For the benefit of Airfix fans...

the putty queen returns!

Suposed to be quite good (not heard owt bad about it) it took some coming, late..but then they always say the best things take longer to come (just dont ask the chicks i sleep with!)

Bill

Bill Shuey said the following on 07/12/2007 23:48:

Did anyone get the 1:48 scale Spitfire Mk XVIe for joining the club?

I'd forgotten all about the transaction but it's an interesting looking kit.

I always wanted that damn thing along with the Matchbox Victor, so I could hang them from the ceiling with the Victor refueling the Vulcan. Two of the coolest looking planes of all time. The Vulcan looks like Rodan, the Victor looks like a Flash Gordon spaceship with wings. Needs Lightnings for an escort. In the early 1960's, Britain had the the most sci-fi looking planes on the face of the planet; you'd think they'd hired Gerry and Sylvia Anderson to design the RAF. The SAAB Draken should have served with the RAF; it would have fit right in. :-D

Pat

Scale Aircraft Modelling, Vol.29, No.9, November, 2007 has three photos of the Airfix 1/72 Nimrod parts layout from a test shot. Probably somewhere on the web, too.

Looks really nice. One of the few big aircraft in 1/72 that I would actually build, even though it was never flown by a small air force.

Tom

It is flown by the RAF. That's an *extremely* small air force these days. :-(

YouTube usually comes up trumps but could I find the Red Arrows wheelbarrow team to back up the cutbacks stories?

Strange looking beast, the Nimrod. Especially with the big nose and tail radomes. Easy to make fun of that version now, but what they basically had there was a AWACS, and could have made it work with more effort. Anyway, it was nice to see something worthwhile come out of the Comet, and our Lockheed Electra had just about as bad of a reputation before it became the Orion. (We used to get Northwest Orient Electras here in town (Jamestown, ND) when I was a kid...you never heard anything so loud in your entire life. It's amazing the windows in the terminal building didn't shatter from the acoustic stress.) I always liked the description of the Avro Shackleton: "One million rivets flying in close formation." :-)

Pat

Very small country = very small air force. To defend the British Isles proper you don't need a very a large air force. As I mentioned before, this is one of the few countries on the face of the planet where you could have something like a SAM umbrella covering every square mile of the place at a knock-down price. Like the Swedish concept "In in absolute numbers, our military force isn't much; but our equipment is as top-notch as you can conceive off, and we have our aircraft deployed in disguised underground bases that use elevators to rise out of forests and take off from highways, and our hydrofoil missile boats coming out of tunnels in granite mountains that are hydrogen bomb proof." If it wants to throw the effort at it, a small country can have a superb defensive military at a fairly small cost compared to its GNP. It's Britain, not the US, that could deploy a really impressive ABM system with only a few bases. Britain, if it put its mind to it, could set up a 360 degree capable laser cannon defensive system that could destroy any incoming aircraft or missile. That's far better than the US could ever hope for without bankrupting itself. We're simply too big.

Pat

Try telling that to Israel!

That's what people said in the 1930's and as a result the entire free world very almost perished.

Sweden has one of the highest per capita defence budgets in the western world as well as compulsory military service. That would never be acceptable to British public opinion.

Do you know of a laser canon that can shoot around topographical obstacles?

(kim)

Although I missed the first few minutes of it, when it came to the potted history it didn't seem to mention his making the scale tractor and plough for the Ferguson tractor company travelling salesmen to show clients the new safety plough, the kits made from melted down plastic pens with tyres made from rubber.

In Adam Hart-Davis' tv series entitled Local Heroes, what was a special (ahem) link was that IIRC the kit was to show the new tractor/plough linkage that stopped the whole lot folding up if the plough caught a stone, killing the driver. What then happened was that the representatives gave the kits to their children to make and that's where it seemed to have started.

I'm sure I have that Local Heroes tv clip recorded somewhere in my archives and it lasts a few seconds longer than the 'immigrant comes to England and makes kits for children' history shown in the BBC2 programme.

Or indeed that the Golden Hind kit preceded the Spitfire.

And of all the posters they could have used to publicise the relaunch Airfix chose that awful representation of a Tiger tank

(kim)

But our government wants to destroy our armed forces in order to make us more and more dependant on the EU.

Historically the RAF wasn't required to defend the UK. It was required to defend the Empire!

you got it wrong...it was how Airfix is doing now under Hornby, as it was called the money programme, not a walk down history lane

yup, could think of a few better myself...

Put it on Ben Nevis Mt. in Scotland. At 1344 m (4265 ft), it is the highest peak in the British Isles.

Jules said the following on 08/12/2007 13:52:

You are quite wrong Mr. Cholmondley Warner, as there was quite clearly a few seconds 'establishing history' segment in that programme and it was just not right.

If there was no such segment then you would be of course, be right.

I was just going to say that. Never finished it because I could never get one seam to match up. I think I tossed it up in the air and swung away with my Louisville Slugger.

Such a beautiful plane. Such a crappy kit.

Craig