Some of you may have noticed that, unfortunately, owing to the fact that a certain person who sells truck photos on eBay commercially has been lifting my images from this album and selling them I have had to remove 2300 photos that didn't have a watermark. I have now run around 1700 through Lightroom and added a watermark with the intention of bulk uploading them again. Rather than watermark the existing (hidden) files in Flickr one at a time it will be easier to do it this way. I definitely won’t be adding individual tags with the make and model of each vehicle I will just add generic transport tags. Each photo is named after the vehicle and reg in any case. For anyone new to these images there is a chapter and verse explanation below. It is staggering how many times I get asked questions that a quick scan would answer or just as likely I can’t possibly answer – I didn’t take them, but, just to clarify-I do own the copyright- and I do pursue copyright theft.

This is a collection of scanned prints from a collection of photographs taken by the late Jim Taylor A number of years ago I was offered a large number of photographs taken by Jim Taylor, a transport photographer based in Huddersfield. The collection, 30,000 prints, 20,000 negatives – and copyright! – had been offered to me and one of the national transport magazines previously by a friend of Jim's, on behalf of Jim's wife. I initially turned them down, already having over 30,000 of my own prints filed away and taking space up. Several months later the prints were still for sale – at what was, apparently, the going rate. It was a lot of money and I deliberated for quite a while before deciding to buy them. I did however buy them directly from Jim’s wife and she delivered them personally – just to quash the occasional rumour from people who can’t mind their own business. Although some prints were sold elsewhere, particularly the popular big fleet stuff, I should have the negatives, unfortunately they came to me in a random mix, 1200 to a box, without any sort of indexing and as such it would be impossible to match negatives to prints, or, to even find a print of any particular vehicle. I have only ever looked at a handful myself unless I am scanning them. The prints are generally in excellent condition and I initially stored them in a bedroom without ever looking at any of them. In 2006 I built an extension and they had to be well protected from dust and moved a few times. Ultimately my former 6x7 box room office has become their (and my own work’s) permanent home.

I hope to avoid posting images that Jim had not taken his self, however should I inadvertently infringe another photographers copyright, please inform me by email and I will resolve the issue immediately. There are copyright issues with some of the photographs that were sold to me. A Flickr member from Scotland drew my attention to some of his own work amongst the first uploads of Jim’s work. I had a quick look through some of the 30 boxes of prints and decided that for the time being the safest thing for me to do was withdraw the majority of the earlier uploaded scans and deal with the problem – which I did. whilst the vast majority of the prints are Jims, there is a problem defining copyright of some of them, this is something that the seller did not make clear at the time. I am reasonably confident that I have since been successful in identifying Jims own work. His early work consists of many thousands of lustre 6x4 prints which are difficult to scan well, later work is almost entirely 7x5 glossy, much easier to scan. Not all of the prints are pin sharp but I can generally print successfully to A4 from a scan.

You may notice photographs being duplicated in this Album, unfortunately there are multiple copies of many prints (for swapping) and as I have to have a system of archiving and backing up I can only guess - using memory - if I have scanned a print before. The bigger fleets have so many similar vehicles and registration numbers that it is impossible to get it right all of the time. It is easier to scan and process a print than check my files - on three different PC’s - for duplicates. There has not been, nor will there ever be, any intention to knowingly breach anyone else's copyright. I have presented the Jim Taylor collection as exactly that-The Jim Taylor Collection- his work not mine, my own work is quite obviously mine.

Unfortunately, many truck spotters have swapped and traded their work without copyright marking it as theirs. These people never anticipated the ease with which images would be shared online in the future. I would guess that having swapped and traded photos for many years that it is almost impossible to control their future use. Anyone wanting to control the future use of their work would have been well advised to copyright mark their work (as many did) and would be well advised not to post them on photo sharing sites without a watermark as the whole point of these sites is to share the image, it is very easy for those that wish, to lift any image, despite security settings, indeed, Flickr itself, warns you that this is the case. It was this abuse and theft of my material that led me to watermark all of my later uploads. I may yet withdraw non-watermarked photos, I haven’t decided yet. (I did in the end)

To anyone reading the above it will be quite obvious that I can’t provide information regarding specific photos or potential future uploads – I didn’t take them! There are many vehicles that were well known to me as Jim only lived down the road from me (although I didn’t know him), however scanning, titling, tagging and uploading is laborious and time consuming enough, I do however provide a fair amount of information with my own transport (and other) photos. I am aware that there are requests from other Flickr users that are unanswered, I stumble across them months or years after they were posted, this isn’t deliberate. Some weekends one or two “enthusiasts” can add many hundreds of photos as favourites, this pushes requests that are in the comments section ten or twenty pages out of sight and I miss them. I also have notifications switched off, I receive around 50 emails a day through work and I don’t want even more from Flickr. Other requests, like many other things, I just plain forget – no excuses! Uploads of Jim’s photos will be infrequent as it is a boring pastime and I would much rather work on my own output.

My true 2024 Flickr year.

Consider yourself tagged if you see this.

Thanks for all the support.

Some of you may have noticed that, unfortunately, owing to the fact that a certain person who sells truck photos on eBay commercially has been lifting my images from this album and selling them I have had to remove 2300 photos that didn't have a watermark. I have now run around 1700 through Lightroom and added a watermark with the intention of bulk uploading them again. Rather than watermark the existing (hidden) files in Flickr one at a time it will be easier to do it this way. I definitely won’t be adding individual tags with the make and model of each vehicle I will just add generic transport tags. Each photo is named after the vehicle and reg in any case. For anyone new to these images there is a chapter and verse explanation below. It is staggering how many times I get asked questions that a quick scan would answer or just as likely I can’t possibly answer – I didn’t take them, but, just to clarify-I do own the copyright- and I do pursue copyright theft.

This is a collection of scanned prints from a collection of photographs taken by the late Jim Taylor A number of years ago I was offered a large number of photographs taken by Jim Taylor, a transport photographer based in Huddersfield. The collection, 30,000 prints, 20,000 negatives – and copyright! – had been offered to me and one of the national transport magazines previously by a friend of Jim's, on behalf of Jim's wife. I initially turned them down, already having over 30,000 of my own prints filed away and taking space up. Several months later the prints were still for sale – at what was, apparently, the going rate. It was a lot of money and I deliberated for quite a while before deciding to buy them. I did however buy them directly from Jim’s wife and she delivered them personally – just to quash the occasional rumour from people who can’t mind their own business. Although some prints were sold elsewhere, particularly the popular big fleet stuff, I should have the negatives, unfortunately they came to me in a random mix, 1200 to a box, without any sort of indexing and as such it would be impossible to match negatives to prints, or, to even find a print of any particular vehicle. I have only ever looked at a handful myself unless I am scanning them. The prints are generally in excellent condition and I initially stored them in a bedroom without ever looking at any of them. In 2006 I built an extension and they had to be well protected from dust and moved a few times. Ultimately my former 6x7 box room office has become their (and my own work’s) permanent home.

I hope to avoid posting images that Jim had not taken his self, however should I inadvertently infringe another photographers copyright, please inform me by email and I will resolve the issue immediately. There are copyright issues with some of the photographs that were sold to me. A Flickr member from Scotland drew my attention to some of his own work amongst the first uploads of Jim’s work. I had a quick look through some of the 30 boxes of prints and decided that for the time being the safest thing for me to do was withdraw the majority of the earlier uploaded scans and deal with the problem – which I did. whilst the vast majority of the prints are Jims, there is a problem defining copyright of some of them, this is something that the seller did not make clear at the time. I am reasonably confident that I have since been successful in identifying Jims own work. His early work consists of many thousands of lustre 6x4 prints which are difficult to scan well, later work is almost entirely 7x5 glossy, much easier to scan. Not all of the prints are pin sharp but I can generally print successfully to A4 from a scan.

You may notice photographs being duplicated in this Album, unfortunately there are multiple copies of many prints (for swapping) and as I have to have a system of archiving and backing up I can only guess - using memory - if I have scanned a print before. The bigger fleets have so many similar vehicles and registration numbers that it is impossible to get it right all of the time. It is easier to scan and process a print than check my files - on three different PC’s - for duplicates. There has not been, nor will there ever be, any intention to knowingly breach anyone else's copyright. I have presented the Jim Taylor collection as exactly that-The Jim Taylor Collection- his work not mine, my own work is quite obviously mine.

Unfortunately, many truck spotters have swapped and traded their work without copyright marking it as theirs. These people never anticipated the ease with which images would be shared online in the future. I would guess that having swapped and traded photos for many years that it is almost impossible to control their future use. Anyone wanting to control the future use of their work would have been well advised to copyright mark their work (as many did) and would be well advised not to post them on photo sharing sites without a watermark as the whole point of these sites is to share the image, it is very easy for those that wish, to lift any image, despite security settings, indeed, Flickr itself, warns you that this is the case. It was this abuse and theft of my material that led me to watermark all of my later uploads. I may yet withdraw non-watermarked photos, I haven’t decided yet. (I did in the end)

To anyone reading the above it will be quite obvious that I can’t provide information regarding specific photos or potential future uploads – I didn’t take them! There are many vehicles that were well known to me as Jim only lived down the road from me (although I didn’t know him), however scanning, titling, tagging and uploading is laborious and time consuming enough, I do however provide a fair amount of information with my own transport (and other) photos. I am aware that there are requests from other Flickr users that are unanswered, I stumble across them months or years after they were posted, this isn’t deliberate. Some weekends one or two “enthusiasts” can add many hundreds of photos as favourites, this pushes requests that are in the comments section ten or twenty pages out of sight and I miss them. I also have notifications switched off, I receive around 50 emails a day through work and I don’t want even more from Flickr. Other requests, like many other things, I just plain forget – no excuses! Uploads of Jim’s photos will be infrequent as it is a boring pastime and I would much rather work on my own output.

..

wearandcheer.com/top-20-facts-about-love/

Facts

1.Love is unadulterated, love is hurting, love is charming and love is shocking. Factual love is awe-inspiring. Our life depends on it and it frequently seems like our earth would stop spiraling if love didn’t exist. Love is something we endeavor for and something we grieve for the loss o...

by Staff Author on Wear and Cheer - Fashion, Lifestyle, Cooking and Celebrities - Visit Now wearandcheer.com/top-20-facts-about-love/

You must like it and share it with your friends.

Little known fact (because it's not something she spreads around) Knox was diagnosed with PTSD after her attack.

Dexter is one of the few people Knox will open up to about it, but sometimes she's hesitant to even tell him... stubborn thing :(

Well that was sufficiently depressing. I think my cold is making me a miserable ass XD

Some of you may have noticed that, unfortunately, owing to the fact that a certain person who sells truck photos on eBay commercially has been lifting my images from this album and selling them I have had to remove 2300 photos that didn't have a watermark. I have now run around 1700 through Lightroom and added a watermark with the intention of bulk uploading them again. Rather than watermark the existing (hidden) files in Flickr one at a time it will be easier to do it this way. I definitely won’t be adding individual tags with the make and model of each vehicle I will just add generic transport tags. Each photo is named after the vehicle and reg in any case. For anyone new to these images there is a chapter and verse explanation below. It is staggering how many times I get asked questions that a quick scan would answer or just as likely I can’t possibly answer – I didn’t take them, but, just to clarify-I do own the copyright- and I do pursue copyright theft.

This is a collection of scanned prints from a collection of photographs taken by the late Jim Taylor A number of years ago I was offered a large number of photographs taken by Jim Taylor, a transport photographer based in Huddersfield. The collection, 30,000 prints, 20,000 negatives – and copyright! – had been offered to me and one of the national transport magazines previously by a friend of Jim's, on behalf of Jim's wife. I initially turned them down, already having over 30,000 of my own prints filed away and taking space up. Several months later the prints were still for sale – at what was, apparently, the going rate. It was a lot of money and I deliberated for quite a while before deciding to buy them. I did however buy them directly from Jim’s wife and she delivered them personally – just to quash the occasional rumour from people who can’t mind their own business. Although some prints were sold elsewhere, particularly the popular big fleet stuff, I should have the negatives, unfortunately they came to me in a random mix, 1200 to a box, without any sort of indexing and as such it would be impossible to match negatives to prints, or, to even find a print of any particular vehicle. I have only ever looked at a handful myself unless I am scanning them. The prints are generally in excellent condition and I initially stored them in a bedroom without ever looking at any of them. In 2006 I built an extension and they had to be well protected from dust and moved a few times. Ultimately my former 6x7 box room office has become their (and my own work’s) permanent home.

I hope to avoid posting images that Jim had not taken his self, however should I inadvertently infringe another photographers copyright, please inform me by email and I will resolve the issue immediately. There are copyright issues with some of the photographs that were sold to me. A Flickr member from Scotland drew my attention to some of his own work amongst the first uploads of Jim’s work. I had a quick look through some of the 30 boxes of prints and decided that for the time being the safest thing for me to do was withdraw the majority of the earlier uploaded scans and deal with the problem – which I did. whilst the vast majority of the prints are Jims, there is a problem defining copyright of some of them, this is something that the seller did not make clear at the time. I am reasonably confident that I have since been successful in identifying Jims own work. His early work consists of many thousands of lustre 6x4 prints which are difficult to scan well, later work is almost entirely 7x5 glossy, much easier to scan. Not all of the prints are pin sharp but I can generally print successfully to A4 from a scan.

