Workbench Notes
Amiot 143 in 1/72 by Smer
Said by many to be one of the ugliest aeroplanes every made, the Amiot 143M was an evolution of the Amiot 140 which was designed for a 1928 French Air Force requirement for a ‘Multiplace de combat’ (multiplace combat aircraft) to be used as a day/night bomber, long range escort and reconnaissance aeroplane. The first…
Read MoreAirbus A.300 in 1/144 by Airfix
By the 1960s it seemed that European aviation manufacturers had lost out to the competition of the United States airliner manufacturers; Boeing, Douglas and Lockheed all had significant airliners in production. Early planning of a European constructed wide body airliner to suit European conditions began in the mid 1960s in Britain, France and Germany and…
Read MoreDassault Etendard IVM in 1/72 by Heller
This little kit comes from the heydays of Heller in the 1970s and 1980s. At that time I tried to make sure I got all their kits but this is one that escaped me then so I thought they hadn’t made a kit of the standard Etendard IV. Imagine my pleasure when I picked one…
Read MoreConvair YF2Y-1 in 1/72 by Mach 2
In the aftermath of World War II armed forces, aircraft manufacturers and designers tried all kinds of odd things to find the best way to make high performance jet powered aircraft. One idea that circulated in the US Navy was that it would be impossible for supersonic jet aircraft to operate from the decks of…
Read MoreAvro Lancastrian in 1/144 by Amodel & AMX Mk.61 in 1/72 by Ace
NOW IS THE AUTUMN OF MY DISCONTENT I’m sure that we’ve all heard the opening line of Shakeaspere’s play, Richard III, even if we didn’t know where it came from. The Bard certainly knew what he was doing when it comes to first lines, ‘Now,’ to fix your attention and ‘is the winter of our…
Read MoreGrumman F8F-1 (France) in 1/72 by Hobby Boss
MORE BEARCAT BEAUTY A few months back I wrote about making the Monogram 1/72 kit of the Grumman F8F-2 Bearcat which is still a pretty decent kit after fifty years. There have been a few F8F kits released since then but they are either unavailable or unmakeable. Towards the end of that article I mentioned…
Read MoreRenault FT-17 Char Canon in 72 by RPM
In December 1915 the French Army began thinking about the potential of artillery mounted on a tracked, armoured chassis. When Renault was approached to design such a fighting vehicle the company was too busy with other things and had no experience with tracked vehicles so the first orders were given to the manufacturers of the…
Read MorePanhard EBR-90 in 1/72 by WSW Modellbau
I have this passion, one of several to be sure, for French tanks. It comes from liking French aeroplanes and having a sneaking fondness for tanks in general, and also a liking for the simplicity of making tank models – they’re basically metal boxes on wheels or tracks, in 1/72 anyhow. So I started off…
Read MoredeHavilland Hornet F.1 in 1/72 by Special Hobby
In between the Mosquito and the Vampire the deHavilland company had spare design capacity that was turned to several projects, finally emerging as the DH-103 Hornet. It was a highly evolved piston engine fighter designed around two especially developed Merlin engines of low frontal area and calling upon the experience gained from designing and perfecting…
Read MoreNorth American X-15A-2 in 1/72 by Monogram
The X-15 was one of the series of purely experimental aircraft developed in the United States from the mid 1940s, starting with the Bell X-1 that was the first aircraft to break the sound barrier. By the early 1950s later X-craft were beginning to explore the speed range around mach 2 and the need began…
Read MoreMiG-31 in 1/72 by Condor
By the 1970s the USSR was facing a formidable array of new fighters and bombers planned or in development in the west – the SR-71, B-1, F-15 and cruise missiles which were all serious threats to Russian airspace. The Russians were also developing an equivalent new generation, including the Backfire and Flanker, but also needed…
Read MoreBereznyak-Isaev BI in 1/72 by Eastern Express
If anything, the Russians were more advanced in rocket design and development than the Germans by the beginning of World War Two. Experiments into using rockets for many purposes including air-to-air and air-to-surface missiles were conducted by an official development bureau, the RN11, that was formally established in 1934 to coordinate research previously conducted by…
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