Ex-FAAWAFU

There will be silence on this bearing for the next week; I am in the Netherlands on tour with Salisbury Cathedral Choir, so definitely no modelling until next Tuesday at the earliest. [Greetings from Utrecht!]

That’s looking really excellent; the kit looks first class on first sight. Some made-up details inside the bridge (a chair for the OOW?!?), but at least they have done something vaguely plausible. Love the 182s on the quarterdeck.

Finally for today, replacing this: … with this: (Other ladder to be added once first one fully cured). In real life: More soon Crisp

Flight deck crane cab before (right) and after (left). There's also a wee PE door on the rear face. RP Toolz' punch & die sets indispensable once again; I don't think I could have got this as accurate trying to do concentric drilling on this scale. Also available in black primer: I have painted it black so that I can mask the cab windows; the advantage of having a second kit, as yet unstarted, is that I can use it for measurements. Elsewhere, a few bits and bobs of detailing. An escape hatch just inboard of the starboard funnel: ...simulating this: ...and some PE grid stuff (Aber, the smallest I could find) which will be painted to simulate the wooden duckboards on the 20" signal protector platform: ...seen here in real life: More soon Crisp

Yes - Ark (actually, both Arks) back in suspension, because this build is going to be a present to Jeremy Larken, who was our Captain in 1982. He's still in fine fettle, as far as I know, but he's gusting 20 years older than I am, which puts him well into his eighties... so I don't want to hang about with this one! SHARs landing for a suck of fuel, you say? Only happened once, when HMS Sheathbill / Sid's Strip (the landing strip ashore) was blacked by a GR3 engine failure. One went to Intrepid, one came to us. I was not on watch, sadly, though I can just about be seen in this photo if you know where to look; you can make out my head above the jet's port wing - I have an AIM-9 warshot pointing straight at me from a range of about 3'! [The guy on the left of the aircraft, in the beret, is John Kelly, our Commander (2-i-c for those who don't speak Navy), a Junglie pilot who sadly died last year. Lovely man.] Lots of goofers that day, as you can see - it was relatively late on in the war, so the anchorage wasn't under attack very much by that stage. I am looking at this photo a lot at the moment, because it is one of the very few that show any detail of the flight deck crane... It also provides conclusive proof that the SCOT aerials had black heating mats on them to stop them icing up - thus making them far harder to paint since the bottom section & inner face were still the usual white... We're sad, us modellers, aren't we!? Crisp

You mean the wipers don’t work?

That’s true of most sister ships, to be honest; look at Invincible, Illustrious & Ark Royal. Identical design, but they started to evolve even before Ark [or Indomitable, as she was at the outset] was even finished - notably in the angle of the ramp (Ark’s was always 12 degrees, the other two got there in the end) & CIWS (Ark had Phalanx for her whole life, the others Goalkeeper after a short interim Phalanx fit), but also radars, crane position, comms fit & so on. In the FS & ID case, this tendency was exacerbated by the fact that they were rarely active at the same time; 1982 is an obvious exception, but that was only possible because Intrepid was rushed out of refit (her Wardroom bar was not fully restored - quelle horreur!). Most of their 35-year lives saw one in service & the other in reserve / refit at any given time, with the reserve / refit periods lasting several years. So radars, comms fit, flight deck fitting, cranes, Mk of landing craft, satcom (the easiest way to tell whether the LPD in a Falklands photo is FS or ID is that Fearless had SCOT radomes fitted in 1982 and Intrepid didn’t)… and so on. Some of the differences are just odd, though. It’s a mystery why Fearless ended up with a fat lip on the lower edge of her hawse pipe but Intrepid didn’t; surely they behaved exactly the same at anchor! Who knows? P.S. I also never understood why Fearless’ L10 pennant number was painted low down on her hull for much of her life (including in 1982 before our somewhat half-hearted attempts to paint it out at Ascension) & Intrepid’s L11 high up - though I note that both ships have them high up by the time they got to Fareham Creek. P.P.S. Fearless was the last in commission (presumably at some point they assessed which ship was in a better material state), so those Fareham Creek photos are after several years of stripping Intrepid for spares to keep Fearless running - they were the last steam-powered ships in the RN, for example, so some exotic bits of oily kit beloved by the Clankies would have been in short supply. Though it’s hard to see from the photos I chose, both of Intrepid’s cranes have gone completely.