You may notice photographs being duplicated in this Album, unfortunately there are multiple copies of many prints (for swapping) and as I have to have a system of archiving and backing up I can only guess - using memory - if I have scanned a print before. The bigger fleets have so many similar vehicles and registration numbers that it is impossible to get it right all of the time. It is easier to scan and process a print than check my files - on three different PC’s - for duplicates. There has not been, nor will there ever be, any intention to knowingly breach anyone else's copyright. I have presented the Jim Taylor collection as exactly that-The Jim Taylor Collection- his work not mine, my own work is quite obviously mine.

Unfortunately, many truck spotters have swapped and traded their work without copyright marking it as theirs. These people never anticipated the ease with which images would be shared online in the future. I would guess that having swapped and traded photos for many years that it is almost impossible to control their future use. Anyone wanting to control the future use of their work would have been well advised to copyright mark their work (as many did) and would be well advised not to post them on photo sharing sites without a watermark as the whole point of these sites is to share the image, it is very easy for those that wish, to lift any image, despite security settings, indeed, Flickr itself, warns you that this is the case. It was this abuse and theft of my material that led me to watermark all of my later uploads. I may yet withdraw non-watermarked photos, I haven’t decided yet. (I did in the end)

To anyone reading the above it will be quite obvious that I can’t provide information regarding specific photos or potential future uploads – I didn’t take them! There are many vehicles that were well known to me as Jim only lived down the road from me (although I didn’t know him), however scanning, titling, tagging and uploading is laborious and time consuming enough, I do however provide a fair amount of information with my own transport (and other) photos. I am aware that there are requests from other Flickr users that are unanswered, I stumble across them months or years after they were posted, this isn’t deliberate. Some weekends one or two “enthusiasts” can add many hundreds of photos as favourites, this pushes requests that are in the comments section ten or twenty pages out of sight and I miss them. I also have notifications switched off, I receive around 50 emails a day through work and I don’t want even more from Flickr. Other requests, like many other things, I just plain forget – no excuses! Uploads of Jim’s photos will be infrequent as it is a boring pastime and I would much rather work on my own output.

CREW

Fact Community Transport NX57 FZC

Iveco Daily

Ely

July 2015

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!

Some background:

The Martin B-26 Marauder was a World War II twin-engine medium bomber built by the Glenn L. Martin Company. First used in the Pacific Theater in early 1942, it was also used in the Mediterranean Theater and in Western Europe.

By that time the civil aircraft industry had undergone a major recovery and new models like the turboprop-driven Fokker F.27 Friendship entered the scene - faster, with bigger passenger capacities and more efficient, and the P.26 could not keep up anymore. Another big weakness was the lack of a pressurized cabin, so that the P.26 could only operate at medium altitude. Until 1960 all remaining P.26 were withdrawn and scrapped, most of them had reached their service life, anyway, but operational costs had become prohibitive.

General characteristics:

Crew: 4 (pilot, navigator/radio operator, two service)

Capacity: 21–32 passengers

Length: 58 ft 3 in (17.8 m)

Wingspan: 79 ft 3 in (24.20 m)

Height: 21 ft 6 in (6.55 m)

Wing area: 734 ft² (66 m²)

Empty weight: 24.000 lb (11.000 kg)

Loaded weight: 37.000 lb (17.000 kg)

Powerplant:

2× Wright R-3350-745C18BA-1 radial, each rated at 2.200 hp (1.640 kW),

driving four-bladed propellers

Performance:

Maximum speed: 287 mph (250 knots, 460 km/h) at 5.000 feet (1.500 m)

Cruise speed: 225 mph (195 knots, 362 km/h)

Landing speed: 100 mph (79 knots, 161 km/h)

Range: 3.420 mi (2.975 nmi; 5.500 km)

Service ceiling: 21.000 ft (6.400 m)

Wing loading: 46,4 lb/ft² (228 kg/m²)

The kit and its assembly:

Another Group Build entry, this time for the 2015 "De-/Militarize it" GB at whatifmodelers.com that ran from June through August. I am not 100% certain how the idea of converting a B-26 bomber into a 50ies airliner came up - I have modified the aircraft before, and maybe handling with resin R-3350s for the Supermarine Stalwart flying boat had a subtle influence. However, it was a suitable idea, and I quickly got hands on a vintage Matchbox kit of the Marauder.

This one was chose because of the simplicity of the kit (e .g. without an open bomb bay) and its relatively clean surface. When I got it, though, I had to cope with missing parts: the complete cockpit was missing. The seller did not mention it, I did notice it too late, so I had to create the interior from scratch, as well as the civil pilot figures which were puzzled together, too.

Anyway, conversion was rather straightforward. All guns and turrets were closed/faired over. The dorsal turret received a plug, the nose is the OOB clear part hidden under a coat of putty and the new tail cone is actually a nose from a Frog Supermarine Attacker.

Additionally, some of the original windows were hidden (including the ventral entry hatch) while new round windows, esp. for the passenger cabin under the wing spar, were drilled. They were later filled with Clearfix, after all paint work was done.

The wing tips were enlarged with donations from a Hobby Boss La-7 pistion fighter, leftover from a former conversion project. Even though I did not expect much from this addition I think that the bigger wingspan (the total extension is less than 2", though) and the more pointed tips subtly change the look and the proportions of the B-26?

The OOB engines were replaced by resin R-3350 from Contrails: a perfect match, just the OOB nacelles had to be shortened because the R-3350s come with a complete exhaust section, they are pretty long compared to the R-2800s. Actually, this option was real: AFAIK the R-3350 was a high power alternative for the B-26, but I think that at the time of the aircraft's design it was not available yet, and when it came into production the B-29 received anything that rolled off of the production lines. But in this post WWII case it's a good and plausible modification, since airliners from that era (e .g. the Lockheed Constellation) were powered by this engine type, too.

Further mods include new wheels (just for a modernized look, instead of the WWII grass runway balloon tires) and the passengers received a retractable boarding staircase. This addition was originally intended as a display trick, because the B-26 kit is prone to tip over on its tail. But it turned out that the resin engines weigh so much that the kit even stands without extra weight inside now! Well, the scratched stair was fitted, anyway...

Painting and markings:

This was a bit complicated, because I wanted a 50ies livery, yet a colorful option. One early choice had been Belgian airline Sabena in dark blue and white, or the Netherland's KLM, but then I stumbled across a limited decal sheet from airliner specialist TwoSix Decals for a 1:72 Fokker F.27 in Aer Lingus service, upon the type's introduction in 1955. Perfect match, and since I like green and I could avoid white as far as possible, this was the winning design! :D

From that, things were again straightforward: the paint scheme remains close to the benchmark. The dark green on the upper fuselage is Humbrol 3 (Brunswick Green), the fin was sprayed in white and the metallic undersides were painted with different aluminum shades, including Revell Acrylics, Modelmaster 'Aluminum Plate' Metallizer and simple Aluminum paint, plus some Humbrol 56 for fake panel lines and the fabric-covered ailerons.

Panel lines on the upper fuselage and some dirt were painted with Humbrol 91 (Black Green). On top of that a very light black ink wash was applied in order to emphasize engravings, esp. on the wings and the white fin.

The decals came next (wonderfully printed, dead sharp, very thin carrier film), and they posed less problems than expected. The window openings on the white cheatline were simply covered and punched through, and after final cosmetic touch-ups incl. light soot stains behind the engine exhausts. I also added de-icing leading edges and some walking areas on the wings, cut from black and grey decals sheet (from TL Modellbau).

Finally the kit received a coat of glossy acrylic varnish from the rattle can (which did not turn out as evenly as expected, I guess to due to the age of the paint… The aircraft looks somewhat dirty now), et voilà, the Irish Marauder Commuter was ready for take-off!

I am really happy how this conversion turned out. I have seen pics of civilized B-26s (yes, this was actually done, but only in a few cases), and without all the lumps and bumps and with a decent paint job the aircraft looks really sleek and elegant. The classic, early Aer Lingus livery confirms this, a pretty and unusual bird!

9 FACTS/THINGS about me...

1. Two kids, 1 boy & 1 girl... both have irish names meaning "little fire"..

2. Dream destination would be "The Maldives" (nearly got there, holiday booked but fell pregnant)

3. I need to learn to take things more in my stride.

4. Favourite 2 films are "Jack Frost" & "City of Angels".

5. My Favourite song is "Gypsy" by Fleetwood Mac.

6. I wish I had the willpower to keep to my diet.. instead of restarting on a Monday!

7. I wish I felt complete (I'm working on it...)

8. "One" of my favourite moments is uploading photos to the PC and spotting that "gem" that just made freezing your bum off/getting your feet wet/crouching for hours ... well worth it!

9. I wish they'd bring back the death penalty for child abusers/killers.

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!

Some background:

Under the Treaty of Trianon (1920), Hungary was forbidden from owning military aircraft. However, a secret air arm was gradually established under the cover of civilian flying clubs. During 1938, as a result of the Bled agreement, the existence of the Royal Hungarian Air Force (Hungarian: Magyar Királyi Honvéd Légierő (MKHL)), was made known. The army's aviation service was reorganized and expanded.

Late 1938 the army aviation was once again reorganized. Admiral Horthy, the head of state, ordered that the army aviation should become an independent service with effect of 01.09.1939. It subsequently participated in clashes with the newly established Slovak Republic and in the border confrontation with the Kingdom of Romania.

In 1940, the decision was made to unite the Air Force, the anti-aircraft forces, and the civilian air defense organizations under one central headquarters. In April 1941, operations were conducted in support of the German invasion of Yugoslavia and, on 27 June 1941, Hungary declared war on the Soviet Union.

On 01.06.1941, the Air Defense Corps was established, and Lieutenant General Béla Rákosi became Commander of Army Aviation. In effect the Air Force had once again become part of the Army. In the summer of 1942, an air brigade was attached to the Luftwaffe's VIII. Fliegerkorps at the Eastern Front.

At that time, most of the Hungarian Air Force's fighter equipment was of German origin, consisting of types like Bf 109 F and G, Fw 190 A/F, Me 210. But some indigenous designs were under development, too, e. g. at the RMI, Repülo Muszaki Intézet, or Aviation Technical Institute. Its aircraft were primarily (but not exclusively) by László Varga, and as a result, RMI designs were often given the Varga name (in some cases, even when he was not the major designer). But the RMI designation was used in parallel, too.

One of the domestic developments was the RMI-11 'Sólyom' (= Falcon) fighter. This single engine aircraft drew heavily upon the Bf 109 design, but featured some changes and improvements like an inward-retracting landing gear or a bubble canopy. It also incorporated elements from the heavy RMI-8 fighter, a push/pull design with twin tail booms, but the RMI-8’s sole prototype was destroyed by Allied air raids before a serious test program could be launched.

In contrast to the complex RMI-8 the RMI-11 was a small and light aircraft, a conventional but clean design, based on simple shapes for easy, modular production. Most of its structure was made from wood, saving sparse metal whenever possible. Empty weight was, for instance, about 200 kg less than a contemporary Bf- 109 G.

The RMI-11 was driven by a liquid-cooled DB 605 inverted V12 engine, rated at 1.475 hp. Thanks to the low weight of the airframe, the machine achieved a high top speed and an exceptional high rate of climb.

Originally designed as a fast and agile interceptor in the early stages of WWII, the RMI was only armed with two 13mm MG 131 with 300 RPG and two 7.92 mm MG 17 in the outer wings. Two underwing hardpoints could carry up to 100 kg each.

The RMI-11 prototype made its maiden flight in late 1943 and after a basic but successful test program immediately ordered into production – in a hurry, though, and beginning March 1944, Allied bomber raids began on Hungary and progressively increased in intensity.

Production of the RMI-11 gained only slowly momentum, due to material shortages, because the RMI-11was primarily of plywood bonded with a special phenolic resin adhesive that was supplied from German sources. Due to Allied bombing raids on the glue’s original production sites the plywood glue had to be replaced by one that was not as strong, and was later found to react chemically, apparently in a corrosive manner, with the wood in RMI-11’s structure. In November 1944, several RMI-11s crashed with wing and tail failures due to plywood delamination. This same problem also critically affected the German Focke Wulf Ta 154 and Heinkel He 162 programs.

Late in 1944 all efforts were redirected towards countering the advancing Red Army. Soon it was clear that the type needed long range cannons with higher caliber in order to encounter heavy Allied bombers, so plans were made to add heavier German armament. This was realized through an extra pair of MG 151/20 20 mm cannons with 150 RPG, which were added in fairings under the wings instead of the original bomb hardpoints (which were hardly ever used in service at all). During the same refit, the rather ineffective MG 17s were deleted, saving weight and leaving more room inside of the wings for the MG 131s’ ammunition supply (now with 400 RPG)

At that time only about 60 production aircraft had been completed and modified, and production was halted due to the severe structural problems. These machines were nevertheless thrown into service, with repairs and upgrades done at the Hungarian airfields – but the glue problem was a constant operational danger.

Still, all these efforts were to no avail: All fighting in Hungary ended on 16 April 1945, and all RMI-11’s were scrapped after hostilities ended.

