AWFK10

And vice-versa. If you're fed up with people remarking that they find prices (not just Arma's) increasingly unaffordable, then to be consistent you must surely also be fed up with those who make a point of announcing that they will be buying. Both points of view are equally valid and one deserves to be heard just as much as the other.

I'm going from memory here as I no longer have the book but I've a feeling there may have been a brief overview in Bruce Robertson's "Aviation Archaeology: A Collector's Guide to Aeronautical Relics" published in 1977.

Airfix don't have the tooling any more. As Paul821 has said, when Airfix changed their Series 1 packaging from polybags to blister packs 50 years ago they bumped some kits that wouldn't fit in the latter up to Series 2 and put them in a box. Arthur Ward quotes meeting minutes from November 1972 in his Airfix: Celebrating 50 years of the Greatest Plastic Kits in the World in which it was suggested that the price increase on these kits could be compensated for by including extra detail, such as underwing stores (which in the event wasn't done). However they decided to drop the SR.53 and the P1127 from the range on the grounds that "little can be done with these, the aircraft being experimental only". When Arthur wrote his book in 1999 he said that Airfix still had the moulds for both these kits, and the P1127 was re-released the following year but the SR.53 has never been seen again and it now seems likely that the tooling has been scrapped. There was an Eastern European kit which I'd always assumed was produced from the Airfix moulds but Scalemates tells me I was wrong. Incidentally, Airfix did some more "bumping up" in the late 1970s when they re-released kits that had been rotated out of the range. Some but not all of this was due to the return of Series 1 kits that hadn't had a production run since the start of the blister pack era (e.g. the RE8) but not all. For instance their Battle had always been a Series 2 kit but since 1979 it's been in Series 3.

I do remember reading somewhere that petrol was sometimes used to remove the stripes. In this case, though, I think it's paint because the outermost portion of the flap which would have been white when the stripes were in place doesn't seem to be partially-removed white over the original silver but the same olive drab that I agree has been used on the fuselage.

I did the same nostalgia build some years ago using the Italeri kit, after coming across that photo. I think that black stripe is the remains of the outboard one from the Overlord markings. The inmost third of the stripe has been more effectively covered up by the rather perfunctory coat of paint than the bit we're seeing. See this photo.

On the other hand, as a teenager in the 1970s I wasn't paying the household food, utilities and council tax bills, nor did I have a house to maintain, a wife and a dog. Nor internet access, a smartphone, subscription TV etc. because they hadn't been invented yet (and a good thing too as far as the last two are concerned). Fast forward 50 years and I'm once again on a fixed income, this time an occupational pension, but with all those commitments now having to be taken into account.

As it happens a friend of mine commented on the price of this very kit a couple of days ago and he didn't even know that the tool is nearly 50 years old. He hasn't built models since he was a kid but he's interested in aircraft and particularly the Harrier. He said he'd seen an advert for a "new" Airfix Harrier in a newspaper and had been sufficiently interested to look on the Airfix website but when he saw the price he immediately lost interest. A while ago another non-modelling friend said the same about the 1/72 Buccaneer, which he'ld been thinking of buying for his father. Of course it's not just Airfix, though perhaps they attract more comment. It's several years since a model shop owner told me he'd stopped stocking Italeri kits because of the price he needed to charge for them and I notice that (e.g.) their Ca 313/14 kit of similar early '70s vintage is retailing in the UK for an eyewatering £30. I bought an Academy P-51 a few weeks ago because I have a tentative plan to build a 1/72 F-6C at some future date, I didn't have a kit in stock to cover that project and it seemed prudent to lay one down now while there's still an affordable option. It cost £10.99, which seems reasonable enough, but when I put it in the relevant cardboard box in the garage I noticed that the one I'd bought from the same shop within the last 18 months had been £6.99. That's a 57% increase. I still call in at my local model shop on a weekly basis but now I look at kit prices and with the increasingly occasional exception I can't justify paying them. When I heard that Arma were producing an F-6C my original thought was to buy one for the project I mentioned. When I discovered that it costs over £24, though, I dropped the idea. If I didn't have a stash to live off which I accumulated over several decades, I really think that after 50+ years (including the 1970s price rises) this would be the point at which I would have had to part company with the hobby. For instance, I rediscovered an interest in 8th AF aircraft recently. Luckily, I have unbuilt kits from the last time round, including several Liberators. How much is a 1/72 Liberator kit now? The only option available from a well-known retailer is £70. Secondhand ones are £40 - £60.

