FRsin make an extensive range of resin and white metal airliners in 1/144, some of them more well known than others. I knew nothing about the SAAB 90 until FRsin released this kit and, of course, I had to acquire one. It is a fairly simple kit to put together but the propellers come in five tiny parts that my big fat fingers had trouble with so I used two propellers from my spares box instead. I would not call this one of my most successful models and this is mainly because of the decals which were very fragile and came with white base layers which seem a little too big for the livery decals that go over them. Due to the fragility of the decals I broke a couple of the white underlays and had to apply the livery decals without them, and you can hardly spot the difference. So if you’re making this spare yourself some trouble. The overall colour is Tamiya TS-83 which I recommend for this kind of finish.
Here’s another little French beauty from Adrien Roy who offers a small range of delightful resin inter-was French aircraft including some made by Bernard. This Bernard 74 fighter prototype is a pleasure to assemble with cleanly moulded detail and a nice little decal sheet. The metallic finish comprises three different Tamiya rattle can shades (decanted of course) and Tamiya rattle can French Bleu.
From the Time Vault
Instead of picking a few models at random from my collection to round out each monthly instalment I thought I would go back and look at the earliest models I have in my collection. These are not the oldest models I made which were mainly tanks and larger scale aircraft but I no longer have them.
This Matchbox 1/72 Armstrong Whitworth Siskin IIIA dates from 1974 and is still one of my favourite models. This is partly because of the interesting look of the aircraft itself, partly Matchbox’s simple and honest kit and partly because of the clean silver finish which is Humbrol 11 Silver, but a much better paint than the Humbrol 11 you will buy these days. I was so delighted with how this model looked that I went out looking for more Matchbox kits, with the results below.
This Gloster Galdiator Mk.I also came from Matchbox and I made it in 1975. You can see that I painted it in the same Humbrol 11, I must have bought my first airbrush around this time because it would have been superhuman to get that kind of finish with an ordinary paint brush. I’d made the old 1956 Airfix Gladiator III before this, a truly early and primitive kit, which made this Matchbox kit seem very modern, which it was in 1972 when it was released. I’ve got the new Airfix kit and it will be interesting to see how it goes in comparison to this one.
Another model that I made in 1975 was this Matchbox 1/72 Boeing P-12E which was also released in 1972. (According to Scalemates this is still the only P-12E kit available in 1/72 - if you can find it because Revell doesn’t seem to have re-released it as they have done with many old Matchbox kits.)
