The Unofficial Airfix Modellers' Forum

Have just received via the postie and WH Smith the Hawker Tempest - A complete guide to the RAFs Last Piston Engine Fighter by Richard A Franks. Will help me with the Special Hobby Tempest II i got at SMW last week.
Nice scale drawings, colour plates and walkarounds of the Hendon examples plus stacks of B/W photos and Instructional diagrams.



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Bought this one at Telford along with the Typhoon edition from the same stable. Overall, I agree that the book contains much useful information and I will refer to it frequently in the future. However, one thing about it - and others from the same series - bugs me a bit: the kit reviews. Not only are they not necessarily comprehensive but you get comments like this on the FROG Tempest:

"Overall from a dimensional point of view, this is a sound basis for and accurate Tempest Mk V Series II, although you would have to do a lot of additional work to get it right from a detail aspect (fair enough). Truly, anything FROG is now more collectable than buildable (huh?) and with other better options out there, this is really one to be kept unbuilt, or to make only to bring back memories". (Disagree entirely)

Heaven forfend that I might wish to test - and improve - my skills by putting a bit of effort into an old (and cheap!) kit to see if I can come up with a reasonable result.

OK, sorry for the rant, but that kind of comment kind of implies that an interest in building Classic Kits is somehow not something a modeller buying the book would be interested in doing. I'm not sure why.

Anyway, despite the above peeve, there is a lot of good information in the book, and I particularly like the look of a wartime proposal for a Tempest powered by a Rolls-Royce Eagle. That would be a stonking - but far from easy - Whif, and would be a worthy use for the old FROG kit.

regards,

Martin

There are those who do not agree with our philosophy, Martin, and Richard is not one of them! These types of comment pepper his earlier Modellers datafile books as well. I'm sure there are also many who share his viewpoint who disagree with my views on old Hunter kits that I included in my Hunter book.

Nevertheless, these Airframe and Miniature books are in a similar vein to the MDFs and are very useful in their own right.

PaulBradley wrote:There are those who do not agree with our philosophy, Martin, and Richard is not one of them! These types of comment pepper his earlier Modellers datafile books as well. I'm sure there are also many who share his viewpoint who disagree with my views on old Hunter kits that I included in my Hunter book.

Nevertheless, these Airframe and Miniature books are in a similar vein to the MDFs and are very useful in their own right.

Paul,

Thanks for your thoughtful response.

I guess it comes out as "each to their own".

If people wish to get the latest kit, uber detail it and win competitions, then more power to their elbow! I shall admire and congratulate them sincerely. However, just because I can't, and therefore pursue a different approach (among many approaches that I pursue depending on what I feel like), doesn't mean that this "philosophy" (I'd never considered myself a philosopher before ) is less "valid" (whatever that means when applied to a hobby).

Anyway, I may as usual be being a bit precious but, as you say, those type of comments are quite common in the Datafile series.

[Rant mode off]

regards,

Martin

What is brilliant about this book is the first time details of the target towing equipment in the T.T.V version used at RAF Pembrey although still not complete. Very in depth study and well worth the money.

I sometimes think that those who are "professionals" in the model world (i.e. writers, magazine editors, review model builders) tend to have a bias towards the "latest and best" kits - partly because they have a pecuniary interest in being nice to the current manufacturers.

Some of these derogatory comments towards older models amy even be subconcious. "It's old - so it can't be worth building" is an almost default assumption.

Eric Mc wrote:I sometimes think that those who are "professionals" in the model world (i.e. writers, magazine editors, review model builders) tend to have a bias towards the "latest and best" kits - partly because they have a pecuniary interest in being nice to the current manufacturers.

Some of these derogatory comments towards older models amy even be subconcious. "It's old - so it can't be worth building" is an almost default assumption.

Indeed, Eric.

I would merely say that, in certain cases, I beg to differ.

regards,

Martin