Eye in the Sky GB

Theuns, that cockpit looks amazing. I never would have known it was not part of the kit if you hadn't mentioned you scratch built it. Well done, Sir.

BK

Keavdog fingers crossed cause that camo’s looking nice!

Theuns,

Nice job on the Piper so far!

Brandon,

Thanks. 1/144 is pretty much the only way to go for the larger aircraft. I'd love to get the new Roden C-5 Galaxy, two things are preventing it. One is cost, the other is that I don't know where I'd put it when it was done.

Lewbud, man that was fast and it turned out great. I love the scheme.

Keavdog, I'm totally diggin' the build. You guys are starting to convence me to build the larger birds in a smaller scale. I've resisted that idea, but when I see builds like this I think I may have been limiting myself. Well done.

BK

Thanks John. The Connie is looking great!

Thanks Bish! I'm saving my Mk. 1a just for you!(wish there was an emoji for evil laugh follows!)

Nice job on the Spit lewbud, looks good in those markings.

Looks good lewbud!  Fast build.

Okay... my 3rd time doing the sausage masking.  I'll start practicing with my eclipse ;)

Medium green on - let this cure up and do the last of the sausages and pray the camo turns out okay.

Proof of unstartedness.

The cockpit installed.

The cockpit in the PR. XIX is a very fidgety three piece affair. The fuselage has grooves molded in where the bulkheads and instrument panel go so once everything was glued together, I laid the cockpit in place until it dried. It's possible that I put the control stick in the wrong place, but I think it's a little too tall. On the other hand, I think it is the first control stick of the Airfix new tools that I've built that has survived being cut off the sprue without breaking (their 1/72 P-51 is really bad about this). There was no decal provided for the instrument panel. It doesn't really matter because you can't see it. There is no detail provided for the camera bay behind the cockpit, so I painted the clear piece black, then covered it with primer and British interior green so light wouldn't shine through. I do believe there is an aftermarket set by Pavla if you feel the need to fill it. The clear part for the camera porthole doesn't fit that great.

The fuselage fully assembled.

The painted fuselage, not quite ready for decals.

The paint is Vallejo Air's Faded PRU Blue. It caused me some concern as it was still tacky a couple of hours after I shot it. I thought I was going to have to use the microwave to get her done in time, but I didn't have to. I did notice the thin spots and repainted.

She's done.

A few afterthoughts. One is buy the Eduard canopy mask set. It makes life simpler. Although the mask set doesn't provide masks for the oblique cameras in the bottom of the fuselage, it does provide two full sets of wheel hub masks and the unused set will fit perfectly. I still have a problem with Spitfire wing root gaps, especially Airfix's. There's got to be a better way of doing that join, even if it's not along an existing panel line (in fact, I'd prefer it because then I could fill it without having to worry about rescribing or losing detail). Overall, the kit fits pretty good, just the usual seams in the usual places. I've seen a couple of attractive schemes in Fast Silver, so I'll probably be doing this one again eventually.

Silentbob,

Thanks for running this group build. I like the second shot for the front page. Hopefully will be finishing the Global Hawk soon.

Nice work building that pit Theuns.

Looks nice John. I take it your doing the aircraft in the middle of the markings options.

I have a couple of caracal sets but never used them so be interested to see what you think. But i have just noticed they are made by cartograf so hopefully they should be fine.

Here is the revell 1/32 PA-18 supercub I am working on. It was lying in the box with the floor assembled for a long time so now is the time to get it done LOL

The kit has a few issues.

1. The elevators are for a PA-14 cruiser, the PA-18 had counter weights. azy to fix though

2. only one wingtank, again a PA14 thing, the PA-18's had two wingtanks

3. no flaps on the kit wing - PA-18 has flaps

IMG_20181231_071848 by Theunis van Vuuren, on Flickr

The model I am doing is a L-18c used by the US ARMY to train artillary spotters in the early 1950's. The later more powerfull Supercubs became the L-21.