I wouldn't disagree that £24 may be what Airfix need to charge for this kit to make it viable for them to produce it. Of course you're absolutely right that the decision whether or not to lay out that amount of money comes down to personal choice. Speaking purely for myself, it doesn't offer me anything I want that I wouldn't get from the Xtrakit ones which I already have, so if the mood takes me to build another Meteor F8 I have the choice between paying £24 or £0. No contest. Even if I didn't have the kits in the stash, they're still available for little more than half the price of the Airfix Meteor. I don't have an FR9 laid down but if I really feel the need to build one I'll either try and source an MPM one for an acceptable price or modify an Xtrakit F8 rather than buying a potential Airfix release which would inevitably cost significantly more than £24 if and when it eventually appears. Not so very long ago, when a kit such as this from Airfix would have been around the £15 mark (and I was still earning a salary) I might well have bought one, or several, on impulse: why else do I have four Harrier GR7s? Regrettably, those days are gone and I aim to lay out money only when I don't already have an adequate kit in stock which will allow me to model a subject that I really want to build at some point in the not too distant future. That leaves me more cash to pay for modelling consumables (paint, brushes, glue, etc., etc.) which of course are also increasing in price. I do agree with your observation that "we all need Airfix as a company to make a profit otherwise their reason for existing ceases to be", though for 'Airfix' read 'model companies in general'. If there are no model companies, then sooner or later there'll be no suppliers of consumables either and what good will a stash be then?

Those panel lines on the test build, as opposed to the real thing....... But in any case I'm going to stick with the Xtrakit Meteors in my stash which are already bought and paid for.

A Fox would be very welcome but it has been done as an injection-moulded kit, although it's not easily available now and certainly won't be up to modern standards: https://www.scalemates.com/kits/pegasus-005-fairey-fox-mk1--159137

If it's any consolation, I decided a few weeks ago to build one of the original Airfix Vulcans in my stash. It was the "Vulcan to the Sky" boxing issued in 2010 and the sprues were still sealed in the factory packaging. When I opened it, I could see straight away that the moulds must have seen a lot of use since the kit was released in 1983 but what I didn't notice until later was that one of the main undercarriage legs was missing. It wasn't loose in the bag and when I checked the place on the sprue where it should have been it was obvious that it had never been moulded in the first place. The sprue was completely smooth, there was no sign of an attachment point from which the part might have been torn off during handling. I was able to knock up a pair of replacement legs myself but I wasn't impressed. It's not like the kit was cheap, it had been £30 when I bought it some years ago. Furthermore it was a gift set, the type of thing that might be bought for a youngster or by someone who only has a casual interest in modelling but who's a fan of the Vulcan. If they found that their kit was missing a rather significant part, what might their feelings be about buying from Airfix again?

There was a Falcon conversion kit for Bf 109 and Fw 190 two-seaters, and the Bf 109 G-14. They later produced a complete, injection-moulded, Bf 109 G-12 and if I remember rightly I have a Falcon injection-moulded kit of a G-14 in the stash.

There was at least one 1/72 vacform: https://www.scalemates.com/kits/maintrack-models-bk-002-westland-hill-pterodactyl-iv--958348

Yes, they'ld have been the 1/48 Bandai range. https://www.oldmodelkits.com/index.php?manu=Bandai&scale=1/48. My local model shop stocked them in the 1970s. As far as I remember, I never had any of the tanks but I seem to recall buying a couple of figure sets (German engineers, with a section of a wooden bridge) and possibly a Kubelwagen. I guess the tanks cost more than one week's worth of pocket money, and saving it up was a alien concept!

