Chek

I don't know if it'll still be there, but in the mid-70s my then wife and I spent a few days around Apeldoorn on the way from Amsterdam to Germany where we found a museum in the woods which had on display - in the open - the first Spitfire XIV I ever saw, before I knew Griffon Spitfires even existed. Also recall stopping at a crossroads by a canal while a column of Dutch army drove by, some with waist length hair, cradling .50 cals on their knees in Jeeps. Quite a difference from the redneck Brit soldiers we were used to seeing pointing Sterlings at us from within Saracens on the streets of Northern Ireland. Having said that, I once spent an entire night chatting to a Brit soldier from Newcastle about 'progressive' music and how much he missed going to what were then called 'underground clubs' and listening to heavy music all night long. And having called them 'Brits', I consider myself one of them with English/Scottish/Northern Irish blood running in my veins. Some in Ireland will use it as a form of contempt, but that's what narrow parochialism will do to you.

I used to find it confusing when 'flying wires' were referred to, because they aren't all "wires" as we mostly understand them. 'RAF flying wires' are actually metal rods that have been formed into an airfoil section, but maintain a rod form for their end fixings. Those end fixings can be either a threaded screw barrel style attachment, or a fork-ended attachment, or an eyelet style. In all cases the termination reverts to its rod form with a threaded tension adjustment fitting.* The illustration below shows a variety of styles. * Just don't refer to those kind of end fixings as 'turnbuckles', purists hate that. Even though they operate in exactly the same way.

Yes, the mid-wing spar is the fixed reference point that the cannon bay mounts are referenced to. With the slight sweep on the leading edge, the outboard cannon actually do protrude further, even though the cannon units are identical in length.

You can't really argue with that observation, and I'd suggest it's only its movie roles that have made even slightly popular. That and the irony of a Merlin powered Bf 109 outliving its DB engined brothers. As for the Bf 109 evolutionary path, alleged pig that it was, I'd be looking at a sliding hood version of the Avia S-199 as representing the end of the line.

While not a total 109-a-holic, it looks like a good conversion. As I don't have even a straight shooter 109E or even a G in 1/32 scale, I've been fascinated for years by the many and varied schemes the ex-Battle of Britain movie Buchons based around Duxford have worn and continue to wear. There are others in genuine Spanish air force schemes, and based abroad, but if you're interested in fake German and movie schemes I can best recommend searching for registrations G-AWHC (two seater), G-AWHE, G-AWHH, G-AWHK, G-AHWN, G-AWHS where you'll find that even the same airframes barely maintain the same scheme for more than three seasons running.

As many of you no doubt already know, author Tommy Thomason has been labouring for a while now to produce the definitive monograph on the first 47 Phantoms which basically evolved the concept from the earliest proposal to the fleet service-ready F-4B. I've just had notification from Hannant's that my back order has been activated. I'd have liked for reasons of support and solidarity to have ordered from Tommy or Steve Ginter direct, but transatlantic postage being what it is, i bought locally instead. Tommy's blog advises that a 1/48 conversion for the Academy F-4B is forthcoming soon, but as of yet no offering in 1/32 scale. Although Fineartofdecals do still have their somewhat expensive early Phantoms 1/32 decal sheet available for sale. I know that in 1/32 scale I'd have to narrow down the several distinct configurations to a single one for space reasons, but it would be fun choosing! Be that as it may, Tommy reckons to have found photos of all 47 of the initial run of Phantoms in the book(let) and for that reason alone, together with all the customary technical data that'll be included, I'm sure the title will find a space in many a Phantom phiiacs bookshelves.

Indeed, completely and utterly wrong.wrong and wrong. I've edited the original to correct the information. Thanks to Mike for pointing it out. Although it's a different design of fairing, the photos show the one fabricated for the restoration of Hurricane I R4118. The example seen in the Townsend photo may have been related to a leading edge cannon fairing, but its position is in the inner wing rib bay beside the armament bay, as in the collage of R4118's restoration photos, with a scrap view of Hurricane IIa Z3055's spar (same wing) thrown in to show wing rib attachment points. The moral of this post being just because you researched something only a couple of years ago, don't assume you've retained all the finer points, even if you think you probably have. Still can't believe I mis-remembered the radiators after all the digging into its construction I did. Sheesh! Nice to see your interest guys, and nice to see you checking in Quang.

I hate to be a carper, but that JaBoG 33 yellow eagle scheme dates from its last month of ops in May 1985, before the Wing converted to the Tornado IDS. At that stage in 'the widowmaker's' career with the Luftwaffe, the Lockheed seat (as nicely as you've made it notwithstanding) would have been long swapped out for a Martin-Baker GQ-7(A) seat to increase the chances of pilot survivability. In short, the scheme and the seat are incongruous, although an earlier Luftwaffe scheme or a later type seat should set you back on the right track if such things bother you.

