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Short Stirling Mk V


Ed Russell

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Italeri have released their Mk IV Stirling and plan to do a Mk I and III. Being the contrary person that I am, I rather fancy a Mk V which should be a relatively easy conversion from the Mk IV.

I like the overseas transport camouflage with its Azure Blue undersides so this one is a possibility.

It's either WW2 or only just post-war, depending which profile artist you believe.

Here it is as PJ996 (1588 Flt, India) from the Squadron/Signal book (Don Greer)

15582609502_21176025ca_b.jpg

and here it is as PJ985 (158 Sqn, UK )from the Wings Palette site (Jon Freeman)

15395148989_8c3ac5ab43_b.jpg

I can't find a photo and even without the contradictions between them I wouldn't build it from a profile as i never regard them as trustworthy without a picture.

So, can anyone resolve these contradictions - there must be a photo somewhere and the attribution may be partially correct in both profiles.

I see that there are conversions for the Mk V from Magna and Heritage Aviation. One is considerably more expensive than the other. The HA one looks pretty basic

http://www.kitsforcash.com/short-stirling-mk--v-164-p.asp

and I can't find a picture of the Magna one.

Are they worth having?

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Hiya Ed,

When I refurbished my old Airfix C.Mk.V conversion I looked everywhere for photos of this same Stirling as I fancied this one too,....but failed miserably so went for another aircraft without squadron codes.

I`ve got the Magna civil Liberator conversion and it is quite nice, so as the Stirling is of a similar vintage and comes with decals etc I`d certainly not write it off. I used an old `Flying High' conversion which may be similar to the Heritage conversion and it was pretty basic,.......but the resin used by Heritage is generally nicer than the powdery style of resin used by Magna,........without actually seeing both sets though I cannot really comment on either.

Cheers

Tony

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The serial is PJ996. There's a postage stamp-sized photo of PJ996 DK-H on p.307 of Michael Bowyer's book "The Stirling Story". No picture credit is given unfortunately so there's no way of finding the source. Serials were dull red, codes black so the Wings Palette profile looks closest apart from having the wrong serial number.

I can send you a scan if you PM me your email address.

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  • 1 year later...
  • 6 years later...

I have found this old thread and want to share with my doubts. The Stirling PJ856 MK V photos from that archive https://www.flickr.com/photos/sdasmarchives/8663878744/in/photostream/ (expolre few next photos left from that) is usually described as heavily weathered example of TSS from top plus Azur from bottom, as it should for a long distance Trnasport Command machine at the war end. 

However, the grey is truly all rather bright, underside has no shade of any blue at all and green look not that bad weathered.  The description is that photo was taken in 1944 (in India) so the machine was very fresh since the production of mk V is said to start in 1944. .  If I will not know that it should be EDSG/DSG/Azur  i would rather see a Mosquito style scheme Medium Sky Grey/ DK Green.... As far as I remember at least one Wellington use at late war time for some recce missions was interpreted to have this mostly Mosquito-style scheme (photo is I think in "Geodetic Giant" book). I know that I am a bit heretic here, but could such scheme be justified in some way? For Stirling???

Regards

J-W

EDIT - when I enlarged I can see blue on bottom of fuselage... So apparently my hypo failed...

 

 

 

Edited by JWM
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