A couple of Fokkers, and others

[F-27pax]

The Fokker F-27-500 is the Eastern Express kit which is, I think, marginally better than the Welsh Models kit of the F-27-500. Decals are by Hawkeye but in the decal sheet the bands down the sides of the fuselage are a few millimeters shorter than they need to be for the Eastern Express kit. This caused only a slight problem and Hawkeye sent me some more decals to solve the problem when I mentioned it.





Both Welsh Models and Eastern Express make a kit of the Fokker 50, the follow-up to the F-27 and looking remarkably like it. I chose the Eastern Express kit because the detailing is slightly better than on the Welsh Models kit but the Southern Skies decals for a Skywest Fokker 50 were designed - as I later found out - for the Welsh Models kit, which caused no end of grief when it came to trying to fit the decals. This, and the fact that I misplaced the decal sheet, caused all kinds of trouble in getting this model finished.





F-Rsin make a very extensive range of resin kits of airliners you’ve never heard of, most of them French. (They also make some injection moulded kits about which I chose to say very little.) This Potez 621 is a delicate little piece of resin moulding in only a few parts, and the ribbing on the wings and fuselage means it has to be assembled with a minimum of handling to preserve the detail. The decal sheet comes with blue side panels for the fuselage but they are very translucent so it is best to paint them on instead. This causes some other difficulties, but they are not impossible to overcome.





I’ve been badgering Peter of Hawkeye decals for a long time for some decals for an IPEC Armstrong Whitworth Argosy. Just after Christmas he sent me a proof set of the decals and instructions which I’ve now used. The decal set is excellent and well researched and will be available in 1/144, and 1/72 for the new Mach 2 kit. I had the option of making this 1/144 Argosy using either the Welsh Models or the Mikro-Mir kits and I chose the Welsh Models kit because the other kit seemed over engineered to me and I thought the Welsh Models kit would be easier to make. This was partly true, but I’m not sure that I made the right decision. I’m also fairly certain that the yellow I chose for this model is too deep in shade, though you can never be sure unless you have a look at the real thing, and there are none of them left.





I'm not sure whether you'd call this civil or not, the Real Space 1/144 Long March 2F Shenzhou.

[Graeme H]

My you have been busy, some great models there, glad you got the Fokker 50 decals sorted

[RayS]

nice work Leigh, all look great. I think the Argosy has turned out really well. I plan to build a Mach2 kit in this scheme, can I ask what yellow you used?

[F-27pax]

Thanks. I used MRP-122 RAF Marking Yellow. If I was doing this model again I'd go for something a little bit more 'lemonish', but this might not seem quite so deep in the larger scale.