Airfix new-tool 1/48 Phantom FG1

 

Airfix 1/48 Phantom FG1 as built by Bill Clark and on show at East Kent Scale Modellers' October club night. Click on the images to view them large.. 

One or two small(ish) issues which needed correcting. Seats were Quick Boost, ladder from Flight path. Model painted with Humbrol acrylics. The 111 Sqn markings came from various sources. Bill commented that he didn't use all the stencils, finding them too 'stark' against the light grey. General comments at our club - a lovely kit but at £75 when most still had Hasegawa/Revell FGR 2s in the stash meant that one or two had no plans to get one...

A full build article will be published in a forthcoming edition of Scale Aircraft Modelling - SAM

Tiger Tiger! - Saumur Musée des Blindés unveils 'new' Tiger I

 

Courtesy of militarymachine.fr and the Saumur museum here a few views of the recently unveiled Tiger I seen alongside the always impressive Tiger II in an event for fundraisers. A 'World first' claimed by the French at the end of a three-year restoration to have these two Tigers 'in motion' alongside each other. Note the French roundel and the 'Bretagne' marking but this machine - after escaping the Falaise pocket - was a French ' war prize' captured after colliding with another Tiger and being abandoned. It was apparently restored to working order by an FFI unit after being left behind by the German owners. The German Balkenkreuze have been literally scraped off the hull. Note the 'off-set' muzzle brake. A single click on the 'red' square to watch the video below without leaving this site.. 

Produced near the end of Tiger I manufacturing, the tank was delivered in April 1944 to the 102nd SS Heavy Panzer Battalion and fought in the Battle of Normandy. In August 1944, while trying to escape the Falaise-Chambois pocket, it collided with another Tiger tank, damaging its front armour and rendering it immobile before the crew abandoned it. During the winter of 1944–1945, French Forces of the Interior (FFI) led by Besnier recovered the vehicle. The "Bretagne" Squadron - repaired and put back into action, it was renamed "Bretagne" as part of an independent FFI tank squadron where vehicles were named after French provinces. It later saw combat during the liberation of the Saint-Nazaire pocket. Following the war, it was briefly renamed "Colmar" in the 6th Cuirassier Regiment, sent for occupation duties in Germany, and later used for technical experiments and trials at Satory.

Eduard Fw 190 A - 'old' new-tool. What a dog! (part 2)

 

Finished the Eduard Fw 190 A-5 - the 'old' new-tool 'weekend edition'  Obviously it is not designed to be built 'closed-up' (or even finished in a weekend!) but I did not want to leave it all open. I drew the line at filling, filing and sanding a second cannon-bay hatch and left the starboard wing-root door open. Some of the engine parts have to be mounted (somehow) inside the cowling panels in order to have the BMW fan correctly positioned.. 

The other point to mention about this kit is the poor 'sit' or 'stance' of the finished model - it definitely needs some tweaks to the gear legs. 

Finished as 'black 7' flown by the Staffelkapitän of 5./JG 54 - Lt. Emil Lang. During the late spring/ early summer of 1943 bands of earth brown/sand were roughly applied over the two greens and the unit's green heart markings were over-painted - not 100% convinced by the paint finish, it looks a little too neat to my eyes, but at this stage I was just happy to get something that looked reasonably 'presentable' on the shelf.. 

Some images from Huw Morgan's build of this kit - or rather the A-8/R2 boxing - that was featured in the now defunct 'SAMI' in 2015. I chuckled at the 'minimal filler' needed. There isn't one part of this kit that fits to another that doesn't require it! Obviously if you attempt this - I do have another in the stash -  you will encounter the same issues.

Wessex HU 5. walkaround - reference photos for the new 1:72 Airfix kit

.. Yes I appreciate that the HU 5 and the HC 2 are not (quite) the same aircraft but really the differences are not major, certainly not in 1:72 scale. While I finished the new-tool Airfix Wessex earlier in 2026, it is only now appearing in the latest issue of Scale Aircraft Modelling. Here's a few images that I took at the RAF Manston History museum of XS 482 (an HU.5) that I wish I'd had when I was actually building the kit - in particular showing details of the lower fuselage exhausts ( I was convinced these were wrong on the kit, but they are not..) and the 'pincer'-like tie-down 'arms' behind the main wheels. Click on the images to view them full size...