Royal Navy Grumman F6F Hellcat 1/72 Italeri

Hellcat as a weathering testbed, don't know if they actually got ever this dirty on board. Italeri kit was easy to build and the British decal version was a nice touch, as the articulated landing flaps as well.

Imperial Japanese Army Air Force Mitsubishi Zero 1/72 Airfix

This model could be counted in the naval theme too, the Airfix A6M Reisen a.ka Zero (Zeke) in 1/72nd scale. The kit is quite old, cannot be mistaken as any other plane than Zero and as always, suffers badly from a lackluster canopy. I couldn't resist the temptation and augmented the cockpit with a scratchbuilt seat armor plate and a gunsight. Of which only the armor can actually be seen...

Building this thing was frustrating at times, but it was quite surprising to find in the end that sans the canopy it's a snappy little starter set kit model of a Zero after all. This is my first model about the A6M, and now I'd like to build another using a modern kit and perhaps in a bigger scale too.

Revell 371, Xtracolor Voodoo Gray, Airfix acrylics engine cover and propeller blades

US Navy Grumman TBF Avenger 1/72 Academy

Another navy torpedo bomber, Devastator's successor Avenger from Academy kit. I had a spare set of old 80's E.S.C.I. decals for an Avenger, so this is one of those models where you buy the kit for decals and not the usual other way around. This model represents an Avenger two months prior to Midway, 1942, Lt. A.K. Bert Earnest, Torpedo Squadron 8th.

Nice build, good fit, easy paint job, mission accomplished!

Humbrol 96 for Intermediate Navy Blue (?), Revell 371 for White undersides

Soviet Air Forces MiG-21 MF 1/32 Revell

Big 1/32 scale "Fishbed-J" kit from Revell isn't bad for such an oldie, but there are serious issues with some parts like canopy or tail part: they just don't fit. This model was just something to tinker with between more serious projects and looks adequate when finished. Original kit decals were for Luftwaffe "shark" special or East German Air Force camouflage, but I wanted the Red Stars and used Strike Eagle MiG-17 aftermarket decals instead. This model represents one of six MiG-21 MFs which made an official visit to Rheims, France in September 1971. There was an illustration in Aircraft in Profile about Marshal P.S. Kutakhov's "Blue 30", but I figured it would have been possible if one of the planes was a "Blue 40" like this.

From Künnapuu, Ants: 100 Ōhusōidukit. Illusteerinud V.Tōnisson (Valgus, Tallinn, 1975)

The canopy is a mess, tried already twice to fix it.

US Navy Douglas TBD1 Devastator Airfix 1/72

Airfix US Navy Devastator, full gloss finish and all. A good kit and an easy build, even the surface detail survived pretty intact in the building process. Had to sand the rivets down though just a tiny bit so they wouldn't be totally out of scale. Tikkurila Miranol enamels yellow and silver combined with Revell matt red, sealed with gloss varnish and Johnson acrylic floor wax. My only gripe is the canopy, it's thick and distorted but that's what you get with an old Airfix.

Lancaster Project references

Before I forget about these again, here are some references for a nice Avro Lancaster project:

Q for Queenie (Hopton photo archive)
Q for Queenie, First Lancaster to fly to Australia
Hyperscale Lancaster building guide (PDF)
Revell of Germany 04300 Avro Lancaster Mk.I/III Bauanleitung (PDF)
Ross McLennan's Lancaster Project FS2004

Finnish Air Force Morane-Saulnier M.S. 406 1/72 Hobby Boss

Back to the 40's again, this time with a Finnish Morane built from the Hobby Boss kit. It's not a perfect Morane-Saulnier but quite acceptable anyway. I made some small modifications like steel tubing for the wing guns, tailwheel from another Hobby Boss kit and Finnish ultramarine blue swastikas from Revell's Curtiss Hawk 75A kit. This model represents the MS-311 after the full overhaul (=fresh Finnish 'Sotamaalaus' warpaint) in spring 1942 but before the later light blue "DN-väri" undersides paint or the 'shark teeth' decoration nose. The shark's teeth & eyes were included in the box decals, but all wrong so I didn't want to use them.

Paint codes are Humbrol 116 for the "Oliivinvihreä" (dark olive green), Xtracolor X204 for the "Musta" (black) camouflage, Xtracolor X137 for the "Vaaleanharmaa" (very light grey) undersides and Tikkurila Miranol for "Keltainen omakonetunnus" (bright yellow).

Here's a brief history of the original plane (from Keskinen: Suomen ilmavoimien historia, volume 4): Feb.15th 1940 arrived in Finland. June 28th 1940 delivered to LLv 28. June 21st 1941 belonged to 1/LLv 28. Nov.22nd 1941 to full overhaul. Oct.6th 1942 delivered to 1/LeLv 14. Aug.10th 1944 crashed. Three victories scored.

