stever219

Once again I’m going to be the elephant in the room. I haven’t found many images of JN751 but the few that there are, particularly around D-Day, show an almost factory-fresh aeroplane with very little accumulated grot. Images of other Tempests of the Newchurch wing also show very little wear and tear, even operating from a grass airfield. Wing Commander Beamont was quite fastidious, even having the invasion stripes applied very neatly by the paint shop at Hawker’s Langley factory rather than slapped on hastily by the hard-pressed ground crews at Newchurch. JN751 was almost brand new, and was used by Wing Commander Beamont to score the type’s first air-to-Air combat victory on D+2, so masses of exposed rivet heads and chipped, faded, stained paint just don’t seem appropriate. I know it’s not my model but, to me, it just doesn’t look right. Sorry.

I’ve just had another look at the image of UQ:D and the rudder may be in three colours. Assuming that the aeroplane retains the Temperate Land Scheme of Dark Earth and Dark Green the top part of the rudder appears to be in a lighter colour than Dark Earth on the remainder of the airframe. The lower quarter or so of the rudder appears to be in Dark Earth; it’s not shaded by the tailplane and elevator and it’s catching the sunlight at the same angle as the top half, which appears markedly lighter. Alternatively, given the low-ish contrast between the two main camouflage colours was she finished in Dark Earth and Light Earth? I know we have the colour photo of a wrecked Blenheim that appears to be in Dark Earth and Middle Stone but there is something about it that makes me think that this is a colourised black ‘n’ white image (look at the area beyond the tree to the right). Thanks @tonyot I’m going to try the 211 Squadron ORB page👍.

This aeroplane is beginning to bug me! I’ve been looking at on-line images of her and I’ve begun to spot more oddities. Starting with the aerial fit not only does she have the radalt aerials referred to earlier but, in no particular order, also sports a fine whip-style antenna pointing forwards and downwards below the nose, a blade aerial above the cockpit forward of the astrodome and the tuning-fork type antenna normally located there is moved aft of the astrodome. There are also two whip aerials aft of this on the cabin top and a pair of antenna wires leading from the fin to terminals on the upper fuselage near the astrodome. Finally, for now, there are three rod aerials under each wingtip similar to those seen on Shackleton. As far as I’ve found this fit isn’t typical of the RAF Dakota fleet. I can’t be certain from the images that I’ve found so far whether or not KN452 had the skin doublers on the front fuselage sides in line with the airscrews. It’s a bit of a pain getting these off but at least it is doable. One image that I have found shows ‘452 with the front half of the cargo door open and this appears to have some form of liner installed which was light grey in colour. There’s also a set of basic airline-style steps at the door suggesting, but not unequivocally demonstrating, that ‘452 was not simply a trash-hauling hack. That being the case the question now is, did she have an airline-style interior rather than the bare interior green trash-hauler interior that she was probably built with? I don’t doubt that I’ll find more oddities but, for now, if anyone has further thought or comments about this aeroplane I’d be delighted to hear them.

Try contacting Paul Fitzmaurice modelling-tools.com, formerly little-cars.com. He stocks a wide range of detailing materials and tools.

Thanks Mark. I’ve seen KN645 at Cosford and had considered modifying the kit to represent her but I need to get some more reference photos first (next time maybe) . I thought that I’d found an image of ‘452 wearing a Berlin Airlift number on the fin so there’s an excuse for a further web trawl😁😁. Do you know if ‘452 is still around?

I’d really like one of those (thinks: PR. 34 conversion!) but using the FB. VI as a basis you need a new front fuselage and cockpit, two stage engines with extended cowlings and deepened bomb bay but it would be so nice!

Thanks Antti, that’s brilliant. I didn’t really expect that KN452 had been an ELINT/COMINT platform but it was a fascinating possibility. I don’t recall seeing the air outlets on other Dakotas so I’m now off web-trawling to see if I can find some better images to work from to put them on my model. It must be great having the real thing handy as a reference.

Thanks JB; I had a bit of a step on the starboard side which is a pain because there’s a small raised panel immediately ahead of it, as you’ll well know.

