Let's begin with one that turned out to be a mini disaster, the Welsh Models 1/144 Bombardier CRJ2000. There are quite a few problems, the wing dihedral for one, but the main one was self inflicted. The kit comes with two tail decals, and that goes with the over all white scheme of ASA and another for Conair which isn't all over white. After I stuffed up the ASA decals I had to use the Conair ones, which would involve repainting a lot of the model in grey. After all the trouble this kit had previously given it was either take it as it turned out or throw it in the bin. I seem to have thrown out quite a few kits these past few months so I kept this one instead. If you squint you might not notice the problem. Anyhow, this is not a bad Welsh Models kit but, as with most of them, they need some careful and patient work.
The Model Geeks podcast is having a group build of the Douglas A-4 and since the Geeks are all US Navy guys, and I like US Navy, I decided to give it a go. To add a degree of difficulty I decided to convert the Airfix A-4B kit into the earlier A4D-1 (A-4A) which involved a few changes. The most noticeable are removal of the refueling probe and filling in the fillets on the rudder but there are a few more subtle ones. All did not turn out as expected and since everyone says that the slats are deployed when an A-4 is on the ground I did that too. Unfortunately the grey on the slats and on the wings did not turn out to be the same shade and the deployed slats makes it look as though the aeroplane is broken. Even so, what's not to like about an early model A-4, especially ones from the period when the US Navy painted all their aircraft in such colourful liveries.
This little Caudron 232 is one of my favourite builds of the past few years. It started off as some blobs of resin, which is usual for a Dujin kit, and ended up looking rather flash in the silver and black livery. I'm mainly pleased about this one because of the careful effort that went into making it, Dujin's kits are not easy to make and this being a biplane added to the degree of difficulty. They there was the fragile resin undercarriage and this turned out to be a trial of nerves as well as a trial of modelling skill.
out of the time vault
Here's three from around 2000.
This little Azur 1/72 Dewoiting 371 was one of the first French aircraft models I made after I discovered these limited run kits. Making this and similar ones successfully sure pushed my model making skills up a notch or two very quickly.
These days this Academy 172 Mustang IV (a P-51K) looks a bit clunky, I think that it's the camouflage that does this. The marking are for 3 Squadron RAAF in Italy from Aussie Decals decals which may, or may not, still be available these days.
This little Condor 1/72 Heinkel He178V-1 was part of my interest in the earliest jets. It's a nice little kit but I'm not sure of the colour which is supposed to be RLM02, a problematic colour at the best of times.
