Tamiya Model Magazine International 12/2013

A couple of years ago I was approached by a friend who mentioned that he had pitched my name to a guy interested in having a 1:24 Hurricane built up. 1:24? "Good lord" I thought. "Didn't my friend remember that I'm a 1:48 guy?" What did people do with 1:24 scale models? I imagined my cat sitting in the cockpit. My friend put me in contact with Jim, a Continental Airlines pilot. He explained that he had recently acquired the skeletal remains of Hawker Hurricane shot down in May of 1940 just off the coast of Dunkirk and was wondering if I could recreate the aircraft in a model. Jim had done quite a bit of research on the aircraft and even made a trip to England to speak with surviving family members and friends of the pilot, an early Battle of Britain ace, RHA 'Dickey' Lee. Richard Hugh Anthony Lee was born in London in 1917 and was educated at the famous Charterhouse School. He joined RAF Cranwell as a Flight Cadet in September 1935, graduating in July 1937. He survived the shoot down in P3311, only to be killed a short time later in another Hurricane while chasing several Bf'109s out to sea off the coast of England, northeast of Marston. Lee, who was only twenty-three at the time of his death, was one the leading scorers for No.56 squadron.

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Airforces Monthly 12/2013

US GOVERNMENT officials confirmed that Israeli Air Force (IAF) aircraft carried out an air strike on the night of October 30/31 on the Syrian port city of Latakia. The target was a shipment of Russian S-125 (SA-3 Goa) surface-to-air missiles. Unconfirmed reports suggest that up to four aircraft undertook the raid. The weapons were reported to be en route to the Lebanese militant Hezbollah group. Syrian rebels reported loud explosions, apparently from inside an air defence facility in the Snubar Jableh area of Latakia. Israeli aircraft have carried out several air strikes on Syria this year. In the first attack, on January 30, it is believed the target was a shipment of SA-17 anti-aircraft missiles in trucks next to the Jamraya Scientific Research Center in Damascus. Later, on the night of May 2/3, IAF fighters struck a shipment of weapons apparently destined for Hezbollah and reported to have been conventional surface-to-surface guided tactical ballistic missiles, possibly Iranian Fateh-110s, which were stored at Damascus Airport. Some reports suggest that IAF aircraft may have used stand-off weapons for the attack, remaining outside Syrian airspace and firing whilst still over Lebanon.

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Classic Military Vehicles 12/2013

It is perhaps odd to think that, until 2013, it has been at least a couple of decades since there has been a running example of the A27M Cromwell in the UK. Whether with hindsight we would judge the Cromwell to have been a 'good' tank (whatever that means) when compared to its contemporaries is debatable, but it was historically important in a vehicle sense if only because it first went into action in Normandy in June 1944 with the Desert Rats, the 7th Armoured Division, and went on to become the most numerically significant British cruiser tank of WW2. Nevertheless, for too many years and despite there being examples in museums and overseas, we haven't had the opportunity to see or hear a Cromwell at full tilt in the country of its birth... until now. For at the inaugural War and Peace Revival last July, Rick Wedlock's Cromwell, the result of some three years of restoration work, made its public debut. The project started back in 2010 when Rick heard of a Centaur being offered for sale by dealer Ian Galliers. 'I thought I must have it,' recalls Rick, 'so took the morning off work and drove down to Shrewsbury to see it.

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Air Modeller Issue 51

When first announced I greeted the new 1:32 release from Tamiya with indifference as I was hoping for a Merlin engined aircraft, a Hurricane maybe, or perhaps even a Mosquito! On the other hand, I had thought that they may have tackled a 109; now that would be cool! The birdcage Corsair, as a modelling subject in this large scale didn't really enthuse me, that may have been due to the fact I still remember my efforts with Trumpeter's F4U-1A offering trying to shoe horn in a resin cockpit, correcting the exhaust layout and then tackling the 5mm gap at the trailing edge caused by a resin wheel bay set! When David offered me the chance to build this model for the magazine I had second thoughts. The more I pondered the more I got enthusiastic about the possibility; I did a bit of research and found some really heavily weathered land based USMC aircraft. Weathering is my passion and the more I looked, the greater the inspiration built up and the more enthusiastic I felt about the project. So a quick email to David and a plain white box winged its way down the A1. I say plain box as this was a pre production sample, complete with huge photocopied instructions! Just as I was about to start, Roy Sutherland of Barracuda Studios very kindly offered to send some of his resin and decal upgrades for the kit. I'll be showcasing those as I go so stay tuned.

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