I’ve just started building the Airfix kit intending to finish it as KN452. Thankfully there are a few images of this particular Dak on the internet, many showing her as depicted by the kit. Some of these images originate from the 50 Years of the RAF celebration at Abingdon in 1968 and, interestingly, show the serial number under the port wing painted “the wrong way round” reading from ahead of the aeroplane instead of from behind. Images taken at RAF Khormaksar the year before show the serial applied correctly. In all of the images of ‘452 that I’ve found to date, apart from those depicting her before her service in the Middle East, she appears to have the two small T-shaped radio altimeter aerials below the rear fuselage and two small “bumps” on the starboard side of the lower rear fuselage, one about eighteen inches ahead of the roundel and the other three to four feet forward of that. There’s a similar small bump almost directly below the trailing edge of the rear cargo door hinge on the port side (there may be another but I haven’t spotted it yet). My question, such as it is, is what is KN452’s history after the Berlin Airlift? Was she an ELINT/SIGINT platform during the airlift? Did she have a career other than as an/the RAFME “hack” requiring non-standard equipment, or was she a flying test bed or employed for navaid calibration? Your comments would be appreciated. Unfortunately I can’t find a copyright-free image at present showing these features.

Not here they’re not😥

Thanks for that; I hadn’t noticed. NF 36 maybe?

Jaguar cockpits are black (the forward half of the jets were built by the French, go figure!). It did, short fin, no RWR installation, unstepped tailplane trailing edges, no LRMTS “chisel” nose, no spine-mounted heat exchanger and some exciting but spurious underwing stores “shapes” but who cared? It was a kit of one of the RAF’s newest jets and, back then, nearly anything still seemed just about possible (apart from a reborn TSR 2).

This kit may be old and basic, but it is still the only mainstream kit of a Mosquito with two-stage engines in 1/72th scale. Airfix have been to Salisbury Hall a number of times over the last few years (prototype W4050 and B(TT) 35 TA634 there are both fitted with two-stage engines, as is TJ138 just “down the road” at Hendon) and hopefully took full advantage of the opportunity for some discreet measuring and documenting of at least one of those airframes. If they did maybe we can hope for at least one two-stage Mosquito in this year’s release programme (if it’s allowed to happen).

JB it really is very easy to get the intake ducts in the wrong way up; I nearly did it with mine and it was only several dry runs with the outer sections that convinced me that they were indeed the right way up. I’m a bit surprised that Airfix didn’t tool a lug and slot arrangement, as they did with the rear fuselage bulkhead in this kit, to avoid such an eventuality. As you’re building the kit with the wings folded intake blanks, and Smartie lids over the jet pipes, would be highly appropriate and add a splash of colour to your finished model. Please could you take a couple of photos of the front fuselage join below the cockpit? Mine’s been a complete horror to put together neatly: at the moment she’s a rampant filler queen and prospective Shelf of Doom resident.

That’s looking good Mark. On full-size Lancasters the walkway markings don’t go as far as the roundels but, for some strange reason, those currently applied to PA474 do go all the way. Yours don’t look that far out (“close enough for government work”) so hopefully we rivet-counters will leave you in peace over it. PS: thanks for being my 2,000th post on this site.😁👍

Thanks James. Sadly on crummy old Safari I’m denied that option. Further trawling coming up........

I’m certainly not impressed by the finish on that model, it looks like an escapee from West Malling’s fire dump! If I’d been 85 Squadron’s boss and found one of “my” aeroplanes out on the line looking like that I’d have been having a very one-sided conversation with the SNCO responsible for first-line servicing. Is there any way of getting that review translated? There isn’t an obvious “translate” button on the review page.

You can get the serials from a generic sheet such as those produced by Xtradecal. My Babibi sheet isn’t accessible at present (I’m planning to build an RAF example too) but I think you need 6 inch and eight inch characters.

