INCOMING - AIRFIX FIESTA RALLY CAR, 0/400 BIPLANE BOMBER

It's good to see production cars in the Airfix range, and here's one of the best Euro-hatchbacks around, the Ford Fiesta RS, here produced in its hot WRC version.


WRC - World Rally Championship - is a dramatic race series that sees production cars uprated to rally spec, with engines, suspension (in fact, virtually everything) improved and upgraded to compete in a series of rally races around the world.

Colour markings
The Airfix Fiesta joins the 1:32 scale range and is a 79-component kit, which measures 125 mm (4.9 in) when assembled - small but perfectly formed is a quick summation. And it is well made, with good fit and finish, plus colourful decals that make the real thing a standout target for photographers.

Skills needed
One thing though - Airfix reckons this is a 'Skill Level 2' kit, which might be true if you simply talk about glueing the bits together. But to make the little Fiesta a real display piece demands considerable skill in the finishing department - WRC paint schemes are complex, and Airfix 'sorta' acknowledges this in the paint-pot list, with no less than 10 different colours mentioned.

Biplane bomber
Another Airfix offering is the 1:72 scale Handley-Page 0/400 World War I bomber. The kit has 167 parts and has a wingspan of 423 mm (16.6 in), reflecting the sheer size of the real twin-engine machine.  Airfix has upped the skill level to 3, and rightly so, for biplanes of any description are a challenge to beginners, let alone if and when you attempt to add interplane rigging.

Early flyers
Complexity apart, it's always good to see stalwarts of early aviation being kitted, so hats off to Airfix for making this familiar old machine available again.

Paint schemes
Below, an 0/400 crew poses for the camera in 1918, their machine painted in an experimental mottled camouflage pattern. We don't know the shades employed, but it could make an interesting challenge for those who want to build something a little different.

INCOMING - HAMEX 4 MODEL EXPO DUE SUNDAY

SMN PREVIEW:
The sales tables are booked, club stands organized, hot sandwiches on order, models good to go... Yes, it’s HaMeX again, this time the fourth in the annual event series. For anyone living in reach of the Milton Keynes area in the UK, this is the model zone to head for this coming Sunday.

As usual, the two organizers will be there, with Mat Irvine displaying his many models, and Paul Fitzmaurice demonstrating airbrushes and other modelling equipment.

More kits on show
In Mat’s words, “the HaMeX show is invariably less 'things-to-see driven’, compared with Automodellismo and smallspace, as it is intended purely as a swap meet. However I'm aiming to have even more kits there than usual - some 'new old' ones have been dug out, including a range of 1:20 scale cars and I have more 'fix-er-uppers'.

More from Mat
“I will have some models on display (as it's in the publicity...!), but exactly what I've yet to decide. It won't - necessarily - be FX stuff, hence the poster just says 'model display', not 'effects model display'! I'm not saying no FX models will be there, just don't want to be specific!”

Lucky dip
So the show looks like an interesting lucky-dip of good stuff. We’ll be reporting on what actually appears week. Meantime, the pictures of HaMeX 3 should whet your appetite.

Visit HaMeX here for details on all shows. 

Paul Fitzmaurice online here.

SILVER DART SPACECRAFT FROM BLAP! MODELS OF CANADA

MAT IRVINE REPORTS
Canada’s headline space involvement is in supplying the Canadarm 2 robotic arm system presently used on the International Space Station (ISS). But here’s another, smaller, Canadian space product in the form of a sleek 1:72 scale resin kit of the Silver Dart hypersonic re-entry glider from Dave Guerin’s Blap! Models of Ontario.

The primary role of Blap! is in specialist one-off moulding and mould-making tasks for other companies, mostly involving resin. However, Dave also has a sideline producing model kits, of which the 1:72 scale Silver Dart is one.

Easy assembly
The Silver Dart kit is simple in construction: you get a baker's-dozen components including the sturdy base, but the box does also contain sheet of decals. These are rather fragile, so once applied, you will need to protect them with several coats of Testors satin varnish.

Metallic finish
The assembled model measures some 150 mm (6 in) long, though the big base adds to the perceived size on a display shelf. If the real thing goes all the way to production, it will have an all-metal surface finish, so painting the kit a dark aluminium is easy enough, with none of the complication of painting thermal-tile patterns, necessary with a Space Shuttle kit.

