Its on again and is sure to be another great show covering aircraft and armour models with the themes as follows:
Golden Wing – Curtis p-40
Golden Sprocket – 4 Wheeled Armours Cars
There will be many high quality models on the competition tables as is evident from previous events, so is a must on the competition calendar.
Date:
20th March, 2016
Location:
Ashburton Support Services Hall
296 High Street
Ashburton
As a reminder please note that our next club meeting will not be held at Ashburton as it has been moved to the Tyabb Airshow instead. The change is to accommodate this event and the fact that most of our members will be going along. This will be a great opportunity to see a fine selection of military aircraft including the following:
There will be many others as well so it should be a great show and the weather looks to be mild, which is perfect for us old blokes.
Michael Tabone
Vice President
Our first meeting of the year took place today with our new start time of 1:00pm coming into effect. We were once again greeted with a fine selection of boxed WingNut Wings kits as well as a selection of member completed and in progress builds. The year ahead looks to be a busy one which will include a new format build-a-bitch member event, our annual BBQ and several club displays to be scheduled throughout the year. There is much anticipation for the fast approaching modelling shows such as Wings & Tracks and Model Expo 2016, which bring with it the usual rush and excitement of model preparation. We have some lovely projects on the go or nearing completion so I am sure the competition tables will be filled with some high quality kits.
As a point of interest our meetings are generally co-run by Martin and Laurence who between them have a very broad mix of modelling and historic knowledge. While we do follow a semi formal process there are many points where a meeting will become a mini history lesson, or you will pick up some valuable tips or information that may change your approach to modelling.
Here are some images of member in-progress and completed builds taken at our meeting toady.
Michael Tabone
Vice President
Almost every year my wife takes off to New Zealand to visit family and every now and then I go along, so I took this opportunity to add in some extra must visits to make this trip extra special.
NZ has a number of excellent military museums and aviation exhibitions, but the one I was very keen to see is based at Masterton (North Island) at the Hood Aerodrome. The fighter collection can be viewed inside the showcase Hangar of The OId Stick & Rudder Company. This museum has the largest collection of flyable replica WW1 aircraft in the world so I was very excited to get there, and to experience these aircraft up close.
I did have the luxury of a hire car and so began a 2 hr road trip with my son to finally arrive at the Hood Aerodrome. The aerodrome itself is nothing fancy but does have a number of hangers and workshops as you would expect. Upon entering the hanger you pass through the small shop where entry is only $15.00 and from there you gain access to the collection. Incidentally the moment we got there we were able to join a tour which had just started. From there a very knowledgeable guide took us around the exhibits providing background information covering not only individual aircraft, but also the technologies and impact they had on aerial warfare at the time.
I was completely in awe at what I was seeing and could only think of the wonderful WingNut Wings kits that are on offer to build one of these replicas. The camera went crazy and as much as I tried to plan my images and how I would take them I just lost all control. As a visitor you just take pics of what you see, but as a modeler you take more detail shots so my head was in two places.
The collection can be seen in flight to mark events during the year such as Remembrance Day, ANZAC Day or for general public viewing such as Wings Over Wairarapa and the Omaka Airshow held at Blenheim (South Island). Details for all these events can be found online or by clicking on the link below:
http://thevintageaviator.co.nz
Click on the image below for pics of the holy grail of WW1 aircraft. I will definitely go back, but only this time to visit the workshops to see how they build these things.
Michael Tabone
Vice President
2015 has been a year of growth and building for our club as well as establishing our meeting format, whilst enjoying the hobby that we enjoy. We have made our presence felt at several modeling events such as the Melbourne Model Expo, Bayonet Military Model Competition and the SAPMA 2015 Model Expo with great success. These events gives us an opportunity to engage with the general public and to promote our club, either in the form of general model displays or themes that showcase who we are and what we do.
As a club we put together the Galland’s Wish display featuring a collection of Spirfires built by members that were in German markings, which generated much interest. We also saw the running of the 2015 Build a Bitch where members were challenged to build a horrible kit within a time frame, which produced some interesting results.
At just about every meeting we have had something new whether it be discussions of interesting topics or live demonstrations including:
Our members have enjoyed very comfortable surroundings at our Ashburton location, and most of all have had the opportunity to share their interests with like minded members.
We will be back in 2016 with our first meeting on February 7th, and please see our Membership & Meetings page for a full list of meeting dates.
Have a great xmas and a very safe new year and look forward to building lots of kits.
Michael Tabone
Vice President
Warbirds attended the Annual Bayonet Model Comp 2015 which was recently held on 14th November on a perfect sunny day. For those who are not familiar with this event it is held at the B-24 Hanger in Werribee where there is a classic B-24 under going some pain staking restoration. This event had a number of tables dedicated to swap and sell and an additional section containing the competition tables and club display area. There were a host of categories with 1st, 2nd and third places awarded to some lucky entrants, with the real draw card being this amazing aircraft and the fact that all the tables are dotted around it. All in All it was a great day and hats off to the organisers and the lovely people to manage the site and allow this event to take place in these surroundings.
Click here for some pics of the day and hopefully you might come along to next years event.
Ever wondered what a typical Warbirds meeting is like and what the members get up to at the meetings, and at home on the workbench. Well here are a few pics that speak for themselves with a range of new products, builds in progress and completed kits. There is a lot of talk around what you see here as well as up coming events, interesting modelling and historical facts plus the odd demonstration to hone in your skills and to see how others craft their art.
Although we are called WarbirdsAMG we are not just focused on aircraft but models of all genres. We have a sub chapter called WarMachines which is still growing which allows members to bring along kits not related to aircraft, which we fully encourage.
We also have our Build-A-Bitch member competition which offers up some horrible kits for those daring to build them. This year saw Rod Hoystead take out the golden prize or perpetual trophy marking our first winner of this event – more on this later.
warbirdsamg.com 