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I actually don't like D Day stripes. They ruin the appearance of a nice model. But I have three of Pierre Clostermann's aircraft in my stash and since one of them has these stripes, this seems like a good time to get on with it. I read The Big Show when I was about 15 or 16, and a few more times since. My father was in the Royal Engineers during WW2 and he had previously told me of his days camped outside Caen with the Army trying to dislodge the German forces. He said it was mostly boring, but occassionally not. In his off duty moments, he and some mates would go on the scrounge for something to bolster the rations and they came across this field with and apparently unattended cow. So they milked it daily as fresh milk was rare, only to find one day it had already been milked. Next day, they got up earlier to beat their rivals who, it turned out, was the RAF. It became a race to see who could get to the cow first until Dad and his mates decided this was ridiculous so they took the cow with them. It eventually got left with one of the poorer farmers close to the town in Belgium where he seemed to stay for a while. Clostermann relates exactly the same story in The Big Show. Same place and time, so it's possible I have a slight and distant familial link to this man and subject of this GB. So on to this model. I'm building the Airfix Spitfire Mk.IX for this group build, with a few extras. I have the Xtradecal 1/24 set for this plane, Airscale's PE set for the cockpit, Eduard Brassin fishtail exhausts and a choice of Eduard steel seat belts or HGW cloth jobs. I'm not sure which of these two I'll use and I don't get on with HGW's stuff, but this being the size it is, I'll give them one last go. I made a small start on it today, but it may be slow going as it's very hot right now and it's hard to work on these things when your glasses are sliding down your face. The very first thing I did was to glue in the tail wheel area onto the fuselage. The parts fit quite well, but each has a small gap in different areas. The left half (upside down one in this pic) fits very well on the vertical join against the fuselage but has a gap that will need a dose of Mr Surfacer 500 beneath the tail plane fillet, whereas the right half fits well against the fillet but has a visible gap against the fuselage. But it's easily dealt with, again with some Mr Surfacer. From what I've seen, that about sums up this model. Next I added some parts to the cockpit floor so that I can paint this before too much longer. I'm also drilling out the lightening holes in the fuselage frames. You have to with this size model or it will really stand out. Next, I started assembling the pilot's seat and adding the first of the Airscale enhancements. The kit detail was removed before adding the PE parts., and the whole thing needs a little tidy up before paint. Lastly, I sprayed some Tamiya AS12 over the insides of the fuselage and cockpit sides and floor. If it looks a bit strange, that's because it probably dried to fast in the heat. I hope it will look better once I get the cockpit green sprayed, otherwise it will get done again if we get a cooler day soon. So that's five steps crossed off the instruction book. Only two hundred and thirty nine to go . Cheers, Michael

We take a look at another new 3D printed set in the Airscale Pro range: Bf109 G2/G4 660 X 160 Wheel Set. Have fun! Iain

As a follow-on to yesterdays review of Airscale's new Cockpit Upgrade for the Revell Messerschmitt Bf 109 G2/G4, we take a look at a supplementary set of 3D printed parts, item number 3D32 CD, that replaces and adds detail to the Revell kit's parts. The set provides a highly detailed set of replacement parts for the kit's rudimentary throttle, oxygen control, REVI C12/D Gunsight, Control column and an accurate seat with no moulded belts. Take a look here: Some incredibly fine printing work! Iain

We take a look at the latest from Airscale's 'PRO' range - this time a comprehensive set of additions for the Revell 109G2/G4. More to follow! Have fun, Iain

We have what is now the BBFM's MK356 Spitfire LF Mk.IXe as she hopefully would have looked the day before D-Day. LF meant she had the Merlin 66 fitted and was used as a ground attack plane. She was attached to the RCAF Squadron 443 Build wise, it's a superb plane. The fit is stupendous, if a little TOO tight in places and for £95 the level of detail is superb. I've modified her to an E wing although I'm sure Airfix will bring out an E wing variant in time for Christmas maybe. Lots of extra pipes etc on the engine which is a bit bare TBH and the E wing conversion kit Aerocraft. Sven at 1ManArmy was superb in helping me get a mask for her serial number and his masks for the kit in general are without equal in my opinion. Peter at Airscale as ever provided the cockpit detail. Link to the build is here. Thanks for looking and blue skies to all.

