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Hawker Tempest Mk II - Special Hobby - 1/48 - Pakistanese Air Force

This my latest build, made from the Special Hobby and the Eduard boxings. Why 2 kits ? Simply because I screwed up part of the first build and, because I never give up and like the type,  decided to carry on the build and bought another kit ... Pretty good kit, despite some minor inaccuracies with the engraving under the fuselage. I was not fond of the decals as colors are not always well aligned - especially for the stencils. I did peel off the varnish top layer on the decals to get that "painted on" look. This has to be done gently otherwise you might end up tearing off the paint as well. Color scheme is from the Pakistanese Air Force.
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F-100D -Tuy Hoa (Trumpeter 1/48)

Hello, This is my last project, the F-100D piloted by Capt Allen Lewis and based at Tuy Hoa, Viêt Nam, circa 1969-70, with the classic “Snake and Nape” configuration. I am a big fan of the type and era, so I was quite motivated by this build. This is the very enjoyable to build 1/48 kit from Trumpeter with many modifications I made myself especially in the cockpit, canopy frame, landing gear bays & legs, extended 335 gal. fuel tanks, modified pylons, new refuelling probe made from brass, refuelling light and much more. I also used some aftermarket goodies such as a correct nose (Renaissance), tyres (ResKit, the one of the kits are horrible), exhaust and seat from Aires, pitot from Master, Eduard’s Mk82 and BLU-27, and a nice but fragile ladder from LP Models. Decals are from Caracal. I hope that you like it as much as I enjoyed this project. Antoine And because you are some lucky buggers, here are some work in progress pics. Like on the real thing, I extended the 275 gal. tanks i

Su-122 - MiniArt - 1/35

 I needed a little break from planes, so here is my first AFV . The MiniArt kit is a pleasure to build despite the high number of parts and these horrible track links. I liked it so much that I bought the T-55 from the same customer, but this time I will use some Friul tracks, or similar. Some details were replaced/scratchbuilt and the slogan ("Death to Hitler") on the side made shorter, except for that the rest is from the box.  The base color is the 4BO from Mig, to which I tried to add some variations with beige, yellow, dark green and even a bit of blue.  Thanks for looking.    

Saab J29 F - Luftstreitkräfte - Pilot replicas 1/48

This is the 1/48 scale Pilot Replicas kit. A real pleasure to build! Among the modifications I made: - Seamless resin intake and pilot from the same manufacturer - Homemade seat harnesses, ladder and pitot tubes, - Replaced the exhaust with a Bubble Tea straw because the original one is too thick,   Details in the cockpit and in the landing gear bays are good enough but there is room for improvement. The one thing that bugged me are the rivets on the fuselage: they get distorted and fade away with the curve of the fuselage. Also, part 59 was missing or at least I did not find it. This part depicts the bumper on the bottom of the fuselage and is very easy to scratch build with a bit of styrene, so no big deal. But except for these, there is nothing much to complain about.   I liked the luxurious and clear instructions, the excellent Cartograf decals and the PE frets with a sticky transparent film that prevents the parts to spring away when cutting them. The kit i

Arado 196 A-5 - Italeri 1/48

Hi, This is the very pleasant to build (and underrated) Italeri kit. Everything comes from the box except for the very efficient dual barrel MG81Z specific to the A-5 version, handmade seat belts and other details. The top RLM73 comes from the Real Color range. Quite a good range but it stinks and I find it maybe more fragile than the Gunze range. Thanks heaps for looking ! Antoine End of build: Sept. 2019

Ta-152H - Zoukei-Mura 1/48

Hello, Built basically out of the box, with minimal additions such as HGW seatbelts, thinned IP bezels and a few other fixes. The model is quite nice to build, and I even played the game of building and painting the inside: so mcuh fun ! However, adjustement of the engine cowling is a real pain... same as with its 1/32 brother. Also, it seems that some slight surgery is needed to close the canopy. Decals of my box were out of register and replaced by a reference from EagleCals, despite a slightly over-scaled swastika and colors too flashy to my taste. At the end, a fun build but I dont feel that the 60 Euros tag price is justified... Antoine Green 3, piloted by Josef KEIL

Curtiss H-81 A-2 / Airfix 1:48

My latest model is the very nice P-40B kit from Airfix which is quite enjoyable to build. There are some panel lines that need to be filled in and a few things to be fixed here and there, but nothing major.   This is a the aircraft of David Lee "Tex" HILL of the AVG for which the decals were sourced from a vintage Aeromaster sheet. Exhaust pipes are from QB. Pitot, gunsight and barrels from Master. Now that it is done, I must confess that I find the wheels ugly and that they would benefit from being replaced.