stever219

The fin with dorsal fillet is only included in the TF. X kit, along with the RP blast plates and torpedo which also appear in the Mk. VI boxing. AFAIK the TF. X boxing doesn't include the (very) late production tailplanes and elevators (which Airfix include in their nice new 1/72th scale kit). Alley Cat produce an early version conversion with the "flat" tailplane but I'm not 100% certain that they've reproduced the very earliest form (narrow chord elevators without horn balances). I like your cockpit mods; I rather fear that I'll be plagiarising them when I get round to my next pair of Tamiya Beaus.

There's a colour picture of L5802 of 95 Squadron ashore at Pembroke Dock showing the beaching gear to be either a light grey or aluminium colour. I think ML824's gear is a brick red colour (but she only has the tail trolley at present IIRC). Airfix used to suggest something near Medium Sea Grey in their kit (Grey M13 in their own range of paints.

Vinnie, I've found that the locations for the rear of the cabin floor are a bit tight and needed a little filing and scraping to get a good fit. I had a gap of around 1/50 of an inch at worst, so I'm a bit surprised that yours is around 12 times that. Are any of the parts warped? If so that could affect fit, and could be dealt with either by gently heating and bending the part back into shape or gluing it to its opposite number in stages, letting the cement set on one part before moving on to the next. (If you think this kit's bad for fit just wait 'til you try the 1/48th Buccaneer!)

Some scope for ringing the changes there. If we're not careful we could have an inadvertent Dakota Group Build.😉

Having been a "public servant" working in an enquiries office I used to hate the people who would call just before knocking-off time with involved, complicated, technically challenging questions, especially those who were hypothesising or opinion-trawling (ringing round a number of offices 'til they got an answer they liked which they could then quote at other officers to get their own way). Most of us aren't well paid and, contrary to opinions voiced by the Daily Fail et al, our pensions aren't even plastic-coated, let alone gold plated. We didn't get overtime and it was often near-impossible to get time off in lieu for working longer hours. Couple that with the knowledge that our train home is expensive, uncomfortable, noisy, full of the sort of people you wouldn't want to share the universe with and highly likely to be delayed for no good reason at all, let alone the wrong type of snow (yes, The Mess Link used that one) and you can see that it's not all fun in Civil Service Land.

GR. 5s and '7s could be seen in Arctic camouflage for winter exercises: the camouflage pattern varied from jet to jet, so find as many images of your chosen subject as you can. As for armament Selwyn would probably be the best-placed member here (oo-er missus) to provide the right information. I've seen images of one of the Operation Herrick Harriers (ZD408 I think) with two tanks and two chaff/flare dispenser-equipped Sidewinder rails under each wing and with AAR probe fitted.

Next one I do I'm leaving the doors shut and saving myself a load of work!😁 It might well be KN452 in Coastal Command colours.

Going well there! Span-wise the real aeroplane is 7 feet shorter than a Lancaster, so just over an inch in 1/72th. You will not see much of your interior detailing, even with the cargo doors and crew door open: I spent too long adding seat belts to the troop seats in the back and the pilots' seats in my Airfix Dak and you can't see 80% or more of them, especially forward on the port side.

I think you'll find that rats are more intelligent than trolley-drowners; why else would so many rats work in laboratories?

Note that the box artwork and painting instructions show the dorsal radio antenna mast which isn't shown in the assembly instructions!😖 It's flashed-over locating hole lurks just aft of the locating pin and socket inside the dorsal spine and the part is on one of the sprues.

Beware of that boxing of the Mosquito: I have one and the plastic has become hard and brittle to the extent that it cracks and splits when you cut it; not something that I wanted to discover part-way through a "how to commit gluing" demo for our local model emporium.

It's amazing how quickly you can reach this stage with this kit. Check your references for the fairings above the wings: my (limited) research suggests that these were introduced on Beaufighters with serials in the RDxxx range, built in late 1944 -early 1945, which your SEAC example is. You might, however, need to delete the gun camera fairing from the port wing (between oil cooler intake and landing light): again check your references.

The fit, or should I say lack of fit, of those doors I'd dreadful. Any chance you can back them with some pkasticard and then fill and sand to get a more acceptable profile? The Spitfire mouldings somehow don't seem so bad.

Some fantastic reference material there for those of us who have Revell's big Fat Lass lurking in our stashes waiting for some action.

Tony, the contact address is at the bottom of the e-mail contact page on the Airfix.com website; from the home page scroll right down to the bottom, click om "Contact us" and then to the bottom of the second page. The address is 3rd Floor, The Gateway, Innovation Way, Sandwich, Kent. HTH, Steve.