Further to the presence of an extra navigator on some 635 Sqn missions. I've just been looking in 'Lincoln at War', which refers to "...the two navigator system as developed by Pathfinder Force during the war, which became known as the Nav-1 and Nav-2 or Nav and Set-Op. The two navigators worked alongside each other, [the nav radar's] job being to operate the Gee or Gee-H and H2S, complementing and aiding the plotter. The nav plotter was largely responsible for visual bombing and on nearing the target would vacate his seat and man the bombsight in the nose." "The blind bombing H2S system worked out electronically the forward throw of the bomb to be dropped and presented the information to the nav radar [who] directed the pilot to fly the aircraft so that the target came down the track line and would order the opening of the bomb doors and the making of the release circuits before pressing the bomb release button situated by the side of the H2S equipment. Usually the visual bomb aimer would follow the nav radar through the target area from the nose. During co-ordinated attacks when a bomb had to be dropped visually or blind, the visual bomb aimer would be in the nose directing the pilot with the nav radar providing assistance on the H2S and if during the last stages of the bombing run the target could not be seen visually the nav radar would try to get the bomb away blind using the H2S." If this description is also relevant to PFF Lancasters, then it's no longer necessary to postulate that the extra crew member was needed to manage unidentified defensive EW systems.

I think it's "Cat AC" in both cases, which is a damage category: http://www.airhistory.org.uk/spitfire/damage.html. "Repair is beyond the unit capacity, but can be repaired on site by another unit or a contractor."

Interesting! Thanks for this. It seems more and more likely that the photo shows ND673 after it had been extensively modified from its operational configuration to become a research airframe at the RAE. I'm reminded of an illustration in a certain book on the British air services in WW1. It has a section on the aircraft they used, which obviously wasn't the author's primary interest, and the photo used for the DH9 is of a machine that had started life as a standard bomber but had been modified in 1920 to test Handley Page leading edge slots. For that reason it had also been fitted with a disproportionately tall undercarriage and looked nothing like an ordinary Service DH9. If photos of the real thing were rare as hen's teeth, like the Lancaster VI, the received wisdom might well be that this was typical of operational DH9s in WW1. I've had a look at the 7 Sqn ORB: they didn't undertake any operational flights with ND673. I'm wondering about the electronics fit again. The photo doesn't actually show the aerials that Streetly identifies as being for Monica and Boozer. I can believe that ND673 might have been fitted with Monica while it was on 635 Squadron, as although the system was abruptly dropped when it was discovered that German night fighters were homing in on it that didn't happen until the end of August 1944. Streetly says that there was a single Monica aerial below the tail turret, which was the standard fit. He didn't have any photographic evidence for this, so perhaps he based it on Bowyer's account. But what Bowyer actually recorded was "bow and arrow aerials [plural] pointing at about 45 degrees from the base of the extreme rear fuselage". He does note elsewhere in Bombing Colours having a close look in May 1944 at a Lancaster II which had "beneath the rear turret....a Monica radar aerial to assist in gun laying [sic]", so it appears that he could recognise one even if he didn't know what it was for, yet he doesn't name either of the aerials that he saw on ND673 8 months later. His description of the one mounted on an arm above the tail turret certainly matches Boozer but if the other system really did have more than one aerial it's unlikely to have been Monica.

Battledress started being issued to the RAF in 1940, apparently. The article says it was only worn by aircrew at first, though I suspect others may have had it earlier than 1943. I've got a photo of my Dad (sergeant, RAF Police) wearing it in the Western Desert but that may have been army stock. Many of the figures aren't strictly suitable for the Battle of Britain period, though that's obviously what the excellent box art is showing (I bought the set on the spot when I saw it in 1972). Apart from the battledress issue there are two men carrying a rocket, which wasn't around in 1940. I also remember reading that the starter trolley is a later type but I've no idea whether that's right or not. Regardless, they're cracking figures and these ones are beautifully painted.

