ericg

Hi guys, Can anyone point out where I may find a decent set of LAU-7 rails to replace the ones in my A-7 Corsair, either aftermarket or in an existing kit (not Trumpeter!!) Thanks, Eric.

I finished this one a few days ago. First time using the steel rigging used in the kit. I used some of the tyre placard decals from a Wingnut Wings kit. Better pics soon.

Thanks guys. Some more work. I have painted the model now. I used Alclad pale burnt metal for the gold, and a significantly lightened mix of Gunze light blue. The cooling panels were painted with polished brass and the floats with a couple of different shades of Alclad Aluminium. Still a bit of work to do chasing around some areas of overspray, but fairly happy with how it is turning out.

This is my Ohka, Type 22 manned flying bomb from the excellent RB Productions kit. All resin and photo etch, with a vac formed canopy. A very enjoyable build. Only 50 of these aircraft were ever produced, with its first test flight in June 1945. These were never used operationally, coming along too late in the war. It was a derivative of the earlier rocket powered bombs that were successful in sinking ships. This aircraft was equipped with a small piston engine that drove a compressor, which had a fuel injection system fitted behind it. The compressed air/fuel mixture was then ignited to provide the thrust. These aircraft were carried beneath a bomber most of the way towards its intended target where the pilot and aircraft with its 600 KG warhead would embark on a one way Kamikaze mission. It is sad to think that young men would throw themselves at each other in such desperate ways, but it is an interesting and welcome addition to my collection nonetheless. The kit: Built out of the box, with a large amount of nose weight added!

The idea for this build was conceived when I saw a picture of this buggy and remembered that my good friend Sean Trestrail had a ride in it back in the eighties at RAAF Butterworth upon reaching the milestone of 1000 hours of flight time in the Mirage III. This model was mostly scratch built and the details are as follows. Tractor: Heavily modified Aerobonus G-40C United Tractor, with; Scratch built Cargo basket, Rear lights, 2 x tow hitches, Forward spotlight, 3 x different seats, Custom printed number plates. Modified bonnet. Trailer: Scratch built except for the wheels. Custom printed number plate that spells COUPED if you were to type it out on your phone keypad... a nod to my good mate Dave Coupe who designed and printed the decals for me. Buggy: Scratch built. Custom printed decals. Figure: Heavily modified from several different sources. My first attempt at a figure... Be kind! All snatch straps and buckles, and the spare chocks were scratch built. Many thanks to Sean Trestrail, Dave Coupe and Max Johnson

Thanks for the comment guys. He most certainly was as a result of that mission. Here is the model that I made of Mac’s O-1 that he flew that day, next to his DFC and other medals. And to think, this modelling adventure would possibly not have happened if I hadn’t noticed a Mirage lapel pin that Mac was wearing on his jacket when I was at a model show a few years back.

This model was built to depict the F-100D flown by Captain Ronald Swanson during a ground support mission in 1968 whilst under the direction of Forward Air Controller, Flying Officer Macaulay Cottrell RAAF. It was whilst I was building Mac's O-1 Bird Dog that I had the idea to try and track down either of the F-100 pilots mentioned in the combat report written by the BLADE flight, and was successful in contacting Ronald. He agreed to be my subject pilot and this is the result. Additions: Aires Cockpit. Aires Wheel Bays. Aires Exhaust. Zactomodels Nose Cone Armoury Wheels. Videoaviation BLU-27 Napalm bombs Eduard MK-82 Snakeyes Eduard photo etch slats Aerobonus helmet Master Pitot Tube Modifications. Scratch built seatbelts. Scratch built pylon sway braces Canopy hinge point moved 5 mm rearward Main undercarriage legs shortened 3 mm Cannon access panels moved 2 mm rearward Various panels re scribed Pitot tube attachment fairing rebuilt Drop tank hard points moved 3 mm outboard Scratchbuilt landing lights. 23mm plug to lengthen each drop tank Other small tweaks. Paint and Markings MRP paints with painted markings.

Excellent build Nick. Really nice work on what would be a fairly hard conversion. Cheers, Eric.

Thanks for all the nice comments guys. Appreciated. Sure Ray.

The Alleycat Boomerang builds into a lovely model. Not without its difficulties, but with a bit of care it comes up nice.

Would be interested in which brand of resin it is. It sounds as though the resin has not cured and probably won’t get any better. Eric.

