Ructions at Airfix. Bf 109 F-4 starter kit

Following on from Luke's departure to Revell, Head of Brand at Airfix Dale has been pushed out (or jumped ship before being pushed) and gone to Heller. Dale has been replaced by a marketing whizz ( and former wedding bridal dress store owner allegedly) according to what you can read and watch. Which means she knows nothing about scale modelling. Obviously the brand appears to be undertaking cost cutting measures, perhaps anticipating a sale by Hornby? Some of the planned 2026 releases also allegedly appear to have been ditched.  After my issues with their new releases (missing sprues in the Wessex box) any 'loyalty' I might have been cultivating towards Airfix has now also gone out the window.. 

So just time to mention that the Bf 109 F (Friedrich) starter set I've just finished was really not worth the effort. Lacking in detail and finesse this 109 carries on the Airfix 'tradition' of being incapable of producing a decent small scale Bf 109. The box art shows a Jabo Jagd-bomber of III. /JG 77 on the Eastern Front - but the kit does not feature a bomb rack or any ordnance. As the new Gruppe had to have a Jabo-Staffel (a fighter squadron that could occasionally operate as a light bomber with a 250 kg bomb under its belly), 7. Staffel was designated to fulfill this role. The one decal option in the kit provides the markings for 7./JG 77 Staffelkapitän Wolf-dieter Huy. You also get a stand for your nearly £12 outlay, which is way way over-priced too. A poor 3 out of 10 is my rating. Seen on the table at Shepway Military Modelling Society club night, first Monday of the month at the Hawkinge Battle of Britain Museum... 

Great War SIG at West Norfolk IPMS show

.. first post taking in the SIGs at last week's IPMS West Norfolk show. These fine 1:72 models are all the work of Mr Steve Cox. Although there were no triplanes on the table until I pointed it out. Note that Steve doesn't rig his builds - his 'philosophy' is that building model kits should be 'for fun' and rigging is not fun! Note that some of these 72nd scale models like the Friedrichshafen and Gotha bombers are vac-forms!  That doesn't sound like fun either to be honest!

Shepway Military Modelling, Saturday 13 June (Part 2)

 

Held every year at the Community Centre in Hawkinge, this is our small local club show. Arrived at 08:00 on the dot to find that set-up was well underway. Bacon roll and teas at 09:00, and the show opened at 10:00. Plenty of clubs and traders present and the competition tables soon started to fill up.  We (Shepway) were opposite the Gravesham and East surrey clubs... 

and some views of the competition tables. Best in show was this U-boat with Steve's Airfix Spitfire also in the running. Alan's Antonov was very nice too... 

Shepway Military Modelling and West Norfolk IPMS shows, 13/14 June 2026 (Part 1)

 

On Saturday we made the short trip to Hawkinge for the annual Shepway show. More on that soon. The next morning we drove up to Littleport near Cambridge for the West Norfolk IPMS show, or, as they call it, the 'West Anglia Scale Model Show'. The West Norfolk/Anglia show is a comparatively large one, filling Littleport leisure centre  - around 50 clubs and SIGs exhibiting and 20-30 traders and stands. We were located next to IMPS Rivenhall, Thurrock Model Club and the Sherman SIG opposite Marilyn's East Anglia Books and the incredible 'Models for Sale' stand. Theme of the show as the 90th anniversary of the Spitfire. A few views of the table and some models from the shows.

John's Trumpeter 1:48 SM.79 was awarded 'Best Aircraft' (on the right) at the West Norfolk show. My Dr.1s and Udet's red Me 109 lurking in the background below and my Jaguar in the middle of the table in the first view above.

HMS Belfast 1:350

 Simon's competition winner from the Trumpeter kit at the IPMS East Kent June club meet.

unknown Eastern Front Tiger in a diorama setting

 

 Ade's (Shepway Military Modelling Society -SMMS) on-going Tamiya Tiger dio. Identification of the Tiger I, unit, location and time frame is proving difficult. Kharkov, s.Pz. Abt 505 possibly but the Tiger is 'white-washed', it appears to be late winter and s.Pz. Abt 505 was not deployed to that region until summer 1943. Note the Tiger is devoid of markings. The roof tiles were individually 3-D printed. 

A couple of images from a French publication entitled 'Tigers at Leningrad', a special issue by 'Batailles' in 2006 (Histoire et Collections). This was not a random magazine article on Tigers but a special issue based on the photo album of Max Loetsch of s.Pz.Abt 502 (1/502) - these images from the chapter covering the second battle of Lake Ladoga (February 1943) depict some of the first combats of Operation Iskra, the Soviet operation to relieve Leningrad. Note there are no markings of any sort on the Tiger. The timber building to the left appears to be in a very similar style to the subject photograph, a location where the battalion was quartered briefly..