Pretty much! 😃 Thanks, I might think about asking for a quotation but I'ld better wait until the final bill comes in for our ongoing building work......

I'm inclined to think that although ND673 probably was fitted with Carpet II (or Carpet Sweeper) while it was 635 Sqn, it didn't carry the six dipoles on either side of the nose as suggested by Streetly. He says that "8 Group made wide-scale use of a derivative of Carpet II, code-named Carpet Sweeper". It follows that there must have been a lot of 8 Group Lancasters with the Carpet Sweeper aerial fit, whatever that may have been, but I've never seen a photo of one with multiple dipoles on its nose or even heard it suggested that any Lanc other than ND673 ever carried such a thing. If ND673 was simulating the use of Carpet Sweeper by 8 Group, why wouldn't it have used exactly the same installation as all those other 8 Group aircraft? Maybe just one inconspicuous dipole on each side of the fuselage. Maybe even underneath the individual aircraft letter that terminated higher up the fuselage than the squadron code to keep it clear of something on the fuselage that can't be seen in the photo (or maybe it's just that whoever painted the 'V' started at the top and misjudged the angle 😁)? There's no actual evidence that there was a Window chute there. Other PFF squadrons seem to have routinely managed to dispense it from the usual chute at a much higher rate than Main Force aircraft, so they too must have carried comparatively "vast quantities" which they were able to offload without the help of an extra crewmember. My hypothesis is that the extra crew member was what might be termed a Defensive Systems Operator who monitored Boozer and Monica, initiating jamming (possibly using Mandrel, maybe other systems) of any threats that they detected and maintaining oversight of Carpet Sweeper, which Streetly says automatically carried out a continuous search of a specified bandwidth and initiated jamming for a specified period of any signal that it detected. The fact that it was automated explains why all those 8 Group Lancasters that he implied were fitted with it didn't need to carry a dedicated operator, which by the same token means that 635 wouldn't have needed one either if that had been the only system they were using: there must have been something else as well. The special operator certainly wouldn't have been leaving his position unattended every few minutes to dump Window. Most especially not when he was actually occupied in jamming transmissions from an imminent threat, though he may well have ordered another crew member to do it in those circumstances. Why wouldn't it be whoever ordinarily had that responsibility in every 'normal' (7 man) PFF crew? I don't know whether the Lancaster VI was considered as a potential alternative to the Fortress in the ECM role, I was thinking more that ND673 might have been used for EW R&D after its service with 635 Sqn. If the height at which it could operate was considered to be an advantage for that job, it would make sense to strip it of superfluous weight and drag like turrets, exhaust shrouds and perhaps H2S (contrary to the profiles that have been drawn, you can't see from that photo whether an H2S blister is present or not, though it was definitely fitted when the aircraft was on ops). Maybe even spinners, though as you say it's more likely that they were discarded simply for the sake of convenience. One thing that's occurred to me is that if 635 Sqn was working through a trial programme of 'live' missions to assess the B.VI's suitability for various roles, which does seem to be a possibility, then somebody must have written a report on it - which may be somewhere in the National Archives....... It's been a very enjoyable and profitable discussion, many thanks for all your input!

