Now this is what I call an enthusiast! 🙂

Hope you don’t mind my asking, but what made you choose the vac-formed Contrail kit over the Frog/Revell injection moulded one?

Yeah, I saw it. Not bad, but whilst there was loads of stuff about Yeager, Crossfield, Everest, etc (and rightly so), I don’t recall any mention of Peter Twiss and the FD.2 being the first past 1,000mph. They only really seemed interested in British setbacks like the DH.108 & DH.110 crashes.

Don’t mean to be a killjoy, but the actual mouldings are a much later type than the original 1950’s version. Always thought Airfix were less than honest in selling it as a reproduction, when in fact only the packaging is genuine repro (if that’s not an oxymoron). The original “BT-K” kit was issued in (I think) about 1955, and was a pretty blatant scaled down copy of the 1/48th Aurora kit, complete with pilot’s head moulded into the cockpit in the typical style of those times. It was the very first aircraft kit Airfix made, and I believe the founder of the company was rather reluctant to do it, believing they should stick with the successful Ferguson tractor and small-scale sailing ships. Only in the range for 2 or 3 years before being replaced by the long-lived “Johnny Johnson” MkIX kit. Always fetches a tidy sum on eBay, but I was very lucky in picking one up for peanuts several years ago, as the bloke in my local model shop always seemed much more interested in R/C than plastic. Told me in utter amazement once how some bloke from Norway snapped up about 20 genuine Frog Penguins from him for a full tenner each. I could have wept…

I have just been reading about Buccaneers taking part in Red Flag exercises ( you can keep your putnams. my latest book cost 20p in a charity shop). Anyway the book mentions a desert camoflage scheme but only shows a black and white picture. Does anybody have a colour pic of this scheme.

Loved that story about a Red Flag Bucc clipping a telegraph pole with it’s wingtip, 20 odd feet above the ground and travelling upwards as it did so.

Varminting is a sport that’s derived from the necessary killing of pests. Groundhogs and prarie dogs are agricultural pests, and
destroy crops and cropland. Now, it’ s just a thing to do for fun.

This is my whole point. I accept the need to kill for food, conservation or pest-control as long as it’s done with a minimum of suffering and cruelty, but it’s this element of just killing for “Fun” or “Sport” that so many people find repugnant. If our whole relationship with animals is just “nature” how do you account for Varminting? What creature other than man kills for fun, as opposed to killing for food, defending it’s young, it’s territory, etc? I think Man unfortunately has an unhealthy cruel streak not found in nature, and it’s that element (and that alone) that I have an issue with in hunting.

I knew someoen was going to get to that. “we’ve moved on”.
Basically, the fact that you feel hunting is bad, pointless or
“primitive and below us”, yet industrial breeding, rearing and
slaughtering of animals by the millions, is fine and dandy, is tself
absurd.

I don’t consider it “Fine and Dandy”. Like you, I believe we need meat, but I consider meat production a neccessary evil that should only be carried out under the most humane conditions possible. If I believed every hunter killed quickly, cleanly and humanely, purely for food, and with absolutely no desire to kill just for the fun of it, then I’d probably have no problem with it. Sadly, whilst you may have the right motives and skills, it seems that far too many of your fellow hunters enjoy the killing first and foremost, and then try to justify it by saying they were only doing it for the meat or something. And what is Varminting, shooting Groundhogs and Prairie Dogs, if it’s not killing just for the sake of it? As for us still having hunting instincts, being predators and not “moving on”, frankly I think we should have. There were numerous things we all once had to do for ourselves, but surely mankind has only advanced through the division of labour, by each of us specialising in different things and sharing the fruits of our labours.