Nobody Significant

Thanks for the head's-up. I'll watch out for this "gotcha" when I come to it. Cheers.

My blessed father, the man I had idolised for all my life, passed away from cancer in the autumn of 2016. Ever since then, I had had it in the back of my mind to try and do a small tribute to him in some form or other. I won’t try and give his full biography here, but he joined the RAAF (Royal Australian Air Force) in 1948, and became an armaments fitter. He worked on many aircraft in his ten years of service, including, in no particular order: North American P-51D Mustang (Dad called it: "the armourer's dream") Avro Lincoln Bristol Beaufighter De Haviland Mosquito Consolidated PBY Catalina Lockheed P-2 Neptune Gloster Meteor De Haviland Vampire North American F-86 Sabre English Electric Canberra In his time in the RAAF, Dad was posted to different air stations many times, on average once every nine months, and spent several postings training and re-training at the Air Armaments School in Sale, just outside Melbourne, Victoria. As each new aircraft was brought into service, he would get training on all the weaponry for that aircraft before then going out to service said aircraft in-the-field. However, of all the aircraft Dad worked on, it was the Mustang that he would always wax-lyrical about. He always called it “The Armourer’s Dream”. Normally I am not much of a “prop” man, only finding a handful of pre-jet aircraft of interest to me personally. That’s just me, but Eduard’s new-tool Mustang had been getting such high praise, I thought it would make a fitting tribute to my Father. After some research I found that Red Roo Models (not surprisingly, based in Australia), did the decals for a pair of RAAF Mustangs that had been at the Sale Air Armaments School at the same time as my Dad was there between 1948 and 1958! So it is extremely likely that he would have worked on either, or both, of these actual aircraft at some point. Note that one of the aircraft has roundels with no red centre. That's the one I will be building, as I distinctly remember my Dad mentioning this fact when reminiscing about his time in the RAAF. He said that this was common practice as, during both WW2 and the Korean War, the American’s would see the red centre of British roundels, just assume is was the red circle of a Japanese or Chinese aircraft, and shoot at them! So there were a lot of friendly-fire incidents until the Australian’s took the simple expedient of painting out the red centre, just leaving the blue and white. Note that the red kanagroo centre used on Australian roundels wasn’t adopted until later. So I've made a small start on the Eduard kit whilst waiting for the replacement decal(s) to arrive for my almost-finished Victor K.2 (see other entry on this same forum). Please don't try to compare my meagre efforts against the superb job being done on this exact same kit in this exact same forum by our very own BlackMike (aka: Duncan). His is far, far superior to my glue-bomb, but I am doing my best. 😉 Also bear in mind I am a very slow builder... I think there are close to 20 parts, just in the one picture above! And that's not including the PE...!

Glad to be of service. I didn't cut up decal 18, which is why is screwed up, and hence me having this pain now. But I did cut decal 13, (18's opposite number) as above, and it went perfectly first time. You just have to be a little precise in aligning the parts, but if you cut the decal on the corners, then any slight mis-alignment doesn't show that much anyway. Happy days, and Good luck! Look forward to seeing it on these forums. Maybe we can compare at Telford next year in person.....? (I still think we need to get "BrexitModeller" logo badges made so we can recognise fellow forum members in the wild)

It's become a very expensive kit. I think I've paid for the kit twice now, once for the actual kit, and the same again in PE and now spare decals... Still, they're on their way. So I can finally finish the kit when they arrive. Watch for it in the Aircraft Gallery section. 👍

Recommendation 1: Cut Decal's 13 and 18 into four parts. 1=The little "square" thing that goes around the vent, and cut-out the centre carrier film from the middle of the square; 2=The line that goes from the square up to the first "kink"; 3=The "Kinked" section around the wing-root reinforcing bar (and lay this one on the model first as your reference for where to place the others), 4=The section from the "kink" up to and including the 90-degree bend at the front. Sorry can't help you with the enlargement, I did the exact same, but I did it by eye and I just don't remember now what the %age was. Sorry. I blame old age. I measured the model wing-tip to wing-tip, then measured then drawing wing-tip to wing-tip, and then just did the maths; printed one, checked against the model, and then tweaked it 1% at a time until it looked right. The "problem areas" are where the top-view of the fuselage bends down to meet the side-view of the fuselage - where you just have to guess and <<cough>> "wing it". Currently waiting on my replacement decals from the States to eventually arrive. So in the mean-time I am starting a new project. Watch this space... 😉

😡😣😭 Finally got a reply from Airfix: NO. It's an "out of production" kit, so no spares of any kind. So I have had to order those spares I found in the USA on evil-Bay. £25 including "priority shipping". OUCH!

