Hawks Over Indochina?

I popped into the local model shop this morning in the hope they had a HaT FT-17 with 37mm cannon and French 75mm artillery sets for the Franco-Thai War but to no avail. I did however resist the lure of the Zvezda Cold War Hot models and the new 15mm T-35!

A bit of internet surfing to find photos from the war has led me slightly astray with some wonderful accounts and paintings of the short air war...

Air battle over Ban Yang

Bombing raid on Pailin and Sisophon

I also found this great model box illustrations of RTAF Hawk 75N's in action during the war from a Russian model manufacturer...

(Plane Month) Instant Mold to the Rescue

Back at the tail end of 2011 I posted about a product called Instant Mold, a silicone moulding material that softens in hot water and can be used to mould items in epoxy putty like Green Stuff. I picked some up a couple of months later but had not got around to using it until this weekend.

Building up two Revell 1/144th Spitfire MkI's I found the second model didn't have a canopy. Having picked these up off eBay a while back I was a bit scuppered in returning the item and given the cost anyway it would have cost more in postage to return the faulty goods. Enter Instant Mold...

Using the first Spitfire I'm made up, I pressed the softened silcone stick over the canopy and surrounding area. Once it had cooled I carefully peeled the mould off and filled it with Green Stuff.

The next day I popped the Green Stuff out of the mould. As you can see, it has produced a decent Green Stuff canopy (apologies for the blurry photo).

I then carefully trimmed away the excess Green Stuff and glued it to the model.

All in all a successful rescue and I am really impressed with the Instant Mold and am planning to try it out on some alternative pieces in due course. It is certainly worth having it in the tool box and the good thing is that it is re-useable, just drop it back in hot water to soften it and use again.

International Women's Day: The Night Witches

Today, as I am sure you all know(!), is International Women's Day. Whilst doing some research for work I got a little side tracked reading about the exploits of the Soviet all-female 588th Night Bomber Regiment (later renamed the 46th "Taman" Guards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment), nicknamed by the Germans the Nachthexen, the Night Witches.

As a kid I recall one storyline in Johnny Red featuring Soviet female pilots flying combat missions in rickety Polikarpov Po-2, little did I realise at the time that the story was based on fact.

There is a really interesting BBC podcast documentary that you can download here on the Night Witches that is well worth listening to and it seems apt today to celebrate the achievements and bravery of the Night Witches...

 

March is... Plane Month!

I need to clear a bit of a rule logjam at Wessex Games so March will be dedicated to painting models for these games.

First in line is the second edition of AirWar: 1918, whilst I have a number of allied planes painted up I haven't got around to painting enough Central Powers for them to fight. Most of these will be Wings of War repaints using the Dom's Decals transfer sets. I also have some Shapeways bombers but priority is the fighters.

Next is AirWar: 1940, the sister set to 1918 which covers WW2. Publication of this will probably be near the end of the year at the earliest but I would like to get a "lite"taster out this summer and if I get enough WWI models painted up I intend to have a crack at painting some 1/144th fighter kits I've picked up for AirWar: 1940 “Acthung Spitfeuer!”

Finally, this month's stretch target is to paint up a few fighters for the SF variant of the AirWar series: Iron Hawk 2136AD. These can do double service in Iron Cow for ground attack missions.