General characteristics

Crew: 1

Length: 8.82 m (28 ft 10 ½ in)

Wingspan: 10.58 m (34 ft 8 in)

Height: 4.10 m (13 ft 5 in)

Wing area: 16.82 m² (181.00 ft²)

Empty weight: 1,964 kg (4,330 lb)

Loaded weight: 2,200 kg (4,840 lb)

Max. take-off weight: 2,395 kg (5,280 lb)

Powerplant:

1× Daimler-Benz DB 605A-1 liquid-cooled inverted V12, 1,475 PS (1,085 kW)

Performance:

Maximum speed: 640 km/h (398 mph) at 6,300 m (20,669 ft)

Cruise speed: 590 km/h (365 mph) at 6.000 m (19.680 ft)

Range: 850 km (528 mi)

Service ceiling: 12.000 m (39.370 ft)

Rate of climb: 17.0 m/s (3.345 ft/min)

Wing loading: 196 kg/m² (40 lb/ft²)

Power/mass: 344 W/kg (0.21 hp/lb)

Armament:

2× 13mm MG 131 (.51 in) machine guns in the wings,400 RPG, plus 2× 20mm MG 151/20 (.51 in) machine cannons, 150 RPG, in external underwing fairings.With the cannons deleted up to 8× 15 kg (33 lb) or 2× 50, 100, or 150 kg (110, 220, or 330 lb) bombs under the wings

The kit and its assembly:

This is a serious kitbash and a totally fictional aircraft - and you are IMHO an expert modeler if you recognize what basically went into it!

This build was inspired when I recently bought an RS Models Nakajima Kikka jet fighter, the double seater kit. As a bonus it comes with two fuselages: effectively, it is the single seater kit with an extra sprue and a different canopy. Looking at the Kikka's profile I found that it HAD to be converted into a piston engine aircraft, with a liquid-cooled engine. Wings and anything else would come from the scrap box, but it should become a sleek fighter aircraft, a late WWII design.

From that, things went straightforward:

● Fuselage from a RS Models Nakajima N9J1 "Kikka", front end cut away

● Wings from an Revell Macchi C.200 Saetta

● Stabilizers from an Art Model MiG I-210 fighter

● Canopy from a late Supermarine Spitfire (Special Hobby, IIRC)

● Nose/engine and radiators from an RS Models Ki-78

● The propeller was scratched from single pieces/blades and the Ki-78 spinner

● The landing gear is a Ki-78/C.200 parts mix.

I settled for the Ki-78's radiator installment on the rear flanks because it is a unique feature and simply does not hamper the sleek side profile. I also thought that this might have been a smart solution for modular production - fuselage and wings could be completed separately.

The Ki-78 engine had to be widened considerably to match the Kikka’s trapezoidal fuselage diameter, putty and major sculpting resulted in a relatively smooth and subtle intersection. As per usual, an axis construction for the propeller was added, too, so that it can spin freely. Mating wings and fuselage necessitated a new cockpit floor (which acts at the same time as landing gear well interior), and a 3mm bridge at the wing roots had to filled – but that was easy.

The cockpit interior was outfitted with spares, the Spitfire canopy needed some small styrene wedges under the windshield to make it fit onto the Kikka fuselage.

Things went rather smoothly until I fixed the wings to the completed fuselage. However I placed them, it looked odd – too far back, and the nose stood out; too far forward, and the tail was too long. Somehow, proportions did not match – only slightly, but it bugged me. So far that I eventually decided to shorten the fuselage – after having completed it, radiators already in place and everything sanded even. I made a vertical cut behind the cockpit and removed ~7mm of length – and suddenly the aircraft looked good! Needed some extra body work, but the aircraft looks much more balanced now.

The underwing fairings for the cannons were late additions, too. I wanted to keep the fuselage clean, with no nose guns, but adding heavier armament turned out to be tricky. The fairing solution was inspired by a real-world Fw 190 Rüstsatz which featured two MG 151/20 apiece. I had appropriate parts from an Academy Fw 190 left over, so I sliced these up and narrowed them for a single cannon each, and this was the right size for the slender aircraft. All gun barrels were created through heated and pulled-out styrene tubes.

Painting and markings:

Deciding what this aircraft was to become was tougher than building it! With its clearly German origin it had to be a WWII Axis type, but I did neither want a German nor a Japanese aircraft, even Italy was ruled out – all too obvious. With Hungary and its RMI designs I eventually found a good potential origin, and this also allowed a rather "colorful" livery. With the Hungarian background this kitbash became the RMI-11.

The paint scheme was inspired by an experimental Hungarian camouflage in Green, Gray and Brown, seen on a Bf 109G. I could not find color indications, but in the end I settled for three RLM tones for the upper sides, RLM 71, 75 and 79, coupled with RLM 76 for the lower sides. All tones are enamels from Modelmaster's Authentic range, panels and leading edges were slightly emphasized with lighter shades. As a small design twist I added a wavy, medium waterline on the fuselage sides.

Interior surfaces were, lacking any reference, kept in RLM 02. In order not to be too fanciful, the spinner became black with a green tip (RLM 62), and the blades were painted with a mix of RLM 70 (Black Green) and Black, for a very dark and dull green tone, Luftwaffe style.

The yellow markings correspond to German Luftwaffe markings of the late WWII era, the yellow 45° “V” under the lower left wing was introduced in the Balkan region in 1944, it was also carried by Luftwaffe aircraft in this conflict theatre.

The flashy decoration on all tail surfaces disappeared at that time on real aircraft (only small Hungarian flags were carried on the tail rudder), but I still incorporated the full national insignia because it's unique and a colorful contrast to the rest of the aircraft.

Most markings belong to a real Hungarian Bf 109G (from a Print Scale aftermarket sheet), I just scratched the national markings on the fuselage and the yellow markings (all cut from stock decal material) and parts of the Hungarian flag insignia on the tail: the tips were painted with red, the white and green bands were cut to measure from a Frecce Tricolori sheet.

A light black ink wash was applied and some dry painting added with gray and black (for soot and exhaust stains), for a lightly weathered effect. As final step, everything was sealed under matt acrylic varnish (Revell).

A quickie, done in just a week, but with a very convincing look. One might recognize Bf 109 F/G, Ki-78 and even He 100 features, but none of these aircraft really matches up with the RMI-11 at second glance, there are too many individual differences. If it gets you wondering – mission accomplished! ;)

The George and Vulture English Pub Pitfield Street and Haberdasher Street Shoreditch, London. Sunday Dinner Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding. Sadly, the meal was NOT up to standard. In fact, it was inedible. Credit to the Pub, they did give us a full refund

Fact | Schedule | Daily - Morning coffee...start of my daily schedule

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!

Some background:

The Cessna Model 336 and 337 “Skymaster” were American twin-engine civil utility aircraft built in a unique push-pull configuration. Their engines were mounted in the nose and rear of its pod-style fuselage. Twin booms extended aft of the wings to the vertical stabilizers, with the rear engine between them. The horizontal stabilizer was aft of the pusher propeller, mounted between and connecting the two booms.

The type’s versatility, low noise level, high travel speed and good loitering time in the operational area at low speed proved to be vital assets for these public service operators and justified its relatively high maintenance costs. A handful of the modernized Spectrum SA-550 machines were still in active service after the Millennium, primarily in the USA.

General characteristics:

Crew: 1 + 3 passengers (up to 5 passengers possible in special seat configuration)

Length: 32 ft 6½ in (9.94 m)

Wingspan: 38 ft ¾ in (11.62 m)

Height: 9 ft 2 in (2.79 m)

Wing area: 201 sq ft (18.81 m²)

Aspect ratio: 7.18:1

Airfoil: NACA 2412 at root, NACA 2409 at tip

Empty weight: 2,655 lb (1,204 kg)

Max takeoff weight: 4,400 lb (1,996 kg)

Fuel capacity: 92 US gal (77 imp gal; 350 l) normal,

128 US gal (107 imp gal; 480 l) with auxiliary tank

in the cabin instead of two passenger seats

Powerplant:

1× Pratt & Whitney PT6A-27 turboprop engine, delivering 550 shp (410 kW) and

driving a four-blade McCauley fully-feathering, constant-speed propeller, 6 ft 4 in (1.93 m) diameter

Performance:

Maximum speed: 199 mph (320 km/h, 173 kn) at sea level

Cruise speed: 144 mph (232 km/h, 125 kn) at 10,000 ft (3,000 m) (econ cruise)

Stall speed: 69 mph (111 km/h, 60 kn)

Range: 1421 mi (2.288 km, 1.243 nmi) at 10.000 ft (3.050 m) altitude and economy cruise

Service ceiling: 19,500 ft (5,900 m)

Rate of climb: 1,200 ft/min (6.1 m/s)

Takeoff distance to 50 ft (15m): 1,545 ft (471 m)

Landing distance from 50 ft (15m): 1,650 ft (500 m)

The kit and its assembly:

This build is the combination of ingredients that had already been stashed away for a long time, and the “Red Lights” Group Build at whatifmodellers.com in early 2021 was a good motivator and occasion to finally put everything together.

The basis is an ARII 1:72 Cessna T337 model kit – I had purchased it long ago with the expectation to create a military Skymaster from it, but I was confused by a fixed landing gear which would make it a 336? Well, without a further concrete plan the kit preliminarily landed in The Stash™…

However, the ARII model features the optional observation windows in the doors on the starboard side, in the form of a complete(!) fuselage half, so that it lends itself to a police or firefighter aircraft of some sort. This idea was furthermore fueled by a decal sheet that I had been given from a friend, left over from a 1:72 Italeri JetRanger, with three optional police helicopter markings.

The final creative element was the real-world “Pelican” conversion of six O-2As for the US Navy, as mentioned in the background above: the front engine was replaced with a longer nose and the engine configuration changed to a pusher-only aircraft with a single powerful turboprop engine. This looked so odd that I wanted to modify the ARII Cessna in a similar fashion, too, and all these factors came together in this model.

My Arii Cessna 337 kit is a re-boxing from 2009, but its origins date back to Eidai in 1972 and that’s just what you get: a vintage thing with some flash and sinkholes, raised (but fine) surface details and pretty crude seams with bulges and gaps. Some PSR is direly necessary, esp. the fit of the fuselage halves is cringeworthy. The clear parts were no source of joy, either; especially the windscreen turned out to be thick, very streaky (to a degree that I’d almost call it opaque!) and even not fully molded! The side glazing was also not very clear. I tried to improve the situation through polishing, but if the basis is already poor, there’s little you can do about it. Hrmpf.

However, the kit was built mostly OOB, including the extra O-2 glazing in the lower doors, but with some mods. One is a (barely visible) extra tank in the cabin’s rear, plus a pilot and an observer figure placed into the tight front seats. The extended “Pelican” nose was a lucky find – I was afraid that I had had to sculpt a nose from scratch with 2C putty. But I found a radome from a Hasegawa RA-5C, left over from a model I built in the Eighties and that has since long fallen apart. However, this nose fitted almost perfectly in size and shape, I just “blunted” the tip a little. Additionally, both the hull in front of the dashboard and the Vigilante radome were filled with as many lead beads as possible to keep the nose down.

The kit’s OOB spatted, fixed landing gear was retained – even though it is dubious for a Cessna 337, because this type had a fully retractable landing gear, and the model has the landing gear covers actually molded into the lower fuselage. On the other side, the Cessna 336’s fixed landing gear looks quite different, too! However, this is a what-if model, and a fixed landing gear might have been a measure to reduce maintenance costs?

The propeller was replaced with a resin four-blade aftermarket piece (from CMK, probably the best-fitting thing on this build!) on my standard metal axis/styrene tube adapter arrangement. The propeller belongs to a Shorts Tucano, but I think that it works well on the converted Cessna and its powerful pusher engine, even though in the real world, the SA-550 is AFAIK driven by a three-blade prop. For the different engine I also enlarged the dorsal air intake with a 1.5 mm piece of styrene sheet added on top of the molded original air scoop and added a pair of ventral exhaust stubs (scratched from sprue material).

Another addition is a pair of winglets, made from 0.5 mm styrene sheet – an upgrade which I found on several late Cessna 337s in various versions. They just add to the modernized look of the aircraft. For the intended observation role, a hemispherical fairing under the nose hides a 180° camera, and I added some antennae around the hull.

However, a final word concerning the model kit itself: nothing fits, be warned! While the kit is a simple affair and looks quite good in the box, assembling it turned out to be a nightmare, with flash, sinkholes, a brittle styrene and gaps everywhere. This includes the clear parts, which are pretty thick and blurry. The worst thing is the windscreen, which is not only EXTRA thick and EXTRA blurry, it was also not completely molded, with gaps on both sides. I tried to get it clearer through manual polishing, but the streaky blurs are integral – no hope for improvement unless you completely replace the parts! If I ever build a Cessna 337/O-2 again, I will give the Airfix kit a try, it can only be better…

Painting and markings:

The choice between the operator options from the JetRanger sheet was hard, it included Sweden and Italy, but I eventually settled for the LAPD because the livery looks cool and this police department not only operates helicopters, but also some fixed-wing aircraft.

I adapted the LAPD’s classic black-and-white police helicopter livery (Gloss White and Black, Humbrol 22 and 21, respectively) to the Cessna and extended it to the wings. At this point – already upset because of the poor fit of the hardware – disaster struck in the form of Humbrol’s 22 turning into a pinkish ivory upon curing! In the tin, the paint and its pigments looked pretty white and “clean”, and I assume that it’s the thinner that caused this change. What a crap! It’s probably the third tin with 22 that causes trouble, even though in different peculiarities!

The result was total rubbish, though, and I tried to rub the paint off as good as possible on the small model with its many windows, the fixed, delicate landing gear and the wing support struts. Then I overpainted the areas with Revell 301 (Semi-matt White). While this enamel yielded the intended pure white tone, the paint itself is rather gooey and not easy to work with, so that the overall finish turned out worse than desired. At least the black paint worked properly. The demarcations were created with black decal stripes (TL Modellbau), because the tiny model left little room for complex masking measures – and I did not risk any more painting accidents.

Since the aircraft would be kept shiny and clean, I just did a light black ink washing to emphasize surface details and did a light panel post-shading on the black areas, not for weathering but rather to accent surface structures. No further weathering was done (and necessary).

