The holiday is in full swing and mostly involves doing what the young Palawan wants to do...ie swimming, bowling, rides, archery, more rides, arcades and the beach. But Wednesday was selected as 'dad's day out' so off we went to the Lancashire Aviation Museum and then on to RAF Coningsby to do a tour of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight. My main objectives of the day was to see the Lancaster Just Jane do one of its taxi runs. The sheer power and noise of those four Merlin engines was quite awesome. As usual I took my camera but this time as well as shooting some photos I also filmed some video. Unfortunately I can't seem to upload the file to blogger via my tablet so I'll have to post the video when I get home. I've overcome the technical problem and have now added the video via my YouTube page.
Glad I sorted that out because I love this video. It was even better in person and if you have a chance to visit the museum on a Taxi Run day it's well worth the visit.
The Lincolnshire Aviation Museums Lancaster 'Just Jane'.
Having a really good day!
At the BBMF we saw several Spitfires and Hurricanes although sadly their Lancaster was out when we arrived. RAF Coningsby is also home to Typhoons and several Boeing E-3 Sentry, commonly known as AWACS (pictured behind me here)
I love seeing historical vehicles in running order, it's how they are meant to be. Seeing old planes, tanks and other vehicles static in a museum is fine, but nothing quite beats seeing them in action and hearing the roar of their engines. Call me a romantic, but this sort of thing really gets my heart pumping.
Today I went to a local Living History event at the Damyn's Hall Aerodrome in Rainham. I've been here before and the show seems to be going from strength to strength. This year there was a good selection of military vehicles on display, plenty of small re-enactment groups and a reasonably good battle at the end. Unfortunately there was no air show element to this years show - an almost inevitable result of changes to the rules and the costs (mostly to do with insurance issues I understand) for these events following the Shoreham air crash last year.
A 1943 Fordson WOT2 RAF Radar Truck
Me beside a replica MkIV Spitfire
Inside the model makers tent...I lingered here quite a while discussing painting and admiring the work on show. I also bough some weathering inks from a guy who couldn't believe I was planning on using them on 1/300th scale vehicles!
It wasn't all about WWII. This was part of a display of replica medieval canons
And a Mongol archer. This guy was very interesting and potentially pretty deadly with the bow.
A very nicely preserved Sherman that featured in the battle reenactment
A Replica Stug III that is seen at a lot of these events.
A British Bren Gun Carrier
A Kettenkrad and a Kubelwagon
The Kettenkrad was a particularly nice restoration and in full working order.
The Battle reenactmebnt featured some loud bangs...good stuff
The long grass and the low profile of the Stug make this a difficult enemy to spot by anti-tank guns
Another good show, although it is a pity about the lack of flying aircraft this year.
Today I have another post in my series of civilians for my 6mm ancients collection. I've painted several carts and a wagons but now its time to make some bases of civilians camp followers, those poor buggers that have to walk like the rest of the army. Once again these are from Baccus and are pretty generic so can be used through any number of ancient periods.
These aren't fighting units so I haven't based them on rectangular bases, instead opting for some of my smaller circular bases that I normally use for commanders. I have a few more strips of civilian models so I will probably paint up some more at a later stage...if I can think what to do with them!
And here are the foot civilians with the carts and wagons I finished earlier. The entire baggage train is now finished.
Diversions like this aside, its probably time I picked up my brush to paint some more fighting units. I've recently bought some Celts for use as allies to the Carthaginian's so maybe I'll do them next...but first I'm off on holiday for a week!
I've not had a lot of time for painting over the last few weeks so I have been chipping away at some smaller projects. One such is a small collection of civilian models. I bought several different packs of civilians and carts from Baccus a few months back and originally intended to use them on in my Camps. In the end I chose to use the civilian figures separately and I have finally got round to painting them now. Last week I finished some carts, this week I have completed some wagons which could probably feature in many periods of history.
These were quite fiddly to put together - the canopies and wheels are cast separately from the wagon itself - but as with the carts, once glued to the base the models 'structural integrity' (for want of a better phrase) is much improved.
I have kept these deliberately 'generic' so they can be used with any of my ancient armies either as camp followers or part of the baggage train.