We take a look at a new cockpit set from Airscale for the long-awaited Trumpeter 1:32 Douglas Devastator: this set will add a huge amount to what comes with the kit! Iain

Last item for review this evening from Airscale's collection of enhancements for Trumpeter's new Devastator: wing fold. Iain

As a follow on to Airscale's 1:24 Spitfire Mk.IX cockpit for the Airfix kit, we take a look at the matching RAF Sutton QK Seatbelt Harness. Iain

And another new 3D Printed set for the Devastator from Airscale: a set of twin Brownings. Iain

Another set from the hugely talented Peter Castle's Airscale range for the Trumpeter Devastator - in this case a beautiful set of early wheels. Iain

OK, the Hellcat is off to its new home and the bench is cleared for a commission build of a 1/32 HK Avro Lancaster Type 464 in Operation Chastise mode. Have to be honest, the box picture is more exciting than the opening of the box. The well documented poor HK packing was evident but everything was thankfully in one piece. Two nice instruction books, one for the standard MkI/III build and another with the special bits for the Dambuster build. Also a nice little extra a little book called "Rad Shutters Auto" by Stuart Reid, a former BBMF pilot. Nice little touch. The failings of this kit are well documented but, I love a challenge and it was the only option really. My client wanted a Dambuster aircraft and, of course, the Border model is a ferrari against a ford in their base state but there are no Border Lancs about at the moment and God knows when or if a 617 squadron one will come along. With lots of work, reshaping, scratch building, tons of research, ( I'm about 30 hours of research in already and still only sorting out cockpit layout, there's a brilliant kit to be built. The floor for the pilot's seat has to go, it's way too high and misshapen. Pilots seat is very poor but a resin one from Resin 2 Detail is in the post and the IP is frankly, disgusting for a £300+ kit. Thank the Lord for Peter and Airscale. Their IP arrived today and, as ever, it's superb. Also got one of his new branch out of seatbelts for the pilot's seat, they look more RB than HGW. I'll get that made up tomorrow. The eyes will suffer for that one! Spot the deliberate mistake BTW? I've gone and ordered the Sutton harness in 1/24 instead of 1/32 Still, it'll be fine for the new spitfire in the autumn So today, the horrid box construction that the pilots seat sits on has gone, I'll reuse some of it for height but it needs a total reshaping before that. The engineers panel has been filed smooth ready for the Airscale PE plate. I've removed the two little star shaped knobs first though for further use. Go in through the back with a ball cutter and they just pop out. Thanks to Nigel at Nigel's modelling bench for that one. Used it on the Hellcat too. I've made up the pilot's seat too just to get a feel for the fit and hardness of the plastic although I won't be using it. That's about it for now, got a trip to Lincoln at the weekend and maybe a detour to look at a Lancaster.........

So while I’m waiting on replacement IP decals for my F4 phantom I decided to start on my Hornet. My buddy over in Louisville and I have been looking at these and got a great deal from the LHS! So we bought a pair and we’re gonna work them together although I will be a little slower ha ha i’ve had a picture of the digital camo from the 100th anniversary of Naval aviation in my albums forever and this is a great chance to go ahead and try and do this. It’s gonna be all about the paint as usual for me and I’m going to be doing it with thousands and thousands of rectangles all done in Tamiya tape in order to come up with this pattern! So I won’t bore you with a lot of details but I will try and catch the intricate assembly steps for a couple of the quirks in assembling this kit. here’s the kit on the shelf at the LHS with my buddy’s working on the cockpit of course this week. It’s a nice little subassembly that I felt like I could do in between other things. I’m doing everything pretty much out of the box maybe just a little ad here or there but nothing major. For instance I added some Tamiya tape straps here to accentuate the photo etch seatbelts but that’s almost the only thing I added in the cockpit except that safe latch on the right side of each seat. when I was working on my aircraft carrier I bought some 60 mash flour sifters in order to use for screens and vents. I was looking at the seats in the Burt Kinsey book and thought hey, I have another use for those… and here’s where I’m at today. I used glazes on the seatbelts to try and get a little bit of depth to the color. I used Bondek to make the glass for the instrument panel. Some air scale decals to add to what came with the kit and a lot of little detail painting to close it out. and that concludes the cockpit walk around for this week! Now I rambled on about this cockpit and I didn’t really show you a picture of what that title really means so here’s a teaser, probably for the end of the summer

So in keeping with the GB's theme I've going along with a duel build/s. First up is Revell's Spitfire IXc along with the normal am etc. I'm attempting to build it as a little dio as per these photo's I have a resin pilot thats pretty close to the first photo and should work well? Its also a chance to have the flaps down and displayed and I have a set in the stash! It also helps that I wont have to worry about the undercarriage, which is my least liked job of any build For my second build its Hasegawa's Fw 190A-8 again with a bundle of am. for this one it will be a scheme I found on an aeromaster sheet in 48th, and found reference (although no actual photos exist) in Luftwaffe's last hope book (along with the Spit). Again this was a downed plane so may well do another little dio. Yesterday I started on the pe for the flaps... 3 hours work but looking good? Aaron