Apologies for dragging this topic back to life, but there's so much useful Hurricane info packed in to it, I thought I'd add a couple more photos that may be of help to Hurricane builders in the years and decades still to come. Or at least until another site crash/photo hosting platform failure. First I'll just clarify the stamped text on the canopy break out panel for the miniaturization masochists out there. Is that a feasible detail for a 1/32nd scale photo etching? and secondly an Imperial War Museum photo of Sqn. Ldr. Peter Townsend chatting to his ground crew at Wick in Scotland in 1940. The Hurricane is clearly not a Mk. II with the bigmouth early type radiator, and no extended LERX under the middle guy's legs. The interesting thing though is the cannon bracket fitted to the leading edge, a subject which came up earlier in the thread. It looks to me that it's been cleanly perforated for a .303 MG to fire through in the absence of a cannon, but I could be completely wrong.

I hear ya! It's like you can never catch up. For instance, what I have now can easily cope with 720p video (DVD quality) and can render 1280p (BluRay quality) in relatively short time. But now my son is asking about editng 4K video for his multimedia projects.... Talk about feeling inadequate.

Fair enough Kevin, but I just really dislike creating partitions, even with the Easeus software I use. But it has to be done with 32 but systems as you run into the 2 TB ceiling that is the limit such systems can address. I'd been vaguely hoping the UEFI mobo software would include a technical workaround like the olde Windows 98 fix for large capacity drives. But of course it cannot and doesn't, so the change to a 64 bit system was unavoidable without returning the board and taking a backward step. And it's a no-brainer to populate the system with an array of 4 and 6 TB drives that are plug'n'play'n'ready to go. I just wish RAM prices would fall as they've been high for quite some time now and I'm sticking with what is now only a modest 12 GB (and I recall when a 12 GB hard drive step up from a 1 GB drive was like, wow). As for a super-duper new graphic card, forget it. At least until the bitcoin bubble bursts and the mining frenzy subsides a little.

I saw a Telford video where someone leafed through a copy showing all the pages. Are they connected to Wingnut Wings, or was WNW just hosting their stall? I only ask because the back page had what looked very like a Halifax photo, and if the Lancaster proves as popular as the interest generated in it looks, well ...

Rather late in the day, I recently happened across an app (or 'program' as we used to say) that appears to do what the OP wants. I've found it also functions as an excellent dust/spot/blemish remover as well, so I thought others might be interested too. It certainly much easier than manual cloning and pixel bashing, though not foolproof, so take care it doesn't altered anything crucial to your picture. There's an undo function when required. It has a web-based page that photos can be uploaded to, but I found it to be a bit 'laggy', at least when using the Chrome browser on a 20 Mbit connection. The downloaded installable version is much more responsive, at least on my system. It operates as freeware, but doesn't enable saving your cleaned up photos (though there are the usual workarounds) or the fully working licensed version can be bought for a modest $19.99. In operation, I've found it works best dealing with modest areas at a time, rather than attempting a whole photo clean up in one go. Usual disclaimer - I have no connection to the company and accept no responsibility whatsoever for anything horrible that happens to you in or post usage.

BPF = British Pacific Fleet aka Fleet Air Arm

The Colour and Markings title Kevin mentioned earlier has quite a full and comprehensive photo coverage of every ANG unit including a super rare example, due to a very brief service, of a Deuce in the Tennessee Guard. All the Air Defence and other squadrons are of course also covered. I'd certainly recommend the electronic versions which contain far more pages than a print version could, although they're in the proprietary Kindle format rather than something more versatile like a .pdf file. Being able to enlarge at a click or two is very convenient when trying to clarify small serial numbers and other details. I have more than a few of the D&S and C&M print titles I bought during the '80s when they, along with the late lamented Koku Fan series, were pretty much the main if not only source of information to detail models. But expanded, full colour versions would be very welcome, even with all the free walkarounds available online. There's definitely a niche for photos accompanied by informative captions. With the missile bays area lending itself to a very nice focus of detail, I'm getting a bit psyched about how nice a big scale model would be. Even a Combat Models vac could be tempting if there was a nice build to be found online for inspiration. If there is, I haven't found it. And it couldn't be any more difficult than the Contrail XB-70, and likely much less awkward and even more impressive. The new Revell Mirage IIIE comes in a big imposing box. A Delta Dagger would be near enough 50% larger. But with the imminent arrival of even larger multiple Lancasters on the horizon, perhaps a revival of '50s jets in general and century series jets in particular, doesn't seem all that outlandish any more. I'll just post one more photo as a thank you for those who've chimed in on the thread, and just because ... it looks nice, even without all the flashy international orange options on some schemes. Not bad at all for an interim fighter. p.s. Why ever were operational Falcon missiles in that hi-vis scarlet red scheme (even on a dulled down green and tan Phantom). For the longest time I had assumed we had only been seeing test/display versions. Photo by Clark via Jim Rotramel via Bert Kinzey via Colours & Markings Vol. 2 (highly recommended)