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Stonar

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  1. The wooden spherical casing was removed for the series of tests at Reculver during the last ten days of April 1943. The decision to abandon the casing seems to have been taken on or about 25 April. Given that this caseless mine was then the accepted standard, I am struggling to understand why the weapons delivered to Scampton a couple of weeks later, for the operation on 16/17 May, would have been delivered with the casing. Final tests on 7 May were caseless and subsequent practice drops by 617 Squadron crews on 11, 12 and 13 May were all caseless. Is their evidence that the casings were indeed removed at Scampton?
  2. 'The Wages Of Destruction - The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy' by Adam Tooze. Published by Allen Lane 2006, Penguin Books 2007. ISBN 978-0-141-00348-1 Not an easy read, but an important one. I would recommend it.
  3. The extensive history of this aircraft in Boot and Sturtivant's 'Gifts of War' states: "Category Ac damage was incurred on 27 September [1943] when Flg Off M. F. Armytage with a broken tail wheel due to the poor condition of the Sommerfield tracking. W3765 went to Scottish Aviation at Prestwick for repairs and installation of a Merlin 45 M engine..." Of course that doesn't tell us what it replaced. This aircraft seems to have been quite accident prone, undergoing repeated visits for repairs to Heston, once for Category B damage after Plt Off M. Szelestowiski flew into a tree and crashed at Chorleywood. It also passed through various M.U.s. Who knows what was done during these visits? The final entry states that it was struck off charge after an accident on 26 June 1954 when the undercarriage collapsed. The aircraft was with No. 577 (AAC) Squadron at Castle Bromwich at this time.
  4. My father was a FAA pilot and reckoned that he had broken the world record for the 100 yard dash whilst wearing a US seat style parachute and harness. This was escaping a fire, NAS Kingsville, early fifties. Of course he didn't, but apparently you can waddle quite quickly when your life depends on it
  5. You are not alone. I'm very close to having to make that decision for mine. The fact that the instructions suggest a different construction if you do want to fit all the panels is not encouraging for those who want a complete engine and the option to zip it up. I already have a bag of 'optional bits' that I can position if I want to open up the gun covers!
  6. Mod 189. Introduce plastic pilot's seat, 14 February 1940.
  7. I can think of a couple of pictures (B+W) which show very dark coloured Spitfires on Malta, but the blue of the roundel is distinct. That would imply that the colour(s) used were not roundel blue, but I'm not sure we will ever know for sure what was used. There is also a practical consideration regarding the quantity of such a colour likely to be available. I've seen Dark Mediterranean Blue, Royal Blue, Night and even some local concoction suggested for the 'dark' Spitfires on Malta. I made a model of BP989 some years ago and went with my version of Royal Blue, principally based on the visibility of the black serial number in photos, so definitely not a proven or definitive choice
  8. Who would hazard a guess at which of the dark blues known to have been used on Malta that is? Not me!
  9. A google of '451 Squadron Spitfires' turned up a picture of BQ-X captioned 'El Daba c.1943' which I think does show the leading edge stripes. I would attach the image, but its not easy on this forum. Cheers Steve
  10. The colour photograph of 'Red 1' posted above pretty much ended the debate about the colours. They were clearly red and white. There are plenty of images of these aircraft to work with when working out the stripes (there is one each of Red 3, Red 13, and Red 1 in B+W posted in this thread). I've always masked and sprayed these markings and have intentionally not made the stripes identical. Cheers Steve
  11. Off the top of my head I think that a Ju 88 should have a 650mm swastika. That would be a shade over 20mm each side at 1/32 scale. I can't double check at the moment, hopefully someone can confirm. Cheers Steve
  12. You certainly can go wrong painting cockpits thus. Somewhere between 1938, when 02 and/or 01 (silver, which everyone forgets about) were stipulated for interiors and 1941 when, "the interior colour is in shade 02 in principle. Shade 01 may not be used here. Only the interior walls of glazed cockpits and canopies will be protected against dazzle with shade 66" some companies had already started finishing interiors in 66. There is irrefutable evidence, extant today, which you can see if you fancy a trip to Norway, that both Junkers and Heinkel were painting the cockpits of some of their aircraft in RLM 66 from early production. This is certainly in 1940 for both companies, and, more debatably, before the war for Heinkel. Tango 98 has already mentioned Messeschmitt production and certainly some aircraft which were damaged and subsequently repaired and returned to service also had the cockpits, or parts of them, refinished in RLM 66 in 1940. That too probably depends on where the repair was carried out. RLM 66 was specified for instrument panels in 1938, so it was certainly available ("Shade 66, i.e. aviation lacquer 7107.66, will be used for instrument panels." There really is no hard and fast rule that can be given and certainly no sort of cut off date between the two different finishes. Cheers Steve
  13. I agree. My figures are crap and don't bear close inspection. From a couple of metres away they look okay and give a sense of scale, which is important to me. Most people looking at models of WW2 aircraft have no real concept of the size of the full size subject, but they do have a pretty good idea of the size of a full size man (or woman). Cheers Steve
  14. The choice is yours. I rarely put a pilot in an aircraft which is not posed flying (where he is a rather obvious necessity) pretty much for the reasons you mention. Why have him obscure all that hard work? I sometimes make little vignettes of models, and this is when I might pop a suitable pilot in place. Most cockpit hoods can be made to open and close with a bit of work. Cheers Steve
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