Panzerwomble

I enjoyed following the building thread very much , and the finished result ,well...... frankly I don't have the words to properly express my admiration, so just.... thank you !

Just FYI Revells Leopard 1 is a decent kit without a lot of expense , and the Ausf G and D Tamiya's newer ( 1990's tooling) Panthers are both good . No idea why they still bother with the older A .

Sadly not according to this report from Sept 2020, they were £2.5bn short on corporation tax . ....https://www.chargedretail.co.uk/2020/09/16/amazon-paid-just-6-3m-in-uk-corporation-tax-last-year-despite-13-55bn-in-sales/#:~:text=The online retail giant has,compared to a year earlier. or the TUC reprot of bad working practice dated October 2020 https://www.tuc.org.uk/research-analysis/reports/challenging-amazon-report This isn't a "I hate Amazon" crusade, even on a thread titled Amazon Rants , however I stand by my comments about their business practices being not great. "just the facts ma'am , nothing but the facts please "

Given the ongoing criticism of the way Amazon completely mistreats it's employees - just type "Amazon working conditions" into Google , I tend to avoid using them like the plague, thats before we go near their massive tax evasion policies .

Some of their older stuff I personally feel is still worth building despite being way behind the times:- this one , the early PzIV D , M41, Sdkfz 222 ,even their early Hanomag, to name a few . Others are worth avoiding IMHO- Leopard 1, and the truly terrible Panther A both of which don't even bear more that superficials resemblance to the real thing . .

That's scubbed up nice for such an old kit

Financially they are still trying to trade their way back to a profit as far as I know ( Telegraph recently reported lockdown was helping ) . I suspect this will put a brake on any development cash that doesn't grow the business short term . The old 1/24 Spit kit was released in 1970 ....30 years after the real spiifire was flying . The same kit is now 50 years old ...and still being retailed for £50 ,those assets aren't sweaty they are positively drenched an accountant's dream . I also suspect it's quite shrewd from a marketing perspective as well, putting stuff out in the old Roy Cross 1970's livery , direct nostalgic appeal to people in their middle ages who remember them from yesteryear, not because it's a great kit . Airfix don't even pretend to try to jazz them up with PE or other goodies because they know it won'tprobably wont appeal to the target market. Whilst they still sell and it's this or the Trumpy one , no financial impetus to re tool . What is good for me however is that they managed to get out the Hellcat in 2019 , hopefully a sign that they feel it's worth worth putting out new 1/24 , or possibly it was too far advanced a project to cancel .

I did the Revell / Hasegawa Phantom FGR2 last year which was a straightforward and resonably detailed kit if you like RAF jets of course. It's also quite affordable for the quality . BTW - You are missing out on the Maypole Dancing ...have you not seen the Wicker Man ?

Really nice looking model so far !

Those both upped the bar quite a bit !!! The patience and skills to execute an F4 like that ....just awesome !

Great builds

i just love the finish you have on that , clean , but not too much , subtle differences in tone , yes very nice . Can you please not put it on the step though where someone will knock it over and destroy such a nice P38 though ?

Some very sweet jets there .

Hi Riddo , welcome to LSP & congrats on getting stuck in , I lurked for around 8 years admiring other peoples much better models before bottling up to post any work ! ( I still feel that way most weeks ....) +1 on the photos , they look really good . I use postimage ( very simple to use ie - ideal for me ) for pics if you get stuck with Imgur. Never built one of these back in the day , though saw a few knocking around, it's a real nostalgia hit . Does the kit still come with rubber tyres ?

Yes you are right , although apart from the Bus 1962 ( and all the civvy cars ) they were all released around '71- 78 .... Picking up Max was an easy entry into the market for them as it doubled their range in 1975 . I did the White Scout car when it came out , it seemed awfully complex for an 8 year old . Talking of reboxing , I have a recent Zvezda boxing of the White SC in the stash , it's now apparently 1/35 scale ......& looks pretty basic 45 years later

That's a good point about the batteries, although most of their early stuff was large ;- Panther , Tiger 2 , M60 , the Pz IV came later on in '75. They also did the remote controls with the batteries in a seperate controller ( I had the Centurion in the 70's with this system) or put the batteries behind each other instead of side to side. Also 1/35 is not really a "metric scale" so I agree it seems an arbitary choice - might also have been linked to the size of tooling available to them ? ... although 1/32 to 1/35 shouldn't make a real difference in terms of clamping pressures or shot weights . Im guessing as it was their second foray into injection moulding , they probably just knocked something out to see if it would sell ...and sort of got stuck with it's success ?

Thank you , I'll keep an eye out on your progress and see if I can summon up the umph to get on the this particular pony a third time.

Hi LSPers Not sure if linking to Youtube is ok or not (big apologies if not ) . I've been watching this channel (Gregs Airplanes and Automobiles) for several years now . The content is put out by Greg, a commerical airline pilot in the US . To be clear I have no relationship with the channel other than as a viewer, and I couldn't find a previous reference to it on the forum on a quick search . In my humble opinion , he produces some of the best referenced and technically challenging content about piston engined fighters I have found . A lot of it, is often over my head, but he always seems to explain the design charateristics and how they effected peformance to a level that is both challenging and informative. A big plus for me is that is not aimed at gamers , more like engineers in that it's very technical and highly detailed ("chewy ") He did a big series about the P47 , currently ramping up to cover the Fw 190, but often deviates into other things like maneovering tactics, engine development . The automobiles part seems to have been left behind . "Greetings , this is Greg ..." is truly one of my favourite sounds on the internet . Linky- Gregs Airplanes And Automobiles

Can I sneak in a K-7 ? I've a gallon of Alclad spare .

Glutino et facient ea (be careful with superglue ...)

Purely a guess, however given that the pioneering manufacturers in the 1950's were based on the Imperial system in the UK/ US ( Airfix, Revell , Aurora ,Frog , Monogram), I guess it made sense to work up the design and tooling in inches, and a fitting a scale that worked in inches . Perhaps it's only a "proper" scale if it can be divided by 8 ( you missed out 1/48 ! ) The oft told story about Tamiya, and how 1/35 came about in 1962 , is that was related to the size of a battery vs the size of a Panther hull. How true this is I can't say , but as most of the early product was rug crawlers it kind of makes sense. Airfix only jumped into larger AFVs in the 1970s when it bought the old Peerless Max moulds ( were actually 1/32 but now mostly sold as 1/35 ) . Tamiya did flirt with a few 1/25 for a while in the early years, but it seems the market preferred 1/35 until 1/16 and r/c came about . I'd be interested if anyone has any firmer information regarding this .

Can I ask is this the boxing with the 247 Sdn aircraft markings - PO Francis ? I tried (and binned) doing this one twice in 1;48 with the Roden kit , which just didn't work for me. Being from Plymouth the old RAF Harrowbeer airfield at Roborough holds a firm attraction, esp as my father (93) can remember seeing them defend Plymouth at the start of the war . Not trying to influence you , but I'm watching this with a firm hope it proves to be a straightforward kit as I'll like to have another crack at this particular aircraft .

Ekranoplan. 2m's in lenght , I can hear them hitting the shelf of doom already . A nice Mig 25 would be good however

A Gaseo Glider . In honour of Bob's mother ..

Plus one to that, my thoughts exactly .