I wasn’t planning on getting this one finished in time for expo as the F-100D was always going to be my entry in the large scale jets category. With space limited in what I can get as carry on luggage, I can only usually carry one big jet. I might have to drive next year though as I will have a big backlog.

Thanks Matt. I spent a couple of hours on the Bulldog a couple of days ago and come up against some more disappointing issues with the kit that are going to take a lot of work to figure out.

I pushed on and finished the model after getting sick of moving it out of the way to work on other stuff! The big challenge in this build was getting the FOD covers and bungs right. I felt that these were required to make the model ‘pop’ with its fairly boring grey scheme. From the time that I saw pics of the 3sqn aircraft with these in, it had to be done. I made up a four part mask to paint the exhaust bung. I attached the Aires vinyl remove before flight tags and matted them with some flat clear. There is a thin dark yellow line around the cross which I hand painted that has been blown out by the photo and can’t be seen, it I am pretty happy happy with how these turned out. some pics of the completed model In its new home in my ‘mostly Aussie’ cabinet.

Moving along with this build. I had originally planned to have this one ready for the Australian Model Expo on the 6-8th of June for entry into the Civil aircraft non-airliner category. Unfortunately this event was cancelled a couple of months ago so it was put aside whilst I concentrated on other builds. With a few models now completed in this time, I have been looking at all of my older unfinished stuff and trying to get lots of builds finished that require not much work to get them done. I built up the beaching trolley with its spoked wheels and attached all of the photo etched panels, as well as the brass cooling lines down the sides of the fuselage and the exhaust ports. I just need to work out the cooling panel under the nose, which is provided as a photo etch part but those don’t work too well in these kits. Each panel has been glued into position using 5 minute epoxy.

Here is my 1/32 Kittyhawk OV-10A that I completed late last year. This model was built to represent the aircraft that Squadron Leader Graham Neil and Flight Lieutenant Ken Semmler flew during the Vietnam war on the 6 JUNE 1970. Both of these men were pilots in the Royal Australian Air Force and were part of the group of 36 that served as FACs under the USAF during the conflict. Graham was awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross for his conduct as a Forward Air Controller during this mission. I haven't had the chance to show Graham the completed model yet due to Covid19, but I was able to show him the partially completed model during its construction. The model. Additions: Airscale instrument decals. Master Pitot tube AoA decals Reskit wheels AMS ejection seats Eduard exterior photo etch Aerobonus Helmet with hand painted Roo. Archer raised rivet detail added to forward fuselage Modifications/Scratch built items: Raised cowl fasteners replaced with engraved ones. 5 x fuel caps scratch built. Scribed the missing fuel panel on the centre of the top wing. Scratch built the missing lower left access step. Scratch built bomb beam inside centre pylon. Added small bolts to front of spinners. Scratch built cockpit access ladder. Scratch built forward air vent in front of the windscreen. Scratch built the air vent under observers canopy and tops of both crew canopies. Added lots of wiring inside the cockpit. Scratch built the throttle and pitch levers. Scratch built canopy actuator and stay mechanisms. Scratch built the canopy window locking mechanisms x 4. Scratchbuilt bulkhead and armour plate behind pilots seat. Added brake lines. Faired in pitot tube to the nose cone. Various antenna and aerial wire. Scratch built stall warning tab outer right wing. A few other things I have forgotten. The actual aircraft after the mission mentioned above:

Long time since the last update. I put this kit aside to concentrate on getting both my OV-10A and F-100D finished. Now that they were done, I have done some more work. I remastered the intake bungs and added a lot more depth to them, also designing a small paint mask to enable me to paint the 3 SQN logo on them. I am not usually a fan of intake/exhaust covers but in this case, with a relatively boring paint scheme, they are essential to make the model pop. The ejection seat was the next area that I wanted to change. The kit one is OK, but differed from the excellent walk around photos of a seat that my good mate Peter took. I removed the back rest and made a new one from plastic card that I shaped and installed along with some Tamiya two part putty to make the large fairing behind it. I stippled Mr Surfacer over all of the cushion surfaces to give them texture, and then ditched the kit photo etch belts, cutting off the buckles and combining them with thin aluminium strip. I dressed the shoulder straps, hanging them behind the head rest as per some reference photos that I found. The painted seat. Still have a few small placards to do. The black strips of the pull handle were done with the thin strip decal stripe that separates schemes on most Wingnut Wings kits. I painted the cushions with a Tamiya NATO black. How it looks now. Sorta want to get this off my bench!

