ross blackford

:D, +1 here. I still do that. I wasn't satidfied with the prop blades in the Zvesda/Encore Ant-5/I-4. Wrong shape and wrong rotation so I carved and sanded my own from a couple of pieces of sprue and attached them to the spinner (which was pretty accurate in shape). , Ross.

:D, I'd like to tell an anecdote about a Lincoln in Aussie service back in the 50s. One of my flight sergeants back in the early 70s had been with one of the Lincoln squadrons in the 50s and one day they were returning to Nowra from a maritime patrol out over the Tasman sea. This man was in the tail turret and noticed a Navy Sea Fury approaching quickly from behind and reported to the skipper that this bloke had tucked in under the Lincoln's port wing and was using them as a sunvisor. The skipper said something along the lines of "Well, we'll see about that won't we" and promptly started a slo

:D, Hi afspret, the Lincoln has been kitted in 1/72 scale. As I said in an earlier post I have a Contrail vacuform 1/72 kit. Maybe no one has suggested it to any of the injection moulding manufacturers. Sometimes we have to make the suggestion because they are busy with other projects and may not even have thought of it. Years ago I emailed ICM asking if they had thought of making a new more accurate kit of the Polikarpov I-153 in 1/72 scale as their I-15 and I-15bis were beautifully done. They replied fairly quickly and said it was in their plans, just not at that time. Of course we now have

:D, RCAFFAN, Is it not permissable to get a little off track and bring a little levity into the discussion? Actually I've told Ken's joke to a few aviation minded people at work today who know about the Lincoln and Shackleton and the E-3 and they got a real hoot out of it. To answer your statement about what that Lincoln crew went through compared to what wartime Lanc crews went through, at least the Lanc crews were able to defend themselves to a point. That poor Lincoln crew had no hope of defending themselves against those MiG-15s and what's more the crewman drifting down in his parachute ha

:D, Hey Ken, No I haven't seen that one, but it doesn't surprise me in the least. Some time during the F-111's career in the RAAF there developed a number of problems with the TF-30 engine. The 3AD and 482 SQN sumpies at Amberley had these t-shirts printed that read Pratt and Whitless, Deplorable Engines. A team from P&W came to Amberley to fix the problem and demanded that the t-shirts not be worn on base. In those days (it must have been the late 70s, because in late 1980 the CAS introduced summer working dress of a blue t-sirt and dark grey shorts for us) there was no official summer wo

:D, Thank you for that Lance. And for the info on the rest of the family. I had read somewhere long ago that the Lincoln served a little longer than the Lancaster but I didn't know the York served almost as long as the Linc and Lanc. I did know that the Shack served almost twice as long as the Linc and Lanc. While we're on the family I read back in the 1980s in an American aviation mag that the Shackleton AEW 2, for what it was, was a good aircraft at it's job. Their comment was that only the Brits could fit a 1940s vintage radar to a 1950s vintage airframe and make it work so well in the 1980

:D, RCAFFAN, did you read the link in Dave Fleming's post? If being attacked by fully armed MiG-15s and getting shot down isn't combat involving an element of danger I don't know what is. Regardless of whether they were on the British side of the border or just over it on the Russian side makes no difference. The aircraft was attacked by MiG-15s firing live rounds and shot down. In this case the Lincoln was the one that couldn't fight back because the feed shutes to the mid upper turret had been removed and the tail turret guns had no ammo. Even one of the crew survivors was attacked and shot

:D, Same here fellows. I paid for a Gold Pass but their web site said all pre paid bookings will be refunded. thank goodness for that. Still it's disappointing this has happened, both for the spectators and the organizers. Oh well, just have to hang out till 2017 now. , Ross.

:D, G'day Mike. Just wondering if you washed the parts before assembly and then again washed the assemblies before painting. Did you prime the model before spraying the black. Primer would have brought out these problems before you painted your top coat. You can use Easy Off or oven cleaner as a plastic paint stripper. It looks like the orange peeling is severe and I don't know if a light rub with wet 'n dry would do the job. You could rub it back to bare plastic and then prime the model and then leave that a day or so to dry properly and then spray your black again. , Ross.

:D, Nick, I think 8 months is just fine. In fact 9 months would be even better. 6 months can be not long enough so I have no problem with 8 months Jay, I'd love to see that conversion in scale. Wondering how you'd do that. :lol: , Ross.

