Chek

Br aware that the Revell F-15E is really their F-15B kit, first issued as 71-0291 in Bicentennial markings, and later as the DRF demonstrator. And as it's not based on a real F-15E at all, pylons,armament stations and other details (bulged MLG doors, bigger wheels, inlets and vents etc. etc). would need to be added as would ACES II seats to replace the Escapacs it provides. The surface detail too will need attention. I picked a Bicentennial B up at a toy shop sale for about £5 in the late seventies, excited by the size and the engraved detail and the possibility of converting it to a single seater before one was available. I tacked the nose section together and applied a wash to check the continuity of the engraved detail, decided it was way too heavy-handed and would need filled and rescribed. And so I replaced it in its box where it likely remains to this day.

Metal ailerons were introduced towards the end of 1940 due to combat reports of poor hi-speed handling, which was traced to the 'ballooning' of the fabric covered type at speed inhibiting their efficiency. http://spitfiresite.com/2010/04/concise-guide-to-spitfire-wing-types.html

I was lucky enough to obtain an Echelon Lightning more or less complete except for a missing canopy a few years back at a bargain (sub £70) price, I contacted Frank Brown who kindly sent me free-of-charge a pack of vac canopies, together with decals for the Lightning AND Hunter kits he'd masterminded, on one condition - that I send him a photo when done. By-the-by, as I'm doing it as a natural metal version incorporating John Wolstenholme's improvements and ali cladding, it's taking some time. Getting even louvres on the panel under the rear of the canopy has me stumped and stalled at present. But I digress... The canopies Frank had left were yellowed, but he mentioned that he'd later produced a batch using PETG which wouldn't yellow with age. I then recalled Ted Taylor had built several for an edition of Scale Models around the time the kit was first released, and he'd used the plastic frame canopy blanks just painted black to avoid having to detail the cockpits. To cut to the chase Ted, bless him, had a rummage around his attic and found a spare canopy of the non-yellowing kind, as well as some blanks to make moulds from should I bugger up the clear one.. That part must be around 20+ years old now and it's still crystal clear. And it's sandable, as long as it's sanded along the edge, rather than across it. Sorry that's quite long winded, but I did get to mention three true gentlemen of our hobby as well as sneaking in a cry for help/ideas for the louvre problem.

Steve, Kevin, Jay and Hardcore, thank you for your detailed replies. Hasegawa it is then. Although I can't remember the last Hasegawa kit I bought.... maybe their now ancient Spitfire VI HF version.

As you know I've been following your build Jay, and find I've suddenly concluded I'd like to eventually match my range of Spitfires with a complementary line up of Bf 109 contemporaries. My simple question is do you recommend the Trumpeter K as he best route to a very late war '109 (as in versus a Spitfire XIV) for someone whose limited 109 references mostly date back to the '80s-90s? Bearing in mind I will naturally be stealing all your mods in your build article ...

Heh - wildly off topic Tony, but you wouldn't credit the hoops I had to jump through to keep the main flying surfaces in situ relative to each other for a stretched twin-seater long range/loiter Typhoon FGR5. Transferring the cuts from the digital realm to the physical world is too much like hard work to actually create a model from at present.

I recall having an argument/discussion about the extended F3 fuselage should have become the standard airframe for follow on types at the old rec.models.scale newsgroup, with the counter view being that the IDS was already optimum (which I didn't buy). So much so I proposed cutting a wedge from the F3's nib fairings a la late model MiG-23s. Sauce for the goose etc...

I see what you mean now. You wouldn't think a nice big-scale GR4 and F3 would be too much to ask, would you? Of course. it helps having an eye for it like your friend..

Look forward to it - I haven't started either of my Revell kits, and believed the consensus was they were nigh-on perfect. But from what you just hinted at Tim, it seems another few hours of peering at photos and then plastic held at ungodly angles will be required when the time comes.

One handy thing is that the Panavia engineers didn't get fancy with either the engine bay, fuselage or spine extensions. They just used straightahead parallel ones, from the same school as the Fw 190 D tail extension.

Also note that the dihedral starts a foot or so out from the wing root - mark a line parallel to the centreline from the aft junction of the wing fairing forward. Scribe that line and bend upwards and that'll give you the flat inboard section and then insert a spar to set the dihedral angle. The hardest part of building the kit is preserving the surface detail, although the availability of strips of raised resin rivets nowadays helps greatly.

Very nice work Max. I'll only be getting one of those kits, but can't decide whether to go for the F4 like you (with its harking back to the WWII era tail fin and marking style) or go for a Fisher assisted F8 which is really the high point of the design for single-seaters. I'm not fussed about the gaudy markings which tend to be associated with the later model either, as the surface detail HK has provided is attractive enough.

