What I have made in the time inbetween

As you might suspect, I am building a Spitfire at the moment and pictures hopefully will come up soon. With all stuff happening my life too is different from what it used to be and that also reflects on my paper model building things.
Anyway, I did some nice out of the box fun builds of aircraft. First up, one of my all-time favourite planes, the P-51D Mustang. This one is (of course) designed by Fabrizio Prudenziati, and was a lot of fun to build. Although the canopy doesn't really look the part because it is a little flat, the overall result is very nice and instanty recogniseable. I enlarged Zio's model to about 1/72, his original kit was a lot smaller. I realised that when I started the red tailed Tuskegee Airmen Mustang called Creamer's Dream. I redid another of his versions to 1/72 and this was the result. (But I also finished the smaller P-51 because I wouldn't dream to waste a good Zio model!)

The second build is after the break. click below to see it.

After that I decided to try my hands at a TSMC model for the first time. The Tokio Scale Model Club is a Japanese modeling society that also issues their own line of paper models, usually 'golden age'-jet fighters, but also the occasional prop trainer or even a ship. I decided on building the Republic F-105 Thunderchief in the Thunderbirds livery. This model had a couple of techniques I hadn't tried before, but a nice result. A very nice build and with a great fit.

A multi-part fuselage with a lot of gaps. Green indicating places to glue other parts on.

 
I think this is a superbly designed example of the wasp-waisted fuselage of the "Thud". (why the shape was used, read something about the area rule in aircraft designs. Quite interesting.)

Wings. With built-in wheel wells, something not very common on regular 1/72 paper models. Nicely done curves at the leading edge. It needed some extra curving with knitting needeles to get it nice and rounded and after that it looked the part.

The 'Thud' was a very big single seat fighter jet. I think it was the biggest plane the Thunderbirds have ever used. It was heavily used in Vietnam, too and it could carry more bombs than Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress or B-24 Liberator bombers from WW2. Amazing. What a destruction. Reason enough to build the plane as the Thunderbird demo team version, without any ordnance at all. Nothing looks better than a 'clean' plane. Besides, I kinda like the outrageous paint scheme of the Thunderbirds.

The air intakes of the 'Thud' are unique and typical of Republic Aviation. Their earlier models like the Thunderflash also had these intakes. The 'Flash' had them to provide room for cameras in the nose, which was where the inlet was located in the previous models, the Thunderjet and Thunderstreak. No other plane ever had these types of intakes.  

The result. Quite a large plane, measuring about 26,5 cm (that's about 5.9805Q$71/73 tiny imperials and a quart in American.)
Immediately after this one I started to build the Spitfire I am still working on. I will give you the first results soon. Thanks for stopping by and having a look!

--PK

Oh, and after the Spit is finished, I guess I'll be returning to the building of the 1/96 Shuttle stack. Just so you know.