Finnish Air Force F-18 Hornet 1/72 Italeri

An OK kit by Italeri with lots of options: 1-seat or 2-seater, Swiss, Finnish and US Air Force decals. I was quite pleased when my kids brought me this kit as a present.





Used some walkaround picture references with this kit, IIRC there were some issues with Finnish version specific details with this kit. Didn't fix any of them though, I'm a civil airliner modeller after all!




Painted with Iwata HP-C and Humbrol enamels, US grays were supposed to be right straight from the bottle but I think they are a bit dark for this scale. Or is it just my imagination?





Some weathering could be applied, on the other hand the Finnish machines are extremely well-kept.

Finnish Air Force Brewster B-239 1/72 Revell

This kit is the infamous FAF decal boxing of a Revell oldie, the "Rivet Monster". Built straight out-of-the-box but with a twist, instead of the camouflage scheme this is how the planes looked right after the transfer flight from Sweden.






Didn't do any major surgery, just improved tiny things like the cabin interior and such. The wing is too narrow, fuselage too short, stabilisers are wrong shape etc. so too much work for a small scale model.






I doubt if this model would be any more accurate with British roundels and RAF Asian camouflage, but the kit was cheap and it's not totally awful for a Brewster.





I mean, it clearly isn't a Hurricane or a Messerschmitt, right?

Canadian Armed Forces F-101CB Voodoo 1/72 Revell

Another airbrushing practice target, this Canadian One-Oh-Wonder became a testbed for simulating matted aluminium. First layers of aluminium paint didn't work out too well, but mixed with flat white it looked convincingly dull by accident. Since the Canadian Voodoos were old surplus USAAF planes to begin with, I ditched the USAF decals and used the CAF instead.

Final topcoat is semi-matt acrylic varnish, which sealed the decals nicely. This model was built without any other references than the instruction sheet, so it is by no means an exactly accurate representation of the Canadian Voodoos.




I don't know if this kind of weathering is actually possible on a fuel tank, but it sure was fun to simulate!







Ditto for the airframe, note the crisp and thin Revell decals.






I liked this kit actually quite a lot, it isn't bad at all for the 1/72 scale.

Luftwaffe Focke-Wulf FW190D-9 1/72 Airfix

Another freehand airbrush practice target, this Langnasen-Dora was an inexpensive but good-looking Airfix 70's kit.






Decals from Hasegawa Me-262 kit, the camouflage at least plausible if not confirmed accurate.

Luftwaffe Fouga Magister C.M. 170R 1/72 Heller

Tiny French jet trainer in Luftwaffe colours from the 70's. Heller kit straight out-of-the-box with kit decals. Besides the small scale size and canopy fittings no other major problems.





Finnish Air Force used these planes too, but didn't want to apply Finnish aftermarket decals for this kit.







Canopy glue should be trimmed off some day, no other complaints really.

Aeronavale Liore et Olivier 451 1/72 Smer/Heller

This model was inspired by Aircraft In Profile -series, I wanted to find out if this kit was good enough for conversion purposes. French geographic society used old "warbirds" in the 50's and they had interesting planes like B-17 and re-engined LeO 451.




Old-skool style with no weathering or effects, all painting done with a paintbrush and Revell enamels.







Kit quality was like expected, good by 70's standards but a bit dated today. Civil conversion could be done with moderate effort.

Armee de l'air NH-90 1/72 Revell (fictional)

This Revell kit is the older edition of the badly delayed NH-90 Nato helicopter prototype.





Kit is okay to build, but some details are simplified or omitted when compared to the actual flying prototype.






This was supposed to be a camouflaged Finnish version, but a French "what-if" seemed more appropriate in the end. The United Nations supply helicopter could have been nice, but I wanted to spare the decals for future projects.



The crouching pilot is from Italeri's Nato Pilots and Crew figure set. Building and airbrushing practice target, with mediocre results I think. But definitely a keeper model!