Thank you very much for all of the kind comments. I was able to arrange a video call with Ron to show him his jet. We spent over an hour talking, and even though we were on opposite sides of the world (Texas/Queensland) it felt like we were in the same room. By far, my favourite part of the build. I got my son to take a pic of the event.

g’day, Glad you like it! From memory, I am pretty sure I painted it the same grey as the fuselage metal areas but then it looks like I have post shaded it with Gunze ‘sail colour’ or Tamiya ‘Buff’ as I just went and had a look at the model. I also took a pic of the area for you. Have taken this to a few shows and no one has tapped me on the shoulder yet and told me that I got that area wrong. Enjoy it, those old kits make beautiful models.

Some more work. One of the features of the A/B model is 4 vents, 2 either side of the nose gear bay. I put a bit of thought into how to accomplish those, as they could be quite tricky to do. One is fine, but to do 4 accurately needed some more effort. I am a very lazy modeller, so if I can cheat a little bit, I will. I made up a vent from plastic card, in a box section and then made a copy of it. plastic card vent in the foreground, resin copy in the middle and pinkysil mould at the back One quickly turned into 4 I measured up the areas where I was going to be installing the vents, and made an indent into each of the four corners of the rectangle where the vent was going to go. I then scribed the lines using a straight edge and a pin. the small holes make it much easier to scribe from point as the scriber/pin drops into each hole at the correct distance. Once I had a line scribed using the straight edge and pin, I deepened it using the pin. Using a number 11 blade, I pushed it into the line, rocking it back and forth to break through to the inside of the fuselage. This will then pop the section out. The vents fit into the holes fairly well, although I did tweak the position of each one so that it lined up both with the one on the same side longitudinally and the one on the other side laterally. this was done with a small file. Once this process was complete, I secured each one in place with some superglue, ensuring that they were slightly proud of the surface. Lots of mods going on here. I have made a hell of a mess. I used my superglue/talc mix to fill in the areas around each vent and then sanded them smooth against the fuselage. With some primer/filler spray. There is still some filling to do, and each vent will need a panel scribed around it. I will refine the shape of each one soon.

Now that I finished the F-100D, it was time to get back to this build. Tom kindly arranged for Kenny Fields of Streetcar 304 fame to send me his book about his rescue, personally signed with a nice message. I managed to count Toms name mentioned 3 times in the book, so it was pretty cool to see. I have been in touch with Kenny about a possible subject build later on down the track of one of his rescuers. This book is very highly recommended, I simply couldn't put it down and I read it in two days. From the excellent description of the pre-launch activities of a Vietnam era carrier aircraft to the vivid recollections of his time spent on the run after being shot down, go and get it! A small update. This is the Aires resin instrument panel and coaming. Beautifully cast, but........ very different to an A model. The more I look, the more I find I will have to modify with this kit but it keeps me on my toes and my modelling skills sharp. This pic gives a view of the area under the HUD. The A model did not have a HUD, just a gunsight similiar to the ones that I have in the O-2 and OV-10 models that I have built. This will need to be fixed. The HUD controls and the mounting points for the various caution and warning lights under the glare shield will need to go. I cut all of those parts out. I then used a small section of plastic tubing to fill the gap, with the real thing having the small lip in the middle. This part is almost ready to start scratch building the instrument panel, which is completely different to the E model that the aftermarket parts represent. Here is where the model is at the moment. I have started filling in all of the 'E' panel lines and scribing 'A' model ones, particularly on the forward fuselage. The wings are dry fitted on at the moment, as it is handy to be able to remove them to lay the fuselage flat on my workbench for the modification work. I have dry fitted the undercarriage as well at this early stage so that I can start to get a feel for how the model will sit and it will allow me to assess whether I will need to do any major modifications to get the model to sit correctly compared to reference pics.

What a build! well done! Eric.

Lovely build with a great finish! Cheers, Eric.

Thanks for all the nice comments guys. I cant wait to get this model into the photo studio and get some better pics of it. Thanks Ron, funnily enough, this is exactly what I want to viewer of the model to think when seeing the model as it is what I had in mind when I was finishing it. Cheers, Eric.

Thanks for the comments guys. I finally finished the model tonight. Better pics soon!