The markings/decals come – as mentioned above – from an Italeri 1:72 JetRanger, but they were augmented with some additional markings, e. g. grey walkways on the wings and “L-A-P-D” in large black letters under the wings, to distract from the poor finish of the white paint around them…

Finally, the kit was sealed overall with Italeri semi-gloss acrylic varnish, just with a matt anti-glare shield in front of the windscreen, which received thin white trim lines (generic decal stripes).

A challenging build due to the Arii kit’s rather poor basis, the massive rhinoplasty and the crisp paint scheme. However, I like the result – what-if models do not always have to be armed military vehicles, there’s potential in other genres, too. And this mono-engine “Pelican” Skymaster plays its role as a “flying eye” in police service credibly and well. However, this was my first and last Eidai kit…

Some of you may have noticed that, unfortunately, owing to the fact that a certain person who sells truck photos on eBay commercially has been lifting my images from this album and selling them I have had to remove 2300 photos that didn't have a watermark. I have now run around 1700 through Lightroom and added a watermark with the intention of bulk uploading them again. Rather than watermark the existing (hidden) files in Flickr one at a time it will be easier to do it this way. I definitely won’t be adding individual tags with the make and model of each vehicle I will just add generic transport tags. Each photo is named after the vehicle and reg in any case. For anyone new to these images there is a chapter and verse explanation below. It is staggering how many times I get asked questions that a quick scan would answer or just as likely I can’t possibly answer – I didn’t take them, but, just to clarify-I do own the copyright- and I do pursue copyright theft.

This is a collection of scanned prints from a collection of photographs taken by the late Jim Taylor A number of years ago I was offered a large number of photographs taken by Jim Taylor, a transport photographer based in Huddersfield. The collection, 30,000 prints, 20,000 negatives – and copyright! – had been offered to me and one of the national transport magazines previously by a friend of Jim's, on behalf of Jim's wife. I initially turned them down, already having over 30,000 of my own prints filed away and taking space up. Several months later the prints were still for sale – at what was, apparently, the going rate. It was a lot of money and I deliberated for quite a while before deciding to buy them. I did however buy them directly from Jim’s wife and she delivered them personally – just to quash the occasional rumour from people who can’t mind their own business. Although some prints were sold elsewhere, particularly the popular big fleet stuff, I should have the negatives, unfortunately they came to me in a random mix, 1200 to a box, without any sort of indexing and as such it would be impossible to match negatives to prints, or, to even find a print of any particular vehicle. I have only ever looked at a handful myself unless I am scanning them. The prints are generally in excellent condition and I initially stored them in a bedroom without ever looking at any of them. In 2006 I built an extension and they had to be well protected from dust and moved a few times. Ultimately my former 6x7 box room office has become their (and my own work’s) permanent home.

I hope to avoid posting images that Jim had not taken his self, however should I inadvertently infringe another photographers copyright, please inform me by email and I will resolve the issue immediately. There are copyright issues with some of the photographs that were sold to me. A Flickr member from Scotland drew my attention to some of his own work amongst the first uploads of Jim’s work. I had a quick look through some of the 30 boxes of prints and decided that for the time being the safest thing for me to do was withdraw the majority of the earlier uploaded scans and deal with the problem – which I did. whilst the vast majority of the prints are Jims, there is a problem defining copyright of some of them, this is something that the seller did not make clear at the time. I am reasonably confident that I have since been successful in identifying Jims own work. His early work consists of many thousands of lustre 6x4 prints which are difficult to scan well, later work is almost entirely 7x5 glossy, much easier to scan. Not all of the prints are pin sharp but I can generally print successfully to A4 from a scan.

You may notice photographs being duplicated in this Album, unfortunately there are multiple copies of many prints (for swapping) and as I have to have a system of archiving and backing up I can only guess - using memory - if I have scanned a print before. The bigger fleets have so many similar vehicles and registration numbers that it is impossible to get it right all of the time. It is easier to scan and process a print than check my files - on three different PC’s - for duplicates. There has not been, nor will there ever be, any intention to knowingly breach anyone else's copyright. I have presented the Jim Taylor collection as exactly that-The Jim Taylor Collection- his work not mine, my own work is quite obviously mine.

Unfortunately, many truck spotters have swapped and traded their work without copyright marking it as theirs. These people never anticipated the ease with which images would be shared online in the future. I would guess that having swapped and traded photos for many years that it is almost impossible to control their future use. Anyone wanting to control the future use of their work would have been well advised to copyright mark their work (as many did) and would be well advised not to post them on photo sharing sites without a watermark as the whole point of these sites is to share the image, it is very easy for those that wish, to lift any image, despite security settings, indeed, Flickr itself, warns you that this is the case. It was this abuse and theft of my material that led me to watermark all of my later uploads. I may yet withdraw non-watermarked photos, I haven’t decided yet. (I did in the end)

To anyone reading the above it will be quite obvious that I can’t provide information regarding specific photos or potential future uploads – I didn’t take them! There are many vehicles that were well known to me as Jim only lived down the road from me (although I didn’t know him), however scanning, titling, tagging and uploading is laborious and time consuming enough, I do however provide a fair amount of information with my own transport (and other) photos. I am aware that there are requests from other Flickr users that are unanswered, I stumble across them months or years after they were posted, this isn’t deliberate. Some weekends one or two “enthusiasts” can add many hundreds of photos as favourites, this pushes requests that are in the comments section ten or twenty pages out of sight and I miss them. I also have notifications switched off, I receive around 50 emails a day through work and I don’t want even more from Flickr. Other requests, like many other things, I just plain forget – no excuses! Uploads of Jim’s photos will be infrequent as it is a boring pastime and I would much rather work on my own output.

PAYPAL $15.00 GRIMETIMEMAGAZINE@GMAIL.COM

Doel is a little village.

This village will be erase of the world with the extention of the Schelde river.

Some artists paint the houses to show on the world this uncredible fact.

Doel never die.

Doel est un petit village qui va être rasée de la carte du monde par l'extension de l'Escaut

Doel

Belgium location map.svg

Doel

Administration

Pays Belgique Belgique

Région Flandre Région flamande

Communauté Flandre Communauté flamande

Province Drapeau de la province de Flandre-Occidentale Province de Flandre-Orientale

Arrondissement Saint-Nicolas

Commune Beveren

Géographie

Coordonnées 51°18′″N 04°15′″E / Erreur d’expression : opérateur / inattendu, Erreur d’expression : opérateur / inattendu

Superficie 25,61 km²

Population 359 hab. (31/12/2007)

Densité 14 hab./km²

Autres informations

Gentilé

Code postal 9130

Zone téléphonique 03

Localisation de Doel au sein de Beveren

Localisation de Doel au sein de Beveren

modifier Consultez la documentation du modèle

Doel (appelé Den Doel dans le parler local) est un village situé dans l’extrême nord-est de la province belge de Flandre-Orientale, dans les marais du pays de Waas, sur la rive gauche de l’Escaut, large en cet endroit de quelque 1500 mètres par marée haute, en face de Lillo-Fort. Aujourd’hui intégré dans l’entité de Beveren, Doel était jusqu’en 1977 une commune autonome, d’une superficie de 25,61 km², et d’une population de quelque 1300 habitants (1972). Outre le village lui-même, l’ancienne commune de Doel comprend les hameaux de Rapenburg, Saftinge et Ouden Doel, et bien sûr, une vaste étendue de marais asséchés.

Depuis quelques décennies, le village se retrouve régulièrement projeté au centre de l’actualité belge, à double titre.

D’abord, il a été choisi, comme le village de Tihange dans la province de Liège, comme lieu d’implantation d’une des deux centrales nucléaires que compte la Belgique.

Ensuite, et plus récemment, il semble bien établi à présent que Doel doive s’ajouter à la liste des villages poldériens (si l’on nous permet ce néologisme) sacrifiés à l’expansion du port d’Anvers. En effet, l’évacuation totale de la bourgade, après expropriation de ses habitants, a été décidée en 1999 par l’autorité régionale flamande, pour faire place à de nouvelles installations portuaires. En dépit des résistances, et de la bataille juridique engagée par le comité d’action Doel 2020 (saisines du Conseil d’État, etc.), le sort de Doel paraît aujourd’hui scellé, et il faut craindre que les recours n’aient d’autre effet que d’en prolonger l’agonie. L’évacuation suit son cours, et à la date du 31 décembre 2006, Doel ne comptait déjà plus que 388 habitants.

Le nom de Doel (la combinaison oe se prononce comme un ou bref, API: /dul/) est attesté pour la première fois en 1267, sous la forme « De Doolen ». La signification précise demeure obscure; le terme pourrait être une référence à «dalen», vallées, au sens d’amas de sable creusés. Au Moyen Âge, les Doolen ont pu être des îlots au milieu de l’Escaut. Pour d’autres, Doel signifierait ‘digue, remblai, levée’. ‘Doel’ devint, après la domination française, la dénomination officielle.

La zone autour de Doel était à l’origine constituée de terres marécageuses et faisait partie d’une vaste étendue tourbeuse s’étirant d’est en ouest sur toute la Flandre zélandaise et le nord de la Flandre-Orientale. Au nord de Doel plus spécialement, dans ce qui est aujourd’hui le Verdronken Land van Saeftinghe, la couche de tourbe était particulièrement épaisse. À partir du XIIIe siècle, l’on procéda dans cette zone, qui au XIIIe siècle avait deux fois plus d’habitants que Doel, et qui hébergeait une abbaye cistercienne, à une exploitation intensive de la tourbe. Cette activité, fort lucrative, a induit une certaine prospérité dans la région.

L’extraction de tourbe dans la zone marécageuse eut pour effet d’abaisser le niveau du sol en de nombreux endroits et de rendre la zone vulnérable aux inondations. Dans le même temps, à partir du XIIe siècle, l’Escaut subissait de plus en plus l’emprise de la mer du Nord. Pour ces raisons, il advenait régulièrement à partir du XIVe siècle que Doel et les parties nord du Pays de Beveren fussent totalement inondées, déterminant la nécessité d’édifier des digues et d’aménager ainsi des polders.

Cependant, tout ce système, conjuguant poldérisation et extraction de tourbe, progressivement mis en place dans la région au cours du Moyen Âge, fut peu à peu anéanti, d’abord par une série d’inondations catastrophiques au XVIe siècle (dont la plus grave, en l’an 1570, connue sous le nom de Allerheiligenvloed, «marée de Toussaint», submergea entièrement, et à titre définitif, le marais de Saeftinghe), ensuite par les submersions, cette fois délibérément provoquées pour motifs stratégiques, durant la guerre de Quatre-Vingts Ans, notamment lors du siège d’Anvers par Alexandre Farnèse. La région était en effet alors le théâtre de combats dont l’enjeu était la maîtrise d’Anvers et de l’estuaire de l’Escaut. À cette même époque, elle fut pillée par deux fois, par des gueux (protestants) de Malines et par la soldatesque catholique royale. Les submersions volontaires ne purent empêcher Farnèse de prendre Anvers en 1585, mais les forces des États-généraux ayant réussi à s’emparer du fort de Liefkenshoek, sis au sud de Doel (et existant encore aujourd’hui), le village et le marais de Doel furent à partir de 1585 sous domination des États-généraux.

Le Hooghuis (1614).

Hooghuis : portique.

Lorsqu’arriva l’intermède de paix correspondant à la Trève de douze ans (1609-1621), la région entière n’était qu’une zone de désolation où marées et inondations de l’Escaut avaient libre carrière; tout était à refaire. Doel servait de point d’appui dans les opérations de guerre, et à la hauteur de l’actuel moulin se trouvait un fort abritant une garnison hollandaise. En 1614 fut accordée, par les États-Généraux de la République des Provinces-Unies, l’autorisation d’endiguer et d’assécher toute l’étendue autour de Doel. Cette décision signe l’acte de naissance de la bourgade de Doel sous sa forme actuelle, car, outre l’aménagement du marais, fut aussi commencé la construction, planifiée sur carte, du village. La disposition en damier des rues détermina une urbanisation géométrique, fort rare en ces latitudes. Les parcelles carrées ainsi formées furent ensuite bâties systématiquement, de telle façon qu’aucun jardin ne fût visible depuis la rue; ces jardins étaient (et sont encore) accessibles par d’étroits corridors aménagés entre les maisons et clos par des portillons, qu’autrefois on verrouillait pour la nuit.

Doel et le marais de Doel ont longtemps formé, de fait, une façon d’île, délimitée par l’Escaut d’une part, par des criques et des vasières d’autre part. Le marais de Doel s’étendait sur 1090 ha. La digue nord du marais de Doel, digue subsistant encore aujourd’hui, est la limite qui sépare le marais initial d’avec les marais aménagés ultérieurement, et permet de situer en partie les contours de cette ancienne île. Jusqu’au XVIIe siècle, Doel n’était en pratique guère accessible autrement qu’en bateau. Quant au marais de Saeftinghe, on renonça à l’endiguer, ce marais demeurant ainsi un verdronken land, une zone inondable au gré des marées; à l’heure actuelle, c’est une réserve ornithologique.

Au plan ecclésiastique, Doel dépendait de la paroisse de Kieldrecht et ne devint une paroisse autonome qu’en 1792. Cette même année, Doel fut attribué à l’empereur d’Autriche et vint à faire partie définitivement des Pays-Bas du Sud.

