D.H. Vampire T.11

This is another quick build I have done over the last couple of months. This new tooling Vampire T.11 from Airfix is a beautiful kit to build. From what I believe, the marking for this aircraft is meant to be of RAF 239OCU, my father old unit from the late 1950's. So I have decided to try and build one of each type of aircraft from this era of the unit. The Vampire is readily available complete with these marking, now I just need to get a Meteor T.7, plus a Hunter T.7 and F.6 to complete the line up.

This model was built straight out of the box and painted using Xtracolor High Speed Silver. I also added some seat belts inside using thin blue masking tape. "Blue" I hear you say, but I have seen both blue and beige seat belts in these Vampires in different photographs. A little unusual for me, I did not weather this model, or will not any of the other three aircraft. These training unit aircraft always seemed to be kept nice and clean from the photographs that I have seen.

So now, I just need to track down the other aircraft I need for this little project. The Meteor is currently available, but the Hunters might be a little more awkward to find.

Higgins LCVP, 1/72nd Scale Airfix

Why does it happen, that over a period of a couple of months, everything goes wrong?

Through August and September, we have had things go wrong with the car twice, the freezer, the washing machine and then a leak in the main bathroom damaging the floor and resulting in the whole thing being stripped out to be redone. Also at the beginning of the August, Kyran went and fell off the hammock in the garden breaking his arm needing surgery on it. Hence, there not being any updates on the blog over the last two months. 

But in between all of these dramas, I have managed to do a little bit of modelling to keep me in a calmer frame of mind. I decided to keep things simple and not too taxing so I started with the Airfix 1/72nd scale Higgins LCVP. This is a very nice model to build, ideal for someone to create a diorama with. Construction was straight forward, with everything going together without any issues. I got the model built up to the main structure before priming the whole model. I first airbrushed the interior and upper deck with grey, followed by brush painting the white areas of the Royal Navy scheme which I chose for this project. After a couple of coats of white, I mixed the blue shade and hand painted the dark shade of the camouflage. To finish off the main painting of the hull, I painted below the waterline with brick red as in the instructions. The hull now had a couple of coats of gloss clear, before adding the three decals and sealing them with some matt clear.

Whilst it was sitting on the shelf drying, I looked at the model thinking to myself that it was too clean. Now was a chance to try out some new products I had picked up at a show recently. This consisted of AK Interactive's Rust Streaks, Streaking Grime and Interior Wash. The rust streaks I think worked with great effect, I simply just used different brushes and played around. The rest of the model was finished off using the other two washes and metal pigment on the worn areas on the deck. Final detail painting and assembly was done and I added the cables for the ramp using some lead detailing wire.

I was very happy with the end result, Airfix did a good job with this kit. So far, it has been displayed at two shows and has received a fair bit of attention. The weathering has been the main conversation with one person stating it was the best Landing Craft model he has seen built so far.