:D, Thank you Waco. Werther's Originals are my favourite hard boiled lollies. :D TT, I'd forgotten that the F/A-18 was a navy aircraft. That's a great shot you posted of an F/A18 being catapulted through the water on the deck. Thank you for sharing that. , Ross.

That would have to be the longest GB in ARC history wouldn't it. I might just get one or two finished if the GB goes for 16 years. LOL. , Ross.

:D, Goodness TT. Does that mean that both of our latest and most expensive ever military purchases can only be flown in fair weather? What'll we do when the Invasion comes? Please pray for us TT, we'll need all the prayers our friends can send up. Especially if it comes during weather like we've just had for the last week around Amberley and Williamtown. The small town of Dungog in the Hunter Valley about 50 miles from here last week copped 4" of rain in I bel;ieve 1/2 an hour and the locals have never seen the river there so high. 3 elderly people perished when their house floated away down t

Lest we forget. Ross.

:D, And in good weather. :lol: .

:D, You could have titled it Cosford RC Model show and yes I would have looked at it as I also like large scale flying RC models as is obvious by the fact that I made a special trip to Luskintyre a couple of years ago, not knowing exactly what I'd see there. There were some beautifully built models including the turboprop Turbo Porter and some of very rare aircraft. Anyone here ever heard of a Kreutzer Air Coach? There were about five of these built in the late 1920s early 1930s. There's one remaining today. It was a light American feederliner with three 100 hp Kinnner 5 cylinder radial engine

:D, If the Texan II has the wide low pressure tyres that our PC-9s have it may well be a very close match. and yes, I don't know why so many companies make prototypes when there are other popular production aircraft outthere that almost no one is producing. , Ross.

:D, Umm, Slartibartfast, Cosford is in the UK and can't you tell the difference between an Aussie accent and a Pommie one. Fantastic models there though especially that Vulcan. A couple of years ago some RC flyers brought their models to Luskintyre (which is in Australia). There were plenty of jets and even a model PC-6 Turbo Porter equipped with a real mini turbo prop engine. It sound just like the real thing both starting up and running on the ground and in the air. The prop even feathered when it was shut down just like the real thing. It was a work of art. , Ross.

:D, I have a number of hours in Cessna, Piper and Rockwell retractables and have never forgotten to put the gear down. All those aircraft have undercarriage warning horns so I can't understand how these things happen. Those pilots must ignore these horns or pull the circuit breaker. Part of the down wind checks before selecting u/c down, was to retard the throttle to the point where the horn sounded. Then advance the throttle again and then select u/c down. If you did it in this sequence you couldn't goof it up. There was a rather well known German WW2 pilot who was flying some army brass arou

:D/>/>, Hmmm. Landing gear accidents. Many years ago there was an airshow at Maitland one year and this pilot flew a Cessna 210 in for the day. He was piloting one of the display flying aircraft and his routine included selecting gear up while he was running up the engine at the end of the runway before each flight. He would then hold the nose down and let the speed build up to well above rotate speed and then quickly rotate the aircraft and as it became airborne the gear wold retract. In the single engined Cessnas at least the weight on wheel switch is on the nose gear leg. This routine

:D, I think I feel a Flankerman conversion coming on. , Ross.

:D, Hi there Jennings, Don't forget that props can kick up mud too. It isn't too far inboard for that. As for the lighter patch behind the cockpit it may just be the light. Apart form that I can't tell you. , Ross.

:D/>, Thank you Zac. Another one that has recently (well in the last 5 years) been covered by Khee Kha Productions is the Cessna 180/185 series. Does anyone know if thesee are still in production? There's a nice little privately owned 1955 185 floatplane that comes to the Catalina Festival every year that I'd someday like to model. :cheers:/>, Ross.

:D, I can see that young Gustaw is doing very well in his modelling there rav_pl. Keep encouraging him, he obviously has a good idea despite him being very young. You're also doing very well guiding him. He'll be a great modeller soon. Oops, I spoke too soon. He already is a great modeller. , Ross.

:D, Hi Mike, thank you for the clarification on this. I was sure I'd read somewhere that this was the case and you also reminded me of the original aircraft's name. , Ross.