Completed Review - Hobby-Boss F9F-2 Panther - Part 2

Scale: 1:72, RRP - £11.99

It's been a while since I started this kit and to tell the truth it's also been a while since I finished it, I've just not got round to writing about it. In fact it's been so long I've forgotten most of the build process, so I'll keep this short.

Carrying on from where I left off, I seem to remember, the cockpit fitted well but it was essential to add some weight to the nose. However the odd part was the nose wheel assembly, it was required to fit this into the wheel well at an early stage which meant for the duration of the build you had to be very careful not to bend or break it.

As I recall the fit was really good, two halves went together and the wings fitted with no issues. The final step was to add the fuel tanks to the wings, again that was straight forward. The only issue was the cleaning up of the parts where they'd been attached to the sprues which I'd mentioned previously.

And now it time to begin painting, which took a couple of attempts as I was having my usual issues with Tamiya paints, in this case XF-17 (Navy Sea Blue) which was the main colour for this aircraft. Of course this no reflection on the kit, just my lack of experience using Tamiya paints.

Now the next part I do remember well, the decals. They were good quality, I don't think I had any major issues getting them on the model. However the big issue with them is that in my opinion they're not to scale! I compared photos, other kits and even the decal guide contained in this kit and I can confidently say they're oversized. This was especially apparent on the nose where it was quite difficult to squeeze them into the available space.

Once the decals were on I could add the under wing ordnance and this was another strong point of the kit . There was plenty to choose from, although I think if you added all the bombs you'd probably have an aircraft that would struggle to take off!

With that in mind I opted for a mix of bombs and rockets and it was done.


I have say that really liked this kit. For me it was a good introduction to Cold War era jets and the kit combined with the Eduard photo-etch made a very nice model that went together well. Pity about those decals...

Overall Build Score: 3.5 out of 5, an extremely nice kit, full of detail but let down by the oversized decals.

Build Review - Hobby-Boss F9F-2 Panther - Part 1

One of my my objectives for the year had been to build an early Cold War era jet in 1:72 scale. I'd originally expected to build Tamiya's F-84, however this kit from Hobby-Boss caught my eye, especially when I saw it for sale for just £4!

I'd previously only attempted one of Hobby-Boss's Easy Kits and so thought this would be a good time to try a "proper" kit and was pleasantly surprised at what it had to offer. On the sprues the parts looked detailed and sharp and there were two decal options, one Korean War era US Navy aircraft and one later Argentinian Navy option, presumably one that was sold off when the US decided they no longer needed them.

A while ago I'd removed a few parts from the sprue and have to say the sprue layout was not the best. There were several badly placed sprue tabs attached to awkward locations, in some cases attached to the very thinnest parts of the kit. This made the parts fairly difficult to remove without damaging them.

But that aside it was time to get started, and where else, but with the cockpit. In this case I was to enhance it with Eduard's self-adhesive zoom set (SS398). There were some fantastically small but detailed parts but I felt with the bubble top canopy it was worthwhile as most of this would be visible. I have to say the self-adhesive sets haven't been as adhesive as I'd expected them to be. On flat surfaces they will stick, elsewhere I found I needed glue.

Paint wise, I brush painted with my now custom interior green Citadel paint mix.

I'm sure you'll agree, it looks really good, well worth the effort!

Cold War Jets at RAF Bruntingthorpe

Yesterday I decided to head out to RAF Bruntingthorpe, with a friend of mine, to visit a Cold War Jets open day. Partly I wanted get a bit of inspiration for my Cold War jet goal which I've set myself for the next year as well as see the jets in action. The day features various jets from the era doing taxi runs along the runway at Bruntingthorpe, but no take-offs, so that spectators can get much closer to the aircraft than they would at a normal air show.

As we'd arrived their early we were able to get out onto the runway where a couple of the larger aircraft, a Handley Page Victor, a Hawker Siddeley Nimrod and an English Electric Canberra were getting ready for their runs. The Victor has become famous locally, after an accidental take off back in 2009 so I grabbed a few quick photos before heading over to the Canberra.

Handley Page Victor

The crew of the Canberra were kind enough to let me grab a few photos of the cockpit through the entry door, hopefully they'll prove to be useful should I decide to model one at some point in the future.

English Electric Canberra

Next up was the Blackburn Buccaneer, since my last visit the collection seems to have acquired a few more which was good to see, including one in a Gulf War (the 1990's) desert camouflage scheme which of course was the last time the RAF Buccaneers were used in combat.


But of course, the highlight of this show are the two English Electric Lightnings that are based here which I've written about before. With the new releases from Airfix the Lightning is currently high on my wish list when it comes choosing a Cold War aircraft to build. I have to confess my photographs are better on my previous post so I'll leave you with a short video.

It's a lot louder than the video makes out, you might be able to tell from the reaction of the people in the crowd!

