a4s4eva

Lucky and Sealmodel .

Vertical landings of those boosters is far from Nerdy.. It's , as you said, amazing - Sci-Fi like amazing .

I buy most of my paints (Mr Color / Tamiya) etc from Lucky or other Asian onlines. Even with shipping it's 1/2 price of the locals. It just takes a bit a planning. I do like to have stock of certain colours though . I do still have to buy the odd bottle locally but it's a 80km trip to LHS for me.

Great photos. will check out your flickr page

No treble

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Yeah, AirVenture Oshkosh. I went with an organised tour but it's easy to organise yourself. We stayed in the University Dorms in Oshkosh. It's summer holidays so the dorms are empty. Lots of people attending the show stay there and there is a shuttle bus that runs constantly to and from the show. Duxford was just a one day show, I caught an early train from London to Cambridge and got a shuttle bus out to the Airfield. I got a train back in the evening. (IIRC the trip is around 2 hrs) . There are couple of companies in Australia that specialise in Airshow tours (They have trips to RIAT, MAKS, Oshkosh etc) . There is also at least one based in NZ . Google should help you. There prcies aren't to bad so it may be an option if you don't want to organise things yourself

I've been to Oshkosh (2017, here is an album on my flickr site ) and Duxford (2012) but not RIAT (its on the bucket list).. . But it's pretty easy to see from looking online that the variety of aircraft at those shows is vastly superior (IMHO) to what you get at Avalon. That's not necessarily Avalons fault, it's more a function of Geography... it's long way to come to Avalon for anyone but NZ so it's nice that the USAF always makes an effort. Oshkosh is terrific for photography as well. As you've no doubt noticed Avalon is terrible (Temora isn't great either) Again this geography but the Avalon organisers don't help by alwys siting those stupid speakers at the front of the crowd line. So unless you're in the front row you're always getting a stupid speaker pole in your shot (as your shots prove :-) ) . I've also found the crowd at Oshkosh much more air show savvy and polite than those at Avalon (mass generalisation I know). At Oshkosh I dump my chair and bag on the crowd line and come back 4 hours later to find they wouldn't be moved, people just set up around you and do the same... I doubt that would happen at Avalon. IMHO Oshkosh is a event all aviation fans should go to at least once.

This mass urge is greatly exaggerated

The "big " Temora show is Warbirds Downunder and is to be run every 2 years. Wings Over Illawarra is every year. None of these are "big" compared to a US or UK show. Avalon is the biggest show in Australia and is every 2 years . But it's more focused on modern aircraft than Warbirds (It's primarily a trade show with some public days at the end). IMHO , unless you're from NZ or Australia it's not worth travelling to. It certainly nowhere near as good as Duxford, RIAT, Oshkosh etc. You can see my images from some of Warbirds Downunder 2018 by clicking on the images below And Wings Over Illawarra 2018

Yeah those instructions are particularly well done.

Nice work Ray

I reckon it goes yellow when I dump the thinned excess from my airbrush cup back into the bottle. I thin it with standard lacquer / GP thinners from the hardware store. I still use it when it's yellow as it still dries glossy and clear. My current bottle is quite yellow but it there is no yellow tint when airbrushed on the paint, even over white. I've been doing this for ages and have never seen any yellowing of the finish, even on models built years ago.

LOL Nice one Have you sent the price of business class from Australia to Europe... Cleary you have

Yeah I read reports elsewhere Emirates are looking at changing to the A350. I'd love a few more long haul trips to Europe on the 380.. Are you paying?