Looking at the drawing Graham the axis of the cannon is about in line with the cockpit floor, which might well have provided a suitable piece of structure onto which to mount the cannon breech and ammunition feed. The undernose access hatch when open stands almost as high as the edge of the cockpit floor so the bomb aimed should be able to get down past the breech and then lay below the barrel (an interesting experience when the cannon was being fired I should think). Whatever else I cannot imagine the crews being enamoured of a weapons fit that, for most, would block their primary egress route in the event of an in-flight emergency. As always I stand to be erected if someone who has better information comes along. Why take out a turret with two 0.303s to replace it with one fixed 0.303 when you’re going to be attacking well-defended maritime or coastal targets? The more punch you have firing forwards the better in situations like that; anything with some serious clout to keep defending gunners’ heads down or take them out entirely. Fighter Command had been replacing pairs of 0.303s in Spitfires and Hurricanes with 20mm weapons to give fighters more clout so why not on maritime strike Wellingtons? It wouldn’t surprise me if the squadron’s armaments officer hadn’t been trying to work out a way of getting a pair of 20mm weapons in the aircraft.

I suspect that I’m not the only one looking forward to the re-issue of the 1/48th scale Airfix Bristol Blenheim Mk. I later this year. At present it looks as though the kit will come with markings for 211 Squadron RAF during the Greek campaign. I’ve wanted to model one of this unit’s aeroplanes since reading of their near-total annihilation by the Luftwaffe during the retreat from Greece in an edition of FlyPast many years ago. My my question relates to the colours worn by the Squadron’s aeroplanes, they’re usually depicted in Dark Earth, Middle Stone and Azure Blue, but when did Middle Stone come in to general use? The images that I’ve seen have a significant contrast between the two upper surface colours which suggests Dark Earth and Middle Stone, but is there any possibility that the lighter colour was Light Earth, which had been used for shadow shading on the lower wings and fuselages of biplanes and which would have been available in theatre?

It looks like you’ve got a double whammy on the window front there aced: the window apertures look like they’ve softened at the corners and part way along the sides due to mould wear and the windows themselves have lost definition around the edge flanges. I’ve found with some older kits that trimming the flanges off, or nearly so, can improve fit, but that you can also spend several (un)happy hours trying to shake them out of an assembled fuselage and the rescuing them from the carpet monster.

Thanks for that, I must have missed it in all the post-festive meh-ness.

@canberraman thanks for the potted history and some beautiful photos. I can still remember the front page photo on the Daily Rag of XS609’s demise. One point concerning the Avro 780 is that the engines were more powerful than those of the 748 and turned propellers of greater diameter. To avoid having to redesign the entire wing structure Avro simply extended the span of the centre section by three feet, if I remember correctly, and then cropped the wingtips by eighteen inches each side to retail the same overall span. @pigsty Definitely agreed on the desirability of an injection moulded mainstream Andover kit; I’d definitely be up for a couple or three. The main undercarriage of the 780 could “kneel” to allow small vehicles, e.g. Land Rovers, to be driven on or off via the rear ramp so obviating the need for ground-based ramps and allowing off-base operation or to allow loading and unloading of loose or palletised freight at truck bed height (or thereabouts)

Liam I’ve not seen that conversion article, but if you were to use a bubble-top Typhoon fuselage with the Hobbycraft wings complete with oil cooler and carburettor(?) air intake married to a wider centre section you could produce something approximating to a Mk. VI. Replacing the Sabre engine from the Typhoon kit with the Sea Fury’s Centaurus and swapping the wing root intakes around could get you close to a Mk. II, coupled with the modifications referred to above. I’m not sure how much commonality there is between the Tempest and Sea Fury tailplane but be prepared for some work there. If your starting point includes a Tempest kit you only really need the Sea Fury’s wing root intakes for a Tempest VI but for the Mk. II you’ll need the Sea Fury engine also, and to widen the front fuselage between cockpit and cowling so you don’t have huge openings at the back of the cowling. I’ve an idea that you’d need to crop the Tempest V (or Typhoon) propellor to suit the Mk. II.

“Jack up windscreen, insert new aeroplane.” springs to mind. Although it’s possible the question nowadays has to be “why?” when Eduard have released two versions of the Tempest V in the not-too-distant past. OK they haven’t yet announced kits of the Tempest II or VI, but I suspect they’ll announce those before much longer. If you can’t wait for that maybe combining an Eduard Tempest with the Hobbycraft Sea Fury could produce a Mk. II or VI could be made to work but the Typhoon probably wouldn’t yield much of use.