PE is an excellent medium in this scale, but one of the things I am not keen on is 2D fairleads. L’Arsenal to the rescue (though I only have 10 & need 12, so have had to put in a new order). This involves a serious amount of measurement (about 6 times, just to be certain!) because they have to fit with the railings (from which I will have removed the 2D fairleads before fitting): Finally, a photo I came across today in Euan Southby-Tailyour’s book “The Mighty Lion”. A few weeks ago I described Fearless & Intrepid as “essentially military car ferries”; this excellent photo shows that well - it’s taken from the for’d end of the tank deck looking aft towards the dock, & gives you an excellent impression of what they were like between decks. The ramp goes up to the flight deck (originally called “upper vehicle deck”, since it was envisaged that these ships would operate with Albion / Bulwark and thus didn’t need their own embarked aircraft - not the best design decision!), and also goes down to the lower tank deck, which in the Falklands was Special Forces Land, and thus was full of more ammunition and machines that went bang than you can possibly imagine! More soon Crisp

While we're on, I have also done a little more work - this time adding the assorted bumps on both sides of the hull just above the waterline, which were there to protect assorted drains and other protrusions from being bashed to bits by LCVPs on their falls as they were lowered. You can see some of them in this photo in real life: A few days ago I showed you the pencil drawings on the resin to work out where they were and in what configuration (they're nothing like symmetrical - that would be far too simple!). Here they are added in styrene (this is the starboard side) - and if you look closely at the top right of the picture you can see some of the many drain holes that I have drilled out: ...and here the whole ship seen from port: Please note that the originals were nothing like the same size either top to bottom or left to right; these are as accurate as I can make them. The drain holes are not me being anal about accuracy (OK, not *only* me being etc...); in due course once I start weathering this beast you will see that most of them had very visible stains (salt, rust etc) emanating from them - and remember this will be Fearless as she looked as we sailed back into Pompey after 100 days at war, much of it in appalling weather; she looked decidedly battered. More soon Crisp

Right, Peter - this is what I have been able to find re Fearless' changes later in life. First drawings: I have Jecobin drawings of Fearless as in 2001 (just pre-decommissioning) and of Intrepid as built; my 1982 drawings drew on both sources as interpreted with contemporary photos. The original mainmast: 1. From starboard: 2. From port: 3. From ahead: 4. From astern 5. From above: 6. Fearless' mainmast final configuration... From starboard: 7. From port: 8. From above: 9. Detail showing aerial array at mast head: 10. Three photos of Fearless & Intrepid moored together in Fareham Creek post-decommissioning in about 2004, awaiting towing to the breakers' yard - you can clearly see the different heights / configurations of the mainmast: a. Starboard bow: b. Starboard quarter: c. Bow on: Hope that helps you to work out what was going on! Crisp

Yes, the Lynx would still have been Oxford Blue in 1982. They toned down the markings locally (i.e. painted out the white bit of the roundel), but otherwise still blue.

Peter, I am away from home at present (until Friday). I’ll have a look when I get home to see what I’ve got. Crisp

First test prime showed a couple of minor blemishes at the aft end of the flight deck (on the right as seen here): After some sanding, now fixed & the whole upper deck primed: I’ve now moved on to preparing the ship’s sides for work, measuring & marking a) the edge of the boot topping; b) the location of a number of vents & drains that I’ll be drilling (because they had prominent stains below them); c) about 10 protrusions below the LCVP davits (designed to protect assorted things in the hull from being bashed to bits by landing craft on their falls… [Both sides marked up, only one photographed]. I’ve also started working on the flight deck (left in photo) & port quarterdeck (right in photo) cranes - an exercise in patience & brass origami: More at the weekend - I’m up in London for a couple of days Crisp

Bit of a “fill, sand, repeat” weekend, but I am very pleased with the outcome. I’ll only really know for sure once it’s had a coat of primer, but the DSPIAE sander & Mr Surfacer 1500 combo looks to have worked nicely:

Coventry was sunk before the HAS3 even existed; strictly HAS2 for her, though at this scale the difference is invisible. That Lynx you show in your photo doesn’t look like a Mk. 8 to me - but you were talking about a clear styrene version? P.S. I am very sure about that Union Flag; it’s awful!

