First proper day out yesterday for a walk and to shop for essentials (cat food!) and I was exhausted. I wouldn't mind but I didn't go that far and I did pause to admire an old E-Type Jaguar in a car park...drooling but wholly unpractical for my use. Aside from the cost getting in and out would be an issue. I am much better but the lower back pain and stiffness is very noticeable now and I really do not like getting old but, c'est la vie. 

Progress on the Potez 540 and it is nearly there, just some paint touch ups and washes to complete it. The decals were extremely thin and prone to disintegration so they will need addressing but I am pleased with the build. I placed it near the Amiot 143 I built a few years back and both are big old slow moving ugly French aircraft that I really like.

Also alongside a 'modern' Breguet 693 aircraft which appears tiny alongside it.

I also applied myself to repairing one of my earliest builds, a WW1 Airco DH 2 that sadly did not survive an encounter with one of the cats and is not responding to attempts to repair it.

This and the Vickers Gunbus are two of my favourite aircraft from WW1 as they really do look like fragile string bags and it beggars belief that these were used in battle...without parachutes! The common belief was that pilots would bail out rather than fight but completely ignored the cost of training and retaining experienced pilots let alone the cost of lives. Generals and politicians should have been sent up instead!! This build is likely to end up in an air accident diorama with barbed wire and mud plus some interested onlookers. It gives me an excuse to buy another similar kit and set up a bi-plane rig to enable me to build the wings without these problems.

Otherwise the next build is lined up and as per usual, from the looking back to the previous conflict this build will look to the future...

Added bonus, no rigging and single wings! Flying the Messerschmitt Me 163 was 'interesting' to say the least as it was a rocket propelled aircraft with a unique explosive fuel formula added in two separate steps to prevent explosions and no landing wheels. The fuel was also extremely corrosive and a particularly sticky end for pilots. As an aside one of the test pilots was Hanna Reitsch  who also survived piloting the manned version of the V1 flying bomb but nearly came a cropper in flying the Me 163. The article is a bit innocuous as she really was a Nazi who admired the failed painter and also advocated suicide flights against Allied aircraft!

I have a couple of days off this coming week and can focus on this next build as I continue to ignore the nonsense that is going on in the real world.

TTFN.