Revisiting projects

I've had a very successful weekend, both in my old hobby and my new one.

In my old hobby, my F-15A and RF-4E are just about complete. A have a brace of Stanier railway coaches that are ready for weathering. I'm at the point where I'm just about to start the next batch of models. More on that later.

As for my new hobby... it's baking! Okay, so maybe the chocolate cake I baked yesterday didn't come out looking like the pictures in the recipe, but it's still quite edible. So I'm eating it! :-D And yesterday I learned how to make pastry, so I'm quite pleased. I now have enough meat and potato pies to last me all week!!!

So now, I'm relaxing with a beer and musing on a few things which, if you'll indulge me, I'll share.

Such as... do you ever revisit completed projects? I would have said, given the wide choice of subjects available, that I don't because there is no need to, but I've just realised that I *do* !

When I was a kid, I just used to bang my kits together and put the decals on bare plastic. Then one day (I must have been about eight years old) my Grandad gave me a present. It was a Revell 1/72 Spitfire kit, together with a selection of enamel paints (green, brown, light blue, black), a paintbrush and a small bottle of turps. He reckoned it was about time I started to paint my kits. So... I did. That was the first model I ever completed properly. Okay... I'm sure that the colours weren't quite right and the paint must have been *very* thick, cos it took days to dry, but still. I was thrilled with it and so was my Grandad. The decals were for Douglas Bader's aircraft, complete with D-B codes.

A couple of years ago, I had another go at that subject. This time I used a Tamiya 1/48 kit, with an Ultracast prop and seat, accurate colours from Xtracrylix, sprayed on and dry within three minutes of application, decals from Victory Productions and the benefits of nearly forty years modelling experience. [1] But yet, as I applied the decals and the model came to life, all of a sudden I had one of those Nostalgia Moments. I might as well have been that eight year kid again, building his first "real" model. I love my hobby!

The next model I "made" properly was an He219, probably Revell again.

Anyroads... I had a friend called Keith who also made models. We used to build as many different kits as possible. These were the days when there was a couple of new Airfix kits every month and the Airfix catalogue was crammed with all sorts of exotic models that we would love to build. Keith had an older brother who was also a model builder (as was Keith's brother's friend, who IIRC was Canadian). Keith's brother and his friend were lots older than we were. They were pretty much grown-ups (They were probably twelve!) and as such they made far better models than we could manage. I can remember Keith's brother showing us his completed Airfix 1/24 Spitfire. Spitfires were all the rage then because it was 1969 and the film "The Battle Of Britain" was showing at the flicks.

My Dad took me to see the film and I think it may have had some sort of effect on me. Hmmm... yes... it's possible. ;-) That film led to a few misconceptions. For instance, Keith and I were convinced that British planes always left a white smoke trail when they were shot down, while German planes left a black one. But, whatever - I wanted to make another Spitfire. This was against the rules, because I already had one. There were millions of other kits that I could build. Why build something that I've already built? Keith was puzzled.

Nevertheless, I got an Airfix Spitfire IX. The instructions said I had to paint it dark grey and dark green. "That's wrong!" Keith's brother told me. "They used Mark 9s in the Battle of Britain and they were brown and green." Well, Keith's brother was right. There *were* MkIXs in the film and they

Fast forward forty years. Guess what is sat next to Bader's Spitfire II on my display shelves. That's right, Johnson's IX. Different scale, Different kit (Hasegawa IX, Victory decals) - same sense of nostalgia and achievement as I put them together!

Choosing Christmas and birthday presents for me was never a problem for my family. "He likes airfixes!" My tenth birthday could have been a cause for a family feud, however. Two aunts (from different sides of the family) bought me the same present! National disaster!!!! Not for me though. I got two Airfix F-104 Starfighter kits. Y'know, the one that had two choices of colour scheme, Canadian and German. I was thrilled to bits. Fast forward those forty years again. See the Canadian and German F-104s on my shelves? Hasegawa kits, opened and detailed cockpits, sprayed and weathered finishes. exactly how those old airfixes always looked in my eyes!

