"WINGS" Part 3 W-I-P & Happy New Year

Well happy new year everyone out there. Been a little busy over the break and avoiding computers so I can focus on getting other stuff done!

Anyway - I missed the deadline for the Guild "WINGS" Group build but thought I should show you where I got up to.

First up - heres a pick of the MiG after applying layer upon layer of GW Liquid Green stuff and then once it was all dry - filing it off.



Worked pretty well and I was happy with the result.

Here is the next step - a white undercoat



And the next step - base air-brush coat of Tamiya Dark Yellow and then some air-brushed cam stripes in Tamiya Olive Green.



Not real happy with how the stripes turned out - but I'l deal with that sometime in the future...

The MiG was then taped up with Tamiya 6mm masking tape and a Tamiya Light Blue was air-brushed onto the under surfaces.



Once dry it looked like this.



I'm actually pretty chuffed with how well the tape worked - and definitley will be using that again.

The plane has now been covered in future floor polish and at this point in time has been pushed to the back of the line while I concentrate on other stuff - namely comission work...

Anyway - I'm looking forward to this new year and I hope its a great one for all of you.

Take care and have fun...

Richard

"WINGS" Build Part 2 W-I-P

Very quick update and poor photo.

Spent a little time over the weekend putting the MiG-27 together. Nice straight forward build - only problems I had was with the undercarriage flaps. Like most models the MiG is expected to be displayed with its landing gear down - not flying like I need it. Managed to stuff up the forward bay a lot - have not decided whether to leave it as is of simply fill it in with putty. Main undercarriage bays worked a little better - but still some gaps.

Anyway - here's my crappy photo - taken quickly with my ipad...



Next stop - putty!

Have fun...

Richard

The Guild "WINGS" Speed Build

A new speed build has been announced on The Guild and it is simply called "Wings". It comes to an end on
2nd January 2012 UK time.

I had some ideas of what to do - initially I was going to add some riot wings to my Humber Pig - which I thought was a pretty cool and unique idea - however I decided my limited scratch building skills were not up to it so I moved on.

I have at least 3 aircraft kits either built or built & undercoated which I could have used the build to finish off - but I think in the spirit of the speed build you are supposed to start from the beginning and finish off the entry - rather than start 1/2 way through. So none of them would do.

Have a look through the model pile I discovered a kind of forgotten about kit that perfectly fit the bill. Bought a while back from Hobbyco in Sydney for the princely sum of $12.95 how could I go wrong. And it fits perfectly with everything else I'm doing.

So here is my entry (thus far) - An Academy MiG-27 Flogger D:



And just to prove it is completely unstarted:



Everything is still in its bag - ready for making, hopefully this weekend.

If all goes well, I'll probably use all the same colours, technique etc to paint my built and undercoated Su-25 Frogfoot.

British Helicopters - Part 2 - TOW Lynx AH.1

Time for the next update - and this time something a little more shooty! Having a Gazelle in a wargame is all well and good - but what can it shoot! Everyone wants a proper anti-tank helicopter, and so did I. What I really wanted was a couple of Lynx AH.1 helos armed with 8 TOW missiles.

This one seriously cool helo, which you can find out a little more about here
Suffice to say its very, very, very fast and incredibly manoeuvrable - I beleive it was one of the first helicopter that could perform complete loops and rolls.

I had to search around for a bit for a TOW armed Lynx as the Airfix offering (almost always my first port of call) -

- is armed with 6 HOT missiles for some reason (I think they might have trialed this, but it never went into service). So I decided not to get this one...

I soon discovered that Corgi did a diecast version -

- that is absolutely beautiful, but comes with a awe inspiring price tag as well - I'll let you discover that for yourself. Again. not for me...

Then, trawling from ebay I discovered a Polish company - Plastyk - makes a few variants of the Lynx, including this one -

- at it was available on ebay for what I thought was a very reasonable price, so I thought, why not? - and grabbed one to see what it was like.

Plastyk Army Lynx AH.1 Mk.1 Review

Well what can I say about this kit. Well before I say anything bad, I will say that it wasn't bad enough to stop me buying another one - so I have two Lynx AH.1. I think you end up with a pretty reasonable model of the Lynx that will certainly stand up to wargaming. It's solid, nice and chunky and is unlikely to break if you accidently knock it over on the table. There are basically no fiddily little parts and it goes together reasonably well. I don't consider myself to be a super model maker - and I coped with it without to many problems.

On the other hand - it ain't a German Revell or even British Airfix kit. At times, such as when you have to attach the tail boom to the main cabin - get ready to do a bit of carving. The small windows below the cockpit did not fit that well and you really could not do any interior, if you wanted to. I didn't so that was not a concern for me.

