SCALE MODEL NEWS

SMN REPORT The LEGO name derives from the Danish words leg godt , meaning ‘play well’, which is an apt title, but in the 63 years since manufacturing started, LEGO has far outgrown its ‘kids-only’ beginnings. Here we have an amazing 20,000-brick Bat Cave, built by adult enthusiasts, Wayne Hussey and Carlyle Livingstone. As Carlyle ( left in the pic, Wayne on the right ) puts it, “The works of dedicated Lego builders never fail to amaze. I'm a former professional model maker/visual effects artist, turned iPhone app developer. I still like to build stuff and LEGO lets me get out my creativity without the dust and fumes of traditional model making. “My company is Lifeform Entertainment. We blend the visual power of video games and the play-anywhere, social edge of mobile Apps with all the fun cool stuff you would normally do with miniatures, dice, cards, and yes LEGO.” Carlyle’s outfit looks very interesting indeed, especially if you’re up for some App development. Have a look here . ...

REPORT BY MAT IRVINE Italeri is a kit company that besides making a wide variety of cars, trucks, ships, aircraft and military, also produces many accessory and diorama kits. One brand-new release is this 1:24 scale ‘Guard rail and road section for display’, a diorama base intended for trucks or other road vehicles. What’s in the box? You get two identical runners, each with a section of road surface, guard rails and a STOP sign. Decals provide relevant highway markings, and each runner has 25 parts, so you get 50 in all, plus the decal sheet. The road sections are 229 mm (9 in) wide by 187 mm (7.4 in) long - so making up both gives you a display base nearly 380 mm (15 in) in length, plenty big enough for the average 1:24 scale truck. If you want to display a full-length tractor-trailer combo though, you'll best add a second kit to give it more space. As the box detail indicates, the kit is suitable for European and US trucks, but could be adapted easily to make it suitable for vir...

Talking of airliner models, this delightful old ad for Frog airliners turned up recently. For some reason I thought all Frog airliners were made to the same 1:96 scale - but no, there's variety there, though nowhere near the profusion of fit-the-box scales (more like non-scales) that were popular at the time with makers such as Revell, Lindberg and others. The subjects in the Frog ad are all European designs, except for the Boeing 707. Maybe it's time for an enterprising manufacturer to revisit the past with standard-scale kits of aviation classics such as the Sud Aviation Caravelle, or the Vickers Viscount. Detailed up to present-day standards, with interiors and maybe even some airport ground equipment, they could be a popular choice - as for me, I'd just luurve a Comet IV with a transparent fuselage side, fully detailed engines and interior, plus a flight deck ( below ) including the navigator's station ( bottom ). Such extras (oh go on then, let's have lighting ...

SMN REPORT For lovers of exotic and complex markings, this one’s a winner, and ought to be the subject for a garage-kit decal job... please! Last week, a 41-tonne king salmon landed in Anchorage, Alaska, to a rousing welcome from crowds of workers with Alaska Airlines and the state seafood industry. Actually of course, the ‘king salmon’ arrival was no overweight flying fish, but a newly-decorated Boeing 737-800 ( above ), now surely a contender for displaying the world’s most intricate commercial aircraft livery. The scheme celebrates the partnership of Alaska Airlines and the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, both organizations eager to promote the delights of the largest US state and its produce. Bigger aircraft The ‘Salmon-Thirty-Salmon II’ design is similar to the 2005 paint scheme that flew on a 737-400, an aircraft repainted with Alaska’s standard Eskimo livery in 2011. The new king salmon is longer than the earlier one, as the -800 is a bigger plane, and also features uptilted...

MAT IRVINE REPORTS: Cast your mind back to my May 2012 review of the 1:12 scale Airfix Doctor Who ‘Welcome Aboard’ kit. It was the one I hadn’t completed, as I was trying to summon up energy to finish the complex paint job. One thing on the waiting list was the intricate pattern on Martha’s fashionable pink top, mainly as it was, well, intricate! I’m pleased to report that a quick solution has arrived. OK, perhaps these things needn’t worry us too much - Martha likely had quite a few tops and, as we know that the Doctor Who TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimension In Space) is of infinite dimensions internally, there may be a branch of Next or Top Shop inside that British police box, somewhere, somewhen… WonderFest link However, also cast your mind back to my first review of the WonderFest event this year, where I mentioned a British ex-pat I met, Jim James. Although he’s not normally in the after-market decals business, Jim has stepped in to produce a decal set to get around the ‘Martha’ p...

MAT IRVINE REPORTS: Who would have thought that there would be resurgence of interest in 1950s-era model kits? Even more so, with kits that are not existing-tool reissues, but are brand-new. This is certainly the case with Moebius Models, which, thanks to the enthusiasm of Dave Metzner, are producing new cars never before seen in kit form - using standard injection-moulding, at least. First off was the 1953 Hudson Hornet, itself an interesting choice, and now comes the Chrysler 300, the ‘personal’ car in Chrysler’s 1955 range. Detailed kit As with the earlier Hornet, the 300 is a fully - and highly - detailed kit, with more than 125 parts, moulded in light grey, clear, and chrome, plus two transparent red tail lights, and four contemporary tyres with (excellent news) pre-applied whitewalls. Build sequence Moebius kits also supply you with fully-detailed colour instructions that - rare these days - actually include text for the step-by-step build sequence, such as, “Cement Right Engine ...

SMN REPORT Here’s a really useful set of 1:72 scale figures, featuring modern NATO combat pilots (men and women!) from the air forces of three countries: Germany, United Kingdom and United States. What’s in the box? The combat pilots are a pretty fair representation of virtually any G-suited Top Gun-style fighter jock belonging to today’s front-line air arms. You get a good selection in the colourful box, with a total of 28 figures, though the kit contains 65 components. This is to allow poseable options, especially useful for cockpit action - you might like to feature a raised canopy, for example, the pilot with raised thumb indicating readiness for flight. About NATO pilots Combat pilots are specially trained for the severe conditions encountered when flying powerful military aircraft, being subject to much higher G-forces than when aboard civil aircraft. To protect them against loss of blood to the head caused by combat manoeuvres - up to 9G is fairly typical - pilots wear pressure...

Sad to say, the pretty little 1:72 scale de Havilland Heron airliner depicted on this old Airfix box-top wasn't at the 2012 Jersey Air Show, either in model form or the real thing. But there were plenty of elderly aircraft flying at the display held a couple of weeks ago. Here are some of the interesting aircraft on display, on the ground and in the air. The annual event must make an interesting change for the air traffic controllers, as display and regular traffic use the same runway, under watchful eyes in the gleaming new control tower. The tower painted on the old Airfix box-top is now consigned to the past. Airliners sharing runway space with the display aircraft included types from Embraer (above) and Airbus (below). The Groupe Trenchant flew ex-Armee de l'Air Potez Air Fouga Magisters in a neat four-ship display. Britain's Red Arrows display team put on their usual immaculate performance in BAe Hawk jets. Classic World War II heavy bomber, the Avro Lancaster in fligh...