Unhinged, Ced. Like most of us

Internal draught marks added (thanks to Jamie's excellent decals): Simulating this: Then the railings along the dock gallery decks - though I have decided to cut them short for now, on the grounds that there is a lot of handling of the hull etc to be done and they'd almost certainly becoming damaged: I am pleased with the fact that I managed to get the upper sections of the railings bent so that they lean out into the dock - as seen here in real life (photo showing F4 bringing survivors from HMS Antelope into Fearless' dock on 23 May 1982): Having done that on both sides, it was time for a big moment in this build; we have a flight deck! More soon Crisp

So where was I? Oil dotting the dock area, I think, to break up the monotone colour of the wood - itself a home brew mixture of Mr Color 42 Mahogany, Mr Color 22 Dark Earth & Tamiya XF 22 RLM Grey. Oils used in this shot Payne's Grey, Soot, Aged White (all Abteilung 502). Then (after a week of drying for the oil - the only downside of using them IMHO), I added a hint of green stain to represent algae in the wooden areas that got wet (bearing in mind that more got wet at the stern than towards the 'steel beach' at the front of the dock). Still wet in this photo, which is why it's shiny. While all this malarkey dries (and the green will be much less prominent once everything has cured - oils can be very subtle, which is why I love them), I have started work on the bridge wings. Here is what they look like OOB - fine, but a bit generic. Here is what they looked like in real life: ...and here is the starboard wing after my first bit of be-greebling; more to follow (plus, obviously, the 40/60 Bofors, 10" & 20" signal lamps and Corvus chaff launcher, which come in the kit). All in hideous macro close-up. The entire bridge wing is 2.5 cm from front to back. More soon Crisp

Yes, it's a RAS mast, though very rarely used for the fairly obvious reason that it fouled the flight deck (it was much more common to RAS using the starboard side rigs, especially the ones on the side of the island). Here it is (or an earlier version of it, anyway) in use on board Invincible quite early in her life (because it's the low ramp). In the early configuration of the CVS, this mast was stowed on the starboard forward corner of the flight deck - you can see it here in this picture of my friend WOACMN Pip Hall of 820 NAS on board Ark (I have clipped Pip's daughter from the photo, taken on a families' day): It must have been moved to the side of the ramp when Sea Dart was removed and the flight deck extended, presumably because it would have got in the way of flight deck operations. In my era "Zero Spot" (as the area in front of the island was called) was only used for weapons loading (because the weapons lift was at the front of the island) and/or ground runs. I don't think I ever saw someone fly from it - the closest I came was a cross-deck landing where my tailwheel ended up c. 1 Spot and my nose on the edge of 0 Spot (during a RAS, as it happens, because the ship couldn't turn to give me a decent wind). Hope that helps! Crisp P.S. Your Lusty is looking excellent; having wrestled with a lot of this PE myself, I know full well how fiddly it is!

I have talked about the shim in the past, & I think I’ve probably got it as far as I can - pretty pleased with it. Not a perfect fit, but a big improvement. Filler can handle the rest. You might also be able to see that the dock has had its grey paint - this is probably a better view: The (darker grey) gallery decks are masked. Next up will be to mask the grey bits so I can get a base layer onto the wooden lining of the dock, seen here in a photo of Intrepid awaiting disposal (with the gate down)… …and of Fearless seen from inside: Finally for now, greebling is useful for adding busy-ness even at this scale (sorry about the stray hair!): Which is meant to emulate this - the emergency conning position seen from above: More soon Crisp

Antelope’s Lynx came to our deck as she steamed into San Carlos and prepared for the two bomb disposal guys to work on the bomb. Her ship’s company also largely mustered aft, as far away from the bomb (roughly midships) as possible - that’s why only 2 people were killed; one poor Steward, who had his head removed by the bomb coming inboard, plus one of the two bomb disposal boys - astonishingly, one of them survived the bomb going off (though I think he lost an arm). I can’t remember how long we looked after the Lynx - only about a day, I think. We had no hangar or Lynx spares, so they needed to get out of the place. I think they flew out to the carrier group.

May not look like much, but this is the first non-primer paint - on the gallery decks along the sides of the dock area. Also, a photo someone sent me today, which is probably the last photo ever taken of F4, with F3 alongside at Fitzroy, shortly before F4 sailed to Goose Green to pick up an Army Signals section - she was sunk on the way back.

Won’t help your build, but this might interest you. It’s a page from the Illustrated London News of 24 May 1856, showing “the Great Ship” under construction on the Isle of Dogs. 25 years ago I lived about 500 yards further East along the river, and I used to walk past the slip (which is still visible in parts) most days; my brother gave me this when I moved there.

Transformed indeed. [Just don’t measure it any time soon. Airfix’s Coles crane is substantially over-scale…]

Only just caught up with this epic build, & it’s well up to your usual standards, my be-tentacled friend. The starting point / kit looks far from promising, but you have already transformed her. Deffo got my attention!