This is the (relatively) new 1/48 kit from Airfix – and initially I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to make it as the Defiant isn’t really a plane that has ever been on my radar (no pun intended). It always seemed to be something of a Chimaera – the love child of a Hurricane and some kind of bomber with that huge turret behind the cockpit – but as often happens, whilst making the kit I really fell for the plane. It does have that slightly ungainly quality...
Excerpt textReally looking forward to this build – it’s a great story to tell of Flying Officer Arnold Hallas. He came from Burton and was sadly killed when he was flying Spitfire IX NH231 coded UF-A with 601 Sqn on the 30th April 1945. His is believed to be the last Spitfire lost in the European Theatre, and I jumped at the chance to help the Spitfire & Hurricane Memorial Museum down at Manston in Kent with their display to show Arnold’s Spitfire as it was before his...
I was really excited when I saw this kit released by Italeri. The Sunderland is one of the iconic aircraft I wanted to build, but until this point the only real option would be the old 1/72 kit from Airfix with all the attendent problems like poor fit and raised panel lines. The new tooling from Italeri looked really promising – and I would have to say it didn’t disappoint. The one thing I did really miss from the Airfix fit though was that fantastic illustration on the...
When I was a boy, this kit was my ultimate dream. I read an excellent book (which I still have) called How to Go Plastic Modelling by Chris Ellis – and on the front of the paperback he was sat at a desk painting details on one of these. It looked fantastic, and if I could have afforded to buy one I would have been a happy boy. Many years later I bought this kit not long after I started modelling again, and because it was out of...
I built this kit after finishing the Sunderland flying boat – so it was prompted by an interest in flying boats and a masochistic desire to do more rigging. This is one of the very few biplanes I have built, but it was fun to do in the same way that poking a mouth ulcer is fun! The Kit The Revell kit was apparently a reissue of the old Matchbox kit, but the detail and fit is really not bad for a kit of that age. I remember as...