Fascination

Ever since seeing bright red F/A-18 Super Hornets in VFA-102 "Diamondbacks" CAG colors in the last Australian airshow, I have been on a Navy plane binge. Phantoms, Hornets, Orions, Crusaders, Tomcats, Corsairs, Prowlers... did I say Phantoms? Being a fan of the new re-imagined Battlestar Galactica series hasn't helped either. Its been a gull grey, hi-viz kaleidoscope since, a plethora of dull highlighted by red, black, yellow and double nuts. At the rate I am going, I am probably going to have a Carrier air group ready in a few months, and needing the space to display it all. I'll probably start doing what carriers do; start folding wings, hang things off edge and maybe send a few of the birds up on CAP and get that Alert 5 bird on the catapult.

So here is the latest addition to the air group. Hasegawa's F/A-18 Super Hornet in Lo-viz markings of VFA-103 "Jolly Rogers" and Revell's P-3C Orion (re-boxed Hasegawa) Update III in VP-30 out of NAS Jacksonville, FL. Both in 1/72 scale and finished around the same time (there was a warm day that freakily hit Melbourne in the middle of winter.) (It helps airbrushing.)

Big guns

I picked this 1/35 Trumpeter Emil Sturer (short nickname for the SonderkraftzerlungIdontknowwhat!) in 2005 on my last visit to Manila. Its a mighty big gun! I was so excited in building it, it took me all of one week to build, paint and finish it. There were only two built back in WW2, but with Trumpeter blaring out the charge of the young turks in the model manufacturing industry, we can expect a lot of new stuff. The big guns of the past, Tamiya, Revell, Hasegawa, Italeri, and to a degree, even Airfix, are not alone anymore. There has never been a better time to be a plastic modeller; well, maybe until next month's releases.