Madmax

Very funny Nick! Thanks for putting on your 2 Squadron Blazer, the old boys would have appreciated it... Cool photo JolleyRoger! Thanks for keeping Nick on the straight and narrow Alain. I'm afraid to have to admit, you are absolutely correct Malcolm! Did you study psychology? Sinuhe, glad to see you here. Yours is THE profile pic for this build - welcome anytime...

Thanks Mike and Alex, just trying to do what John1 did for the F-51 in Korea! Nick, what the heck is that 1 Squadron badge doing on your profile picture??? You might consider changing it every time you visit this build... Hey Marcel, I suspect the complexity is going to be around the wings. Keep watching for a chuckle as the head scratching starts - a bit like the LERX on the MiG-29. Funny guy Mike... Great profile pic JolleyRoger. Much more appropriate than Cheetah11's! Nice job modifying that Sabre REJ - it looks great!

I grew up with this image hanging on our wall at home. If the drama of this picture isn't enough to inspire building a Korean War Sabre, then I don't know what will! The F-86 is one of the most beautiful aircraft ever produced, and many pilots (including Bob Hoover) consider it the finest to fly. It certainly has something to do with its sensual curves... as well as its rakish angles. It just plain looks fast, that you want to touch. There is a problem however - no kit in 1:32 does it any justice. Sure, there is the Has

Lovely work going on here! If you have a purple undertone to the grey, you have it right Malcolm. Pleased to see the remaining pandemic toilet roll collection is being put to good use...

Lovely weathering Marcel, especially the top of the intake that seems to be the welcome mat to an F-4!

A very classy model Nick! Lovely to hear the motivation behind the build. I'm sure it resonates with many readers of the forum...

There is something very special about the combination of grey shades that make the mid-conflict Luftwaffe Bf 109's so compelling. Well done Mark, you got the mix spot-on!

Vielen Dank Lothar, thank you HL-10, Mark - you have been a great supporter of this build , Chuck - an endorsement of my paintwork from you is a real treat! Thank you Kurok, Brian (an evergreen voice of support) and allthumbs (which I trust you are not)! Joachim, I actually did paint the mirrors silver initially and I suspect that I forgot to mask them when I sprayed the grey . Well spotted - you certainly have an eye for detail! I see that some of the mirrors are painted black on the reverse side (presumably to limit reflection in the canopy), which you might add to y

Thanks Mark, "Johnny", Ferry, Alex and crobinsonh! Glad you enjoyed the work on the wings Alex, the scratches are a new aspect of weathering for me, and good fun. If only your Zero wasn't fresh from the factory, you could sharpen some toothpicks too...

Thank you Lothar, Brian, Joachim, Marcel and Mark - you guys are very kind indeed! Rich, I cut pretty thin strips of Tamiya masking tape (probably less than 1mm) from the sides of the tape so I have one true edge. The handles are painted black or yellow, then masked in a spiral and sprayed the other colour. Takes some time, but very effective. I used to hand paint them, but it never achieves the desired look. This has been a relatively quick build for me, and very satisfying. Here is a link to the RFI post, and one or two photographs as a foretaste.

The story of the F-104G in the Luftwaffe is remarkable in itself, never mind the awe inspiring technological advances the aircraft embodied at its first flight only 9 years after the end of WWII. Despite many hardships in operating a total of 916 F-104s over a 30 year period, the Germans showed their Teutonic resolve, and made a success of their Starfighter program. It has been very satisfying building this model, and the research that went with it has given me a better perspective on the much hyped "Widow-maker". It is a beautiful aircraft to look at, and regardless of some typica

Those castles look good Malcolm, a big improvement on previous ones. The Cheetah's wings are looking great too!

Thanks Ben and Spyros! Jenshb, I spray Tamiya X22 mixed with Mr Color levelling thinner at about a 40:60 ratio clear to thinner. The trick is to leave it alone for a couple of days, and then buff it with Alclad micromesh where necessary. Thanks Jack, glad you are enjoying it too! MigMan, you win the prize for Teutonic word of the day! Scribing perfectly round circles is probably akin to drawing them - satisfying sure, but we all know what it means. Good thing we can't do it... Hey Marcel, very kind of you! Hope your MiG-29

Thanks Nick, you are more of a numbers person than me. Jim, I envy your friend. Not only did he get to fly F-104's but he actually managed to retire from an airline - lucky guy! Mark, I am enjoying the hell out of building this. After the decal marathon, I got some more well thinned X-22 onto the model. It looks like a candy apple! I buffed the gloss out over the decals so that their edges hopefully don't look quite so obvious under the final matt coat. While that was all curing, I tinkered with the ground equipment. I

Welcome Malcolm, it's about bloody time! Looking forward to seeing lots of your work here. You are off to a great start on this lovely canard-delta. Although I am very much a Cheetah C fan, the E had something going for it. As with the old Mirage III BZ, it had no radar to weigh it down and thus accelerated beautifully. Lekker, bakgat en iets moers, Sean