Summation
A neat kit and we agree with the Modelling Madness review that reckons it’s a good introduction to resin modelling.

Other kits from Blap!
Blap! Models also makes kits of the original FDL-7, the HL-20, plus the Canadian Arrow suborbital rocket, forerunner to Silver Dart. For aero-specialists, there’s a conversion kit for a flaps-down US Navy F-8E Crusader wing, designed for the Hasegawa 1:48 scale model.

Silver Dart background
Mention ‘space tourism’ and the first names that spring to mind are Burt Rutan, SpaceShipOne, SpaceShipTwo, and Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic. But there are other players in the game, one of them being PlanetSpace, which is developing the Silver Dart.

Ansari X-Prize
Named for the first aircraft flown from Canadian soil in 1909, today’s Silver Dart is a potential contender as a space tourism contender. It originated with the Canadian Arrow company of London, Ontario, which was a contender for the Ansari X-Prize of the early 2000s. Of course, Burt Rutan’s design won the prize in 2004, but some members of Canadian Arrow’s management team went on to form today's Chicago-based PlanetSpace.

Design story
Silver Dart is based on the US Air Force FDL-7 hypersonic glider, which itself dates back as far as the 1950s. However, the version now being developed is intended to be extremely versatile, with mission profiles that could be crewed or not, and be used as a supply vessel for the ISS, or as a tourist spaceliner.

Thanks to Dave Guertin at Blap! Models for the review kits. 

SCALE MODELWORLD 2012 - THE WINNERS

MAT IRVINE REPORTS
The competition at Scale ModelWorld 2012 was split into a number of classes depending on subject, scale, and construction type. This has led to approaching 100 different classes, sometimes leading to some confusion as to which class to enter your creation.


However, when it comes down to it, there are only seven overall categories - aircraft, military, civilian vehicles, ships, dioramas, figures and space/SF/fantasy, plus an overall junior entry.

Best in show
Once the main judging is done, each section head chooses one model of all their classes and puts it forward as a potential ‘Best in Show’. Consequently you end up with just one aircraft, one vehicle, one ship, one diorama… Well, you get the general idea.

To date, the Best in Show has always gone to an aircraft, ship or military model, and no space/SF/fantasy model has taken top spot - until this year.

Steampunk wins
This year’s top model was the ‘Modern Steam Monobike 1896’, an amazing steampunk creation, modelled by Stefano Marchetti. In addition, Stefano took the class Silver with his equally excellent ‘Cosmic Motors Detonator Endurance’, finished in Gulf Oil colours, shown here at the bottom.

Plans behind
Detail is all at this level, and even the back of Steam Monobike showed a neat line in finish, with a set of rolled-up plans featured on two shelves. Above, well-known French modeller-maker and author, Jean Christophe ‘JC’ Carbonel, photographs the model for his French-language website.

The other Best in Show contenders were: 
* Dioramas: ‘Blissful Ignorance’, by Andrew Argent.

* Aircraft: FE.2B, by Jose Martinez-Fernandez.

* Civilian Vehicles: Bugatti Type 59, by Noel Smith.

* Figures: Private Gordon Highlander 1914-15, by Mike Skelding.

* Military: Mototriciclo Benelli M36, by Patrice Roman.

* Ships: HMS Manchester, by Geoffrey Taylor.

* Junior: ‘Champagne’, by Jan Skampa.

And here's Stefano Marchetti's blue-clad Gulf lady - and very nice she is, too.

MORE SCALE MODELWORLD 2013 ENTRIES TO ADMIRE AND ENJOY

The Scale ModelWorld just passed provided a galaxy of excellent modelling. Here's another roundup of goodies on show.

All photographs courtesy Mat Irvine.

MORE ENTRIES FROM SCALE MODELWORLD 2012

Here are more of the excellent miniatures on display at Scale ModelWorld 2012, held in Telford, UK, over last weekend. 

We have yet more on the launchpad to bring you, so keep watching this space. Meantime, enjoy the  skill and talent on display with this slideshow of images, taken at the show by Mat Irvine.