I'd seriously suggest that in 1/32 scale, forming fine actual wire mesh over the supplied cover will yield a far better result than a 2-D etch part ever could, There's a pinned guide to doing it at Britmodeller for the 1/48 Lynx, and from the photos I've seen of real Wessae, 'precision fit' is not a phrase that comes to mind,

It's not very apparent in that F-110A photo, but the olive drab anti-glare panel really sets off a model's colour

I like your camo scheme, you've balanced the colours well. Do you get all that stenciling seen round your UHF panel photos in the kit?

Actually, I was guilty of it myself until a fitter at RAF Wyton pointed it out to me one club night many years ago. And I'd spent ages on those Kfir wheel wells, too... But once you know, you know. You know how it is..

Nice job on the cockpit Jay. But one of the things that grates on me (not that you should care about that).is seeing twisted wiring looms on models. Really, just bundle them together straight with cable ties as required, as spiralling them around each other would only serve to make replacing a broken wire ten times more difficult for groundcrew. Check photos or under the dashboard of a car. OK, pet gripe over. Carry on.

I was pondering a photo of the rear missile well of an F-4 just now (which merely involves extremely old-school piano hinges), and pondering how such a standard of detail could be achieved in kit form. While I look forward to the day it is, I don't think we're anywhere near that just yet I've been interested in Phantoms from when the first Spey powered one landed here in Northern Ireland and was splashed across the press in July 1968, and have seriously been a student of them for nigh-on 40+ years, yet occasionally I still find new information even now. So much so, that having spoken to architectural colleagues, I'd only trust a multi-dimensional LIDAR scan to be wholly accurate - with the best will in the world to traditional artisans who have so far provided the overriding bulk of the kits that we all enjoy so much today. But studying the above photo, we see a piano hinge commencing at the 'V' of the NAVY marking- which is not the evenly serrated square shapes we sometimes see provided, and another on the lower apex of the missile trough itself. Then we see the approach light at the mid-point of the 'A' crossbar, with its surround and its lens, and below that the flap fairing on the fuselage - which the best prize-winning models tend to represent as a flat plate standing proud of the fuselage, rather than the webbed actuality that's really there. We (by which I mean Airfix and their skin texturing on their 1/24th Typhoon- a production first, I believe) can hopefully expect the uneven surface textures to appear shortly, but really, there's a long way to go before we can even start thinking we're anywhere near the end of the line as far as model realism is concerned. But hey! Without trying our individual best to impart that experience through modifications, paint and imagination, we'd merely be no more than factory line assemblers, right?

Thanks gents, for high-lighting areas I for one have no doubt missed without your input. Having said that, the necessity to re-scribe a panel line or two in the interests of commonality is small potatoes, now we've been given the benefits of your research and know what to look for. Hopefully the decal sheet will comply with all requirements (no pressure, Jennings!!!) I hope Hypersonic will also oblige with scaled up M-B Type 5 ejection seats to match the early schemes

I'm sure that a fine actual mesh, as found in plastic form in tea strainers or wire form (some very fine grades such as I liberated from junk Rolls Royce carburetors) - are carbs. still a common thing?? - stretch-formed over the cover Fly obligingly supply would look superior to any etched 2-D rendition. The above photos illustrate it's hardly a precision fit on the original,

Indeed, and it's not as if I've never mixed up decals to get another cool design on the model 'cos I ain't doing another one (at least for quite a while). But I suppose the decal maker's art is to be correct and leave any 'creativity' to the builder's conscience.

... but then the ejection seat triangle (singular) doesn't match up. Hey ho...

While they are a bit of a pain to sand and ensure they're properly level with the spacer moulding, I haven't yet devised a better method of depicting the ramp/fuselage stays myself. Admittedly mainly working in 1/48 scale with D-Mould intakes, even drilling the fuselage halves after fitting the intake nacelles leaves a clean-up job in a very awkward spot, even when (after the first trial) using brass rod hammered flat so as not to knacker the stays through over sanding the necessarily round drilled hole accepting the nominally airfoil stay itself. Accurate moulding to the Tamiya style is preferable by far.

I wouldn't be so fast in writing off the Tamaiya kit Dave. You're presumably measuring the width to the back end of the intake fairing (or nacelle as Tommy names it) including the air outlet louvres on the top and bottom corners. The intake width measurements are taken to the position of the intake ramp outer surface which is a variable. The true comparison with your Tamiya model would include the width of the ramp on that particular subject added to the intake measurement of that subject.

Indeed, the late Ted Taylor was well along with his 1.32 scale Lancaster from Hachette's new-part-every-month magazine. http://tedtaylor.hobbyvista.com/158-big-lancaster-2/page-158-lancaster-part-2.html Unfortunately he never lived to complete his, although it does appear to have some fascinating features. And no doubt a full collection of the mags will make HKM's look to be a bargain price.