😡😣😭 Finally got a reply from Airfix: NO. It's an "out of production" kit, so no spares of any kind. So I have had to order those spare decals I found in the USA on evil-Bay. £25 including "priority shipping". OUCH!

Yes. Sort off. Under normal circumstances, the only show SWMBO normally allows me to attend is Telford (plus my local club of course). But of course, this year there is no Telford. However, even there, there is a definite hierarchy of who gets to show at Telford from my club. If you're on the committee, or one of the "favoured few", then those people get definite priority on table space (long story!). Of course, I am neither in the committee nor amongst the "favoured few" precisely because I am not allowed to attend many model shows. So I am pretty far down the club pecking order on being allowed table space, which is at something of a premium at Telford anyway. But finger's crossed it'll be there in November 2021..... Separately, anybody want a 70L "Really Useful Box" BTW? It's huge! (exterior dimensions 81x62x23cm, interior dimensions 71x55x19cm, it does have a small chunk missing from the lid-lip (transport damage getting to me in the first place), but it's still perfectly serviceable) I gave up with it for the simple reason it was too big to be practical. I have made a more appropriately-sized (smaller) custom box for transporting (and storing) this kit by cannibalising two old cardboard boxes I had sitting around. I currently have an appointment to take it to the "household waste recycling centre" (aka: "the dump") lunchtime on Tuesday 15th Sept 2020. So if anybody wants it, please contact me before then. FREE (but transport/postage might be an "interesting" question, unless you can collect from near me in Fareham Hampshire)!

Refueling pods now in place, and matt-varnish applied to the underside (It's too big to do all at once - even in 1/72nd-brail-scale). Now I literally am just waiting on Airfix....! So frustrating. I can't take the window masks off until the upper-side matt-varnish is down, and obviously I can't do that until that one needed decal arrives. Grrrrr....... This weekend I'm cutting foam for the transport-box - the smallest "Really Useful Box" it will fit in is a 70L size! It barely fits through the loft-hatch.

Me too! (See my Victor build as just one example - decals there too.) Without fail, something will go wrong somewhere, for me every build. The "interest" is seeing what exquisitely new combination of things can go wrong this time.... You have my sympathies. And you clearly have a lot more patience than I do! Looking superb despite the problems regardless though.

Decalling finally done, and panel-line & weathering wash complete (Flory Models dark dirt wash for anybody interested). If it weren't for the one missing decal, I would slap some matt-varnish on this beast and call it a done-thing. Can you spot the missing decal below? No prizes if you can... 🤪 I am still kicking myself over screwing up like that! The good news (I think) is that I spoke to somebody at Airfix and, although he couldn't be categorical, he thought my request for spare decal(s) was likely to be successful! I just have to wait for the covid-delayed wheels to turn on the electronic request I put-in almost two weeks ago now. Still keeping my fingers, and everything else, crossed.

The only ones I've found so far are just the squadron markings etc, and don't include the generic stencils etc. I would, except I don't have an evil-bay account any more. So I can't send "messages" direct via evil-bay. I closed my account in protest after I got burned badly by a scammer - see this forum for details:

Have just found somebody on evil-bay that built variant C (see above) and has ALL the decals for variants A&B for sale. The complete set...!!! Loads of spares. Only £4-ish. The bad news, they are in the States, so it's £18 in postage! Plus the time to get here.... Question/advice: should I go for it, or wait on Airfix? What do people think? Anybody had any experience in getting spare decals out of Airfix direct?

Have just found somebody on evil-bay that built variant C (see above) and has ALL the decals for variants A&B for sale. The complete set...!!! Loads of spares. Only £4-ish. The bad news, they are in the States, so it's £18 in postage! Plus the time to get here.... Question/advice: should I go for it, or wait on Airfix? What do people think? Anybody had any experience in getting spare decals out of Airfix direct?

The stripes are red/yellow diagonal cross-hatching. Not sure how opaque the print would be, so I am guessing I would need a white background (and therefore white decal paper) anyway, and would just need to be VERY accurate in cutting close to the print so I don't get a white outline? ULP! Still have my fingers crossed that Airfix will come through though. FYI... Decal 18 is only required if you have built, or are intending to build, variants A & B in the box (those with full-camo schemes). If you have built, or are intending to build variant C in the box (the desert sand coloured scheme), then decal 18 is surplus to requirements. Just saying.... 🙄