John1

Everyone has a tolerance level for this stuff. I imagine some folks would never consider building anything with the Red Star on it. Also imagine maybe some Vietnamese would never want to build a US subject. It is what it is. Not worth a great deal of discussion on.

Anthony, if you have any and are so inclined, I’d love to see a pic or two of the aft bomb bay roof and sides. A kind gent on Britmodler sent me some great pictures but the more the merrier. Keep up the good work!

What Barracuda set has those decals?

You wrote “It was profitable before”. I was curious as to how you knew this.

Go for it Michael. The further I get into this build, the more I am stunned at how absolutely wonderful this kit is. Granted I have a small sample size but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the Tamiya Mosquito is the best LSP produced to date. Still wish someone would have offered up a resin NF conversion (at least for the earlier aircraft w/ single-stage engines) but that's water under the bridge at this point. John

Not sure exactly where but their packaging says "Made with Pride in the USA".... For those that have never checked them out, I highly recommend hitting the website once it's back up. They have a wide range of resin and decals (unfortunately, many of the decals are now OOP). His stuff is of very high quality and the prices are very reasonable.

Great news, thanks very much Kevin!

Just went to order some bits from Barracuda, their website is gone. They having technical issues or are they no longer around?

How do you know it was profitable? This guy spared no dollar to do things the right way. Their overhead must have been massive.

Hi Grunticus (were you infantry by any chance?) Never heard of it but I'll certainly try to find it. Quick update, I've continued puttering around with the inner wing spar assembly. The section at the top of the bomb bay was divided into two sections. One held a pair of 25 gal fuel tanks, the forward section (which held additional fuel in the bomber version) was left open to leave room for the 20mm cannon ammo boxes. This section also has the roofs of the two main landing gear bays. Here is the assembly so far. Tamiya does a nice job on the fuel tanks and wheel wheel details (note that the roofs are pretty high up in the wells so they didn't have to go overboard with detailing). I added a few details to the wheel well roofs (arrows show my additions). Also did some shading to try to give the illusion of those cross-tubes being circular d(they are actually molded flat with the roof of the wheel well). I think they came out ok. Here is the center section. Arrows show the additions I added. These include wiring for the interior lights (nice touch by DeHavilland, always thinking of those poor mechanics and armorers), brackets for the tank restraining clamps (the kit piece was just flat plastic) and wiring for the tank level gauge (I think that's what it is). I also hit this area with pastels, one of my favorite weathering tools, to replicate built up grunge from the cannon gases, etc. Not happy with the chipped white paint, I'm going to go back and touch this up. Anyway, that's it for now, thanks for looking!

Very simple. The cost to house and maintain their exhibits and infrastructure don't go away due to Covid. At some point every business reaches a tipping point where they can't sustain those costs with no incoming revenue. At that point, you call it quits and sell off what assets you have to pay your creditors. Even when they are allowed to open, it's going to be years before their business returns to 2019 levels. They apparently made the sad decision that they can't wait that long and are closing the doors.

I've always dreamed of modeling the "honey wagon". Hopefully one day my dream will come true.

Mini update - Horizontal stabs are completed. No more of those silly PE hinges so you can have movable control surfaces (this was one of my major gripes regarding the Tamiya Mustang kit), you get the option to glue the elevators either in the neutral position or drooping. I opted for drooping, just to add a bit of variety. The horizontal stab also includes the tail wheel well. It's nicely detailed, the only thing I added were a couple of control cables. For those interested in minutia, the fairing on the bottom of the tail cone was for an infra-red "flasher" lamp. This was used on night fighters / night intruders as a form of identification to avoid friendly fire. If you are interested in this subject, there is a discussion on it over on Brit Modeler. https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235065576-dh-mosquito-tail-fairing-monica-or-signal-light/ Apparently, to simplify production, the fairing was installed on all later-production Mosquitos, regardless if whether they would ever have a flasher device installed. Here a couple of pictures. I think I'll do some touchups on the dried mud caked on the tailwheel guard. Have a bit of putty/sanding work to do in this area as well. Last up - started some preliminary work in the bomb bay. Much more work to do in this area, as I'll have both the cannon bay covers and the aft bomb bay doors open. Thanks for looking!

Nice video.. some of those aircraft must have only been 20-30 over the ocean during their run-in to Norway!

Believe that is one of the Tropic Moon I or II LLLTV pods that were used by A-1’s for a year or so to test their ability for truck hunting at night. After completing the trials, upgraded equipment was installed as Tropic Moon III in B-57’s.