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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.........