Lors des événements qui entourèrent l’indépendance belge en 1830, Doel subit le contrecoup de la bataille d’Anvers. En décembre 1832, les Belges, aidés de troupes françaises, réussirent à contraindre les Hollandais à céder Anvers, mais, après avoir investi le polder de Doel, ne purent cependant déloger les troupes hollandaises des forts de Liefkenshoek et de Lillo. Une garnison hollandaise continua donc d’occuper le fort de Liefkenshoek, et cela jusqu’à la signature d’un traité en 1839. Doel devint ensuite une commune autonome.

À partir de 1843 et jusqu’en 1945, Doel fut le siège du service de quarantaine chargé de contrôler les navires se rendant à Anvers. Le marais s’agrandit du polder Prosper (Prosperpolder, 1051 ha de terres arables), et, quelques décennies plus tard, du polder Hedwige (300 ha). À la fin du XIXe siècle, les deux tiers environ de la population doeloise vivaient de l’agriculture, et un tiers avait la pêche pour moyen de subsistance ; d’autre part, une sucrerie occupait une quarantaine de travailleurs.

Doel fut libérée en 1944 par des soldats britanniques et polonais. Le village eut cependant encore à souffrir des meurtrières bombes volantes V1, dont 68 tombèrent sur son territoire — 59 V1 et 9 V2 —, faisant 13 morts et détruisant totalement ou partiellement 35 maisons.

En 1975, Doel fusionna avec quelques communes environnantes pour constituer l’entité de Beveren.

Dans la bourgade, les rues sont disposées en damier, phénomène à peu près unique en Belgique : le plan se compose de trois rues parallèles à la digue, et de quatre autres rues qui les croisent à la perpendiculaire. Cette disposition remonte à la décision, prise au début du XVIIe siècle après les inondations stratégiques, de procéder à une poldérisation et un remembrement des terres autour de Doel, et est demeurée inchangée depuis.

* L’agglomération comprend plusieurs fermes et maisons bourgeoises. L’immeuble le plus ancien est le Hooghuis (litt. maison haute, classé monument historique), achevé de bâtir en 1614, dans le style renaissance flamand, avec monumental encadrement de porte en style baroque. L’intérieur n’est pas sans intérêt, avec ses plafonds en chêne et deux monumentales cheminées baroques du XVIIe siècle. L’édifice était au XVIIe siècle le siège de l’administration du polder, mais a aussi été le manoir appartenant à de riches bourgeois anversois; le Hooghuis est ainsi associé au nom de Rubens, cette demeure ayant été probablement la propriété de Jan Brandt, père d’Isabelle Brandt, la première épouse du peintre, et, ultérieurement, de Jan Van Broeckhoven de Bergeyck, qu’Hélène Fourment épousa en secondes noces, après le décès de Rubens.

* Le moulin, classé monument historique depuis 1946, est encastré dans la digue de l’Escaut. Il date du milieu du XVIIe siècle et figure parmi les plus anciens moulins en brique que compte la Flandre. Hors d’usage depuis 1927, le moulin est aujourd’hui aménagé en café-restaurant.

* L’église paroissiale, dédiée à Notre-Dame de l’Assomption, fut édifiée en style néoclassique entre 1851 et 1854 selon les plans de Lodewijk Roelandt, architecte municipal de Gand. Le mobilier cependant comprend des œuvres d’art plus anciennes, telles que des statues du sculpteur anversois H. F. Verbruggen (XVIIe siècle) et de E. A. Nijs (XVIIIe siècle). L’orgue est classé monument depuis 1980. L’église, endommagée suite à affaissements, fut entièrement restaurée entre 1996 et 1998. Les couches solides du sous-sol se situent à Doel à environ 11 mètres de profondeur, alors que les palées destinées à soutenir l’édifice ne s’enfoncent en terre que de 7 mètres. Cela explique pourquoi l’église penche assez fortement aujourd'hui, son clocher en particulier.

* Au nord du village, au-delà de la centrale nucléaire, à la hauteur du hameau Ouden Doel, se situent le long de l’Escaut les dernières vasières saumâtres que compte la Belgique. Ces vasières abritent le petit port de Prosperpolder et la réserve naturelle Schor Ouden Doel (51 ha).

* Doel possède un port de plaisance, constitué d’un unique bassin à marée, et un embarcadère où vient accoster le bac de Lillo-Fort, lequel effectue la traversée de l’Escaut tous les week-ends de mars à septembre.

* Doel attire de nombreux excursionnistes, en particulier pendant la période estivale. Un événement singulier est la Scheldewijding (bénédiction rituelle de l’Escaut), qui a lieu début août chaque année depuis 1975. Les festivités commencent par une messe célébrée en plein air. Ensuite, le collège des échevins (=adjoints au maire) se rend conjointement avec les conseillers communaux à un bateau amarré, en vue de la mise à l’eau d’une couronne de fleurs en commémoration des victimes de la mer et du fleuve. L’après-midi, après un spectacle naval sur l’Escaut, un cortège folklorique se met en branle, réunissant, en provenance des villages environnants, nombre de groupes et d’associations avec leurs géants et leurs sociétés musicales. Une marche aux flambeaux clôture la journée.

* En l’an 2000, une cogue (type de navire de commerce hauturier, naviguant au Moyen Âge entre les différents ports de la ligue hanséatique, en mer du Nord et en mer Baltique) a été mise au jour lors des travaux de terrassement en vue de la construction du bassin Deurganckdok. L’épave trouvée à Doel était enfouie à une profondeur entre -7 et -5m sous le niveau de la mer, dans un ancien bras ensablé de l’Escaut, connu sous le nom de Deurganck (= passage, cf. allem. Durchgang), qui autrefois communiquait directement avec le fleuve ; pour des raisons inconnues, la cogue vint échouer dans ce bras en 1404. La cogue de Doel (ainsi qu’il est désormais convenu de l’appeler) mesure environ 21m de long et 7m de large; sa hauteur conservée est de 2,5m environ. L’analyse dendrochronologique a permis d’établir que le chêne qui a fourni le bois du vaisseau a été abattu en Westphalie pendant l’hiver 1325-1326, ce qui fait de cette cogue une des plus grandes, des mieux préservées et des plus anciennes d’Europe. Une fois terminés les travaux de remise en état, la cogue sera (probablement) exposée dans le musée de la navigation de Baasrode, non loin de la ville de Termonde ; mais une maquette est d'ores et déjà visible au bezoekerscentrum (sorte d'écomusée), ouvert depuis septembre 2007 au fort de Liefkenshoek. Une deuxième cogue découverte au même endroit, mais moins bien conservée, date de 1328.

Les premiers projets d’expansion du port d’Anvers sur la rive gauche de l’Escaut datent de 1963 et prévoyaient que l’ensemble des polders du pays de Waas ainsi que Doel disparussent pour faire place à des bassins et à des terrains industriels. En 1968, une interdiction de construire entra en vigueur dans le village. Suite à la récession économique des années 70, ces plans d’expansion furent revus à la baisse, et l’on vit apparaître sur le plan de secteur (=plan d’occupation du sol) de 1978 la ligne dite De Bondtlijn (d’après le sénateur Ferdinand De Bondt), ligne qui allait d’est en ouest, et qui, passant tout juste au sud de Doel, limitait la zone d’extension portuaire à la partie sud des polders. L’interdiction de construire fut donc levée cette même année. Dans la première moitié des années 80 fut réalisé, au sud de Doel, le bassin Doeldok, lequel cependant n'a jamais été utilisé.

L’implantation industrielle moderne la plus ancienne à Doel fut la centrale nucléaire, à 1 km au nord du village, dont la construction fut entamée en 1969. Elle héberge quatre réacteurs (Doel I, mis en service en 1974, Doel II en 1975, Doel III en 1982, et Doel IV en 1985), ainsi que deux tours de refroidissement d’environ 170 mètres de hauteur.

En 1995 furent rendus publics les projets d’extension de l’Administration des voies navigables et des affaires maritimes (Administratie Waterwegen en Zeewezen) de l’autorité flamande, lesquels projets prévoyaient l’aménagement, un peu au sud de Doel, d’un nouveau bassin pour conteneurs, dénommé Deurganckdok. Dans la perspective de la réalisation de ce bassin, l’on se mit à s’interroger sur la vivabilité de Doel, et dans les années qui suivirent une lutte acharnée s’engagea avec comme enjeu la survie du village. En 1997 fut constitué le comité d’action Doel 2020, et des personnalités connues en Flandre, telles que l’ancien sénateur Ferdinand De Bondt, le cinéaste Frank Van Passel, et les trois prêtres Luc Versteylen (fondateur du parti vert flamand Agalev), Phil Bosmans (écrivain) et Karel Van Isacker (historien) s’associèrent au mouvement de protestation. Une prise de décision opaque et des bévues juridiques donnèrent lieu à de grands retards dans la construction du Deurganckdok et entretinrent pendant de longues années un état d’incertitude quant à l’avenir de Doel. Les habitants étaient divisés en, d’une part, ceux qui souhaitaient y rester et, d’autre part, ceux qui au contraire avaient fait choix de lutter pour obtenir un règlement d’expropriation clair et équitable. Le 1er juin 1999, le gouvernement flamand décida, après une modification provisoire du plan de secteur intervenue en 1998, que Doel devait disparaître de ce plan de secteur au titre de zone de résidence, toujours au motif de l’invivabilité du village, qualificatif récusé par les opposants.

Après le changement de gouvernement de la région flamande en 1999, une étude fut effectuée, sur insistance du parti vert Agalev, concernant la vivabilité de Doel après l’achèvement du nouveau bassin Deurganckdok. Cette étude cependant ne remit pas en cause la modification du plan de secteur, ni la décision déjà prise de faire disparaître Doel à terme.

Le 30 juillet 2002, le Conseil d’État suspendit la mise à exécution du plan de secteur tel que modifié, c'est-à-dire comportant notamment la requalification de Doel comme zone industrielle. C’est donc le plan de secteur de 1978, qui classe Doel comme zone résidentielle, qui garde force de droit. Toutefois, en vertu du Décret d’urgence (Nooddecreet) ou Décret de validation, adopté le 14 décembre 2001 au parlement flamand, le gouvernement flamand est habilité à délivrer, en vue de la construction du Deurganckdok, des permis de bâtir et à les faire sanctionner par le parlement. L’on escomptait pouvoir par cette voie contourner le plan de secteur. Le Nooddecreet était la réaction du gouvernement flamand face à la suspension des travaux du Deurganckdok imposé par un arrêté du Conseil d’État ; des comités d’action avaient en effet mis au jour des vices de procédure entachant les modifications apportées au plan de secteur. Le Nooddecreet, compte tenu qu’il interférait dans les procédures en cours, et tendait à contourner partiellement la protection juridique des citoyens, est considéré par beaucoup comme contraire aux principes de l’État de droit.

En octobre 1999 fut néanmoins engagée la construction du Deurganckdok, lequel fut inauguré en juillet 2005. Dès le printemps 1999 étaient venus à être connus d’autres projets encore, prévoyant notamment un deuxième grand bassin à conteneurs, le controversé Saeftinghedok (cf. ci-dessous), qui serait creusé à l’emplacement même de la petite agglomération. La mise en œuvre de ces projets reste cependant incertaine. Une décision à ce sujet est attendue au plus tôt en 2007.

Un nouveau « plan stratégique », que la Région flamande et les autorités portuaires anversoises ont achevé de mettre au point en 2007, devrait être approuvé bientôt. Le plan prévoit de requalifier en zone portuaire toute la zone située au nord d’une ligne Kieldrecht-Kallo (et donc englobant Doel), jusqu’à la frontière néerlandaise. La construction d’un nouveau bassin à marée, le Saeftinghedok, serait alors possible, moyennant la poursuite des expropriations.

Partisans et détracteurs s’opposent à propos de l’opportunité de ce bassin. Celui-ci a un fervent défenseur en la personne de Marc Van Peel, depuis fin 2006 échevin (=adjoint au maire) aux affaires portuaires de la municipalité d’Anvers. Selon M. Van Peel, l’extension du port d’Anvers est une nécessité, compte tenu, d’une part, de la croissance prévisible du trafic de conteneurs, lequel est passé, en 2007, de 7 à 8 millions d’ÉVP, et d’autre part, de ce que le port d’Anvers sera apte, dès 2008, grâce aux travaux d’approfondissement de l’estuaire qui ont été réalisés, à accueillir des porte-conteneurs d’une capacité jusqu’à 12.500 ÉVP. Si cette croissance se poursuit à ce même rythme, on peut prévoir que le Deurganckdok sera parvenu à saturation aux alentours de 2012. Or, les seules possibilités d’expansion se trouvent sur la rive gauche, dans les marais de Doel.

Les opposants au projet vont valoir, étude récente de la Ocean Shipping Consultants à l’appui, que la conteneurisation des marchandises pourrait atteindre bientôt son plafond, et que la croissance prévisible du trafic pourrait être moindre dans les dix années à venir que dans les années récentes. Par ailleurs, à l’heure actuelle, le Deurganckdok est loin d’avoir épuisé toute sa capacité, et il apparaît de surcroît que le rendement, exprimé en ÉVP par hectare, se situe, au port d’Anvers, avec un chiffre de 18.000 seulement, très en deçà de ce qu’il est à Rotterdam ou à Hambourg, où l’on atteint les 30.000 ÉVP par hectare. Dès lors, au lieu d’un supposé manque de capacité, ce serait plutôt d’une grande réserve de capacité (resp. d'une surcapacité, si le Saeftinghedok devait être construit) qu’il pourrait être question, de sorte que moyennant certaines améliorations techniques, et éventuellement un allongement du Deurganckdok, il devrait être possible de faire face à l’augmentation du trafic conteneurs, et ce, selon les calculs du parti écologiste Groen!, au moins jusqu'en 2027.

