Nakajima B5N Kate

Next off the production line is this Kate torpedo bomber. The Kate served Japanese forces throughout WWII including the infamous raid on Pearl Harbour.

This is a Hasegawa 1/72 kit with after market decals which were actually a bit of a pain!

Grumman Duck

The only real example of this amphibious biplane that I recall seeing was part of the Erickson Collection that we visited in America in 2019. This is a 1/72 scale Airfix kit that cost all of 99p plus post but it was missing the starboard lower wing and port rear elevator but I managed to knock up replacements from scrap and it came out OK.

Sopwith Camel

An old Revell kit with decals from the spares box so probably not 100% accurate but they will do!

Junkers Ju88

This is a 1/72 Revell kit of the WWII Luftwaffe multi role aircraft. Bought as a partially built kit with some broken parts it is a fairly impressive model that I finished off.

Fiat G91Y

Fiat/Aeritalia G91Y. This is the old Matchbox kit from the early 80s picked up cheap with another kit both of which had lost their canopies. The other one I have a spare for but this needed a little work and eventually I trimmed a spare Sea Vixen after market canopy into a passable replacement. All the rest, including decals, are out of the box save some minor cockpit details.

Cut and shut Defiant

I probably originally made this Airfix Defiant around 40 years ago and it was looking a bit sad with a few bits missing. However,ebay came to the rescue with a spares kit up for grabs. It had clearly been too near to a heat source as most of the major parts were warped but it had the bits I was missing - undercarriage, undercarriage doors, aerials, port tailplane. I also cut out the wing leading edges as they had undamaged undercarriage mountings and the port side tailplane attachment section. I opted to change the scheme from night fighter to Battle of Britain period and the decals came from the spares box.

Resurrection Shuffle

I have been making model kits for a long time now and so have a reasonable collection of spares, being unused bits or parts from damaged kits etc. Searching through the other day I realised I had most of  Fokker Dr1, albeit looking pretty sorry for itself. It's a kit I made as kid. I decided to see if I could put it back together.

I had to fabricate struts as only one remained. The engine is part of a Sopwith Pup, the prop is a reshaped item from a Pup and one machine gun came from a Sopwith Camel. I had a spare set of decals although a bit yellowed with age.

Not a work of art or award winner by any stretch of the imagination but it does now look like a Dr1 again.

P38F Lightning

This Lockheed Lightning was bought for me by a school friend when I was probably 12 or 13 so I have it a long time. As a consequence it suffered a bit with lost undercarriage, missing cannons and stuff. However, a little while back Ebay provided some left over bits for the same model being sold as spares. So I bought them and gave the old kit a bit of a make over with some cobbled together decals from the spares box.

Bristol Blenheim V5455

 This Blenheim MKIV, which had previously taken part in the first 1,000 bomber raid on Cologne, departed from West Raynham for a raid on Germany on 9th June 1942. It suffered an engine failure and jettisoned the bomb load but sadly crashed at Brisley whilst trying to turn back to base and all three crew were lost. This memorial was erected in 2000.

Flying Fortress

 I must have had this B17 in the cupboard for around 20 and have just got used to seeing it there! Rather than start yet another more recently acquired kit I pulled it from its resting place and put it together at long last. It is a Hasegawa kit.

Saab Viggen

An old Airfix kit of the Swedish jet fighter acquired cheap as it had no instructions. Not too demanding to build although quality was of the era it was produced! Also had some areas of paint reaction which was annoying.