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The Most Famous Lancaster of Them All? Or Keeping Up with Upkeep I present G-George. Not the old Airfix one but Revell’s Dambuster of around 1964. And not straight from the box but as the star of 1955’s film, which must now have been seen by millions more than any of the surviving airframes. I remember seeing this kit in one of our local toyshops back in the 70’s and thinking the bomb was wrong – it didn’t look like the one in the film! Great artwork though! Why did I go down this route? Firstly I am obviously mad, as pointed out by my colleagues in IPMS Romsey, and apparently prefer to resurrect these manky old kits than state of the art ones. Secondly as I’m not much into preshading or interiors, the new kit’s benefits are somewhat wasted on me and the old one is bound to be simpler. Isn’t it? Thirdly, I gradually came to the conclusion that Revell’s kit seems to have been based on the film as much as the previously secret Dambuster info, first released in Bruce Robertson’s 1964 book “Lancaster – The Story of a Famous Bomber”. Admittedly my evidence is somewhat circumstantial: the 3 film planes were modified by Avro – as they had to fly I can’t imagine they invented new fairings, as that would have required expensive aerodynamic design work, those on the film stars seem a good match except for the bomb’s drive system (a fourth B.Mk.7 was used unmodified for shots needing a standard Lancaster). Just for good measure this kit has the rear fairing similar to that on the Airfix kit whilst the newer Revell version has a flat ramp! the kit has paddle blades the kit decals show AJ-G with wider squarer post-war style letters as per the film rather than taller round-bottom letters (but the box art looks more wartime style!) the kit instructions call for “light blue” spinners Okay, its hardly conclusive and Revell obviously didn’t go much beyond the basics of modifying their ordinary Lanc kit. Interestingly the kit includes the early ventral turret, which was probably only on McCarthy’s machine, as he took a spare aircraft that had only just arrived at Scampton. Obviously there are other changes needed to make the film plane as it was a post-war B.Mk.7 rather than a real Type 464 which were early-ish production modified. As I went for a character sketch not all were adopted in the model, but here’s my shortlist: Different aerials at the front end (didn’t bother) Two bigger MGs in the rear turret (okay technically it should be a completely different turret with twin 50’s – I just omitted 2 guns, which are the size of 20mm cannons on the kit anyway) Fill the side windows (recesses on the ancient kit – a couple need to be made into “proper” windows) Open up windows near the Nav’s and bomb-aimer’s stations Sort out the ventral turret area Infill the bomb drive recesses Exhaust stubs – frustratingly the other two film planes (acting as P-Popsy and M-Mother) retained shrouds which are on the kit! I liberated the exhausts from a new-tool Revell Lanc. As to the bomb, in various books it has been described as inaccurate in the film. Okay it’s just a dummy, but I think they actually followed the earlier outline with the spheroidal casing. This would make sense as the wartime films used would match this better, as any showing the cylindrical mine only came available many years later. The shape would also match for Avro’s aerodynamic calculations. Conveniently and artistically, it also stuck out more so would be more obvious in the film. Anyway this gave me some geometry to start with to make my “bomb” – out of balsa laminates. Halfway through my build I found a book in the library “Post-War Lancasters in Military Service” which (finally) provided a view of the movie Upkeep from the front. This pretty much confirmed my earlier assumption that the shape is the original Upkeep “wood-barrel” shape, with no driving gear. For visual enhancement on the film I think they dropped it further down to be more prominent, at least I shimmed it down on mine for that reason. As to the colour scheme, the film was black and white and any making of colour pictures I’ve found seem to have been colourised rather than be original. One of these making of photos shows the film crew by a Lanc with red/white/blue roundels on the upper surface, and another with Richard Todd shows that the underwing serials have been rather obviously blanked out. Similarly on the port side below the cockpit of “G” there is heavy wear, perhaps some nose-art had been removed? Only Gibson’s (Todd’s) aircraft was serialled as the original and the overmarking is again obvious – from the photos it seems only on the door side, presumably for the sequence replicating