Dès 1999, les habitants qui le désiraient pouvaient se faire exproprier. Les maisons expropriées passaient aux mains de la Maatschappij voor Grond- en Industrialisatiebeleid van het Linkerscheldeoevergebied (Société de gestion foncière et d’industrialisation de la Rive gauche de l’Escaut, en abrégé Maatschappij Linkeroever), cependant les habitants expropriés bénéficiaient d’un droit d’habitation, garanti initialement jusqu’au 1er janvier 2007. Fin 2006, l’administration fit savoir aux habitants que le droit d’habitation serait prorogé de manière provisoire.

En même temps fut nommé en 1999 un médiateur social, chargé de mettre à exécution le plan d’accompagnement social et d’assister les habitants qui quittent le village volontairement. Le 31 décembre 2003, ce plan social vint à son terme. Cette manière de procéder a permis de rendre exsangue, en seulement quelques années et sans coup férir, une grande partie du village: le 1er mai 2003 ne vivaient plus dans le centre de Doel que 214 des 645 habitants qui étaient inscrits au 20 janvier 1998. Le chiffre de population réel dans le centre s’élevait toutefois, au 1er mai 2003, à 301. Le 1er septembre 2003, l’école communale fut fermée après constatation que seuls 8 élèves s’y étaient inscrits.

Depuis lors, si le nombre d’habitants officiel a poursuivi sa baisse (plus que 202 en mars 2006), le nombre réel s’est progressivement accru. Cela s’explique, pour petite partie, par l’arrivée de nouveaux locataires dans certaines maisons expropriées, et pour majeure partie par le fait que des squatteurs avaient occupé les immeubles vacants (les estimations se situent entre 150 et 200). Cet état de choses fut longtemps toléré par la Société propriétaire des maisons vacantes et par la municipalité de Beveren.

Début 2006, les médias se sont de nouveau intéressés à Doel en raison du grand nombre de squatteurs. Cela concourut à répandre dans le public l’idée que Doel s’était dans une certaine mesure muée en une zone de non-droit, où l’on pouvait sans problème s’approprier un logement vacant, ce qui, à son tour, eut pour effet d’attirer de nouveaux squatteurs et de provoquer une vague de cambriolages. Le 22 mars 2006, le bourgmestre (=maire) de Beveren annonça que les contrôles de police seraient intensifiés à Doel et que la tolérance zéro serait dorénavant en vigueur et toute activité illégale réprimée. Certains squatteurs cependant demandent à régulariser leur situation.

Début septembre 2007, le tribunal des référés de Termonde a interdit la démolition de logements à Doel. La Maatschappij Linkeroever avait demandé quarante permis de démolition, dont une vingtaine avaient été accordés entre-temps. Le gouvernement flamand souhaite que 125 immeubles au total — soit environ une moitié des maisons du village —, déjà acquis par l’autorité flamande, aient disparu d’ici fin 2007 ; cela du reste rejoint sa décision de mettre un terme final au droit d’habitation (woonrecht) en 2009 : toutes les maisons qui viendraient ainsi à se trouver vacantes seraient ensuite démolies. Cependant, quelques habitants de Doel, soutenus en cela par le comité d’action Doel 2020, avaient saisi le tribunal de Termonde afin d’empêcher les démolitions. Sur le plan d’occupation du sol, Doel reste classé en zone d’habitation, le nouveau plan de secteur qui requalifiait Doel en zone industrielle ayant en effet quelques années auparavant été suspendu par le Conseil d’État. Le président du tribunal a jugé que les travaux de démolition seraient dommageables aux habitants restés sur place et dépasseraient les limites de la simple incommodation.

Par ailleurs, et dans le même temps, une délégation des habitants de Doel s’est rendue au Parlement européen à Bruxelles pour protester contre la démolition programmée de 125 logements. La délégation a remis une requête à la Commission des pétitions du Parlement européen.

Source wikipédia

sorry i couldn't edit the picture. i felt like i haven't posted anything in a while. and i wanted to post these facts today, and i was to lazy to put "niley facts" x)

so yeah, these are REAL facts, so dont complain the badassity of it ;)

P.S. i've been seeing these facts on people's twitters and they don't even credit me. I just know for sure they're my facts, js. so, if i see them on someone's twitter without giving me credit again, i'm not posting anymore Niley facts. k? goood:)

64. E! says Nick is alot of the inspiration on Can't Be Tamed

65. Miley Cyrus was at the recording of the Year 3000 video.

66. Miley owns a JONAS shirt.

67. Nick was given a survey when he was 13, and wrote "Miley Cyrus" as his celebrity crush.

68. Billy Ray called Nick "a good kid" on Larry King in 09

69. Ryan: Are you in love with Nick Jonas? Miley; I AM NOT IN LOVE WITH NICK JONAS! R: Is he in love with you? M: Yes. Ryan: Have you made out with him? Miley: NO! Ryan; Will you makeout with him? Miley: Yes. (2007)

70. On Miley's can't be tamed album, "Scars" & "Take Me Along" is supposedly about Nick Jonas.

71. Nick sang Before The Storm in the same place he and Miley broke up. Hartford, Conneticut. (August 13, 2010.)

72. That same night, Noah tweeted Nick, "Hey Nick its noah! See ya. xoxo" She also tweeted about rockin out to Year 3000 and it being her favorite song. (August 13, 2010.)

73. Nick supposedly danced to Party In The USA at the Road Dogs Game. (August 6th, 2010)

74. Miley used to carry band-aids around specially for Nicks diabetes

75. Miley is RUMORED to be texting Nick a lot. A source says "They are not done and could possibly get together this fall"

76. Nick reportedly turned down a Duet with miley 'cause he was too busy touring with his brothers.

77. Nick changed the lyrics AGAIN to Still in Love With You from "You're not Listening" to "You're my destiny." [September 5, 2010]

78. Nick always smiles when Miley is mentioned to him at an interiew.

79. Nick and Miley both LOVE the band Coldplay.

80. Nick and Miley both got the new iPhone4 recently.

81. Paranoid is not about Miley, but it's rumored to be about Selena or Taylor Swift.

82. On the set of "Send it On", Joe & Nick would always make fun of Miley and say that she's the youngest of the cast. <-- this made me LOL. x)

83. Frankie Jonas & Noah Cyrus are team Niley.

84. "We wrote the song after a personal experience that made us grow in the ways of love and relationship And being able to perform this song with an old friend was truly amazing ." -Nick.

85. “We have one of those things where it’s kind of always there. She’s so important to me, and I’m really lucky.” - Nick.

86. Miley tweeted once: "Watching Beauty and The Beast :) Why can't I be more like Belle?" and Nick said his favorite Disney princess is Belle. [September 3, 2010.]

&

87. Nick couldn't stop smiling at the interview With Paul when they mentioned Miley. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dp8qSeOks7k <-- BTW, love this interview! it's frickin hilarious. you should watch the whole thing x)

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!

Some background:

The P-51H (NA-126) was the final production Mustang, embodying the experience gained in the development of the lightweight XP-51F and XP-51G aircraft. This aircraft, brought the development of the Mustang to a peak as one of the fastest production piston-engine fighters to see service in WWII.

In July of 1943, U.S. Army approved a contract with North American Aviation to design and build a lightweight P-51. Designated NA-105, 5 aircraft were to be built and tested. Edgar Schmued, chief of design at NAA, began this design early in 1943. He, in February of 1943, left the U.S. on a two-month trip to England. He was to visit the Supermarine factory and the Rolls Royce factory to work on his lightweight project.

In 1951, when New Zealand’s Territorial Air Force (TAF) was established, only the stored P-51D Mustangs were revived and entered service in the newly established 1 (Auckland), 2 (Wellington), 3 (Canterbury), and 4 (Otago) squadrons. Due to the small number, lack of spares and communality with the P-51D, the remaining mothballed RNZAF F-51Ms were eventually scrapped, too.

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 33’ 4” (10.173 m)

Wingspan: 37‘ (11.28 m)

Height: 13‘ 8” (4.17 m) with tail wheel on ground, vertical propeller blade

Wing area: 235 sq ft (21.83 m²)

Airfoil: NAA/NACA 45-100 / NAA/NACA 45-100

Empty weight: 7.180 lb (3,260 kg)

Gross weight: 9,650 lb (4,381 kg)

Max takeoff weight: 11,800 lb (5,357 kg)

Fuel capacity: 255 US gal (212 imp gal; 964 l)

Aspect ratio: 5.83

Powerplant:

1× Packard (Rolls Royce) V-1650-9A Merlin 12-cylinder liquid cooled engine, delivering 1,380 hp

(1,030 kW) at sea level, driving a 4-blade constant-speed Aeroproducts 11' 1" Unimatic propeller

Performance:

Maximum speed: 465 mph (750 km/h; 407 kn) at 18,000 ft (5,500 m)

Cruise speed: 362 mph (583 km/h, 315 kn)

Stall speed: 100 mph (160 km/h, 87 kn)

Range: 855 mi (1,375 km, 747 nm) with internal fuel

1,200 mi (1,930 km, 1,050 nmi) with external tanks

Service ceiling: 30,100 ft (9,200 m)

Rate of climb: 3,200 ft/min (16.3 m/s) at sea level

Wing loading: 30.5 lb/sq ft (149 kg/m²)

Power/mass: 0.19 hp/lb (315 W/kg)

Lift-to-drag ratio: 14.6

Recommended Mach limit 0.8

Armament:

6× 0.50 caliber (12.7mm) AN/M2 Browning machine guns with a total of 1,880 rounds

2× underwing hardpoints for drop tanks or bombs of 500 pounds (227 kg) caliber each,

or 6 or 10 5” (127 mm) T64 HVAR rockets

The kit and its assembly:

A relatively simple project, a whiffy color variant based on RS Model’s 1:72 P-51H kit – which I quickly turned into a P-51M, which was planned as mentioned in the background, but never produced in real life.

The model was strictly built OOB, and while this short-run kit goes together quite well, I encountered some problems along the way:

- There are massive and long ejector pin markers, sometimes in very confined locations like the radiator intake. Without a mini drill, getting rid of them is very difficult

- Somehow the instructions for the cockpit are not correct; I put the parts into place as indicated, and the pilot’s seat ended up way too far forward in the fuselage

- The canopy, while clear, is pretty thick and just a single piece, so that you have to cut the windscreen off by yourself if you want to show the otherwise very nice cockpit.

- The separated windscreen section itself includes a piece of the cowling in front of the window panes, which makes its integration into the fuselage a tricky affair. However, this IMHO not-so-perfect construction became a minor blessing because the separated windscreen turned out to be a little too narrow for the fuselage – it had to be glued forcibly to the fuselage (read: with superglue), and the section in front of the window panes offered enough hidden area to safely apply the glue on the clear piece.

- While there are some resin parts included like weighted wheels, it is beyond me why tiny bits like the underwing pitot or most delicate landing gear parts have been executed in resin, as flat parts of a resin block that makes it IMHO impossible to cut them out from.

- The tail wheel is a messy three-piece construction of resin and IP parts, with a flimsy strut that’s prone to break already upon cutting the part from the IP sprue. Furthermore, there’s no proper location inside of the fuselage to mount it. Guess and glue!

- The fit of the stabilizers is doubtful; it’s probably best to get rid of their locator pins and glue them directly onto the fuselage

- The propeller consists of a centerpiece with the blades, which is enclosed by two spinner halves (front and back). This results in a visible seam between them that is not easy to fill/PSR away

On the positive side I must say that the engraved surface details, the cockpit interior and the landing gear are very nice, and there is even the complete interior of the radiator and its tunnel included. PSR requirements are also few, even though you won’t get along well without cosmetic bodywork.

The only personal modification is a styrene tube inside of the nose for the propeller, which was mounted onto a metal axis for free rotation; OOB, the propeller is not moveable at all and is to be glued directly to the fuselage.

While the kit comes with optional ordnance (six HVARs or a pair of 500 lb bombs, both in resin), I just used the bomb pylons and left them empty, for a clean look.

Painting and markings:

Even though the model was a quick build, finding a suitable color concept took a while; I had a whiffy P-51H on my agenda for a long time (since the RS Models kit came out), and my initial plan was to create an Australian aircraft. This gradually changed to an RNZAF aircraft during the last weeks of WWII in the PTO, and evolved from an NMF finish (initial and IMHO most logical idea) through am Aussie-esque green/brown camouflage to a scheme I found for a P-40: a trainer that was based in New Zealand and (re)painted in domestic colors, namely in Foliage Green, Blue Sea Grey and Sky. This might sound like a standard RAF aircraft, but in the end the colors and markings make this Mustang look pretty exotic, just as the P-51H looks like a Mustang that is “not quite right”.

The Foliage Green is Humbrol 195 (Dark Green Satin, actually RAL 6020 Chrome Oxide Green), which offers IMHO a good compromise between the tone’s rather bluish hue and yellow shades – I find it to be a better match than the frequently recommended FS 34092, because RAL 6020 is darker. The RNZAF “Blue Sea Grey”, also known as “Pacific Blue” or “Ocean Blue”, is a more obscure tone, which apparently differed a lot from batch to batch and weathered dramatically from a bluish tone (close to FS 35109 when fresh) to a medium grey. I settled for Humbrol 144 (FS 35164; USN Intermediate Blue), which is rumored to come close to the color in worn state.

The undersides were painted with Humbrol 23 (RAF Duck Egg Blue), which I found to be a suitable alternative to the more greenish RAF Sky, even though it’s a pretty light interpretation.

