Finished model 2025-VI

I’m not sure if Tintin et le lac au requins is considered canon, it is not an Hergé script, but the final comic book was produced by Studios Hergé and it is close enough to the spirit of the original Tintin books. And, there are quite a few aircraft in the film, and it just so happens that the first finished subject in my project to build all aircraft shown in Tintin books became the Aero Commander in which Tintin, captain Haddock and the Thompson twins crash in the Syldavian mountains.

Aero Commander, yes… The closest fit is an Aero Commander 680, but the animators have taken considerable liberties with the layout. While the cabin is not exactly cramped, it is not the airliner cabin with room to stand up and a lavatory at the back depicted:

Aero Commanders have their doors on the port side, but in the film there is a prominent door on the starboard side, so that the plane can move towards the right (forwards, according to Western image conventions) while the pilot makes a dramatic exit with the parachute he’s suddenly wearing:

Aero Commanders normally don’t have wheel well covers either (though some have had them added as rebuilds).

There was only a single seat for the pilot (as opposed to the double-command of the real aircraft), so apparently captain Haddock is kneeling on the floor next to Tintin when the latter takes over the command:

The livery of the aircraft, as well as the inside colour, is inconsistent between different shots, compare the front view above with a distance shot:

I decided to go for the bare-metal underside, as that fits with the general airlinerness of the subject.

Up until recently, there was only one choice if you wanted to build an Aero Commander, Aurora’s venerable offering in 1:81 scale. There is now a resin kit of an Aero Commander 560 from Croco Models which perhaps could be converted into a 680. But, I ended up with the Aurora. The kit is considerably older than I am and rather simplified. It does not have an extended undercarriage option, so it has to be mounted on a stand. Worst of all, it has the affectation of many models at the time that the outlines of the decals have been engraved in the surface (who came up with that idea, and why!?). On reasonably flat surfaces this is just a matter of puttying, but with the corrugated tail of the Aero Commander it was just about hopeless to get a decent surface. I spent considerable time creating an interior approximating the one in the film aircraft, scratch-building seats and modifying a set of random scale figures I had purchased from a noname Chinese company for a couple of crowns to look like our heroes (I found a nice pilot in airline uniform in my spares box). I even managed to replicate Snowy in Tintin’s lap. Needless to say, none of this is visible through the windows.

I also scratchbuilt the wheel wells for the undercarriage, including the engine exhausts that are routed through here in rather prominent ducts, but had to cut off large parts of the laboriously constructed parts as they wouldn’t fit in the very narrow wheel wells of the model. At least I did manage to create some rather neat landing lights with little-lenses and Kristal Klear, and navigation lights from the HOBBY + PLUS offering.

Finally, I decided that the aircraft had to have registration codes, as that is legally required. From other albums, we know that Syldavian aircraft have a SY prefix followed by three letters, so generating a random registration I came up with SY-UJU in a suitable typeface.

The less said about the painting with my nemesis white, the better.

Finished model 2025-V

Hawker Sea Fury T.61, by PM Model, 1:72.

The Hawker Sea Fury was the last propeller fighter used by the Royal Navy¹, but as such things go, things are more complicated than that—the Westland Wyvern was actually in service longer, though classified as a strike aircraft; then again, the distinction between a strike aircraft and a fighter-bomber, as the Sea Fury was used as, is mostly arbitrary. The Mark 61 Trainer was a de-navalised (without tailhook) version of the Sea Fury, of which a handful were delivered to Iraq and Pakistan. The sources I have consulted give contradictory information on when the deliveries to Iraq were made (around 1950±some years) and if they actually were the same version as the Pakistani trainers, but this is the assumption PM have made.

I built the model as aircraft number ٢٦٣ (263) of 1 Sqn of the Iraqi Air Force.

The kit is about the quality of a 1970s Matchbox kit, in particular it has very shallow wheel wells with overscale detail. I did not do anything about that, but spent a bit of time creating transparent navigation lights. I also ended up having to scratch build the undercarriage covers that had gotten lost at some point.

Kit donated by Tankman, who considered life too short to spend on it.

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¹ The RAF cancelled their order for the landbased Hawker Fury towards the end of WWII as being surplus to requirements.

Literature

Aircraft Archive: Fighters of World War Two, Volume 2, 1988, Argus Books.

Finished model 2025-IV

Finally something in plastic: the ancient 1:28 scale Revell SPAD XIII in the markings of 2nd Lt Frank Luke of the 27th Aero Squadron of the US Army Air Service, based at Saints in August 1918.