Completed Review – Tamiya MiG 21 (61602)

Scale: 1:72, RRP - £3.99

A while back I attempted to build one of Tamiya's largely forgotten series of 1:100 aircraft, in this case a MiG-17 which if I'm honest was a less than impressive build. So as a result I've largely forgotten this series until I saw some for sale at the Shropshire Scale Model Show the other week. As they were selling for £2.99 each I thought I might well give them another go.

The MiG-21 is a fighter I've always found interesting, back from the days when aircraft designers still tried to build aircraft that resembled sci-fi rocket ships and so I was keen to see how this one would build.

Opening up the kit and the parts looked good, to my untrained eye it certainly looked like a MiG-21. There are a choice of 4 markings, (two Soviet, one Polish, one Vietnamese) all in silver, so in reality it's a case of painting it up and then just choosing which decals to apply.

As builds go it was absolutely straight forward as there aren't many parts at this scale. Cockpit detail consists of a seat, which once the canopy is on is all you'll see anyway. Apart from that you have choice of wheels up or down. Unlike the MiG-19 the missile pylons and missiles were much less of a struggle to attach which was a relief

 Paint wise I used a base coat of Tamiya AS-12 (spray) and then masked individual panels and airbrushed them with Tamiya X-11. This was mostly down to the fact that these two colours were only silvers I had! A coat of semi-gloss spray and then on with the decals, I decided to go for the Vietnamese variant.

As it happens I know a bit about this particular aircraft, 4326, it's one of several on display outside the Hanoi Aircraft Defence Museum, it's well known as a "Phantom Killer" and among its pilots it counts Nguyen Van Coc, the highest scoring ace of the war. It is actually a MiG-21PF and because the painting instructions weren't quite accurate I made some changes. I referred to the more accurate painting instructions for Academy's 1:48 MiG-21PF kit, of which this aircraft is one of the options to build.

The changes were, a dark green nose cone, and the fin at the rear (rather than black) and the cockpit colour which I changed to that awful Russian interior turquoise. It a shame there aren't any decals for the kill markings that adorn the nose of this aircraft, I guess this version will have to be an early version!

I really enjoyed this build, it was quick, fairly simple but still, the end result is a model that I think looks really nice when on display. It's now got me looking for one in my preferred 1:72 scale!


Overall Build Score: 3 out of 5, a simple and yet good looking kit that was a breeze to build. Let down only slightly by the lazy painting instructions.

Completed Review – Tamiya MiG 19 (61609)

Scale: 1:72, RRP - £3.99

A quick review of a quick build, Tamiya's 1:100 scale MiG-19 Farmer.

The 1:100 scale was introduced many years ago as a competitor to the well established 1:72 scale. However it never really took off and remains largely forgotten. Outside of Tamiya's small range no other models really come to my mind.

I was only reminded of this scale when I typed an incorrect search into eBay and found this particular kit for sale at 99p. So a few 99p bids later and I had myself a MiG-19, a B.A.C Lightning and an A-7A Corsair II all in this scale. All of these kits date from about 10 years ago when Tamiya re-released the range. Some of the originals, I believe, date back to the 1970's.

I decided to start with the MiG-19, continuing from my previous build a MiG-15. As you'd expect, the kit is simple, there are only 3 steps in the instructions and this particular kit can be completed with only 3 colours. There are options for 3 aircraft, 1 Soviet, 1 East German, 1 Cuban however they're all the same bare metal silver finish with a different set of decals for each one.

Despite the small parts count what there is, is good, and provides a reasonable little model straight out of the box. My main criticism of this kit was the way the missiles are attached to the wing as they were extremely awkward to attach given their size.

I decided to do my MiG in Cuban colours, I've applied many red star decals in recent weeks so felt it was time for a change! Overall it was nice relaxed build (forgetting the missiles...) and I'm certainly going to do more 1:100 scale aircraft in the future.

Overall Build Score: 2 out of 5, a fun but awkward build. Slightly lacking in detail as to be expected given the scale and age of the kit.

Cold War Jets Open Day - RAF Bruntingthorpe (25th August 2013)

Here are few pictures I took at last year's Cold War Jets open day at the RAF Bruntingthorpe in Leicestershire. It was this event that renewed my interest in Cold War era jets and I can highly recommend that you take a visit to this year's event.

The event involves various jets, trainers, fighters, bombers, making full power taxi runs along the runways, but no take-offs. This means spectators are allowed closer to the aircraft as they are moving.

RAF Bruntingthorpe is also home to the Lightning Preservation group who have restored two of last English Electric lightning to fly, at least one of these should be taxiing on the day.

In this case I was allowed on the taxiway as this Canberra approached!

So if you get the chance check it out, just don't forget your ear plugs! For more information about the open day click here and for the Lightning Preservation Group click here.

So why am I writing about this event? Well this was moment that I first thought about trying to build model aircraft again, and yes, I do have a Lightning kit in my stash waiting to be built (2 actually...)!