The final part of the equation involves photographs of the full-size: whether you want to apply intricate detail or merely get the general colour scheme right, you can't do it without looking at a full-size example. Now, it may be that there's a full-size machine on your doorstep that you can photograph to death, but in my experience it's not very likely. When you look at Scale Model research's catalogue it's not too difficult to believe their claim to be the world's largest collection of aircraft documentation, and although the emphasis is mostly on powered aircraft there's still a total of some 170 sailplanes photo sets plus 50 odd motor-gliders.

When I embarked upon my ill-fated LO 100 project some time ago, it was with drawings and photos supplied by this outfit, and there was plenty of information to complete the job without having to look elsewhere.

Do you remember the Perl Penetrator a few issues back? My eye fell upon the Penetrator's second cousin, the Nelson Hummingbird, a very pretty self-launching sailplane. So, assuming I was able to overcome the engineering problems inherent in the retractable motor pod, how would I set about obtaining the necessary documentation?