Anyway, I had to basically build the whole cockpit from sheet and sprue, the seats, all the tube members ect.

IMG_20181231_071715 by Theunis van Vuuren, on Flickr

The red thing on the firewall is te header tank for the engine

IMG_20181231_071800 by Theunis van Vuuren, on Flickr

Theuns

Comming along SilentBob!  Second color on the EC-121R.  I sure hope I don't have the issues I had with the sausages ruining my finish on the KFIR I did.  I'll let the brown setup for a couple days and sausage it off and spray the medium green next. 

I ordered the Caracal decal set mostly because the paint callouts for the minicraft kit are completely wrong.  I was also hoping for a bit more decal wise, but there isn't much.  There are enough decals to do a couple kits though, so I may do the Navy scheme down the road.

Thanks for the kind words RadMax and Bish.  The going is slow, but it is going.

Theuns and Lewbud, I've updated the roster for you both.  Can't wait to see them!

Silentbob,

Could you add an Airfix 1/72 Spitfire PR. XIX to my builds please? Will be in Swedish markings.  I haven't given up on the Global Hawk, just want a successful build for the Weekend GB.

Its going to be some time befor I pluck up the "want" to scribe the rest of the Shackleton, in the meantime I have a 1/32 Revell PA-18 supercub that I converted to the US Army L-18c they used to train ariel artilary spotters. Would this be "eye in the sky"

Theuns

Looks good there Bob.

Hi everyone! All the builds are looking great, especially the complete kits! I may be just a little jealous, as I’ve had extremely limited bench time the past 6 months. Who knew such a small human could take up so much time?

Anyway, I haven’t started my kit yet. I’ve collected much of the aftermarket I’m planning on using. But I’ve still got a kit ahead of my F-6B in the queue. 

SilentBob, sorry to hear about your hardships as of late. My condolences on the loss of your mother in law. As far as your transplant, keep doing what you’re doing, and do your best to stay positive. And oh yeah, keep showing us progress pics! Easy for me to say, huh??

Here's a pic of the inside of the nose with my makeshift cameras inside (they're just some leftover bits from some Warhammer 40K kits). 

I put some fishing sinkers and some bb's in the ends of the nacelles to keep it from tail sitting and closed her up.

Nothing really pic worthy, but I did make a little progress last night and finally sealed up the fuselage by installing the intake with the fan behind it. Will mask the wheel well and shoot it white when I get off work tonight.

Brandon you did a really nice job on the Mig! The blue really makes it come together on this one nice work!

Bloody hell lewbud, that thing is huge. I was thinking it must be 48th. I have done the Skunkworks Reaper, a little bigger than the Predator, that was not a bad kit. Well, 2 kits actually.

Awesome progress guys!

Lewbud that looks like a fun kit.  I can't wait to see how it all comes together.  I have a bit of a soft spot for those drones as I used to work with them.

John, I have to agree with everyone else that the 121 is a sleek bird.  I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of the camo on her.

I've been able to make a little bit of progress on my Lightning.  I was able to use some spare parts from a Warhammer 40k kit to simulate the cameras behind the windows, but I forgot to take pictures of them before I glued it together.  I'll snap some pics looking into the nose the next time I head down to the bench.

Bish,

It's in the Divine scale of 1/72. I have a couple of other drones/UAV's in the stash. One is the RQ-7 by Attack Hobbies, the other is a X-47B. While I feel my eyes might be up to the RQ-7, I'm not sure my fingers are. It's the complete opposite of the Global Hawk. A tiny aircraft with tiny parts.

BK,

Thanks.  If you get one of these, make sure you have plenty of real estate open in the display case. The kit includes markings for several airframes. There is a German bird, a Taiwanese bird, and markings for the one NASA operates and a test bird in white and orange from Edwards AFB. I would have preferred to do either the NASA bird or the one from Edwards, but a couple of things stopped me. While NASA operates a Global Hawk, it's not a B model. It's a preproduction airframe and is significantly smaller than the B. The only kit available of it is Unicraft's resin kits out of Ukraine. Think legacy Hornet versus the E/F models. I would have loved to do the one from Edwards, but I couldn't find any pics of the B in those markings and I have had bad luck with international orange. Every time I''ve used it, it remains tacky for days and I usually end up using the microwave to cure it. Since this was to be a Weekend build, that wouldn't do. I'd love to get the MQ-4C Triton as it has a very attractive paint scheme, but I just don't have the room.