My major problem though was with the TOW missile launcher and how they attached to the main body of the helo. Obviously Plastyk make this basic kit, and then add bits and peices to it in the box, plus new instructions, to make different variations. This means that the basic kit doesn't necessarily have the fittings for different attachments. Nor are the instructions what I would call excellent (although better than ACE) so when I went to attach the TOW launchers I had to use my imagination, and a drill. The first time I did this, I thought I was putting them in the right place, and then spent a few days convincing myself that it was OK - but when I made the second kit I moved them further down the back of the cabin and I am much happier. I still have no real idea where the launchers are to go exactly - but I can live with them.

The final problem was the decals. The decals were quite thick and had enormous clear surrounds. I tried to cut them into shape and it worked to some degree, but on the roundels in particular, it wasn't the greatest result.

Painting

I painted them exactly the same way as I painted the Gazelle.

So onto the pictures (please forgive their crappiness)

Here they come:


The first kit (with the launchers in the wrong place):


Let's pretend they both look like this:


or this:


or this:


Here they are back in formation:


And finally a couple shots of all three in formation:




Onto some youtube clips:







That's about it for now

Have fun

Richard

British Helicopters - Part 1 - Gazelle AH.1

For some reason the first vehicle I've completed for my British Army on the Rhine (BAOR) contingent turned out to be an Airfix Gazelle helicopter (excluding the two Harriers - which were of course RAF, not BAOR). This helo will be the first in what I envisage as being a little series of air support helo for my various forces - starting with the Brits.

I hadn't actually considered making a Gazelle at all until I read a couple of books - one I have mentioned before here on my blog the other I've not. The first discusses the Gazelle, mainly in terms of how they are used to assist TOW armed Lynx helicopters to find and strike at armoured targets.

The second is a book by Ed Macy - previously the pilot and author of "Apache" which describes one of his tours of Afghanistan flying an Apache Gunship. In his next book:



Macy talks about his training and why he originally chose to fly the Gazelle over the Lynx (before the Apache was even really being considered), the training and role of the Gazelle generally. He also describes how the Gazelle was used in Northern Ireland. Well worth a look.

More basic information abou the Gazelle can be found here at wikipedia

Airfix Gazelle - The Model

What can I say apart from this is a fairly simple kit - not the greatest model I've ever made, but certainly not the worst. It all fits together fairly well (the front canopy is a little too big) and has reasonable instructions that means you don't have to guess at anything (which is a nice change from ACE kits and some others).

Painting

Again this was fairly staright forward.

1. Undercoat - Citadel Black
2. Base coat - spray FoW Warpaint "British Armour"
3. Dark Green Bands - Vallejo Dark Green
4. Rotors and engine - Citadel Chaos Black
5. Pin Wash - pretty rough - Citadel Babab Black
6. Dry Brush - base coat green over pin washed areas - Vallejo Russian Uniform
7. Engine - Vallejo Gun Metal
8. Engine - Rotor area - Citadel Babab Black - Exhaust area - Cital Orygn Flesh
9. Perspex - Vallejo Luftwaffe Uniform
10. Perspex - brush on Citadel Gloss Varnish

I know the perspex isn't fantastic or even great, but I wanted to kept it fairly basic, and see how the Luftwaffe Uniform/Gloss varnish looked. I'll live with it.

Just in case you're wondering - I decided against the Grey/Green striped Gazelle that you often see and went with Green/Dark Green instead (obviously). I decided I wanted all my BAOR helo's to use this colour scheme instead. I'm pretty sure these colours were used at times and it will fit in better with the rest of the force as well.

So here are the pictures:















So basically I'm pretty happy with how this turned out and will now move onto the Lynx's.

Here's a couple of Gazelle related youtube links:

BAOR Update & Work-in-Progress

While not much has been happening on the blog of late, much has actually been going on. With the best laid plans out the window as some WWII commission painting and life in general interrupt my Cold War plans - I thought I had better give an update.

Over the last few months my BAOR force has continued to grow. Next week I'll put up some photos of all the finished BAOR kit. This week I thought I'd lay out some of the unstarted or made up kits and models - that are yet to be painted and finished.

