Sea Harrier

Here are some pics of my son's birthday present we built together. The kit is an older Tamiya 1/48 Sea Harrier FR.1. He picked the markings (because its a "pirate flag") and all the colors. Not too bad for a toddler.

Ki-84 Hayate (Frank) "57 Special Attack Unit"

I got this 48th scale Hasegawa beauty at an IPMS show a couple of years ago and have finally gotten to build my first Japanese WW2 fighter. I went straight from the box on this one (Aeromaster decals excluded) and I'm glad that I didn't put any money into detailing it because it definitely didn't need it. So far, this kit has had the best surface detail I have ever worked with, as well as parts fitting properly. I did get a heads-up about the landing gear needing to be glued in, since the rubber grippers supplied by Hasegawa don't work the way they theoretically should. I filled the space for the grippers with Squadron Green Putty, let it dry, then drilled out holes for the pins and glued the gear struts when ready. This worked well and the landing gear is solid.

For the undersurfaces, I used the same process as my Buffalo and for the upper surfaces, I used a 70-30(ish) mixture of MM Military Brown and Burnt Umber. This color came out looking like a warm and rich chocolate brown that I like. Aeromaster's instructions suggest this aircraft was black over natural metal, but I like the brown better and other sources state that the aircraft from this unit were a dark chocolate brown. I added a black anti-glare panel on the nose, however, to break up the brown a little and I think this adds a little more interest.

I didn't want to weather this aircraft very much for a couple of reasons. First, this was a suicide attack aircraft which means the pilots probably didn't fly the aircraft a whole lot before they would have headed out for their ultimate mission. Secondly, the scheme is very beautiful and I didn't want to distract from it like a Bob Ross painting that has a huge tree right through the middle.

B339 Buffalo "2-VLG-V"

This is Tamiya's 1/48 B339 kit that highlights the late model Buffaloes sold to foreign nations who, at the outbreak of war in the late 30s/early 40s, needed fighters in a hurry, especially in the South Pacific. There were four marking options available: two Brittish examples, a Dutch East-Indies aircraft, and a U.S. Navy airframe in overall grey scheme. Because of the less-than-usual nature of the Dutch markings, I chose to model the aircraft flown by Lt. August Diebel. This was perhaps the most successful B339 airframe, Lt. Diebel having scored four kills in it. The Finns were more successful with the B139 Buffalo, which was much lighter and faced inferior aircraft than those fighting the Japanese in the South Pacific.

For the bare-metal finish of the undersides, a used Tamiya Silver from a spray can sprayed into a cup and then transferred into my airbrush cup over a gloss-black primer coat. Once dried, this made the base over which I could mask the other colors. To simulate different panels, I used various mixtures of Metal Master Aluminum and Stainless Steel Metalizers as well as MM Aluminum to simulate a silver laquer painted onto the fabric ailerons and elevators. The upper surfaces were MM Military Brown and MM Khaki Green. I have no idea whether these were accurate to the scheme that the Dutch used because in my research I haven't seen a single source that agreed with one another. Nevertheless, I like the way this scheme turned out which is most important.

The Tamiya Buffalo kit is a little dated, doesn't have enough detail in the landing gear bays, and the instrument panel looks a bit hokey, but overall I really like the kit. Straight from the box, this kit looks good to me and was fun to build. I'm not looking for it to win any awards anyway.

LaGG-3 "44 Fighter Regiment"

I came across this ICM kit for $10 while taking a weekend trip with my wife and I couldn't pass it up. ICM doesn't have the best reputation, but this kit was well detailed and overall quite good. It is definitely not for the beginner modeler because it does have some semi-serious fit issues at the engine cowling and trailing edge of the wing roots, as well as a lot of flash. Another area to watch out for is the fit of the wings and fuselage; the fit is too tight and causes the wing dihedral to vanish. There are also a couple of sink marks under the cockpit, but all of these problems are solvable. The pros to this kit are all the different cowling and exhaust options provided and a well-detailed cockpit. With a bit of research, know-how, and enginuity one can make almost any version of the LaGG-3 from this kit.

Another thing about the ICM kit is that the "Series" designations are confusing and probably incorrect. The LaGG-3 series assignment is very convoluted and depends on where and when the aircraft was made. I found a source that can help explain the early LaGG series with drawings of aircraft from each factory and may shed some light on why there is such a wide range of styles and explanations for them. Click here to link to this sight.

