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The Aircraft The Percival Mew Gull was a 1930s racing aircraft, and Alex Henshaw, who at the time was a noted racing pilot, bought ZS-AHM in 1937. It was transferred to the British register as G-AEXF, and after a number of more minor successes he won the King's Cup Air Race in 1938. This was topped off in February 1939 by his solo "Cape Dash" from Britain to Cape Town, South Africa and back, setting a record which stood for a good many years. His book The Flight of the Mew Gull (Airlife Publishing, 1998, originally John Murray Publishers Ltd, 1980) relates this period from when he was 9 years old until the start of WWII. The war interfered somewhat with pleasures of that type, and Henshaw became a test pilot for Vickers-Supermarine, testing new Spitfires off the production line (see his book Sigh for a Merlin, Air Data Publications, 1996). G-AEXF did not fare well, and to cut a long story short was restored and rebuilt, and now resides at the Shuttleworth Collection, Bedfordshire, UK. Like the rest of the Collection's aircraft it is maintained in airworthy condition and flies at air displays and at other times. I'm fortunate enough to live near there, and volunteer at the collection. I have frequently walked past this aeroplane, and stopped to look, and as any modeller would, I have wondered "Why don't Tamiya do one of these in 1:32?" The Kit Of course, the answer to that question is fairly obvious! However, there is a resin LSP kit available: Marsh Models in the UK are best known, perhaps, for model cars, but they also do a line of racing and record-breaking aircraft in resin. Now I have said before "I don't do resin kits"; but having found that a Mew Gull kit was available, I did a bit of research, found only good things about Marsh Models, and decided to order one. In the fullness of time it arrived. These are all "limited edition" kits, and mine included a statement on the information sheet that it was no 103/150. What's more, it was cast to order. This was a "clear-the-workbench" model, so I did just that, and have dived in. The kit arrived in a stout box enclosed in a padded mailing bag. Opening it, I found plenty of bubble-wrap and packing, and an entirely different arrangement of parts compared to the "standard" kits I'm used to: I made it 22 resin parts (not easy to count without actually opening the bags, and I did not do that at this stage); a bag of white metal bits; two PE frets; two vac-form canopies; decals on three sheets (the little silver nose band below the second sheet is on its own sheet); and a sheet of vinyl which can either be used directly as canopy framing, or to mash and paint said framing. The resin is a little more rough-surfaced than a styrene kit, but a light fine sanding should suffice. There are no casting blocks, but some trimming of odd bits and a little truing-up of mating surfaces is needed. A quick test-fit of the fuselage halves proved a very good fit. Overall, I'm very impressed so far: resin kits have come a long way since the last one I tackled, which was not just years, but two or three decades ago. The cockpit "tub" is already moulded into the fuselage, and although some detail needs to be sharpened up, it is a good basis to add the various bits of white metal, resin and etch that comprise the rest of the detail. It's a small aeroplane. I've already wondered to myself how anyone could spend over 4 days crammed in there, with all necessary supplies and as much fuel as possible, let alone manage to navigate and fly. Standing by it on the ground, the centre of the prop spinner is only just above my eye level (I'm 5'10"/178cm). But that means the model shouldn't take up too much shelf space either. Thanks for reading this ramble, I'd better go and get on with it. Wish me luck ! PS: any hints on dealing with resin kits, please chip in, apart from conversion and detail sets I'm very much new to the medium for a complete kit.

Hi Here are the latest figures from Reedoak : US Navy fighter pilot thumb up, and standing flight deck weight bord operator : and a civilian race car gentleman driver, with tied at waist overall : plus a magazine photoreporter : (and famous scale modeller, in our small french world...) Cheers Norbert

A little less than a year ago I built Nichimo’s 1/20 Cessna Skyhawk. A modeling friend saw the finished kit and asked me to build the one which had been in his stash for several years. completed model here: http://www.coldbasementmodels.com/?page_id=2175 The problem was that his kit was missing its engine. (The original owner had mysteriously absconded with both the engine and nose gear strut.) But guess who had made rubber molds of that engine during construction of that first airplane? As it happened, I had enough spare resin castings to cobble together a Lycoming O-320 to replace the missing components. Not as as good as the original metal components, but more than adequate. Patching holes in the floor plate. The original model dates to the early 1980’s and has a lot of weird “features”. We’ll be going with the dark blue interior on this one.

Hello! I am looking for aircraft wheels suitable for WWI airplanes and for the interwar stuff. Both civilian and military. I know there is a MasterCaster(?) set for the Nieuport 17 with a cowl and a pair of wheels. Are there any other sets out there? BTW, does anybody know what is the diameter of the aforementioned Nieuport 17 wheels? Regards - dutik