Favorite Model

My favorite kit is always the one that I'm working on at the time. As for finished kits, I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for my first model with my father, an F-111. The best I've ever worked on, though, has to be the one I'm slaving over now, the 1/32 Trumpeter A-10A N/AW. It's a lot of work, but a truly museum quality kit, if you include aftermarket stuff.

My favorite model was the old Monogram SBD Dauntless. I know, I know: Accurate Miniatures' Dauntlesses are works of art-I have two. But this kit is the first one I built without my Dad's help. He was proud, I was proud, and it kept me building kits when I had thought I might quit. Self-doubt at 9 years old is a terrible thing, ya know. I still have that plane, gobs of glue and all. Let's me know how far I 've come. - Ed :)

I always tell myself that my next one will be my favorite

I assume that you are asking about the finnished product. Well, here goes.

My favorite is the old 1/72 Airfix Lockheed P-38F (early) Lightning. I think that this aircraft, with its small swept back engine nacelles, was one of the most beautiful fighter planes ever built. After several hours of building, I thought that I had bitten off more than I could chew. This is what I had to do to make this bow-wow kit look like something (it was the only game in town):

Sand and remove all of the "boiler plate" rivet detail.
Scribe many new panel lines.
Scratch build a complete cockpit interior including some PE.
Vacuum form a new seat and canopies.
Open boom radiator outlets.
Separate elevator and correct the position of its mass balance.
Fill more seams than ever had to do, even to this day.
Make wheel covers.
Replace nose guns with steel tubing.
Added many other small details.

Amid lots of cursing and swearing, I hate to tell you how many times, this thing almost ended up against the wall. Those were the times when the atmosphere around my model table was a bright purple! However, after all was said and done, it turned out to be a little gem. I was lucky enough to win two firsts and a second in model contests here on Long Island.

This taught me a valuable lesson. Never not build a kit because you think that it will be too difficult. If you like the subject, build it! With some extra time and attention to detail, anyone can build any kit. You just might surprise yourself![:0]

Pete

My Tamiya late model Tiger I was a dream to assemble. The pieces just melted together and the seperate track links went together beautifully. Unfortunatelly, I had to redo my cammo scheme twice, because I was having some airbrush braindrains. It finally came out as one of my best yet. If only I could weather like the pros do.

First off, I agree with Jeeves about A.M.'s SBD-5, It is the best one around. I have it sitting on my shelf waiting to be built.

My favorite model that I've done is Hasegawa's 1/32 F-16. That airplane looks great in big scale.

Hi - I really like the 1/48 Hasegawa F-4 Phantom Phamily. I don't do 1/48 anymore but when I did, I built lots of these. The things fell together beautifully and detailed enough that the only aftermarket item (other than decals) I used was some True Details ejection seats. These kits were a real joy to build.

Regards,

Pat

My favourite must be the 1/72 Airfix Me-163 Komet... I know, it's old and been outdone since, but as a kid, I just loved it and could not stop buying more and more of it. I must have done 7 or 8 of them, and a few from the Heller range as well. I think I like it so much because it was easy to build and paint, and looked so amazing. It's also the kit I put into my very first diorama.

Second favourite would be the 1/48 A-4 from ESCI, Blue Angels version in particular. Also for sentimental reasons than for anything else, but I had some great fun building those too!

In spite of the numerous fit problems, I really liked my Monogram P-61 in 1/48 scale. Plenty of cockpit detail, an exposed engine, open cannon bay - lots to look at. There's even a radar in the nose - but I couldn't use it because I had to fill the nose with lead weights, lest my P-61 become a "tail sitter".

The 1:48 scale SBD-5 Dauntless by Accurate Miniatures. Best kit for the SBD so far that I have seen :)

Favorites are always subject to change, but my current favorite amongst my models is a 1/72 Siebel Fh-104 Hallore transport aircraft by Pavla.

I like it because it represents something unusual and rare. According to my reseach, only 80 of the actual aircraft were ever produced.

with its heavy sprue connections, photoetched components and a bit of scratchbuilding (as instructed in the building directions) it certainly can't be recomended to a beginer.

Its not up to the same level of finish I've gotten some models to, but the kit still turns out a decent model of an attractive plane that I'd never heard of until I saw the kit on the shop shelf.

I finished mine in a very interesting marking scheme that consisted of Czech military roundels and Czech civilian registration letter codes. Again a first for me as I'd never have forseen an actual aircraft with both military and civilian markings at the same time, but pictures of the actual aircraft are out there.

Something different, thats for sure :-)

I would have to say that my 3 Catalina models are my favorites (PBY-2, 5, 5A). For some reason I have always liked it...I guess because it was so versatile a workhorse and it was so outdated at the beginning of WWII and still did a bang-up job. I haven't put them together yet, but it will happen in time.

Jerry