Old Man

Going for an even half-dozen here, Gentlemen. The Heller kit is real treat, certainly the best of the classic Gladiator models. Fit is excellent, it is well engineered, and has a number of good details in, such as the cut-out in the tail and the hand-holds in the upper wing. I did a little extra detailing on the interior, though very little of it will be seen with the kit transparencies in place.

Excellent work, Sir! looking forward to more. By the way, wife thinks it looks cute....

I am going to try and squeeze in one more, Gentlemen, for an even half-dozen: I have just finished the Demon (though I will not have pictures till next week), and am just about done painting the Cleveland races P-36C. The new entry will be a Heller Gladiator (1/72 of course), finished as a machine of 33 Sqn. at Ramleh in Palestine towards the end of 1938 (aluminum dope overall, but with squadron codes, not spearhead emblem).

Further progress here, Gentlemen. Cabanes have been added, and rigging, wheels and such, are done. The wheels are from the spares box, and originated with a Smer Dewoitine 510; they match,with a little bit of work, the wheels on the tinted photograph of a Demon at Malta than the kit's wheels do. There was a bit of a set-back, but it has been over-come, and there is no point in raking over the sordid details. I will say that I should have used five thou card for the aileron works on the underside of the upper wing rather than the foil tape, which does not provide a secure anchor for stru

Home stretch indeed, Sir....

Thanks for the tip, Sir. I will keep an eye out for them. If I may make a suggestion, in the vein you have begun? Perhaps some Iranian markings for a Hind or Audax, or a Fury (not really a kit for the last,but it is an easy conversion from either the Revell or A-Model Fury kits). Afghan markings for a Hind or a Polikarpov R-1 (Soviet-built Dh-9a) would be a treat, too.

It is going to be a striking model, Sir. Well worth 'just getting it done'.

Damn,Sir, there are some nice subjects there! The Egyptian Gladiator and Iraqi Audax are of particular interest to me.

A good deal of further progress on this, Gentlemen. I held the 'putting off doing the ####### windscreen' stage to a minimum, and have the upper wing on, as well as such items as tail-plane struts and gunsights and exhaust pipes. Color tones have been finalized (the dark green drabbed down, the light green greyed a bit, and the light and dark earths yellowed out somewhat),and the roundel decal applied. Cabane bracing wires and aileron control wires have been 'pre-positioned' (attached at one end to the fuselage and the upper wing,rspectively). These wires will be finished before the c

A good deal of further progress on this, Gentlemen. I held the 'putting off doing the ####### windscreen' stage to a minimum, and have the upper wing on, as well as such items as tail-plane struts and gunsights and exhaust pipes. Color tones have been finalized (the dark green drabbed down, the light green greyed a bit, and the light and dark earths yellowed out somewhat),and the roundel decal applied. Cabane bracing wires and aileron control wires have been 'pre-positioned' (attached at one end to the fuselage and the upper wing,rspectively). These wires will be finished before the c

Major assembly is now complete: wings, tail-plane, motor and cowling all are together. I had to file the Aeroclub motor severely, even putting a bit of oval section and some taper to it, to get it into the cowling space. The -problem'is that the motor is to proper scale size, but the thickness of the kit pieces is hardly to scale, and of course could not be and retain structural integrity. I expect this happens a lot with after-market items. I had some bad moments putting on the cowling piece, but consider them part and parcel of the motor fit, not inherent to the kit pieces. Fit of

Quite a bit of progress on this one, Gentlemen. First, some detailing. Here is what can be found inside the rudder cut-out: At the top, there is something that seems to be a support for the rudder; the rest is the works of moving the elevators; a collared connecting rod, horns, and push-rods at the bottom. Here are the landing gear pieces as they stand now: The legs themselves had to be thinned down considerably, as did the covers themselves. The covers actually should curve in appreciably at the bottom, I think I have managed to suggest this, at least, in thinning them, but the pie

Thank you for the kind words, Gentlemen. I must confess it is a bit of fun doing something without struts....

You have taken on one helluva challenge, Sir! Hals und Beinbrechen!

Great looking finish, Sir! A real treat for the eyes, this....

Good to see this coming together, Sir! This is quite a big bird, it seems.

Damn, Sir! Beautiful work!

This one is done, Gentlemen...at least sort of. After taking these pictures, I noticed a couple of points where touchings-up were required on hub-caps and spats (one of the weak points of doing several builds at once is losing track of some fine detail in each). So I am putting up these pictures of the beastie on its stand, but will do the touching up and take final finished pictures next weekend to replace these. I am pretty happy with how this one came out. A reasonably trouble-free build; a classic kit of a classic plane, that is worth putting in a bit of extra effort to improve

Curtiss P-6E, 33rd Pursuit Squadron, Langley, 1937 (Monogram 1/72 kit, with some improvements here and there,including Starfighter Decals)....

With the cockpit made and painted and the wheel wells done, fuselage and wings can be assembled, and the pieces scribed. The square area cut out in the front of the rudder will contain some visible works; in planes of this period it is always wise to look closely at the tail area, for usually something weird is visible there. Here are two pictures with the wing assembly dry-fitted to the fuselage assembly: The insides of the cowling have been thinned out considerably to assist fit of the motor (though much filing on that piece is still necessary. I have trimmed a away a locator pi

This is moving right along, Gentlemen.... The next step after making the cockpit elements is dealing with the wheel wells. The legs retracted against a solid surface, and it was,I gather, usual for a fitted canvas liner to be employed in the recess the wheels retracted into, to protect the wing's interior. The wheel wells require notchings be made the ends of the upper wing; here is one wing upper half dry-fitted in place to illustrate:

Thank you,Sir. I hope you do enter a 'silver wings' Gladiator here. I hope to be able to manage building one of my Heller Gladiators in such a scheme for this group build, though it will be a close run thing to get done by New Years, with the other builds in hand.

Thank you, Sir. This is one that has been tickling to be done for a long time; I made one earlier attempt, but was working from a verbal description of colors employed that was erroneous; there has been a lot of error and guess-work about this one-off scheme in circulation for years.

Having the cabanes on was too delicate, so I have removed them, and will attach them again when the upper wing is on the interplanes. Here are a few more pictures showing the nose details, the profile, and a close-up of the tail workings....

After further cleaning up and re-priming, painting is underway, Gentlemen! The pattern is modeled on the second from the bottom in the picture of 74 Sqdn machines in flight above. Colors are Light Green, Dark Green, Light Earth and Dark Earth. By comparing a photograph with color fields identified with a plain black and white version of the same picture, it seems that the lightest shade of grey is light green, the middle shade light earth, and the darkest shade dark green or dark earth; the annotated copy,plus comment in documents, suggests very little dark earth was used, and that mostly on f