737 Max

Big, if true.

Venezuela–Is this the end?

It looks like it might be.  I hope for the people of Venezuela that it is.

Markings

Did you ever just want to build a model because of the insignia or markings?  I want to do this one, just for the chance to do Maltese cross markings.

Clearprop Ki-51

The Ki-51 is an aircraft that has been in need of a modern kit for some time.  The ancient Mania kit, reboxed by Hasegawa has been our only option for years.  Now, Clearprop has announced that they are doing a Ki-51.  Yea!

What makes a good blog post?

I’ve been wondering about this as I’ve watched the traffic numbers for this blog ebb and flow.  I really am not greatly concerned with traffic as this blog serves as much as a place where I keep notes on things I am interested in.  However, visiting the blogs of modelers like Jeff “Inch High” Groves, Jim “Cranky Canuck” Bates and Tommy Thomason, I realize that my stuff just doesn’t have the same quality.

Each of those blogs, and many others are different in their own way, but all have a mark of quality.  They make me muse on what makes a good (modeling related) blog post.  One thing these sites all do is make use of photos.  I don’t do that enough.  Also, all of these sites go deep on history in many of their posts.  Those are some of the best posts.  I’d like to find more time to devote to posts like that, but until I get better organized, I don’t know if that will be possible.

 

SBS C.450 testbuild

If this kit wasn’t by SBS, I’d have no interest in it.  As it is, seeing this test build, I could see myself buying one.

Lydia Litvyak

Sometimes you just find yourself wandering around the internet.  I was doing so and ended up researching Lydia Litvyak.  I knew about her before, but hadn’t realized that a couple of German aces were among her victims.

Junkers Ju 390

A neat post on an interesting aircraft. I’d love to gather available info on the Europe-Asia flights conducted by the Axis in WWII.

Inch High Guy

I first became interested in the Ju 390 after reading about its history in William Green’s Warplanes of the Third Reich.  When Revell of Germany released their 1/72 scale Ju 290 kits, 390 conversions became an attractive, and affordable, possibility for modelers.  The Ju 390 was a development of Junkers’ previous Ju 290 series, which themselves were extensions of the Ju 90 design.  Green gives a detailed description of the modifications made to transform existing Ju 290 airframes to Ju 390 standard and lists the equipment they carried. 

References are an issue, there is just not that much material on the Ju 390.  Fortunately, most of the design details were consistent with the Ju 290s, and much of the operational history of the Ju 390 V2 parallels the 290s which were operated by the same units.  In addition to Green, Monogram Close-Up 3 Junkers 290 provides many pictures useful…

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N9M crash

The only remaining example in the world of an Northrop N9M crashed recently destroying the aircraft.  This brings up a position that I have held for some time, namely that if an aircraft is the only example of its type existing in the world, then it shouldn’t be flown, even if it is in flyable condition.  I’ve had debates with other aviation enthusiasts who feel differently, but to me the risk of losing such unique items outweighs the joy of seeing them in flight.  Thoughts?

F3H

Sword recently released a new kit of the F3H Demon.  Tommy Thomason over on his Tailhook Topics blog has a great review of the kit.  I picked this one up at the LHS recently.