11F flying with the US Navy demonstration team, the Blue Angles

A Hasegawa Focke Wulf Fw190G-3, a German World War II fighter captured and test flown by the US Navy. (Another theme?)

A Matchbox Gloster Gladiator I. This is an ancient model I probably made some time in the 1970s. It was so pretty that it got me into this hobby again

A Hasegawa Mitsubishi J8M1, a Japanese version of the German Messerchmitt Me163 rocket fighter

A RS Models Miles Magister trainer. I’ve made this as A15-1 which was brought out to Australia in 1940 to test against other primary trainers. Apparently the RAAF didn’t like it because this was the only one they flew.

A Huma Messerchmitt Bf209, the high speed one built to win the world speed record just before World War II.

A Frog Dassault Mirage IIIO, the Australian version of the Mirage III. Being A3-3, this was probably the first one assembles in Australia. It’s in the early bare metal scheme

Another Focke Wulf Fw190, the A-5 version. As the SNCAC NC.900 they were reconditioned by France after the war from ones made in France for Germany during the war. They had been so skillfully sabotaged by French workers that it was almost impossible to find their faults and were therefore dangerous to fly.

Finally, in this scale, an Italeri Aerospatiale Super Puma in the scheme flown by the Argentine Army in Antarctica in the 1980s

Moving to the more civilized scale of 1/144 we have some nice airliners. First the Airbust A.300-600ST (Beluga), a nice Revell kit with, if my memory serves me right, 26 decals. This is how number 3 looked when it appeared at the Avalon Air Show in 2003

A Red Roo Models reboxing of the Fly Models Douglas DC-9-30 around the end of the 1970s when they flew in the Ansett Airlines of Australia Delta scheme

A Doyusha Fokker F-27-200 in the scheme of Airlines of South Australia as it would have appeared around the end of the 1980s. Hawkeye decals, of course.

An Authentic Airliners Fokker F-28-4000 which flew for a short period in the scheme of Airlines of Western Australia, around the same time as the Airlines of South Australia F-27. It was a fad with Anett Transport Industries airlines which did not last long. The reason for the discolouration around the titles is because the decals were very old and had aged too much for me to do much about improving them

August 2018

Here are photos of the models that I put on the table at our most recent Modellers of Ballarat meeting. The Zvezda Ilyushin Il-62 is a big beast of an airliner, perhaps the biggest of the narrow body intercontinental airliners – if you don’t could the stretched DC-8s. For my money the kit is a bit over engineered with some parts not necessary with the current state of slip-molding and the like. Still, modellers these days seem to use the part count of a kit as part of its value, so I have to endure it. The decals are from BOA, generally very good although there is some vagueness in the instructions which led me into error.

The TAA F-27-200 is the second of what will be a set of five F-27 that flew regional services in Australia from the very late 1950s through to the 1990s. (Although TAA was a national airline it also flew regional services in Queensland with F-27s.) This Doyusha kit seems a lot older in design and style than it actually is, being first published in 2000, but it is clean and simple to make from the box and looks like a F-27. The TAA decals are from Hawkeye.

This Revell kit of the Focke Wulf Fw190F-8 seems quite antiquated in comparison to some more recent kits, but it is still suitable for me and I got it on a special. Looking through my box of decals I found some nice ones for the earlier Fw190A-8 so I made it in that version, which meant a few little modifications. According to the Fw190 experten in our club there are still some errors in accuracy and painting, but it’s good enough for me and looks like one of those aeroplanes.

The other night Valma and I were watching a movie which had a couple of these in it, the slightly later version with the missiles under the wings. This is the reconnaissance/observation version of the General Atomics RQ-1A that came in a box with Italeri on it, but I read somewhere that this is actually a Platz kit. This one came straight out of the box, it’s a delicate little model.

This is the Fiesler Fi103, also known as the V-1. I don’t know where I got this kit, it was combined in with something else which may have been the old Frog Supermarine Spitfire XVI. There’s not much to say about this except that it is a very simple little kit.

