canberra kid

I've managed to squeeze a bit of bench time in today, I've added verious "black" boxes to the cockpit, all done with zinc to add more heft to the front end. I've also added the backing to forward ident light. I will add the fire extinguisher and asbestos gloves after painting, and the fold down occasional seat better known as the Rumbold seat. John

Only the prototype B.57G flew with Mechanics Inc ballistic seats all operational aircraft flew with ESCAPAC rocket seats. The RB.57F is less clear, the prototype definatly had the Mechanics Inc seats, I suspect the first two Pwee aircraft operating out Pakistan may have arrived with the ballistic seat but were retrofitted with the ESCAPAC seat when they were rotated through Fort Worth where they were brought up to production standard. In 1974 all the remaining Martin Canberra fleet were modified to use the ESCAPAC seat this included the remaining small number of RB.57A's. John

Thanks chaps, l just hope I can keep up the momentum, this project, in fact far too many of my more resent projects have ground to a juddering halt! So as it stands I'm more enthusiastic than I have been for a while. John

Right so, not a huge step forwerd but it brings to an end the alterations and amendments to the fuselage, my original plan was to have the bomb bay open but that changed, after realising if I didn't press on I would never get it built! So the doors were closed which require quite a lot of work with a file to reduce the over hang along the centre, this was quickly sorted with a big flat file. The next much smaller job was to add the opening for the front downward ident light between the bomb bay and nose wheel bay. Those two jobs done, I can now press on with furnishing the cockpit and getting the fusalage sealed up. John

OK, chap's I intend to pull my finger out (again) and crack on with this build, she's been hanging around far too long now!

Happy to help Steve, good luck which ever road you choose to follow, if you need any more info just shout. If you do track down an HP RB.57A I'd be interested in what is in the box, I did a Web search but it turned up nothing of use. As for the GD.RB.57F, you're right to avoid the Mack2 if you have the DB set. Good luck with it all, the world needs more Canberra's! John

No problem Steve, glad to help. The HP Canberra family are good acurate and well resurched kits. So far as I know, you have two options for the Martin Canberra from HP, the RB.57A and RB,57D of the two I only have experience with the D. You could use the D as your base for the F, just like General Dynamics did. As for the A, I've not seen the kit first hand but given the quality of the D I can't see any issues with shape and basic detail, but, I would be interested to know if they got the cockpit interior changes for the Martin A model Canberra and the gun access panels on wings, and if so are they the correct pattern? They are not an easy build, but in the case of the F it wouldn't be as hard or as bad as the Mack2 F which was inspired (ripped off from) by the Italeri B.57. The photo is, left to right, Mack2 WB.57F, HP RB.57D, Italeri B.57B. John

@Sierra Tango Steve, More details John

@Sierra Tango Steve, some photos, I'll dig out some detaild mesurments later. The Fusalage, the good news, it's spot on for length, 10 7/8th inches. I'me comparing it with the "new" Airfix B.(I)8 wich is good in shape and size. (It will be interseting to see how it mesures up o the new B.2) The wing is 3/16th on an inch too far back. You can see from the above and below photo where the main issue is, perhaps the pastic is thick enough to thin down to the correc profile? But it's going to be very thin after. The wings, These are another problem are as you can see, span is OK, but it's too narrow in chord, and the aileron's are too small. The wing in grey primer is a re-scribed Italeri wing. I hope this gives you an idea. John

8@Sierra Tango Hi Steve, Indeed my site is no more, I may get around to rebuilding it at some point. So to your question. I'll start to put together some info for you. I have never tried to correct the Italeri Canberra, the only time I've built an acurate Martin Canberra was Otherwise I've just built the kit out of the box and lived with it, it does look like a Martin Canberra when built. As you may well already have seen, rather than trying to correct the Italeri fuselage I chose to go down a diferant route. The A model is a diferant thing all together, you may be better off hanging on for the new Airfix Canberra and robbing some parts from the Italeri kit. This is my 1/48 EB.57A build, it would follow the same steps for 1/72 I don't know if the photos will show as my photo bucket as gone. John

Hi Wez, Yea, ARI has appeared, what I think I'll do is go back to book one and read the text, if I can spot a change it will be an amendment so that dhould give a clue to the date. John

@boutdhomme Hi Oliver, it took some finding, but I have these two, the first is XR219 the black and white one is a trials mock up, you can just see the hole in the top of the instrument shroud wher the HUD projector lens wuld be fitted on the production aircraft. I hope these help? John

Well, I've drawn a blank with a date for the radio radar mod's the best I can offer are the following, there is a date in the top left of the page wich gives a date for the drawing. John

@plasticmasher & @Wez I've had a look in my two volumes of B.6/B.(I)6 Mod's AP's nothing of use in them regards this question unfortunately, they must be coverd in another volume that I haven't got, but all is not lost! I have the Canberra all Mk.'s mod AP and B.6 B.(I)6 AP vol one with radio and radar sections so, if it calls out a mod number I should be able to cross check, that's the good news the bad news is not all the mod's have dates. I'm off down to West Raynham this weekend so I won't have a chance to look it all up, but I will in the coming week. John

Thanks @Gogser1