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bharris

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Everything posted by bharris

  1. Finally sorted out the oil cooler mystery. There are two Airfix kits with Mk II options out of the box (the MkI/IIa A02010 and MkVa/II), and I have both. Comparing the instruction sheets comes up with the following: The first has a Mk II from May 1941 The second has a Mk II from September 1940. In neither case do the instructions say that the oil cooler should be different from the main subject (ie that on the box art). So... out of the box the early Mk II uses the Mk V oil cooler, and the late Mk II uses the Mk I oil cooler!!! Might I suggest that these fittings be reversed if you're building a Mk II from these kits. Given the Airfix instructions cover other differences between the Mk II and the other option, I don't know how they missed this one not once but twice.
  2. Red Roo here in Oz does some: https://www.redroomodels.com/high-planes-models/hedgehog-exhausts-for-beaufighter-x2-172/
  3. But they include in the instructions fitting the Rotol prop for the Mk II. Curiouser and curiouser...
  4. Just bought this kit today. The plastic is the same as the Mk I/II kit - ie it has the supplementary sprue with the props and the clear sprue with flat and bulged canopies. A couple of things I find puzzling: 1. with a cost-conscious company, why did they decide to go from a Mk Va kit to a Mk Va/II kit, given it meant including these extra sprues? Even without the Bader option, they could still have released it as a Series I model with the single Va marking option. Or is it something to do with the canopies? 2. while the instructions tell you to use the appropriate prop on each version, both options use the same oil cooler. I thought the MkI/II and MkV oil coolers were different, and the kit includes both.
  5. The reason they can't do this at the moment is that they don't know which moulds are usable. Here's a reply from Airfix on the airfix tribute forum: "KitStarter is a completely new concept and we are currently in the first stage of testing the moulds in the archive. Unfortunately as the cleaning and testing is quite a lengthy process we haven't been able to compile a full list of the tools that are available. While we will continue to clean and test all the moulds we can, those that are widely requested here on the Forum will be bumped up the list." Plenty I'm interested in (notably Bristol Freighter) but yes freight from UK to Australia would probably stuff it up...
  6. It goes together quite nicely for its age. There's one other error that I didn't attempt to correct - the wheel wells should be much closer together in the middle. But that's major surgery...
  7. Early stealth technology! Seriously, I put the post up, then realised I'd forgotten how to display photos! Then it was tea time... Now all fixed up.
  8. Being a sucker for kits of unusual aircraft, I bought this in Revell boxing at a show for A$5 a couple of years back. Turned out to be a repop of the old Lindberg kit from the mid-'60s! As such the panel lines and rivets looked like they came out of a shipyard. Having had one attempt at fully rescribing a model and deciding "never again!" I left those, but did a few things to improve it: - the radiator bath was too far to the rear, being moulded integrally with the wing! I removed the old one, filled in the resulting gap, then made up a new one from plastic card and located it further forward. - the carby intake on the port wing root was missing - fabricated same - sanded down the main undercarriage doors to decent thickness (they looked like armour plate!), and made new inner and tailwheel doors from plastic card. Finally, added retraction links to the main undercarriage - drilled holes for the wing-mounted guns, and added pitot tube and radio mast - the big one... The windows behind the canopy were modelled as raised outlines in the fuselage plastic! I cut this section of the fuselage away and replaced it with a piece of clear sheet bent to shape after running under hot water, then masked out the windows. Painting was mostly Italeri acrylics - RLM 71 over 65. Rigging was EZ-line.
  9. I've seen the subject mentioned a couple of times in this enormous thread, but what is the current feeling on the use of mats in *heavy bombers*? Were they used or because of unwieldiness of big mats were the patterns sprayed freehand?
  10. (revival of old thread) Actually it looks to me a lot like Barnes Wallis' original Victory Bomber proposal, but with four engines instead of six. Nose looks a lot like the high-altitude Wimpeys (mk V/VI?). But yeah, it does look odd...
  11. Dragon/CyberHobby have released a 1/72 Sea Vixen.
  12. Gosh, now Airfix for 2014 will do a Swift, how about a Blackburn Botha for 2015 and a retooled Fairey Battle for 2016? ;-)
  13. I read once that one observer on an RAF station, on first sight of a Phantom, asked if it had been delivered upside down! Must say that while to me it's not a pretty aircraft, it has the sort of pugnacious "Don't come across me in dark alley..." vibe of a Typhoon (old one) or Beaufighter! Certainly purposeful.
  14. Lancaster MkI/III/X obvious. Could we hope for a Manchester? Or a Halifax III to show Revell how to do a Halibag?
  15. G'day all from a cold Canberra (city that is, not bomber :-) ) I have the Airfix gift set of Vulcan XH558. I understand I have to change the exhaust nozzles to those of an Olympus 200 (I was thinking of using the Freightdog resin set). I also have replacement main wheels. Are there any other aftermarket goodies people would recommend? I know there's wheel well details but I'm not fussed - I won't be displaying it upside down :-( I'm mainly wondering about aftermarket intakes - what is the problem with the Airfix ones? Thanks! Malcolm
  16. Daniel, thanks for some fascinating information, especially on the mines. I assume mission markings would have just been the normal bomb icons (or would they have used ice cream cones for the Italian raids, as per Phantom of the Ruhr?). Any idea what nose are might have been? cheers, Malcolm
  17. Are you sure you're talking about ED799 and not another WS-G? From the 9 Squadron ORB the aircraft only completed ten ops and was lost in April 1943.