I don’t, as a rule, make tank models (having made a lot of them earlier on) but I do allow myself the luxury of French tanks, and there are a lot of them. This little one is a Lorraine 38L VBCP, a transport tank converted to accommodate a few soldiers. It can’t have been very comfortable in there, but I guess it was better than being shot. The kit is from RPM who make a few interesting little French items.

September 2018

Here’s some more models I put on the display table at the September Modellers of Ballarat meeting. The biggest was this Minicraft 1/144 Douglas DC-8-52 in the colours of Air New Zealand in the 1960s. This is shortened from the Minicraft DC-8-71 kit with some nice Contrails JT3D engines and Vintage Flyer decals.

Going down in size is this Airfix 1/144 Boeing 737-200, F-GGVP, which was flown by L’ Aeropostale around 1994. The decals came from Flightpath but were very fragile and would have cause grey hair if I didn’t already have that.

Smaller again is this Doyusha 1/144 Fokker F-27-200 looking something like the F-27s that MacRobertson Miller Airline flew in Western Australia in the 1960s.

Moving up to 1/72, we have the ancient Matchbox Aerospatiale SA365N Dauphin 2, one of those multi coloured kits they made. Add some S+M decals, a lot of yellow paint and you end up with something resembling G-HEMS that flew for the British Helicopter Emergency Medical Services in the London area in the 1990s.

And now a couple of little French AFVs. First the Ace 1/72 Panhard M3 as it appeared in the service of the Spanish Marine Corps in 1997.

Finally, the Ace 1/72 ERC-90 F4 operated by the French Army in Bosnia in 1994.

October 2018

Here are some photos of the models I took along to our local model club meeting last night. Four are new, the other two were ones I made about a decade ago. This is the old Airfix 1/144 Boeing 737-200, a kit that has been around since the late 1960s and certainly feels like it when it comes time to put it together. Still, with some nice Tamiya rattle can lacquer and Oldmodels decals it comes up alright. This represents one of New Zealand’s National Airways Corporations 737-200s in the early 1970s.

Another kit that seems old, but dates from around 2000, is the Doyusha 1/144 Fokker F-27-200. This is the fourth and final in the series of F-27-200s flown by Australian regional airlines that I’ve made in the past few months. Again, some Tamiya rattle can lacquer and nice Hawkeye decals make this into quite a nice little model.

On to less civilized aeroplanes, here’s three models of Japanese aeroplanes from the time of the Pacific War. The first is the Hasegawa 1/72 Kawasaki H8K2, the old kit rather than the new one, that I made about ten years ago.

Next, a couple of Fujimi 1/72 kits that might well date from around the same time as the Hasegawa kit. The Aichi B7A1 (Grace) which is yellow because it was one of the prototypes, and the Aichi D3A1 (Val) in the scheme of one of these dive bombers that took part in the attack on Pearl Harbour.

Finally, one of the 32 models of BAC Lightnings that I’ve made over the past decade. This is one of an early Lightning F.1 that was used by 60 Maintenance Unit for a short period in 1967 which, incidentally, is the same year as the model of the Air New South Wales F-27 represents. Must have been a good year.

November 2018

It’s been a busy month doing other things so not as much modelling as usual had happened. So all I have to put here is the Kora 1/72 Curtiss Wright SNC-1, in the colours of the Peruvian Air Force around 1946. This is a short run kit and while the contents of the kit box didn’t look very promising the model turned out nicely. The kit comes with options for four schemes and this is the most colourful of them. There weren’t many of the fit problems that are usually associated with short-run kits though the wing trailing edges were huge until I filed them back. I’d recommend this kit to modellers who have some experience and a lot of patience.

Here are a few models that I’d made earlier and took along to our monthly Modellers of Ballarat meeting. You can see that, in my recycling old models to make up for a lack of new ones, I’m going through my little tank phase. Consequently, here is a Trumpeter 1/72 Strv103b and an Ace 1/72 ERC-90.