the famous pre-raid photo?. Later shots show wartime style B roundels on the upper surface, however the disruptive pattern of the dark green is hardly period-authentic. And the camouflage contrast seems much greater and the background lighter than in wartime photos of Lancasters in Dark Earth / Dark Green. So I was left wondering if they just painted a Dark Green pattern over the post-war Bomber Command grey over black? I initially couldn’t decide whether that would be too weird to model at the time. That same library book confirmed my earlier suspicion that the colours (it even has a plan and profile) were grey / green rather than brown / green so in the end I decided to adopt that scheme. It certainly makes a different look for the Lancaster. I used the upper wing transfers from the kit though on the real planes red/blue proportions were a bit all over the place where they repainted the post war markings. One thing that isn’t in doubt from photos is that the film planes had coloured spinners, I wasn’t sure whether blue or red as neither seemed to match the roundels, but then the Revell instructions settled my decision. Until someone proves otherwise! Oh yes and whilst the original planes were almost brand new, those in the film had been around a while, probably unloved and overlooked in the heroic new jet-age RAF. In the first shots where Richard Todd appears as Gibson you can see the crusty flaking paint around the cockpit. So I guess some weathering would have been in order. The actual building of the kit wasn’t any more demanding than usual. The slightly odd-proportioned Revell crew are present, and I tried to represent Todd in his shirtsleeves and German life-vest (Gibson wore one as a souvenir of his night-fighting period, as did some other RAF pilots, supposedly they were more comfortable). Manually flying a 30-ton plane for hours at very low-level* was warm work. Filling used up half a tube of Squadron Green. Mostly this was due to the modifications, particularly infilling the side window divots and around the bomb bay insert. The kit parts fitted together reasonably well, though the breakdown of parts meant a bit (a lot) of filling required around the engine nacelles. Of course most of the green putty was then sanded off along with many of the rivets. As its more of a character sketch of the film plane I decided not to rescribe the lost “detail”. Masking the canopies was just tape and time-consuming. I just followed the moulded lines, though these are not very prototypical. It looks reasonably Lancaster-like but I think I’ll try a different method than cutting out tape for individual panes next time. I found that another Britmodeller had built a film Dambuster, though approached some of the mods differently. He had suspended the model via Perspex searchlight beams so I decided to investigate this aspect further. I couldn’t see any signs of the famous height-lights on any photos of the film aircraft. So in a flash of genius I watched the film (again) and discovered…no lights! This seems to be how they do it on each test or bomb run: Long shot of plane running in – no lights, lots of “tracer” Close up of a spotlight turning on Straight down view of two lighted circles merging to figure 8 shape Long shot of plane running in – still no lights, lots of “tracer” Great, one less mod needed. A major benefit of the way this kit is designed is that you can keep the wings, fuselage and tail all separate until the last moment. This makes handling, masking and painting much easier. All these joints are quite stiff so it would almost be feasible to go without glue! I went for a flying aspect to show off the plane’s modifications better; initially with plan B, an old Airfix stand, but the plastic was somewhat brittle so now the stand is wood with a reduced size film poster alongside when displayed. Despite its rough standard, the model achieved a highly commended in the group’s annual competition – I was well chuffed as I’m usually tail-end Charlie. It would be interesting to do a full-spec version with a modern kit, I believe the latest Airfix Dambuster kit includes the B.Mk.7 parts for “Just Jane” NX611. But in the meantime I think I’ll go for something with less engines next…and a lot less canopy masking Cheers Will *PS I’m sure we all know that 617 had to bomb from 60 feet. When the RAF crews flew over the dams and reservoirs at this height for the film they were told it didn’t look low enough. So they went even lower; if you look at stills or the film you can see they are considerably lower than half a wingspan so possibly only at 30 – 40 feet! Quite an achievement, even if they were flying in daylight with filters on the cameras to simulate moonlight.