Lewbud, your progress looks great. You inspire me to pick one of those up. I think they are really cool looking.

Keavdog, very nice work on the 121. I agree that it is a very graceful looking AC. Certainly one of the best looking large prop birds built.

BK

Thats looking nice John.

lewbud, looking very nice, that thing is huge, what scale is it.

I love the comment about loseing the wing, that sounds so familiar.

BD, very nice looking build there, got to love that scheme. Thats got a nice finish to it.

KeavDog,

The 121 is looking great! The Constellation was one of the most graceful looking aircraft ever built.  Thanks for the compliment on the Global Hawk. To be honest, it is quite impressive looking on the work table. Part of me is tempted to build the Attack Hobbies RQ-7 that I have in the stash after I finish this one. To do so would be a complete 180 in size. I think the RQ-7 will fit in a 3 inch x 3 inch square when it's done. I would be going from one of the largest aircraft models I've ever completed (this includes when I built 1/48) to the smallest.

Lewbud - that's going to be an impressive display at the scale.

Had a chance to shoot some paint on the underside of the EC-121R.

Brandon,

Nice job on the Mig! You're right, don't see a Cuban bird every day.

Well, here's my status so far on the Global Hawk.  I started on Thursday 12/6/18 in an attempt to build this for the infamous Weekend GB. I thought it's a kit with 36 parts, all the reviews I'd read said it fit pretty good, what on earth could go wrong? When somebody asks me that question, my response is why would you want an answer to that question? Well, I got the answer and it wasn't the answer I was looking for. Needless to say, I missed the goal and here is where she's at now.

The proof of unstartedness pic:

Wings assembled and mocked up. This thing is huge!:

At one point I thought I'd lost one of the wings. Now I've lost a golf ball in the middle of the fairway after watching it land, but I thought how in the heck do you lose a 13 inch long piece of plastic? Found it in the box after 15 minutes of frantic searching, standing on the leading edge up against the side of the box.

The bottom of the fuselage. The square piece is important as it not only helps align the wings, but the four bumps on the bottom (two on each side, not shown in pic) allows the wing to snap in place. The gap is a little larger than most would like on a contest model,but perfectly adequate for a build that's going on the shelf.

The port side of the fuselage, ready to be glued together. The instructions call for 10g of weight to be put in the nose. Where you're going to put it? I have no idea. As it turned out, I forgot to put it in before I glued the halves together and put in the fuselage bottom piece.

The fuselage is together. While the fit is okay, it wasn't as good as I was led to believe. There is a need for a spreader bar aft of the wings and there is some serious gapage where the beaver tail joins the rear of the fuselage. Not to mention a nasty seam on top of the engine fairing. Normally I would have run a bead of superglue from the underside of the engine fairing to give the putty something to stop against, but I didn't find my superglue until I'd applied the second coat of putty.

The assembled fuselage with wings attached (not glued).

For a sense of scale, that is a Platz 1/72 Predator shown with it. The Predator (not a small aircraft itself) is about the size of a P-51.

Since these pics have been taken, I filled and sanded the more egregious seams on the fuselage and primered it. I've also painted the bottoms of the wings gunship gray (the tops will be white (Tamiya rattlecan).  The fuseelage will be overall gunship gray as well. To break up the some of the monotony, the radome will be painted a different shade of gray to simulate the discoloration from the sun. Visible in an earlier picture, there is a teardrop shaped fairing on each side of the front fuselage that will be painted a very dark gray as well. I've seen it in pictures of various airframes, but don't know if this particular bird ever had them painted. We'll call it artistic license.