What else? Hmmmm. During the early 1970s, Matchbox kits became available. Their selling point was that they were moulded in two colours and didn't need painting. I wasn't too bothered as by that time I was painting everything anyway. Then, Matchbox released a series of larger kits with three colours. One of the first was a British Phantom. I snapped it up! I used the boxtop decal option for 6 Sqn. The resulting model still exists, packed away in my parents' attic, next to my Deep Stash, but another model of exactly the same aircraft is sat on my shelves right now. It's from the Fujimi kit, so it doesn't have trenches a scale six inches deep along the panel lines. It has a detailed cockpit interior, resin seats and rather than a full load of SNEB pods (which on the real thing would have fouled the ground on landing) it has a more accurate load of two CBLS. The decals are by Modeldecal and it represents XV895, the same aircraft in the Matchbox kit.

Around the same time, I built another British Phantom. If memory serves this kit was by Frog (which may have been re-popped in later years by Hasegawa). The decals were for a Royal Navy FG1 from 767NAS - the one with a yellow bird on the fin. Again, an updated version of that model is now in my collection.

Matchbox then released a series of 1/32 aircraft, the first one being a Spitfire 24. I built it in the kit markings of 80 Sqn. Of course, the Airfix 1/48 version is now on my shelf, again in 80 Sqn markings.

I can remember the Hasegawa F-8 being released in the late 70s. I built mine using the kit decals as Dick Bellinger's Mig killer from VF-162. A quick glance at my selves shows the same aircraft there yet again, this time the Academy kit with Aviprint decals.

My previous experiences with multiple Spitfires and F-104s led to a realisation. I'm fascinated by the way things change over a period of time. I will happily build numerous models of the same aircraft, many of which only have minor differences in structure and markings. Of course, this meant that I got the Phantom bug. Over five thousand of the things built with probably hundreds of different colour schemes.

It must have been in 1980 that Italeri released their F-4G model. This was a very modern kit and could be built as an F-4G or a slatted F-4E. Shortly afterwards Esci released their short nosed F-4s and a hard-wing F-4E and I almost reached critical mass! I had myself a bit of a Phantom Phrenzy. I used a Modeldecal sheet to build a Luftwaffe F-4F, a Bare Metal sheet to build a 57FIS F-4E, a Microscale sheet to build a Michigan ANG F-4D. I built an Alconbury based RF-4C in Euro-1 camo using the Italeri kit and a selection of MicroScale lettering sheets. I ended up with a collection of half a dozen F-4s before I was posted to Germany and had to give up modelling.

About three years ago, I came back to aircraft modelling, having long since left the RAF. I've noticed that I keep revisiting modelling subjects from my youth. The Euro-1 RF-4C from Alconbury returned, courtesy of Xtradecals.

I also have models in my stash that have decals sheets already associated with them. It's surprising how many of those replicate projects from yesteryear.

For instance, the initial release of the Airfix F-14 (1974, maybe?) had decals for VF-1 and VF-2. In my stash there is a Hasegawa F-14 with a Cam Decals sheet for VF-1 in the box!

That Luftwaffe F-4F that I mentioned. I used Modeldecal sheet 46 to represent 38+57 of JBG36 at Greenham Common in 1977. The jet had a belly tank converted into a travelling bar, complete with a cooling unit to chill a keg of beer! I actually met that same aircraft at numerous airshows in Germany in the late 80s, still with the same converted belly tank. JBG36 were a popular unit at airshows, I can tell you! :-D I now have a pristine copy of Modeldecal sheet 46 and the intention has always been to build the same aircraft again, using exactly the same sheet as I did a quarter of a century ago but using the Hasegawa kit instead. However, that plan has since changed. I'll still build 38+57 in those markings, but I'll use AirDoc decals, which are better quality than the old Modeldecal ones. The zaps and markings from the bar/belly tank will still come from Modeldecal.

How about that 57FIS F-4E? Well, that is just about to start its journey across my workbench. Again, I'll use the Hasegawa kit, but the decals will be from *exactly* the same sheet as I used a quarter of a century ago. I have a new copy printed by Expert's Choice.

A Hasegawa F-4C/D kit in my stash has a Cutting Edge decal sheet with markings for Michigan ANG. so there's another youthful project to be revisited.

And then there are the models that I *wanted* to build in my youth, but never managed. An air superiority blue F-15A from the 555 TFTS? Photos of them were plastered all over the aviation and modelling magazines in the mid-70s and I always wanted to build one. Thirty-three years later, there's now one sat on my workbench, almost complete.

A good 20% of my models are modern updatings of projects from my youth. There are myriads of different schemes available on the market, certainly far more than I could ever build in a lifetime, but I still find myself revisiting projects that I built decades ago. It's fun!

Maybe I should build an He219.