Thanks, I’d not seen that photo. There’s one taken from a similar angle of a B.VI in the same configuration, captioned as DV199, in the old PSL Classic Aircraft book on the Lancaster. That IWM shot is probably one of a sequence: it’s not a casual photo as someone has positioned a measuring rod in the foreground. And indeed in the Hikoki book “The Secret Years: Flight Testing at Boscombe Down 1939 – 1945” there’s a side-on shot of JB675 that seems to be part of such a sequence. The background is similar and the measuring rod has been stuck into the ground. She has a mid-upper turret and an H2S blister, though the caption points out that it’s empty. It also refers to “exhaust dampers”, though to me it looks as though there aren’t any, and to “two small aerials ahead of the pilot’s position” but the photo hasn’t reproduced well enough to see them. A date of January 1944 is quoted. I’ve looked at the crew lists for the 14 operations flown by ND673 in October and November. On 4 of them, it flew with a 7 man crew. 3 of those sorties were the only occasion on which that particular captain and crew flew the aircraft, which was normally in the hands of Sqn Ldr DeWesselow. He flew just one mission with only his regular crew on board, i.e. 7 men in total. On 6 of the 10 sorties flown with an 8-man crew, the extra individual was Sqn Ldr J R Dow. 5 were with DeWesselow and the sixth with Flt Lt Gilmore and his crew. All of these took place in October. The September 1944 Summary of Events records the award of a bar to Sqn Ldr Dow’s DFC and reveals that he was a navigator/bomb aimer. Clearly he wasn’t taken along to shovel Window, nor was he gaining experience: he was on board because he had some particular expertise that the “core” crew didn’t. I wonder whether he spoke German? Of the remaining 4 sorties, in November, one was flown with Sqn Ldr Hawes on board and for the other three it was F/S Thomson. It’s only in that month that the ORB starts giving the specific role allocated to each aircraft. On two of F/S Thomson’s trips, ND673 was assigned as a Backer Up and on the third as “VC”, which I guess is Visual something. It’s rather more plausible that a Flight Sergeant might have been taken as a spare pair of hands to dispense Window, though of course he too could have been a specialist of some sort. The sortie that Sqn Ldr Hawes was embarked for was the one where ND673 acted as Primary Visual Marker, so conceivably bomb aiming was his speciality but then again the regular bomb aimer was still on board. 101 Sqn Lancasters carried Airborne Cigar (ABC) for the purpose of jamming German fighter control transmissions, which was why they carried a German-speaking operator to listen in to them. We can be certain that 635’s Lancasters weren’t fitted with ABC as it required three very prominent masts. Tinsel would be a better fit: “A measure designed to disrupt enemy R/T control channels in the 3-6 MHz band. Tinsel comprised a microphone unit… and a transmitter. The microphone was mounted in a small metal box in an engine nacelle and was connected to the transmitter through the normal microphone socket. A German speaking operator would use the carrier aircraft’s communications receiver to search for the enemy’s control transmissions. When such a transmission was found, the transmitter would be tuned to its frequency and switched on, flooding it with engine noise.” But according to Streetly’s “Confound and Destroy”, from which the quote comes, responsibility for monitoring the transmissions passed to a ground station in England in summer 1943, after which German-speaking operators in the carrier aircraft were no longer required. On the whole, I think it’s more likely that if Sqn Ldr Dow and his colleagues were electronic warfare specialists (and I think they were), they were operating radar-jamming systems. That would fit with the Boozer III antenna that we know was on ND673 in February 1945, as Boozer was intended to detect transmissions from Wurzburg ground radar and Lichtenstein AI radar in German night fighters. What systems could have been in 635 Sqn’s Lancasters? Streetly makes a good case for Carpet II/Carpet Sweeper and he may well be right. Disclosure: I’m a technical illiterate! But it appears from his books that Carpet required “a small dipole”, not necessarily the antenna farm that can apparently be made out on good quality prints of the 1946 photo and that Streetly tentatively links to Carpet but which Bowyer didn’t record having seen when he inspected ND673 early in 1945 and which doesn’t appear on any other B.VI photo. Mandrel is another possibility, especially as Carpet seems to have been essentially automated while Mandrel required an operator to scan for German radar signals and trigger the jamming. The TR1657G sub-variant of Mandrel III, which Streetly says was the most widely used, only seems to have required a fairly small transmission aerial ("two small aerials ahead of the pilot's position"?). I wonder whether, between Bowyer’s visit and John Rawlings taking the photo, ND673 had been used for EW trials. As a ‘high-flying’ version of the Lancaster the B.VI may have been thought particularly suitable as an EW trials platform: after all, that was the quality that had led 100 Group to obtain B-17s for ECM work. Maybe it had its redundant nose turret (the mid-upper already having gone) and exhaust shrouds removed along with its spinners and sprouted multiple dipoles on its nose, along with the stripes on its tailfins.

