Meteor Shower (Part 1)

Box art

Bit of a rinse as usual, not sure if it's even needed nowadays, more habit than anything else.

Dry brushed the interior of the tub to bring some detail out on the off-chance you'll be able to see it at the end.

Blast from the past: don't have and couldn't find the acrylic version of 109 WWI Blue, so dug out my enamel, just like when I was a kid 🙂
(And figured sod it, might as well use the metalcotes too)

This is my 1:48 bang-seat, complete with arm rests...

... but no, despite being the sturdy 1:48 one, between removing the spine part of the chair from the sprue and then looking at it again 5 seconds later, I'd managed to lose an arm!
Bodged one with a bit of offcut sprue.

My thinking is, from outside of the cockpit tub once assembled, it'll look fine. Disaster averted.
Still love to know how I managed to knock that bit off!

Nearly time to assemble the tub.

Very satisfying click as the seat went in.

Decided to try and be clever, attaching the gun covers with magnets (hopefully). Nearly came a cropper by forgetting an ancient Confucian wisdom*.

* Don't f*** about with Superglue and magnets ?

Those cross beams went into position beautifully. Have to say, this is a bloody clever and well designed kit, and a pleasure to build.

Showing off the metal work before it all gets sealed up. The exhaust pipes also snapped in with a comforting "click".

It's pegging time!

Not wishing to cast aspersions on Airfix's calculations but I'm going 5g more than they've recommended, I don't want a tail-sitter doing wheelies.
Of course, iron weights and the aforementioned neodymium magnets have already been arguing as I did a dry fit... sigh.

Weighted cockpit tub fitted - another satisfying and reassuring click as it went in.

Fuselage sealed up.

That snapped together nicely. Gap between wing top surfaces and fuselage is a bit bigger than I'd like/expect, but not sure if filler would actually make more of a mess!

Looking a bit more plane shaped

Distinct lack of engines for now, this is where the Big One and Little One will have to part company for a bit.

Flying in formation, Little One doing a good impression of being further away.
Big One doing very well considering it has no engines.

Two Rolls-Royce RB.37 Derwent engines, some assembly required.

Two Rolls-Royce RB.37 Derwent engines - think they've come out quite nicely. So many different metal finishes in there, adds a lot of texture and interest. Citadel washes impressing me too.

One Derwent in the nacelle..

... other Derwent on a trolley. Think I'm going to streak that trolley a bit (grime/oil/rust) as it's looking a bit too clean.

Another view of Derwent-to-go

Last one, honest.

Cameras and the complicated nose wheel / camera mount thingy. Bit worried about how strong it is, given all the weight I packed in on the other side of that bulkhead!

As Sun Tzu never said, precut masks never survive first contact with the model... but I'm at least consistent across the two!
It occurred to me as I masked these two that I'm building a scale model of a scale model 🙂 ... which is a two-edged sword as they each help explain some fits and positions on each other, but I also want to get them as similar as possible.