Andre du Plessis

10 August 2026.

This week has been exceptionally frustrating! I have made two critical promises to myself – firstly; never build a WW1 aircraft again. Secondly; never buy an Academy kit again. This kit came with beautiful plastic mouldings that fitted remarkably well. However – the manufacturers should have paid more attention to research into their subject. Up to now I have found numerous errors that are just inexcusable. But this week I came upon just the worst one! The two Vickers machine-guns are 180 degrees wrong! If I was to mount them as shown in the instructions the would have been ‘up-side-down’. That was not all, their detail was totally wrong, according to reference photos, and I had to do much work on them to get them to look ‘almost’ right. The other problem, which I mentioned before, was the rigging. The thread supplied is not suitable. In scale it would look as if all the bracing wires were frayed. I tried copper wire from electric cables – without success. I tried stretched sprue – without success. I tried a special thin wire that came on a spool – without success. Then I went to my hobby shop and bought 0.3 diameter brass rod – and so far it is working! But the time I spent trying to get this solution may put me out of this competition. I also did some weathering, which turned out okay.