I chose to do "White 14" of the 44 IAP stationed near Leningrad in the fall of 1941. My original source (clike here to linke to this source) states that it was made at State Factory 153 in Novosibirsk. Having lived in Novosibirsk, this was the main reason I chose the subject. However, after some more research, it appears that the aircraft was made at Factory 23 in Leningrad, which makes sense since it was stationed at Leningrad and the oil cooler intake, tail wheel, and radiator outlet cutout are consistent with those produced at this factory.

The paint scheme uses the standard Green/Black colors, but is unique in its application. My original source calls it a "Bukhanova tiger-stripe" cammouflage, and this may be the real test to see which source was correct; where was Nadia Bukhanova working at the time this aircraft was produced? Either way, I used the kit stars and painted the white 14 numerals using a sticker stencil drawn from MS Paint. I really like this kit, and if you're willing to do a bit of research, you can modify this kit to whatever early-series LaGG-3 subject you wish.

Il-2M Shturmovik "White 24"

Rarely is the tail section of a model the point of interest, but I really like the uniqueness of this aircraft. The kit is from Eduard and it was rather fun to build. The build was quite complex but everything seemed to fit very well. I really liked how the radiator ducting went together to make a very realistic engine cowling.

The wings were nicely done, but I think that I put them together out of sequence and had to work a little harder to get them to fit right. The cockpit is also nicely done, and I really liked the tailgunner's compartment.

I chose this option from the kit because of it's unique scheme (apparently the Soviet Navy had a liking for dramatic paint schemes). Eduard's explanation for the differnt tail section was multiple repairs on the forward fuselage and wing areas. This may be true but my theory is that this aircraft suffered significant damage to the tail section and was replaced with a good tail section from another damaged aircraft, afterwhich, the crew added some personal markings of "For the Honor of the Guard" on the port side and "For the Motherland" on the starboard. This makes sense to me because the majority of the aircraft is painted in the earlier AII Green and Black scheme, where the fuselage tail has the later Raw Sienna color added. Also, photo evidence shows that the starboard aileron has been replaced and appears to be painted Raw Sienna.

Anyway, this kit came out beautiful and I really like it, eventhough the Il-2 has got to be one of the ugliest aircraft to come out of WWII victorious.

La-5FN "White 25"

This is a 1/48 Zvezda kit that I had to get when it was a new release. However, I needed to get through some of my other inventory and refine my technique before I was going to tackle this beauty. This was a very good kit, but like the Eduard Fw 190, a bit over-engineered especially in the engine and gun compartment areas.

The kit was designed to have an open gun/engine compartment option, but I saw two problems in Zvezda's execution. First of all, the removed panels on the kit are not depicted how the panels on the actual aircraft are removed to get access to the cannons or engine. To a modeler who is trying for accuracy, this would not do. Secondly, there is no firewall barrier for the cockpit, and I'm quite certain that the actual aircraft had one. This could have been aleviated by scratch-building with some styrene, but I didn't feel it was worth the effort with the first problem still to tackle. Needless to say, I omitted a lot of the engine pieces as well as the cannon pieces and just closed it all up. The cockpit was a little bit over-engineered as well but the execution was superb. I added the Eduard color update set which combined with the kit pieces made for one of the best cockpits I have ever seen. One other problem with this kit: the devise attached to the prop. spinner is depicted as a fan, similar to the Fw 190; these were actually closeable shutters that were fixed to the engine to regulate engine temperature and did not spin. A few modifications were necessary to fix the problem but were easily implemented.

The overall fit of the kit was good; I had to use a bit of super glue to fill a slight gap in the lower fuselage area and where the gun panels met with the rest of the fuselage, but mostly I had no difficult problem areas. There were a couple of sink marks on the outside fuselage pieces under the cockpit, but these were filled with super glue and sanded out fairly quickly and easily.

I used the kit decals. By the time I got to build this there were a couple of aftermarket options available, but they cost more than the kit and I'm on a budget. Good to know that the decals were actually quite good, if a little bit transparent.

I chose the bottom option from the kit, I liked the red nose and white tail, and I wasn't too impressed with the lion head decal or the Guards emblem decal for the other two options. I used Model Master Russian Topside Blue for the undersurfaces, FS 36375 mixed with a little bit of FS 36320 for the light grey, and FS 36118 mixed with bit of dark green for the dark grey. I used MM Italian Red to match (as closely as I could) the stars from the kit. Overall, this turned out to be a beautiful model. I now want to do an La-7 to round my family of Lavochkin fighters. Maybe I can find an Eduard Weekend edition out there somewhere.