Having had time on my hands today I’ve downloaded the 635 Sqn ORB for August through November 1944, the period during which it operated the Lancaster VI, and collated all the relevant entries. The Record of Events details every operational sortie by aircraft serial number and code, and specifies whether the aircraft is a B.III or a B.VI. It also lists the crew members. The Summary of Events for 10 and 18 August specifically mentions that B.VIs had carried out operations. After that, although it lists B.VI serial numbers among the B.IIIs participating in the day’s missions, it never differentiates between the two marks again. The first operation was a night sortie to Bremen by all three B.VIs on hand, unaccompanied by other aircraft. It was evidently a test of the type’s potential as a (comparatively) high altitude bomber and/or a diversionary tactic, as 15 x 2000 lb bombs were dropped from 23,000’. If it was the former, it wasn’t particularly successful. There was complete cloud cover at 8 – 12,000’ forcing two aircraft to bomb using H2S and the third on dead reckoning, either because it didn’t have H2S or more likely because the set had packed up. The second, on 16 August, was one of just two instances in the ORB where a B.VI is recorded to have operated as a Master Bomber. Again, cloud cover over the target negated the advantage of the type’s high altitude performance: ND673 had to descend below the cloud layer (the top was at 14,500’), and was then coned by searchlights and hit by flak. JB713, which was also taking part in the attack on Stettin, likewise came down under the cloud to bomb. The only other Master Bomber sortie was a daylight one, on 27 August. On the 18th, the Summary of Events says that all three B.VIs were despatched to Hamburg as “PBMs”. I’m guessing this means Primary Blind Markers, using either H2S or Oboe. If that’s so, it could be in response to the lessons of the two previous missions that perhaps called into question the relevance of the B.VI’s high altitude performance in the bombing and Master Bomber roles: a change to one in which it might be more useful? JB713 went missing on this mission and ND418 was hit by flak. The impression I get is that subsequently the squadron used its B.VIs and B.IIIs indiscriminately. There’s one instance of a B.VI acting as Primary Visual Marker, which according to Jonathon Falconer’s “Bomber Command Handbook” involved aiming Target Indicators visually using the Mk XIV bombsight and was “the most difficult of all the PFF duties” but one of 635’s B.IIIs was Master Bomber on that mission. On three occasions it’s mentioned that a B.VI was detailed as a Backer Up/Supporter. There's a B.VI conversion article by Bryan Philpott in the 1975 Airfix Magazine Annual which says that "on operations the Mk VI was used mainly for Master Bomber and diversionary duties where its radar jamming devices came into their own" but the primary evidence of the ORB doesn't bear that out. Regarding crew size, I make the count 14 sorties flown with a 7-man crew and 18 with 8 men aboard. The additional body could either be a specialist manning a particular piece of equipment or a supernumerary being taken along for familiarisation or some other purpose. The same aircraft would sometimes fly with 7 and on other occasions with 8: from what little cross-checking I’ve done, it wasn’t always the same bod travelling with the regular crew. Whatever the reason, the same pattern applies to the squadron’s B.IIIs so it certainly wasn’t something B.VI specific. There’s just one occasion when a 6-man crew is recorded: the one and only operational sortie flown by JB675, which was aborted because the aircraft was unable to maintain height. I think we can assume on those grounds that JB675 wasn’t fitted with a mid-upper turret but by the same token the fact that every other 635 Sqn B.VI always carried a full crew strongly suggests to me that during their service with the squadron, they were. I think you’ve hit the nail on the head, that grainy photo of ND673 in the graveyard in 1946 is a red herring when it comes to establishing her 1944 in-service configuration, let alone that of other B.VIs. I’ve finally got round to cutting plastic on a B.VI model. A week ago, I was envisaging ND673 in operational service with 635 Sqn sporting 4-blade props, lacking nose and mid-upper turrets, fitted with Carpet aerials and Window chutes on the lower rear fuselage, probably with unshrouded exhausts. Now, on the basis of Bowyer’s eyewitness testimony and the ORB, I’ve come to the conclusion that she had 3-blade props and was fully armed. The Window chutes, as Martin Streetly candidly said, are just an educated guess based on the placement of the code letter. I can’t make out on the copies that I’ve seen “the aerial array visible on the available photograph [which] would appear to be made up of short dipoles” and Bowyer doesn’t mention it, though he carefully noted the Monica and Boozer aerials. On reflection, I don’t feel that the aircraft would really have been committed to the night air war without exhaust shrouds, bearing in mind that the Mosquito XXX’s combat debut around the same time was delayed while a workable shroud was developed.

