IainM

That's mighty fine work for "government" work!! Looks great, and that camo scheme is top! Well done

Thanks Anthony, saw those on their website, but they're 1/24th, the one I want to do is 1/32nd, nothing available on that front... Nothing like some scratch-building

Thanks gents, but those sets are all 1/24th scale. I'm needing sets for the 1/32nd Tamiya Mozzie.......

That's just beautiful!! I don't think I've ever seen a clean Hellenic bird... Top notch!

Nope. Just looked again, nothing there unfortunately

It'll have to stay there until I figure out how best to make a thimble nose for the Mk 12/13 or a bullnose for the Mk30 version, want to do it in a N/F version of 488SQN RNZAF. Until then, I'll quite happily watch your mastery at work!!

I.... am.... gobsmacked.... This is phenomenal. Makes me want to keep my Mozzie in its box forever

Fantastic "C" version there! Makes me think back to the days as a SAAF ATC working those aircraft. That was probably my second favourite a/c, number one was the Mirage F1! Awesome machines. Great to see one again, thank you!

Yep, sorry to burst the Aires bubble, but the kit is so finely engineered that the AM bays create far more issues and engineering head-scratching problems than I thought was worth in the end. Look, the detail in the Aires bays are far superior to what the Tamiya kit has, but if I had to do it again, I would go the route above and just modify/detail the kit bays to an acceptable standard. The AM bays and the wings of the kit themselves had to have so much resin and styrene sanded/scraped off that I could literally see through them. Then there's the issue of engineering the gear legs to fit into the AM bay - you can't add them at the end and hope there's enough mating surface on that delicate resin to hold them properly - I ended up building blocks inside the wings to hold a pin which I attached to the gear legs - so I had the legs attached before I mated the upper and lower wing halves, but could swing the legs inside the bays for painting, etc, then right at the end CA'ed them in place at the pivot point. Another issue is the retraction arms for the inner gear doors, those need to be put in before you mate the upper and lower wing halves, as well as those for the little covers at the gear legs. The AM bays (even after all that sanding) create a bit of fit issues at the wing root/fuselage join. I suppose if you really want the Aires bays in then you can work around it (I did and I'm by no means as good a modeller as some of the people here), but IMO I don't think its worth the issues involved. I wouldn't again.....

I replaced the wheel bays on my kit with the Aires resin bay, as I was planning on only having the u/c in the extended position. I wish now that I had taken your approach rather, but hindsight is 20/20 vision The amount of thinning, cutting, scraping, etc, etc and then the engineering required to fit the kit u/c to the resin bays was completely over the top....a good lesson in modelling and building the skills, but if I had to do it again - no way!

That Spit looks great! I'm going to be building almost the same thing, in the markings of the SAAF Spitfire Mk IX LF AX-K (basically a Mk XVI, just the engine differed). My brother in law flew it when he was 2IC of the SAAF museum. About 3 weeks after he left the service, the Spit was totalled at an airshow..... You wouldn't be selling a set of the propeller decals would you? They're about all I need to get going on this one... Thank you, and great build again

Brilliant, thanks!!

That 110 at Hendon is such a beautiful machine! The gap is visible as that light line that runs from left to right, however, it appears damage to the metal sheet on the left makes it appear as if there is no room for the horizontal stab to move? The right side appears to show a correctly faired end.

Great work!!!! I have 3 AIMS sets to use, so it's great seeing what end result can be had! Well done!!

Sublime! Great workmanship, the amount of weathering and your techniques are awesome!!!