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Kit: Airfix (1:72)
This is the Airfx kit. It originally started life as the single seat night fighter conversion as depicted in the Harleyford book. Then I found this three seat barnstorming profile in an encyclopedia of aircraft (I can't remember the title) as well as an Air International article on the Avro 504 with profile paintings. The fuselage is lengthened, rear cockpit expanded and extra seat added. I didn't strip the original PC12 color from the single-seater, but painted the red over it and it looks like an ex-military machine. Tires are rubber "O" rings; landing gear, struts and tail skid scratch built. All lettering is hand-painted and it has weathered nicely.Original barnstormer build dates from 1979. It has been rebuilt 4 times. The Avro is one of my favorite British aircraft.
Kit: Scratch (1:72)
This is my scratch built Bristol F.2B, based on a photograph in Squadron's Bristol Fighters in Action, built in the 1980's. ( I do not have the Airfix built, nor did I get the Roden version.) The fuselage is pine (as several of my other scratch built projects), the cockpit cut out, detailed and skinned with sheet plastic, the rest is sheet styrene, and Aeroclub wheels. Unlike Eduard's release, I decided the scales were the same blue as the national insignia. There was an Aeroclub gun ring, which has since fallen off. Something else to repair.
Kit: Omega (1:72)
was my first resin kit by Omega, bought at Granddad's Hobby Shop in Fairfax, VA. Struts were replaced with styrene. I was missing one of the radiators and cast one by pressing the kit part in clay and using two-part epoxy. The resin colour looked so much like fabric, I left it unpainted. I completed the model in 1998 and the wings still show no signs of sagging. I rigged the model with stretched sprue. The decals went on with no problem.
Kit: Academy (1:72)
This is a conversion of the Academy 1/72 SPAD 13. Not much use as a XIII, but I converted 3 of these kits. The second one was the SPAD 14 floatplane. Scratch built floats, float wheels and tressle (or saw-horse, as we across the pond call it). I started this kit when I first joined the WWI Model Listing all those years ago (1992). It's been rebuilt 4 times.I give a big THANK YOU to Peter Leonard for the basic information (so long ago, he doesn't remember it). And I dedicate this model to Neil Crawford, who loves SPADs as much as I do (I have more SPADs in collection than any other aircraft make).