Tail and spinner were painted white, actually a mix of Humbrol 22 (Gloss White) and 196 (Light Grey, RAL 7035) so that there would be some contrast room left for post-shading with pure white.

The interior of cockpit and landing gear wells was painted with zinc chromate primer yellow (Humbrol 81), while the landing gear struts became Humbrol 56 (Aluminum Dope). The radiator ducts received an interior in aluminum (Revell 99).

In order to simulate wear and tear as well as the makeshift character of the camouflage I painted the wings’ leading edges and some other neuralgic areas in aluminum (Revell 99, too) first, before the basic camouflage tones were added in a somewhat uneven fashion, with the metallized areas showing through.

Once dry, the model received an overall washing with thinned black ink and a through dry-brushing treatment with lighter shades of the basic tones (including Humbrol 30, 122 and 145) for post-panel-shading and weathering, esp. on the upper surfaces.

The decals are a mix from a Rising Decals sheet for various RNZAF aircraft (which turned out to be nicely printed, but rather thin so that they lacked opacity and rigidity), and for the tactical markings I stuck to the RNZAF practice of applying just a simple number or letter code to frontline aircraft instead of full RAF-style letter codes. The latter were used only on aircraft based on home soil, since the RNZAF’s frontline units had a different organization with an aircraft pool allocated to the squadrons. Through maintenance these circulated and were AFAIK not rigidly attached to specific units, hence there was no typical two-letter squadron code applied to them, just single ID letters or numbers, and these were typically painted on the aircraft nose and/or the fin, not on the fuselage next to the roundel. The nose art under the cockpit is a mix of markings from P-40s and F4Us.

The white ID bands on fuselage and wings are simple white decal strips from TL-Modellbau. While this, together with the all-white tail, might be overdone and outdated towards mid-1945, I gave the Kiwi-Mustang some extra markings for a more exciting look – and the aircraft’s profile actually reminds a lot of the Ki-61, so that they definitely make sense.

Towards the finish line, some additional dry-brushing with grey and silver was done, soot stains were added with graphite to the exhaust areas and the machine gun ports, and the model was finally sealed with matt acrylic varnish.

After the recent, massive YA-14 kitbashing project, this Mustang was – despite some challenges of the RS Models kit itself – a simple and quick “relief” project, realized in just a couple of days. Despite being built OOB, the result looks quite exotic, both through the paint scheme with RNZAF colors, but also through the unusual roundels and the striking ID markings (for a Mustang). I was skeptical at first, but the aircraft looks good and the camouflage in RNZAF colors even proved to be effective when set into the right landscape context (beauty pics).

Some of you may have noticed that, unfortunately, owing to the fact that a certain person who sells truck photos on eBay commercially has been lifting my images from this album and selling them I have had to remove 2300 photos that didn't have a watermark. I have now run around 1700 through Lightroom and added a watermark with the intention of bulk uploading them again. Rather than watermark the existing (hidden) files in Flickr one at a time it will be easier to do it this way. I definitely won’t be adding individual tags with the make and model of each vehicle I will just add generic transport tags. Each photo is named after the vehicle and reg in any case. For anyone new to these images there is a chapter and verse explanation below. It is staggering how many times I get asked questions that a quick scan would answer or just as likely I can’t possibly answer – I didn’t take them, but, just to clarify-I do own the copyright- and I do pursue copyright theft.

This is a collection of scanned prints from a collection of photographs taken by the late Jim Taylor A number of years ago I was offered a large number of photographs taken by Jim Taylor, a transport photographer based in Huddersfield. The collection, 30,000 prints, 20,000 negatives – and copyright! – had been offered to me and one of the national transport magazines previously by a friend of Jim's, on behalf of Jim's wife. I initially turned them down, already having over 30,000 of my own prints filed away and taking space up. Several months later the prints were still for sale – at what was, apparently, the going rate. It was a lot of money and I deliberated for quite a while before deciding to buy them. I did however buy them directly from Jim’s wife and she delivered them personally – just to quash the occasional rumour from people who can’t mind their own business. Although some prints were sold elsewhere, particularly the popular big fleet stuff, I should have the negatives, unfortunately they came to me in a random mix, 1200 to a box, without any sort of indexing and as such it would be impossible to match negatives to prints, or, to even find a print of any particular vehicle. I have only ever looked at a handful myself unless I am scanning them. The prints are generally in excellent condition and I initially stored them in a bedroom without ever looking at any of them. In 2006 I built an extension and they had to be well protected from dust and moved a few times. Ultimately my former 6x7 box room office has become their (and my own work’s) permanent home.

I hope to avoid posting images that Jim had not taken his self, however should I inadvertently infringe another photographers copyright, please inform me by email and I will resolve the issue immediately. There are copyright issues with some of the photographs that were sold to me. A Flickr member from Scotland drew my attention to some of his own work amongst the first uploads of Jim’s work. I had a quick look through some of the 30 boxes of prints and decided that for the time being the safest thing for me to do was withdraw the majority of the earlier uploaded scans and deal with the problem – which I did. whilst the vast majority of the prints are Jims, there is a problem defining copyright of some of them, this is something that the seller did not make clear at the time. I am reasonably confident that I have since been successful in identifying Jims own work. His early work consists of many thousands of lustre 6x4 prints which are difficult to scan well, later work is almost entirely 7x5 glossy, much easier to scan. Not all of the prints are pin sharp but I can generally print successfully to A4 from a scan.

You may notice photographs being duplicated in this Album, unfortunately there are multiple copies of many prints (for swapping) and as I have to have a system of archiving and backing up I can only guess - using memory - if I have scanned a print before. The bigger fleets have so many similar vehicles and registration numbers that it is impossible to get it right all of the time. It is easier to scan and process a print than check my files - on three different PC’s - for duplicates. There has not been, nor will there ever be, any intention to knowingly breach anyone else's copyright. I have presented the Jim Taylor collection as exactly that-The Jim Taylor Collection- his work not mine, my own work is quite obviously mine.

Unfortunately, many truck spotters have swapped and traded their work without copyright marking it as theirs. These people never anticipated the ease with which images would be shared online in the future. I would guess that having swapped and traded photos for many years that it is almost impossible to control their future use. Anyone wanting to control the future use of their work would have been well advised to copyright mark their work (as many did) and would be well advised not to post them on photo sharing sites without a watermark as the whole point of these sites is to share the image, it is very easy for those that wish, to lift any image, despite security settings, indeed, Flickr itself, warns you that this is the case. It was this abuse and theft of my material that led me to watermark all of my later uploads. I may yet withdraw non-watermarked photos, I haven’t decided yet. (I did in the end)

To anyone reading the above it will be quite obvious that I can’t provide information regarding specific photos or potential future uploads – I didn’t take them! There are many vehicles that were well known to me as Jim only lived down the road from me (although I didn’t know him), however scanning, titling, tagging and uploading is laborious and time consuming enough, I do however provide a fair amount of information with my own transport (and other) photos. I am aware that there are requests from other Flickr users that are unanswered, I stumble across them months or years after they were posted, this isn’t deliberate. Some weekends one or two “enthusiasts” can add many hundreds of photos as favourites, this pushes requests that are in the comments section ten or twenty pages out of sight and I miss them. I also have notifications switched off, I receive around 50 emails a day through work and I don’t want even more from Flickr. Other requests, like many other things, I just plain forget – no excuses! Uploads of Jim’s photos will be infrequent as it is a boring pastime and I would much rather work on my own output.

Page 04

As presented by ABC TV's DISCOVERY

Published by the Saalfield Publishing Company.

Copyright MCMLXIV American Broadcasting-Paramount Theatres, Inc.

Facts about this company

Coca-Cola owns and markets four of the world’s top five sparkling non-alcoholic beverages: Coca-Cola, Diet Coke, Fanta and Sprite. It makes and distributes its beverages through company-owned or controlled bottling plants and distributors but also contracts independent bottling partners, wholesalers, and retailers.

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!

Some background:

The Dassault/Dornier Alpha Jet is a light attack jet and advanced trainer aircraft co-manufactured by Dassault Aviation of France and Dornier Flugzeugwerke of Germany. It was developed specifically to perform the trainer and light attack missions, as well as to perform these duties more ideally than the first generation of jet trainers that preceded it.

Following a competition, a design submitted by a team comprising Breguet Aviation, Dassault Aviation, and Dornier Flugzeugwerke, initially designated as the TA501, was selected and subsequently produced as the Alpha Jet.

Both the French Air Force and German Air Force procured the Alpha Jet in large numbers, the former principally as a trainer aircraft and the latter choosing to use it as a light attack platform. In July 1978, Dassault signed an agreement with American aircraft manufacture Lockheed to market the Alpha Jet in the US market, the arrangement included provisions for Lockheed to manufacture the Alpha Jet under license. The Alpha Jet was considered as a candidate for the US Navy's VTXTS advanced trainer program, which was eventually won by the McDonnell Douglas T-45 Goshawk, a modified version of the Hawker Siddeley Hawk. Proposed modifications included undercarriage changes for nose-tow catapults and a stronger arrestor hook, as well as various US-sourced avionics and other equipment.

As a result of post-Cold War military cutbacks, Germany already elected to retire its own fleet of Alpha Jets in the 1990s and has re-sold many of these aircraft to both military and civilian operators. The Alpha Jet has been adopted by a number of air forces across the world and has also seen active combat use by some of these operators.

General characteristics:

Crew: two

Length: 13.23 m (43 ft 5 in)

Wingspan: 9.11 m (29 ft 10¾ in), folded:

Height: 4.19 m (13 ft 9 in)

Wing area: 17.50 m² (188.4 ft²)

Empty weight: 3,515 kg (7,750 lb)

Loaded weight: 5,000 kg (11,000 lb)

Max. takeoff weight: 7,500 kg (16,535 lb)

Powerplant:

2× SNECMA Turbomeca Larzac 04-H-20 non-afterburning turbofans,

delivering 4.12 kN of thrust (3,173 lbf) each

Performance:

Maximum speed: 1,000 km/h (540 kn, 621 mph) at sea level

Stall speed: 167 km/h (90 knots, 104 mph) (flaps and undercarriage down)

Combat radius: 610 km (329 nmi, 379 mi) lo-lo-lo profile with full ordnance

Ferry range: 2,940 km (1,586 nmi, 1,827 mi)

Service ceiling: 14,630 m (48,000 ft)

Rate of climb: 57 m/s (11,220 ft/min)

Armament:

1× optional 30 mm (1.18 in) GIAT 30/M791 autocannon with 125 rounds in a centerline pod

Four underwing hardpoints for a total load of 2,500 kg (5,506 lb), including up to six Matra rocket pods

with eighteen SNEB 68 mm rockets each or six CRV7 rocket pods with nineteen 70 mm rockets each;

Two AIM-9 Sidewinders or two Matra Magic IIs air-to-air missiles

Up to two AM.39 Exocet anti-ship missiles, or four AGM-65 Mavericks

or other TV-, laser or IR-guided Smart Weapons

The kit and its assembly:.

Another entry for the “Old Kit Group Build” at whatifmodelers.com, #4 to be precise. The basis for this conversion is the venerable Heller Alpha Jet in 1:72 scale from 1979, even though in a much more recent Revell re-boxing as a Belgian aircraft with a black/yellow/silver anniversary paint scheme.

Anyway, the moulds must have suffered a lot in the meantime, because the Revell offering comes with lots of flash, ugly ejector pin markings and even some sinkholes. I have built an old, original Heller kit a while ago, and this was much more crisp and defined!

However, the conversion of the kit was only cosmetic, including:

• A new, longer and more massive nose– actually the front end of a Tornado drop tank

• A completely new twin front wheel, including the well in the nose section

• Modified main landing gear with new wheels and a higher stance

• Engraved seams for the wings’ folding mechanism

• Appropriate ordnance, including…

- an Exocet missile (Academy Super Étendard)

- a drop tank (Academy OV-10 Bronco)

- a Barracuda 2 ECM pod and a Matra Phimat flare dispenser (Heller SEPECAT Jaguar)

• Some new antennae and pitots, and a more massive arrestor hook

• The laser rangefinder in its unusual (but correct!) fairing

• Some chaff/flare dispensers at the tail

Building the fuselage was no fun – nothing would fit, and the kit’s construction is really complicated. O.K., the Alpha Jet’s shape with its engine nacelles and the curved belly is complex, but the kit’s solution is far from perfect.

Another true weak point are the air intakes: they end after 3-4mm in a staggered, vertical wall. Really ugly, so I drilled the intakes open and moved the still necessary view blocker (black foamed styrene) a bit further back.

Painting and markings:

IMHO, the only potential operator for this fictional yet rather complex and expensive Alpha Jet variant would be France, and so the Lancier M ended up in the hands of the Aéronavale.

Consequently, I gave the aircraft a Nineties paint scheme inspired by the two-tone grey livery of the late Super Ètendard – also a bit of an unusual, yet familiar, touch. The basic colors I used are Humbrol 164 (Dark Sea Grey) and 165 (Medium Sea Grey), because I wanted to prevent a US look – and the frequently recommended tones of FS36118 and FS35237 are IMHO just wrong, Gunship Grey being too dark, and the grey blue being …simply much too bluish. The British tones work quite well, though, even though I still wonder about the “true” colors of this paint scheme?

The cockpit interior was painted in very dark grey (Humbrol 67) for some contrast to the outside, the landing gear wells and the struts became Aluminum (Humbrol 56), as well as the air intakes. The interior of the landing gear covers was painted in chrome yellow primer (Humbrol 81), for some more color contrast.