I have made no effort to make the model correct, but have basically followed the instructions, interpreting the colours “tan”, “dark earth”, ”olive drab” and “gray” as Humbrol 9, 29, 116, and 40, respectively, with 49 as matt laquer. The fit wasn’t awful, but some amount of putty has been necessary. I added clear plastic panes to the windshield, which was just empty frames otherwise. For some reason the struts have had a tendency to mysteriously disappear, so I’ve had to reconstruct a few of them from scratch. I decided my usual fishing line was too thin to use as bracing wire at this scale, and didn’t want to use sewing thread, so I decided piano wire would be best. Approximately 2 m of 0.5 mm wire turned out to be needed. Somewhat to my surprise the decals were good and hadn’t even yellowed. I did my best to cut away clear decal film and think I mostly succeeded in avoiding silvering.

Finished model 2025-III

Yet another palace: Skokloster in paper. The double curved turrets were utterly painful.

Finished model 2025-II

On a paper roll. This time the fortress of Vaxholm in its stand of 1706, model by Cardboard Cut-outs AB. Actually quite good fit, in spite of the many angles and levels.

Misheard lyrics

Another song that pops up in my head every now and then has the refrain ”Soft lights like in Chinatown”, which I think is quite evocative and romantic. However, I haven’t been able to find any reference to it on YouTube or elsewhere, but now, apparently because it is trending on TikTok for whatever reason, I found it, and the actual lyrics are the rather more nonsensical “It’s so fly-day fly-day Chinatown”.

Finished model 2025-I

Another cardboard kit: The Royal Palace in Stockholm. Presumably card scale. Halfway in I realised the building, in spite of appearances, is not exactly mirror symmetric, so had to do a quick tear-off, rotation, and regluing. The curved wings were again hopeless to get right. I’m thinking that perhaps I should print dowels with different radii to wrap the cardboard around. Possibly there is also a technique to make the paper keep the proper curvature. I will need to continue exploring this.

Fertile water

Earlier, I was impressed by the number of words you could make with the letters in “Christmas”, but now I found that “submarine” offers even more words. I’m still coming up with more, but these are the ones I’ve come up with so far:

a I am an as be in is me us are arm ban bar bin bum bun bus ear emu man mar men nab nib nub ram ran rem rib rim rub rue rum run sir sub sue sum sun use anus arse bane bans bare barn base beam bean bear berm bias bier bins bran brim bris bums burn ears emir emus main mane mare mean menu mine muse nabs name near nibs nubs numb rain rams ream rein ribs rime rims rise rubs rues ruin rune runs ruse same sane seam sear Serb sine sire snub sure abuse amuse bairn banes bares barns beams beans bears berms biers brain bream brims brine bruin burns emirs inure manes mains mares maser means mines minus names nares nears numbs nurse rains raise reams rebus reins rimes rinse ruins rumba runes serum smear snare urban urine animus brains bruins ermine inures manure marine murine number Sabine sarnie urbane ursine numbers seminar Serbian Sumerian

Some proper names: Ben Ian Amur Iran Mars Brian Burma Maine Marie Marne Sarin Sarum Serbia

And I’d also like to add NURBS if it is allowed.

Now, the question is, what should a word-finding word look like in order to offer the maximum possibilities? Surely someone has been working on this. I will have to search for this.

Early programming

Way back, the municipal library had Technology books (classification P) on a little mezzanine floor, coincidentally together with English-language fiction. There were lots of interesting books there, like catalogues of all rolling stock on Swedish railways, books on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, and also, I found, on Computer Science. At the time computers were semi-mythical beasts and programming languages had exotic and magical names (often ending in L for Language), so of course I was curious. The first book on programming I read was Ekman & Fröberg’s Lärobok i Algol (at the time of writing it was not necessary to disambiguate which version of Algol was meant). I can’t say that I understood the contents deeply, not least since I had no way of trying out the exercises—indeed I only got around to trying Algol-programming at uni many years later, and then in the form of Simula 67, designed as a superset of Algol 60. Actually, the book which really taught me programming was Kristel Siro’s Vi lär oss ADB och BASIC, and by then it was possible to get occasional access to an ABC 80 running BASIC, so I could truly try out writing programs. Incidentally, Siro’s book contained the Hailstone program (though without naming it) as well as Conway’s Life as programming exercises. I didn’t really get the point of either at the time, but have used them as test programs ever since.

Much later, a colleague was cleaning out their bookshelf, including their copy of Lärobok i Algol. I nabbed it and have kept it in my bookshelf as a memento. Reading it now it is noticeable how horridly badly the example code was written, but everybody was still learning at the time.

There is now a portable GNU Simula compiler which I have installed on my office laptop. Of course I have implemented the usual Hailstone program in Algol/Simula as well. When Algol was created, the designers defined a publication version of the language, which was meant to look good in scientific journals, as opposed to the caps-only, limited-character set hardware language. So, this is the publication version:

begin
  integer n;
  print("Input number: ");
  for n := read while n > 1 do begin
    n := if n / 2 = Entier(n / 2) then n / 2 else n × 3 + 1;
    print(n);
  end
end