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The Javelin build this week is moving along. With the wings on I assembled the landing gear. The main gear was a little tricky as one of the struts needed to slide under a brace then mount the main strut and attach the other strut. I was able to get them lined up and glued into place. The nose gear and the gear doors all went on with no issues. The various antenna’s, refueling probe, and scoops along with some photo etch details were installed on to the fuselage. Weights were added to the nose cone to keep it from being a tail-dragger. I then painted the base coat on the aircraft. The bottom was painted aluminum and the upper areas were painted with RAF dark green and RAF gray. Getting ready now to apply the numerous decals then onto the canopy. See all the details and photos from the start at https://davidsscalemodels.com/build-log/1-48-gloster-javelin/

Greetings all, I realize that the Corona Virus (COVID-19) has taken the world by storm in a rather quick fashion the past few weeks and as a result we are seeing many, many cancellations of a wide variety of events…especially well known events, meets, conventions around the world as well as here in the US. Let me break my response down into fact and opinion. FACT: I have reached out to both the City of San Marcos and the IPMS/USA E-Board to let them know that the convention planning committee is keeping an eye on the COVID-19 outbreak and how it could potentially affect our convention slated for late July. The response I received from the city was that, as of the past week, they consider the threat to be low. Like us, they are keeping an eye on the situation and have, as of March 5th, assessed the threat to be low. Please check out the following link for more info from the City of San Marcos: https://www.sanmarcostx.gov/279/Coronavirus-and-Flu-Information-and-Prev As a result of all the information we have at the current time (March 12th) we are continuing planning for the 2020 convention. All team members are (generally) healthy and continue to nail down details for the upcoming show. In fact, we have been preparing the IPMS web store items (Pre-Registration, tours, T-shirts, trophy sponsorships, etc) to go live early next week. I, as convention chair, will continue to keep a line of communication open with the City of San Marcos on this very topic. OPINION: It is my personal opinion that a lot can happen in the coming weeks and months and at this point it is too early to make any changes. Yes, I fully recognize that airlines are not as forgiving when it comes to cancelling or changing flights but as of this time, I think it would be unwise to make any changes when the show is still 138 days away. From what I have seen in the media a lot of what is being cancelled are shows/events that are happening in the next several weeks. If these drastic measures are successful in the short term then COVID-19 will hopefully be in the rear-view-mirror come show-time. I, like many of you, are very, very excited about the 2020 convention this summer. I will continue, along with Team 2020, give it our very best effort to make it a success. If the planning committee has news regarding COVID-19 and its potential negative effects on the 2020 Convention I will post the info the main page of the convention website: www.nats2020.com. If you have specific questions regarding planning around COVID-19 please e-mail me at director.nats2020@gmail.com but be forewarned I do not have much more info than what is being reported via the various media outlets…and will most probably answer with the words I typed above. Best Regards, Len Pilhofer

I applied the final coat of polyurethane on the trim of the base. I normally only apply 1 coat. This trim has 3 coats, sanded between coats. I've laid all the photo etch Marston Matting that I have on hand. I'm waiting for the last 4 sets to come from Tom's Modelworks. The pieces are pretty delicate when you handle them. The hooks are easily bent if you bump them. I used tweezers every chance I could to reduce damage. The instructions state that you should leave them on the frets until your ready to apply them. It cut easily with scissors. The base is furniture grade plywood. I final sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper. I wiped down the plywood with a damp cloth of Mineral Spirits to get all the fine sawdust up, before gluing the photo etch down. I used Loctite super glue to attach them. I used several photos of the actual runway as a reference. The most important task is to make sure the joints are staggered when you start out. Although I used a reference line to start the runs, its not perfectly straight. Actual photos looking down the runway show that it pretty wavy. Once the surface was leveled and compacted, the pieces were put down one at a time. Each piece was about 66 lbs. Each piece measures 10ft long x 15in. wide. Once I get all the pieces laid, I'm going to apply a thin coat of sanded grout on both sides to simulate dirt. I'm going to use kitty liter to simulate small rocks on each side, The figures are a mix of Black Dog, and ICM. The tools are from MiniArt. The ladders and small table are from Black dog. The large table was scratch built from balsa wood The ammo crates, and tarps are from Value Gear. The kit itself comes with a lot of photo etch parts. I did purchase several Eduard kits to improve the interior, exterior, and gun bay. The plaques from the Trophy shop turned out great, I thought. Chris