So it it all is minus stuff you've probably already seen before and another Warrior MCV that is winging its way to Oz via Old Blighty:







As you can see in the photo I've expanded my British collection quite considerably. You should be able to make out the following:

My BAOR Helicopter support - 2 x Lynx helo with TOW, 1 x Gazelle Scout helo
1 x Britannia Chieftain
3 x Britannia FV432 with a wombat recoiless rifle and 2 mortars (1 homemade by me)
1 x Liberation Striker
3 x Airfix Bedford Trucks
1 x Airfix Airfield Refueller
1 x Airfix Scorpion
2 x Airfix 105mm guns
1 x Airfix 1 ton Land Rover
1 x Airfix Trailer
1 x Cromwell Sultan
1 x Cromwell Spartan
1 x MMS (I think) 1 ton Land Rover
2 x Land Rovers of unknown origin
1 x Humber Pig of unknown origin

The boxes up the back are fairly self-explanatory and the unmade kits include another Airfix 1 ton Landie and an Airfix Saracen.

I now have 7 Revell Warriors, 7 Britannia FV432 (which I have a cunning plan for), 5 Chieftains and 4 Challengers - more Land Rovers than you can point a stick at and I also recently scored 30 plus fully painted Liberation British Infantry with SA-80s. So I'm pretty chuffed.

So all in all I have a lot to do. Soon I'll stick up my US Cold War W-I-P and my next Soviet W-I-P. Damn Soviets - once you get into them they are very hard to stop buying for!

Anyway - have fun

Richard

Last Flight of the Harrier

Now I know this doesn’t fit in with my standard Cold War timeframe – but this news is just to sad for any long term Harrier Jump Jet lover to not comment on.

I was at high school in the 1980s and interested in all things military, so was probably heavily influenced by the success of the Harriers involved in the Falklands War. About this time we had a teacher who loved planes and showed us instructional movies on the Harrier that I found simply fascinating. I one point I was already to join the Royal Australian Navy because we were going to buy the HMS Invincible and I want to fly Sea Harriers!

Well, yesterday (my time) was the last flight of the Harrier in service with the RAF and Royal Navy. I don’t live in the UK so am a little distant from the whole argument as to why this is happening – years before the Joint Strike Fighter comes into service – and when I read comments like the following from the ABC website you have to wonder:
“Despite objections from the army, the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force (RAF), the decommissioning of the last 16 jets went ahead anyway.
The British government claims the plane's retirement is not just about cost cutting, but many believe there is no sound military reason for their mothballing.”
So – in memory of a revolutionary and awesome plane – here’s a few more Harrier clips:








In Oz we’ve just decommissioned our F-111s so it sad all round

So have fun

Richard

The Second Harrier GR.3

I'm sorry that my first post for October is a little late - won't happen again! Well I hope not anyway. Last week was incredibly busy with the final preparation and then the running of the Flames of War Tournament over the October long weekend, here in Sydney. I think we pulled it off pretty well, but I had no time for life's little luxuries, like updating this blog. But now I do...

At various times in the past I've indicated that one of the projects I've been building for is a special mission involving a Spetsnaz attack on a Harrier hide. To finalise all the things I needed for the mission I had to finish a second Harrier GR.3 and a couple of British vehicles. Well I have all the vehicles now - just the matter of painting them up - and I've finished my second Harrier.

I am to get this mission and all the bits and peices that go into it, ready to be played in the next month or two - well before Christmas anyway.

I wanted the second Harrier to look different to the first one (that appeared in my very first post - I think)so I looked into some of the different weapon options available to the GR.3. I quickly decided that I wanted to go with a couple of Laser Guided Bombs. In reality this would mean that one of the Aden gun pods would be removed and replaced with a very similar looking laser designation pod - so I as able to simply leave the gun pods on the model as is.

As luck would have it I had to entertain the son of one of my wife's friends for a couple of days so we went down to my local hobby store and bought a couple of Airfix kits to make up together. He choose a Bucanneer - which came with two LGB. Once I managed to convince him that he really didn't need them, I was able to put them aside to add to the Harrier.

So without further ado - here it is


Second Harrier GR.3 in side profile

Now a couple of shots of the two Harriers together (just to prove I didn't cheat and redo the first one!)





No video links today - I think I nabbed all the best ones on my previous Harrier post - so if you want to check those out - go to the very first post.

Thanks and have fun

Richard

Harrier GR.3

To get the ball rolling, I'm going to try and post up some photos of the first plastic kit I've made in about 20 years (actually more like 30 but that's too scary to consider).

This is an Airfix 1/72nd scale Harrier GR.3 with some assorted Airfix NATO Ground Crew (and a pilot).

First the Harrier





Now everything





Some dramas there fitting on the photos - but now you can see the whole thing!

Here's some youtube clips I found interesting on the Harrier GR3







This one's a bit old - but still has some cool stuff in it.



Next up - some Soviet Armour!