  18. At local model club (ACT Scale modellers's club) swap meet tonight weakened and bought one for A$5, complete but not in original box and with some transfers used on another kit. Yes I know the academy kit is much better, but I built one of these in 1966 (had problems with fuselage fit even then!) and it's a cheap nostalgia trip!
  19. There's also speculation that AJ-T was the only one with a ventral gun fitted. And you're right, none of them should have H2S.
  20. Merlin 20: Takeoff: 1,280 hp (954 kW) at 3,000 rpm Merlin 24, as used in BI (special), ie Grand Slam aircraft, and Mk VII (from Wikipedia, quoting Lumsden) take-off: 1,610 hp (1,201 kW) at 3,000 rpm combat: 1,510 hp (1,126 kW) at 3,000 rpm, +18 psi (124 kPa) boost, 9,250 ft (2,819 m) Hercules VI: 100/130 grade fuel (as per an earlier post of mine). Takeoff: 1615hp @ 2900rpm, +8.25psi Normal: 1400hp @ 2400rpm, +6psi @ 4,750ft (MS) 1,300 @ 2400rpm, +6psi @ 13,500ft (FS) You can see that at take-off the Hercules had almost 20% more power than the contemporary Merlin 20, and as much as the engine used on the Grand Slam Lancasters! So I could imagine that "off the deck" (before altitude and drag slowed things down) they would eat a MkI/III. 20,000ft sounds like pretty much the absolute limit of a BII with a bomb load - he would have been pushing things to get up that high!
  21. Here's some figures comparing the Merlin and Hercules: Hercules, http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/aviation/bristol-hercules-how-many-hp-altitude-34369.html, post 7, quoting Lumsden's "British Piston Engines and their Aircraft": Hercules VI: 100/130 grade fuel Takeoff: 1615hp @ 2900rpm, +8.25psi Normal: 1400hp @ 2400rpm, +6psi @ 4,750ft (MS) 1,300 @ 2400rpm, +6psi @ 13,500ft (FS) Maximum: 1750hp @ 2800rpm, +8.25psi @ 6,500ft (MS) 1545hp @ 2800rpm, +8.25psi @ 15,500ft (FS) Merlin XX, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Rolls-Royce_Merlin_variants: Takeoff: 1,280 hp (954 kW) at 3,000 rpm Combat: 1,490 hp (1,111 kW) at 3,000 rpm, +16 psi (110 kPa) boost, with 100 Octane fuel at 12,500 ft (3,810 m). Other stats: Displacement: Hercules 38.7l, Merlin 27l. Weight: Hercules: 875kg, Merlin 687kg. But by the time you added the cooling system to the Merlin I imagine the weight of the complete power system would be much the same. So: (1) the volumetric efficiency of the Merlin was much better than the Hercules, notably at altitude where it could use higher boost (was this because it was a liquid cooled engine?) (BTW - I thought one advantage of sleeve valves as in the Hercules was higher volumetric efficiency?) (2) the Hercules gives much higher takeoff power, but the power drops off at altitude whereas that of the Merlin actually increases (3) at medium altitude the Hercules can produce marginally *more* power, but the greater drag of the Hercules would be telling against it. Now it gets interesting - here's the figures for the later Hercules 100, only fitted to the Halifax Mk VI, taken from the ww2aircraft post: Hercules 100: 100/130 grade fuel Takeoff: 1675hp @ 2800rpm, +8.25psi Normal: 1515hp @ 2400rpm, +6psi @ 7,750ft (MS) 1,415 @ 2400rpm, +6psi @ 16,500ft (FS) Maximum: 1800hp @ 2800rpm, +8.25psi @ 9,000ft (MS) 1625hp @ 2800rpm, +8.25psi @ 19,500ft (FS) So takeoff power is only marginally up on the Hercules VI, but the altitude performance is substantially better. Differences were (post 14): "Revised cylinder heads with more fins, a revised crankcase, bigger main bearings in addition to a new supercharger." In other words, a new supercharger with the engine cooling system and mechanicals beefed up to match the extra power. Interesting comment at post 15: "Apparently early Hercules engines had a very poorly designed supercharger inlet and/or outlet design which choked the airflow. When Sir Stanley Hooker joined Bristol after the war he felt that the Bristol engine design team still didnt understand airflow properly." So it sounds like the original Hercules supercharger was a dud, and a decent one in the Hercules 100 was all that was needed to give it decent altitude performance.
  22. From what I've seen of the Tallboy bulged doors, they stood proud at the rear of the bomb bay presumably to clear the Tallboy's fins. However, the Blockbusters didn't have fins and were the same diameter as the normal 4,000lb Cookie. I can't see how you'd have any problem fitting the 8,000 lb bomb in the standard bomb bay, so were bulges only required for the 12,000lb version? Re. the Halifax, I read somewhere that at least with the Mk I and II even to carry the Cookie the bomb bays couldn't be fully closed! You raise yet another question - were aircraft (Halifax or Lancaster) with H2S ever fitted with bulged doors, ie were they mutually exclusive?
  23. According to http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/weapons_lancaster_II.html, "By the end of 1943 the Lancaster Mk II was being phased out....By D-Day only two squadrons (Nos. 514 and 408) were still using the Lancaster II" So they survived well into H2S times.
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