Fw 190A-8/R8 "Black 8"

This is my second attempt at the 1/48 Eduard Fw190A-8. Since this was not my first Bar-B-Que, I knew what to watch out for and where to take a little extra time and the results were much better. I will skip the review of the kit because I have previously done this, and will let you just look at the photos. I detailed the engine and compartment, added the applique armor at the sides the cockpit with some thin, pliable metal sheets and although not seen in the photos, lowered the flaps as well as repositioned the elevators. Everything else is pretty much stock.

The markings were Unteroffizer Will Maximowitz's mount from 11/IV/JG 3, June 1944 once again provided by Aeromaster. I liked the nose markings and think that it highlights the engine detail well. I think this is the best model I have done so far. I think that I want to try some other Eduard Fw190s, specifically the D version; this is quickly becoming one of my favorite kits.

Ju 188E-1 "KG 66"

This is a quarter-scale Dragon/DML kit that my dad gave me for Christmas one year. I have always liked the look of the 188 and was excited to work on this model. I had previously worked on a Dragon Ju 88C and was fairly confident that I knew how to work around some of the quirks of this kit (one of them being the bulges at the wing roots). I bought an Eduard color, self-adhesive photo-etch packet for the cockpit thinking that it would have a better mount for the 20mm cannon, but this was not the case. However, the photo-etch still improved the cockpit and I stuck with the photo-etch cannon-mount supplied by Dragon.

I wish that I could have found some more colorful markings of this subject, but was stuck with either the kit decals (all options had this basic scheme) without swastikas, or go with an Aeromaster set that had the swastikas. Since I'm a stickler for having swastikas on aircraft that historically carried them I went with the Aeromaster set. The paint scheme was fairly easy and there were only six decals to apply so finishing this model was a breeze. I added some small bombs from my Eduard Fw190 kits and some large 'blockbuster' bombs from a Monogram He111 kit to add a little bit of visual interest to the model. All-in-all, I like this kit, but again, wish that there were some more colorful options available at the time. I may redo this model later if something better comes along.

B-25J Mitchell "My Duchess"

I am a huge fan of WWII twin-engined bombers. Too bad for me, there are not many kits of this type of subject out there in the 1/48 scale. However, I've never had trouble finding the venerable B-25 Mitchell. This kit was the Revell re-release of the classic Monogram B-25J kit.

Like the classic Monogram offering, this kit has great detail, considering its age, and some poor fitting areas due to warping. In the hands of an experienced modeler, however, this kit can still be an award winner.

The subject is a Mitchell from the 499 BS, 354 BG. The decals were provided by Model Master. I have always liked the nose art from the 354 BG, and the bats are my favorite. The decals were good, but I probaly could have painted most of the bat instead, saving a lot of aggrivation when the very large decals cracked and broke before finally settling down. I also added some depth to the paint scheme by using pastel chalk technique to simulate weathering. This kit was difficult and I added a lot of interior detail that unfortunately cannot be seen, but I had a lot of fun doing it anyway. It looks great on display next to my P-47.

P-47D Thunderbolt "Spirit of Atlantic City, NJ"

I scored this Tamiya kit for half price at a craft store becuase the box was crushed. Luckily, none of the parts were damaged. I really enjoyed this kit. It is well detailed, but not over engineered. The fit was better than most and the model went together rather quickly. The kit provides two options: 1) the ever-popular "Little Cheif" flown by Lt. Frank Klibbe, and 2) "Spirit of Atlantic City, NJ" flown by Capt. Walker "Bud" Mahurin, both of the famous "Zemke's Wolfpack" 56 Fighter Group. I chose the second option because "Little Cheif" is a pretty common subject and I find Capt. Mahurin's story very compelling.

I built this kit pretty much straight out of the box. The only detail that I added was the wiring harness on the engine and the seat belts. The paint scheme was the common ETO scheme (OD over Neutral Gray) with the white ID stripes - rather bland but the Razorback is so cool it doesn't need a pretty paint job to be impressive. However, I still wanted to add some depth to the product, so I used some heavy blending of various shades of pastelle chalks into the paint to simulate fading, repairs and exhaust, as well as some heavy drybrushing of alluminum for paint chipping. I think the effect came out quite subtle and realistic.

I chose to load the model with a bomb and some air-to-ground rockets; probably not a common loadout for Capt. Walker's aircraft, but the 56 FG at the time was experimenting with ground attack tactics and I wanted to highlight the P-47s ground attack capabilities. Overall, this was a great subject and a good kit to get me back into the mode of modeling. I honestly can't stop looking at it.