1/48 Revell Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress - Man-O-War II"/"Horsepower Ltd."

 

Depicted as "Man-O-War II"/"Horsepower Ltd." (LG-V). B-17G-25-DL Flying Fortress S/N 42-38083 from the 322nd Bomber Sqn, 91st Bomb Group 8th United Stated Army Airforce 

The aircraft was lost on November 2,1944 on a mission to Merseburg, Germany after being attacked by Fw-190's near the target and catching fire. 5 KIA, 4 POW. (Info from here)

The Build

This kit took me a long time as I was busy with real life stuff. The kit is a bit of a pain to build with all the clear parts and the huge gap between the lower wing and the Fuselage.  The ball turret also took me 3 tries, and I'm still not that happy with it.

The kit has a lot of detail on the inside so a skilled modeller (unlike me) may be able to do a cut away.

The Photos

1/48 Hasegawa Hawker Typhoon IIB - Wing Commander D J Scott Tangmere Wing 1943

 

Depicted as an aircraft flown by New Zealand Wing Commander D J Scott Tangmere Wing 1943

The Build

Originally I was going to build this out of the box and got the decals on. I applied a coat of Tamiya clear from the Spray can and this disaster occurred. Lesson learnt.

I picked up some new decals nice and cheap at a model show (Aero Master Storm in the Sky pt XII) and after stripping the model I came up with this effort. 

I am actually pretty happy with how it came out as I had managed to lose and break some pieces in the process. The Exhausts were Ultracast aftermarket ones as I lost one of them down the sink -  Doh!

The kit went together ok although it is obvious that the same basic kit is used for the "cab door" Typhoon, hence the fuselage comes in 4 pieces, I didn't really get these to fit as well as I should, so a bit of filler and sanding was required. There was also a huge gap (2-3mm) between the fuselage and the wings.

Painting and Finishing

The kit was painted with Humbrol Enamels, I gave up trying to find out the exact colours and just used what looked right. I used Pledge One Go as the gloss clear coat prior to applying decals and weathering. I used Tamiya Smoke for the exhaust and gun stains and also gave the entire model a light dust with this as well. The flat coat was Gunze Flat.

The Photos

1/48 Hasegawa Douglas A-4K Skyhawk - No 75 Squadron RNZAF

 

Depicted as an aircraft from No. 75 Sqn Royal New Zealand Airforce circa 1985

The Build

In the  1/48 Hasegawa A-4E/F Kit, there's every thing you need to make a early Kiwi A-4K. The only mod you have to do is remove a couple bits on the intakes and change the lower anti collision light from the left to right hand side. 

Except for the rocket launcher I used weapons from the Hasegawa weapons set a. A-4's always look better fully loaded, so I decided to load the aircraft with 6 MK82's on a MER, a AIM-9G and 2 300 gal drop tanks. 

The Paint

I used the Gunze Sangyo Acrylics for the Grey (FS36222), Brown (FS 30219), and Light green (FS 34102), for the Dark green (FS 34079) Gunze colour looked way to dark so I used Tamiya's XF58 Olive green. This just looked more like the green in the photos I had. As usual (for me) I airbrushed them free hand, As real aircraft are usually painted free hand I figure I may as well paint my models that way.

One thing I noticed is the access ladder bends inwards just like the real thing. F

For the remove before flight tags I used red painted tin foil cut into strips. This was before I discovered after market RBF tags.

Decals

I used some of the Hasegawa decals but the RNZAF decals are the excellent Gecko Graphics A-4 Decals. If you want to build a Kiwi A-4 these are the decals to get. I'll be using them on the other 3 A-4s I intend to build.  

Overall though I think it has turned out OK. There is one glaring error I made, considering I worked on A-4K's I really should off noticed it.

The Photos