Just reviving this thread to say that I've come across another eyewitness description of a Lancaster VI, by Michael Bowyer in "Bombing Colours", presumably based on his contemporary notes. "On February 17 1945, at Farnborough, I had a look at ND673: F2-V, a Lancaster VI, its engines installed as 'power eggs'. These were annular cowled Merlins designed for easy maintenance and removal. Otherwise she was a normal Lancaster as regards markings, with F2 in the fore/aft style. Paddle-bladed airscrews were fitted, and she lacked a dorsal turret. In the well-known picture of her by John Rawlings she appears to have striping on the tail, but this was not a special operational marking. Over the tail turret she had a long arm with tail warning radar as well as bow and arrow aerials pointing at about 45 degrees from the base of the extreme rear fuselage. She had served on 635 Squadron at Downham Market from August to November 1944, where JB675: U, ND418: Q and JB713: Z (missing August 18/19 1944) also flew trials." With the caveat that we can't draw firm conclusions from what Bowyer didn't say, it still offers some food for thought: He recorded that "paddle-bladed airscrews were fitted" but not that they were four-bladed, which would surely have been unusual enough to be worth noting. He noted the Boozer and Monica antennae but not the presence of Carpet dipoles. He doesn't mention H2S either but that may well have been taken for granted on a 1945 Lancaster. There was no dorsal turret but he doesn't say that the nose turret had been removed. By implication, Bowyer hadn't noted that there were any stripes on the fins. You'ld think he would have done had they been there at the time, as colour schemes and markings were his primary interest. By the same token he doesn't mention the large area of primer (?) in the dorsal turret position on the upper fuselage that can be seen in the well-known, later, photo. Of course it's possible that he'd forgotten some points by the time he wrote up his description of the aircraft, even if it was only later the same day, and/or that while he was clear what his notes meant when he jotted them down in 1945 he found them more ambiguous when he referred to them 20 years later.

Yes, they did. https://www.scalemates.com/kits/revell-04324-dornier-do-335-a-1a-pfeil--128689 In 2000, which means it's yet another kit that's been sitting in my stash for 20 years...... It looks like Platz reissued it last year.

Just a word of warning. I've found these bottles prone to clog and when this happened again the other day I dug out the paint deposit blocking the nozzle with the tip of a craft knife, then squeezed the bottle onto a piece of paper. Then squeezed a bit harder, upon which the bottle (which wasn't full) exploded, splashing paint onto my shirt and into my face. The shirt was ruined. More importantly it was lucky that I wear reading glasses for modelling, because there was a paint splash on the lens which otherwise would have been in my eye. I've used Vallejo paints in a similar style of bottle for years and never had anything like this happen. The plastic that the Humbrol bottles are made from seems to be a lot more brittle. Please take care when using them.