US Navy Douglas SBD-3 Dauntless 1/72 Airfix

Douglas SBD-3 Dauntless,
VB-6, USS Enterprise (CV-6), Pacific Ocean, early 1942.

Old Airfix Dauntless re-issue, nice shapes and very nice decals but awfully distorted and warped canopy. This glazing is kind of a mock-up, I'll replace it right away when I find a better one.

Mostly out-of-the-box with minor modifications like scratch-build armament, exhaust pipes and some cockpit interior. Stock kit dive flaps drilled open with 1mm bit. Humbrol Matt 87 and Satin 196, acrylic furniture glosscoat before decals, semi-gloss floor varnish after decals, final dull clearcoat Humbrol Matt 49. All brushed with paintbrush.

Again a scale model which was inspired by Aircraft In Profile series, in this case the volume # 196.

TBD-1 (Torpedo Bomber Douglas) Devastator (US Navy), SB2C (Scout Bomber Type 2 Curtiss) Helldiver (Aéronavale), SBD-3 (Scout Bomber Douglas) Dauntless (US Navy)

Japanese Army Ki-61 Hien "Tony" 1:72 Revell

Kawasaki Ki-61 Army type 3 Hien "Tony", cn. 3295,
Reg. Commander T.Kobayashi, 244th Sentai, Japan, 1945

Revell kit out-of-the-box except the Hasegawa stand for 1:200 civil airliners. Green camouflage freehand airbrushed, otherwise with a paintbrush. Final clearcoat Revell Matt.

I wish I had the Aircraft in Profile volume for reference, but this Revell oldie kit (with rivets and all) was nice to build anyway with less knowledge about the original plane. Found out after finished this model that it was kind of a copy of German He-100 and Bf-109 types, which is quite obvious now that I think of it. Could try some more Japanese fighters too, perhaps a 1/72 Hasegawa some day?

FAF Pilatus PC-12 PI-04 at Helsinki-Vantaa airport

PI-04 on Runway 22R

Finnish Air Force MiG-21bis MG-135 details

Royal Australian Air Force Avro Lancaster 1/72 Revell

"Q for Queenie VI", Avro Lancaster A66-1 (RAF reg. ED930) around 1946, built from the excellent Revell kit. This project took, umm, about 2 years from the initial research to the taking of these pictures. Perhaps worth the wait, great fun it was anyway.

Oh, about those spinners. I still think it's possible they were light blue or grey, but looking carefully at the Hopton photo there are chrome-style reflections from the ground and sky so I chose pure aluminium in the end. If actual colours are confirmed some day , it's easy to paint those spinners again.

SEAC Mohawk, Hurricane IIB & Lancaster on display