Tragedeeeee....

tragedeeeee....

How is it possible? How can one have been sticking bits of plastic together for nigh on five decades and yet still be making basic blunders? How ?! How?!!

A while ago, I began the Vickers Wellesley by Valom, and, despite the short-run issues associated with Valom's output, I was rather looking forward to this kit bash. Partly because the Wellesley was such an unusual aircraft, partly because Air Pictorial ran a very long series, 'East Africa Air War', by Christopher Shore and Corrado Ricci, in the mid-1980s. I had greatly enjoyed Shore and Ricci's articles, which were profusely illustrated with photos of British and Italian types - such as the Wellesley, Hawker Furies, CR-32s, Vickers Vincents, Ro.37s, Ca. 133s - that saw little, or no, service elsewhere in the war. So, in my kit-bashing mind's eye, I was happily making a Wellesley from one of the three RAF squadrons based in the Sudan in 1940. Of course bits of the kit were tricky, like the etched fragments for the engine:

 

That's a match head on the left, for scale, and the tiny bits of photo-etch were rather annoying to fit, but I gladly went along. And, in any case, with the wings and tail on:

 

it was beginning to look rather good.

 

But:

tragedeeee! The two bits of plastic to the right are the correct parts for an East African war cowling. Fine. Only they don't fit the fuselage. Why? Because. I. Chose. The. Wrong. Bl**dy. Fuselage!!! How!? I was aware that Valom had already produced earlier Wellesley versions, and that two fuselages were in this boxing, but I still ended up with the wrong one! The only excuse I have, and it's a thin one, is that the parts are not numbered on the sprues, and there is a lack of clarity in the instruction drawings. But, at my age? How?!

Well, I'm off to eat a pie now, so I don't care!