Saturday, May 10, 2014

Aircraft walkaround vol.39 : Boulton Paul Dediant

Subject: Boulton Paul Defiant Mk I N1671
Location: RAF Museum, Hendon, London, 2013
Comments: The Boulton Paul Defiant was a British interceptor aircraft that served with the Royal Air Force (RAF) during the Second World War. The Defiant was designed and built by Boulton Paul Aircraft as a "turret fighter", without any forward-firing guns. It was a contemporary of the Royal Navy's Blackburn Roc. The concept of a turret fighter related directly to the successful First World War-era Bristol F.2 FighterIn practice, the Defiant was found to be reasonably effective as a bomber–destroyer, but vulnerable to the Luftwaffe's more agile, single-seat Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters. Lack of forward armament proved to be a major weakness in daylight combat and its potential was only realized when it switched to night combat. It was supplanted in the night fighter role by the Bristol Beaufighter and de Havilland Mosquito. The Defiant found use in gunnery training, target towing, electronic countermeasures (ECM) and air-sea rescue. Among RAF pilots, it had the nickname "Daffy".












Thursday, May 1, 2014

Walkaround race cars vol.3: Lotus 97T - Ayrton Senna da Silva

Subject: Lotus 97T - Ayrton Senna da Silva
Location: Honolulu, Hawai, USA 2012.
Comments: This post is to celebrate the live of one of the greatest race drivers of all time, Ayrton Senna da Silva, who died in an accident exactly 20 years ago. Famous for his ability to drive fast in rainy weather and for his skills in training, being one of the top pole position winners of F1. The Lotus model 97T was a very competitive car, with 8 pole positions and three wins on the hands of Ayrton during the 1985 season. Driving the Lotus 97T, Ayrton got his first F1 win at the GP of Estoril, Portugal, in 1985 under pouring rain! Sundays were never the same since he passed away. Formula 1 became safer but lost some of it´s charm and glory. May he be always remembered!















Saturday, April 26, 2014

Military aircraft vol.66: Thor IRBM cuban crisis missile


Subject:
Thor IRBM - Cuban Missile Crisis rocket
Scale:
1/144
Manufacturer:
New Ware models
Price
US$ 24,00 + shipping
Description
Resin casting with decals
Comments
Construction was out of the box. Overall fit is excellent. Painting was done using tamiya acrylics. Decals performed well and were in perfect register.






Kit review vol.17: Thor IRBM Cuban crisis missile



Subject:
Thor IRBM - Cuban Missile Crisis rocket
Scale:
1/144
Manufacturer:
New Ware models
Price
US$ 24,00 + shipping
Description
Resin casting with decals
Comments
New ware is a Czech manufacturer of resin space models. The resin casting is outstanding. The models were send by mail in a sturdy box and very well protected. The Thor kit is made of a main body, the engine compartment and engine bell and the nose cone. Decals are provided for one version. There is an A4 intsruction sheet with exploded diagram and painting indications.

Kit parts:




Monday, April 21, 2014

Spacecraft vol.3: Jupiter bioflight 2


Subject:
Jupiter: IRBM - Bioflight 2 - first living creatures recovered from space
Scale:
1/144
Manufacturer:
New Ware models
Price
US$ 24,00 + shiping
Description
Resin casting with photo-etched metal parts and decals
Comments
This is a nice model to build. Resin casting is outstanding. As you can see by the review, there are not too many parts to built, so construction goes fast, quite a weekend project. Painting was done with alclad II and tamiya acrylics. Decals performed very well. The base is 1/35 scale display for figures. I just add a round piece of plasticard, painted it white an used an American flag decal. It was a fun and easy project!

Construction:





 The finished project:





Videos vol. 7: Bioflight - the first creatures in space






Kit review vol.16: Jupiter: IRBM - Cuban Crisis missile, Bioflight 2 - first living creatures recovered from space




Subject:
Jupiter: IRBM - Cuban Crisis missile, Bioflight 2 - first living creatures recovered from space
Scale:
1/144
Manufacturer:
New Ware models
Price
US$ 24,00 + shiping
Description
Resin casting with photo-etched metal parts and decals
Comments
New ware is a Czech manufacturer of resin space models. You can get from them military or civil rockets from all major space race countries. The resin casting is fantastic, with no bubbles and great detail. The models were send by mail in a sturdy box and very well protected. Photo-etched metal parts and decals were provided for a perfect finish. Most subjects are in 1/144 scale, but you wil find some subjects in 1/48, 1/72 and 1/24. You can order at their website: http://mek.kosmo.cz/newware/. Service is very nice and postage is not expensive.


The box:

The kit package:


The model parts:


Nice detail for scale around the engine compartment

The small parts along with photo-etcehd metal parts and decals