The Barracuda 2 pod was painted in dark green, while the chaff dispenser became dark grey – as a small color contrast to the grey aircraft. The Exocet missile became white with a light grey radome, according to the real thing, but as another disruption the single drop tank received the old Aéronavale scheme in dark bluish grey and white, together with a red tip (marking the flight the aircraft belongs to).

The decals come mostly from a Berna Decals aftermarket sheet for French Bréguet Alizés. The sheet features, among others, a late, dark grey aircraft, and this option provided the small roundels and the grey codes. Escadrille 59S was chosen, since it was available in the sheet (with the squadron’s emblem) and originally a unit for night/all-weather training, disbanded in early 1997.

A simple conversion, yet very thorough and surprisingly convincing. The Lancier’s longer and more massive nose changes the character of the sleek Alpha Jet a lot, and the grey-on-grey paint scheme with the toned-down markings adds a unusual touch to the normally much more colorful aircraft. The scheme looks very natural on the Alpha Jet, too.

C.B. Tryon, Typographer

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the model, the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!

Some background:

After the country's independence from the United Kingdom, after its departure from the European Union in 2017, the young Republic of Scotland Air Corps (locally known as Poblachd na h-Alba Adhair an Airm) started a major procurement program to take over most basic duties the Royal Air Force formerly had taken over in Northern Britain. This procurement was preceded by a White Paper published by the Scottish National Party (SNP) in 2013, which had stated that an independent Scotland would have an air force equipped with up to 16 air defense aircraft, six tactical transports, utility rotorcraft and maritime patrol aircraft, and be capable of “contributing excellent conventional capabilities” to NATO. According to the document, “Key elements of air forces in place at independence, equipped initially from a negotiated share of current UK assets, will secure core tasks, principally the ability to police Scotland’s airspace, within NATO.” An in-country air command and control capability would be established within five years of a decision in favor of independence, it continues, with staff also to be “embedded within NATO structures”.

However, the small fleet of only six helicopters was far from being enough to cover the Scottish coast and the many islands up north, so that the government prolonged the contract with Bristow Helicopters in late 2019 for two more years, and the procurement of further Leumadair HR.1 helicopters was decided in early 2020. Twelve more helicopters were ordered en suite and were expected to arrive in late 2021.

General characteristics:

Crew: 2 pilots and 2 crew

Length: 12,06 m (39 ft 2 1/2 in)

Height: 4 m (13 ft 1 in)

Main rotor diameter: 12,10 m (39 ft 7 1/2 in)

Main rotor area: 38.54 m² (414.8 sq ft)

Empty weight: 3,128 kg (6,896 lb)

Max takeoff weight: 4,300 kg (9,480 lb)

Powerplant:

2× Turbomeca Arriel 2C2-CG turboshaft engines, 636 kW (853 hp) each

Performance:

Maximum speed: 330 km/h (210 mph, 180 kn)

Cruise speed: 240 km/h (150 mph, 130 kn)

Range: 658 km (409 mi, 355 nmi)

Service ceiling: 5,486 m (17,999 ft)

Armament:

None installed, but provisions for a 7.62 mm M240 machine gun or a Barrett M107 0.50 in (12.7

mm) caliber precision rifle in each side door

The kit and its assembly:

Another chapter in my fictional alternative reality in which Scotland became an independent Republic and separated from the UK in 2017. Beyond basic aircraft for the RoScAC’s aerial defense duties I felt that maritime rescue would be another vital task for the nascent air force – and the situation that Great Britain had outsourced the SAR job to a private company called for a new solution for the independent Scotland. This led to the consideration of a relatively cheap maritime helicopter, and my choice fell on the SA365 ‘Daupin’, which has been adapted to such duties in various variants.

As a starting point there’s the Matchbox SA365 kit from 1983, which is a typical offer from the company: a solid kit, with mixed weak spots and nice details (e. g. the cockpit with a decent dashboard and steering columns/pedals for the crew). Revell has re-boxed this kit in 2002 as an USCG HH-65A ‘Dolphin’, but it’s technically only a painting option and the kit lacks any optional parts to actually build this type of helicopter in an authentic fashion - there are some subtle differences, and creating a convincing HH-65 from it would take a LOT of effort. Actually, it's a real scam from Revell to market the Matchbox Dauphin as a HH-65!

However, it was my starting basis, and for a modernized/navalized/military version of the SA365 I made some changes. For instance, I gave the helicopter a fixed landing gear, with main wheels stub wings taken from a Pavla resin upgrade/conversion set for a Lynx HAS.2, which also comes with better wheels than the Matchbox kit. The Dauphin’s landing gear wells were filled with 2C putty and in the same process took the stub wings. The front landing gear well was filled with putty, too, and a adapter to hold the front twin wheel strut was embedded. Lots of lead were hidden under the cockpit floor to ensure that this model would not becaome a tail sitter.

A thimble radome was integrated into the nose with some PSR – I opted for this layout because the fixed landing gear would block 360° radar coverage under the fuselage, and there’s not too much ground clearance or space above then cabin for a radome. Putting it on top of the rotor would have been the only other option, but I found this rather awkward. As a side benefit, the new nose changes the helicopter’s silhouette well and adds to a purposeful look.

The rotor blades were replaced with resin BERP blades, taken from another Pavla Lynx conversion set (for the Hobby Boss kit). Because their attachment points were very different from the Matchbox Dauphin rotor’s construction, I had to improvise a little. A rather subtle change, but the result looks very plausible and works well. Other external extras are two inflatable floating devices along the lower fuselage from a Mistercraft ASW AB 212 (UH-1) kit, the winch at port side was scratched with a piece from the aforementioned BK 117 and styrene bits. Some blade antennae were added and a sensor turret was scratched and placed in front of the front wheels. Additional air scoops for the gearbox were added, too. Inside, I added two (Matchbox) pilot figures to the cockpit, plus a third seat for a medic/observer, a storage/equipment box and a stretcher from a Revell BK 117 rescue helicopter kit. This kit also donated some small details like the rear-view mirror for the pilot and the wire-cutters - not a typical detail for a helicopter operating over the open sea, but you never know...

The only other adition is a technical one: I integrated a vertical styrene pipe behind the cabin as a display holder adapter for the traditional hoto shooting's in-flight scenes.

Painting and markings:

It took some time to settle upon a design. I wanted something bright – initially I thought about Scottish colors (white and blue), but that was not garish enough, even with some dayglo additions. The typical all-yellow RAF SAR livery was also ruled out. In the end I decided to apply a more or less uniform livery in a very bright red: Humbrol 238, which is, probably due to trademark issues, marketed as “Arrow Red (= Red Arrows)” and effectively an almost fluorescent pinkish orange-red! Only the black anti-glare panel in front of the windscreen, the radome and the white interior of the fenestron tail rotor were painted, too, the rest was created with white decal stripes and evolved gradually. Things started with a white 2mm cheatline, then came the horizontal stripes on the tail, and taking this "theme" further I added something similar to the flanks as a high contrast base for the national markings. These were improvised, too, with a 6mm blue disc and single 1.5 mm bars to create a Scottish flag. The stancils were taken from the OOB decal sheet. The interior became medium grey, the crew received bright orange jumpsuits and white "bone domes".

No black ink washing or post-panel-shading was done, since the Dauphin has almost no surface details to emphasize, and I wanted a new and clean look. Besides, with wll the white trim, there was already a lot going on on the hull, so that I kept things "as they were". Finally, the model was sealed with a coat of semi-gloss acrylic varnish for a light shine, except for the rotor blades and the anti-glare panel, which became matt.

Quite a tricky project. While the Matchbox Dauphin is not a complex kit you need patience and have to stick to the assembly order to put the hull together. PSR is needed, esp. around the engine section and for the underside. On the other side, despite being a simple model, you get a nice Dauphin from the kit - but NOT a HH-65, sorry. My fictional conversion is certainly not better, but the bright result with its modifications looks good and quite convincing, though.

APPROXIMATE RELEASE DATE: 2008-2010

MISSING ITEMS: Unitard, hat, mittens, boots

PERSONAL FUN FACT: I admit I was kind of bummed out when I brought this jumper home from the flea market and realized it wasn't part of Mia's collection. Mia, the Girl of the Year 2008, has a snowflake on her "meet" sweater. Likewise, I actually found items from Mia's wardrobe at the same flea market booth. I figured that this was a shot in the dark, but for only one dollar it wasn't a big deal to take the risk. Normally, you'd think that this type of snowy ensemble would be useless without the corresponding unitard. But given the structure of this jumper, it actually works by itself...albeit it doesn't look very wintery though! The fabric of this outfit is that sort of stretchy athletic material found on my Girl of Today Tennis Outfit. The zipper really works...a detail I very much appreciate. You can change up the look of this ensemble, based on how much you zip it up!

The Zender Fact 4 Spider at the Essen Motorshow.

Scanned photograph from 1993.

12-2016

Some of you may have noticed that, unfortunately, owing to the fact that a certain person who sells truck photos on eBay commercially has been lifting my images from this album and selling them I have had to remove 2300 photos that didn't have a watermark. I have now run around 1700 through Lightroom and added a watermark with the intention of bulk uploading them again. Rather than watermark the existing (hidden) files in Flickr one at a time it will be easier to do it this way. I definitely won’t be adding individual tags with the make and model of each vehicle I will just add generic transport tags. Each photo is named after the vehicle and reg in any case. For anyone new to these images there is a chapter and verse explanation below. It is staggering how many times I get asked questions that a quick scan would answer or just as likely I can’t possibly answer – I didn’t take them, but, just to clarify-I do own the copyright- and I do pursue copyright theft.

This is a collection of scanned prints from a collection of photographs taken by the late Jim Taylor A number of years ago I was offered a large number of photographs taken by Jim Taylor, a transport photographer based in Huddersfield. The collection, 30,000 prints, 20,000 negatives – and copyright! – had been offered to me and one of the national transport magazines previously by a friend of Jim's, on behalf of Jim's wife. I initially turned them down, already having over 30,000 of my own prints filed away and taking space up. Several months later the prints were still for sale – at what was, apparently, the going rate. It was a lot of money and I deliberated for quite a while before deciding to buy them. I did however buy them directly from Jim’s wife and she delivered them personally – just to quash the occasional rumour from people who can’t mind their own business. Although some prints were sold elsewhere, particularly the popular big fleet stuff, I should have the negatives, unfortunately they came to me in a random mix, 1200 to a box, without any sort of indexing and as such it would be impossible to match negatives to prints, or, to even find a print of any particular vehicle. I have only ever looked at a handful myself unless I am scanning them. The prints are generally in excellent condition and I initially stored them in a bedroom without ever looking at any of them. In 2006 I built an extension and they had to be well protected from dust and moved a few times. Ultimately my former 6x7 box room office has become their (and my own work’s) permanent home.

I hope to avoid posting images that Jim had not taken his self, however should I inadvertently infringe another photographers copyright, please inform me by email and I will resolve the issue immediately. There are copyright issues with some of the photographs that were sold to me. A Flickr member from Scotland drew my attention to some of his own work amongst the first uploads of Jim’s work. I had a quick look through some of the 30 boxes of prints and decided that for the time being the safest thing for me to do was withdraw the majority of the earlier uploaded scans and deal with the problem – which I did. whilst the vast majority of the prints are Jims, there is a problem defining copyright of some of them, this is something that the seller did not make clear at the time. I am reasonably confident that I have since been successful in identifying Jims own work. His early work consists of many thousands of lustre 6x4 prints which are difficult to scan well, later work is almost entirely 7x5 glossy, much easier to scan. Not all of the prints are pin sharp but I can generally print successfully to A4 from a scan.

You may notice photographs being duplicated in this Album, unfortunately there are multiple copies of many prints (for swapping) and as I have to have a system of archiving and backing up I can only guess - using memory - if I have scanned a print before. The bigger fleets have so many similar vehicles and registration numbers that it is impossible to get it right all of the time. It is easier to scan and process a print than check my files - on three different PC’s - for duplicates. There has not been, nor will there ever be, any intention to knowingly breach anyone else's copyright. I have presented the Jim Taylor collection as exactly that-The Jim Taylor Collection- his work not mine, my own work is quite obviously mine.

Unfortunately, many truck spotters have swapped and traded their work without copyright marking it as theirs. These people never anticipated the ease with which images would be shared online in the future. I would guess that having swapped and traded photos for many years that it is almost impossible to control their future use. Anyone wanting to control the future use of their work would have been well advised to copyright mark their work (as many did) and would be well advised not to post them on photo sharing sites without a watermark as the whole point of these sites is to share the image, it is very easy for those that wish, to lift any image, despite security settings, indeed, Flickr itself, warns you that this is the case. It was this abuse and theft of my material that led me to watermark all of my later uploads. I may yet withdraw non-watermarked photos, I haven’t decided yet. (I did in the end)

To anyone reading the above it will be quite obvious that I can’t provide information regarding specific photos or potential future uploads – I didn’t take them! There are many vehicles that were well known to me as Jim only lived down the road from me (although I didn’t know him), however scanning, titling, tagging and uploading is laborious and time consuming enough, I do however provide a fair amount of information with my own transport (and other) photos. I am aware that there are requests from other Flickr users that are unanswered, I stumble across them months or years after they were posted, this isn’t deliberate. Some weekends one or two “enthusiasts” can add many hundreds of photos as favourites, this pushes requests that are in the comments section ten or twenty pages out of sight and I miss them. I also have notifications switched off, I receive around 50 emails a day through work and I don’t want even more from Flickr. Other requests, like many other things, I just plain forget – no excuses! Uploads of Jim’s photos will be infrequent as it is a boring pastime and I would much rather work on my own output.

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