By the way, the yellow paint brand is by the very same company which made the original aircraft paints, going under name Schildt & Hallberg back then. The shade may not be 100% accurate, but close enough for my tastes. Besides, this kit was bought from the Finnish Aviaton Museum so this is quite Finnished model, isn't it?

Morane-Saulnier with Curtiss Hawk 75A in 1/72 scale

Not out-of-the-box, but just with easy modifications

Royal Navy AW (Hawker) Seahawk 1/72 Airfix

Have I already mentioned I like Airfix navy planes? This Armstrong Whitworth Seahawk is such a elegant example of 50's style aviation design that it appears to be in flight on the desktop too. Also the Gloster Meteor/Hawker Hunter-type genealogy is clearly evident in the flowing shapes. It's surprisingly small for an attack plane, like when compared to a Fairey Swordfish navy biplane.

The Airfix kit was a bit letdown: opaque decals, sink marks at prominent places, poor seams for gluing the parts and so on so this became another "test build sample". I also tried some different techniques which failed this time, so this kit has to be built again with better luck.

Swordfish and Seahawk in 1/72 scale comparison

RAF (South-East Asia Command) Hawker Hurricane IIc 1/72 Revell

Here's another Revell kit I like quite a lot and which I've built more than once, this time in SEAC Far East camouflage. This model is admittedly a sloppy work here and there, but it was built more in the purpose of keeping up the skills and scale modeling momentum rather than a serious research object. The kit is so nice I like the result as it is, despite the few shortcomings in the building quality.

US Navy Grumman F-14D Tomcat 1/72 Airfix

I had planned building this Airfix 70's Tomcat kit just 'as is', but the decal sheet caused some trouble. First, the Wolf Pak looked too simple and off-color even for an Airfix, and just to make sure I lost the whole sheet while putting this kit together. So, it became a testbed for Aeromaster aftermarket decals instead, as I've been toying with the idea of using good quality decals on a vintage Airfix for a while. Here's the result, they certainly spiff up the model, but I'm not sure if it's worth the trouble in the end. Out-of-the-box is never a strategy easily dismissed with old Airfix kits, it seems! Anyway, it's an Airfix navy jet, another must for my collection so to speak. Painting by airbrush with Xtracolor enamels for a two-tone Gull Grey retro scheme.

Luftwaffe Junkers Ju-52 1/144 Eduard

Excellent small scale kit of the famous Junkers tri-motor by Eduard, with photo-etch details, canopy/window masks, optional skis and stuff. A pleasure to build, originally this was intended to be a civil conversion model but I decided to try it as test build out-of-the-box first.

This is about how the original plane looked like when it was stationed in Finland, particularily at Kemi in January 1942.

From Künnapuu, Ants: 100 Ōhusōidukit. Illusteerinud V.Tōnisson (Valgus, Tallinn, 1975)

Aeronavale Curtiss SB2C Helldiver 1/72 Airfix

Another quite old Airfix kit with some accuracy issues (features of different subtypes and none of them right, I think) but that doesn't prevent it the least for becoming a part of my Navy 1/72 model collection. If it's an Airfix kit I build it and have fun with it just the same.

A monotonous deep naval blue finish needed some weathering, which I normally won't use much, in my old-skool models anyway. All painting and varnishing with Revell enamels with a paintbrush.

Royal Air Force Supermarine Spitfire Mk.I Airfix 1/24

Airfix "super kit" from the 70's was still huge fun to build, I recall I built this same kit as a kid and attempted even some kind of camouflage back then.

Despite the age this kit is impressive even today, there are endless possibilities for superdetailing and such but I used this kit mainly for pure enjoyment out-of-the-box-style and  also as a freehand airbrush practice target.

Note the 2 Euro coin beside the landing gear, this model is BIG! Storage problems aside, I'd really like to try out the "'Fix Big Emil" Messerschmitt Bf-109 too.

From Künnapuu, Ants: 100 Ōhusōidukit. Illusteerinud V.Tōnisson (Valgus, Tallinn, 1975)

Luftwaffe Panavia Tornado IDS 1/144 Revell (#04030)

Revell's "new" 1/144 tiny fighter jets are quite amazing. They're cheap but very, very cheerful and every bit complicated to build as their 1/72 or 1/48 counterparts. One might think this model would have been quick to slap together, but I spent a solid busy two weeks with this kit (and enjoyed every bit of it).

Construction was relatively easy, considering the minimal fittings and areas for glue in this scale. Even cockpit decals were included, which tells about the commitment to accuracy with this kit.


All painting was done with enamels and paintbrush, colors used for the wraparound camouflage were Xtracolor Schwartzgrau, Humbrol 116 and Revell 68.

I really like these small scale models, if only the civil airliner kits were detailled as finely as these!