April
2008
Gloster "Sea" Meteor III. Landing Trials HMS IMPLACABLE 1947 / 778 Sqn RNAS Ford, 1950s.
To continue the Meteor theme, this is a quick conversion of the Airfix Meteor F. Mk III into one of the 2 Royal Navy Meteors fitted with hooks for carrier operability trials. A fuse wire tail hook has been added, and to liven the kit up it has gained a basic scratch build cockpit (esp coaming and after deck) plus some basic flaps and the elevators have been lowered.
The Airfix kit is actually not too bad apart from a preponderance of oversize rivets that I have smoothed out. Apparently the ailerons are not correct so I have filled the "dog-leg hinges", using Tippex once more - seems to be an ideal way of filling small blemishes, Fit is much better than last month's Matchbox Meteors, and it is surprising how small and delicate it looks beside the 2-seaters! Others have reported problems with canopy fit, but mine looks OK so far (stand fast problems casue dby my seat belt attempt); the canopy sits on the armour plate seat back, so I guess that cockpit assembly and positioning may have a critical effect on final canopy fit.
First coats of top colours on. I have yet to find any aircraft that doesn't look good in this colour scheme. My seatbelts went a bit awry, so I need to re-do them before the canopy goes on and I think that a second thinned coat of sky and EDSG mught be needed.
Making progress. Decals are on, but there is still some detail painting and touching up to do, not least because the decals seem to be out of register and, as a result, have a white border. Next step will be to correct the decals, lightly mark out key panels lines in 2B pencil and then apply a post shading light oily wash around them, before moving on to the finishing coat(s).
Decals Fixed:
And finished at last, which completes my Meteor Trio!:
More Pictures of the Meteors and other RN Jet Aircraft on the Jets pages
FV433 Abbot Self Propelled 105mm Gun.
And as another fast build, done at the same time as the Meteor, this is another Cromwell Models resin AFV kit. These kits are fairly expensive and have few parts, but the level of minute detail is truly amazing, and the choice of subject matter pretty unique.
The land based Abbot 105mm, based on the FV430 series running gear, has a lot in common with the Naval Mk 8 4.5inch gun, a system that I am very familiar with.
Many more tanks and other AFVs on the Dark Side pages