We'll make a psychologist of you, yet, Tom. Good spot - they're crazy.

And to think that mess comes from a brain that used to easily cope with some of the busiest, most complicated air traffic in the US. Maybe that’s it, after 34 years my mind may have turned into tapioca pudding. Couldn’t at least have turned into something I like, chocolate pudding would have been great. 😉

Jamie, I thought the tan/white-ish exhaust pipes were because they may have been using avgas for fuel. I know the USAF did that in the early jet days.
Thoughts?

Thanks for clarifying the way the fuel mixture was adjusted. I misunderstood you and didn't mean to confuse anyone with a false statement. I also appreciate the heads up about the different things to look for in the movie.

Yeah I don't think the decision to "Share" the RR Nene was a good one at the time either. Sooner or later they would have been able to "locate" one I'm sure. I remember hearing a story that the decision to do so was based on the outcome of a game of billiards...

No, Britain did not "donate" the Nene to the Russians. I don't know where you got that, but there are a lot of schmucks out there promoting "alternative facts" about many things, and they are the likely source. I write about this in my coming book "Holding The Line: Naval Aviation in the Korean War."

The Labour government approved a Russian trade delegation in 1946 to review many items. No one in England recognized Artem Mikoyan or V.I. Klimov - (Mikoyan of MiG and Klimov of engines) - as being the main members of the delegation. who were amazed to see the Nene. Sir Stafford Crips, then Minister of Commerce, was happy to negotiate the sale of 16 Nenes and a license to produce them in the Soviet Union - on the condition that they be used for"commercial projects only." Ernest Bevan, who knew first-hand from the trade union struggle how much one could trust a communist promise, and was Foreign Minister, argued strongly against the agreement but was overruled by Prime Minister Clement Attlee (of whom Churchill had once said "A modest little man, with much to be modest about.") Admittedly, 1946 was a time when one could still cite the USSR as a prime ally in World War 2 and before the Iron Curtain had rung down "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic..." Churchill did in the speech from which that quote comes.

When told that the sale had gone through, Stalin said "Why are they so stupid as to sell this to us?"

In the end, Rolls-Royce never got a dime in royalties, since the Russians claimed that their Nene, the VK-1, was so different in the redesign to productionize the engine (See my other post for Colonel Ross Mickey's comment about the original Rolls-Royce engine) that it was a "different engine altogether" (this was actually settled in Russia's favor in the international court).

The VK-1 was very close to the J-42 (both being efforts to "productionize" the R-R original). It's very interesting that one powered the airplane that changed the Korean air war (the MiG-15) and the other powered the only 1st-generation jet that could "hang in there" against the MiG-15.

Lovely work and great post, Rick. Love that cockpit and instrument panel.

Agreed, Rick! I like your "custom" touches on this fine jet. This a really interesting post. Tom, thanks for all the info as well, Like many others, I had heard that the Brits had DONATED the Nene to the Soviets who were still "allies," at least on paper. It's good to know what actually happened. Stalin's comment was priceless. As soon as the fighting is over, the Money Barons take over. "Who cares who we sell this to as long as we get paid."

Well just prove I’m still alive as nature’s latest “Godzilla” stomps it’s across the planet, these are a couple of pic’s of my Panther I took tonight.

This is the 4th attempt to get a satisfactory Gloss Sea Blue finish. The first 2 were done with Mission Models paint applied exactly as their web site directs. Lifted in sheets when I tried to remove any masking. About the only time it stuck to the model was when I was striping it off. At this point I was fed up and stuck it on the shelf of doom.

3 was with MRP GSB which worked okay but revealed several surface flaws that needed to be fixed

This is #4. I primed with Tamiya AS-12 then reverse masked all the coroguard areas. What you see is 5+/- coats of MRP Gloss Sea Blue built up over the last 3 days.
Color me happy. For now anyway, tomorrow when I take the masking off, the potential exists that one of us may end up in the Johnson County Landfill.
More later, hopefully not too much later.