wellsprop

Excellent work capturing the Spitfire's elegance!

I really fancy an Avia S-92, don't tempt me!

Cheers Yep, it was certainly the material science side and lack of strategic metals (in fact, the metals they really needed didn't exist) that most hampered the Me262 - ultimately the fighter-bomber redesign was a fairly simple design exercise adding bomb racks! The real problem was getting engines to work. I read the book "Frank Whittle" by Icon Science last week, that had some fantastic detail on the troubles faced by British engineers producing reliable jet engines. Unfortunately, the HP Compressor had a tendency to rip itself apart due to RPM's in the tens of thousands and temperatures in many hundreds! In Germany, these problems were compounded by strategic bombing seriously hampering supply of metals.

Great looking Beaufighter!

I also seem to have created a little bit of a fleet of German aircraft in RAF/RAE service! IMGP0087 by Ben Standen, on Flickr IMGP0088 by Ben Standen, on Flickr

Hi All, I've FINALLY finished university after 4 seemingly long years. During my exam revision period, I took some downtime to read Eric Brown's "Wings on my Sleeve"; reading his book, combined with what I have been studying in the Applied Aerodynamics module inspired this build. From the end of the 19th century to the early 20th century, German scientists, aerodynamicists and engineers pioneered aerodynamics research, particularly boundary layer and transonic/supersonic analysis methods. Their expertise allowed Germany to create high-performance aircraft, such as the Me262, that were vastly superior to the Allied offerings. All of this against a backdrop of constant bombardment, poor (forced) labour and lack of high-performance materials is a testament to the true design genius that lay behind the Me262. Indeed, many German engineers were scooped up after the war by NACA and NASA to work on US aerospace projects. All of this taken into account, it can only be a good thing that poor decisions by Nazi high-command led to the Me262 being operational in too few numbers to have a significant impact on the outcome of the Second World War. Built from the 1/72 Airfix kit, it's a little rough around the edges as I was far more concerned about exams than making a perfect model - I did, however, add wire aerials and re-make the (I assume an aerial) loop out of flattened wire, along with using a needle as a pitot. IMGP0086 by Ben Standen, on Flickr IMGP0085 by Ben Standen, on Flickr IMGP0084 by Ben Standen, on Flickr IMGP0083 by Ben Standen, on Flickr IMGP0083 by Ben Standen, on Flickr IMGP0081 by Ben Standen, on Flickr I'm sure there are plenty of inaccuracies in my model, but I'm not too worried! Cheers, Ben

Fantastic work

Fantastic looking Spitfire!

Well, that title certainly grabbed my attention! Great looking Spitfire

Three real beauties there!

Hi Ant, It's totally up to you in my mind - add as much or as little as you want! Here's a beautiful example of a massive amount of detail, looks excellent to me! And here's my effort I made a couple years back To be honest, as "standard", I add seatbelts, gunsights and aerials (all made from scratch) for 1/72 models. Cheers, Ben

Thanks for the info David! Would you suggest that the colour scheme presented here is reasonably accurate? Airfix's kit has a model showing 111002 with RLM 82 and 81 but the contrast between the two colours is much greater. Based on you mentioning the RLM 82 is somewhat darker, and how it appears from images, I'm thinking about mixing a little RLM 83 into the 82 to make it a bit darker. I'll apply that all over the upper surfaces, then dry brush some RLM 81 on. Some sources say the came was applied over the Reich Defence bands - I have yet to ascertain the accuracy of this. Ben

Any Academy kit, surely?!

Not sure whether to paint the decals myself (freehand semi-rough) or use a type decals from the spares.

Thanks for the responses chaps! The good news is, I'm not too worried about being 100% accurate - I just want something that looks reasonably correct I'm going to settle with RLM83 over the top - 82 looks much to light and garish. I believe the aircraft is, in fact, W Nr 112372, Red 2 - based on the resources I've found online. If it isn't, I'm not particularly bothered! As for the markings, I'm really not sure what size/colour they are. Seems to have type D roundel dimensions (seems 32") but with, I presume, type C colours. The fin flash is also type C. I'm going to go with type C colours, but non-standard dimensions. Ben