Test Graham

It's to come with the Dakota in a common boxing, I believe. Check on Airfix.com?

The camouflage scheme had multiple purposes: the colours were chosen to reduce the contrast with the background. The patterns were designed to break up the straight lines, edges of the aircraft and the "chevrons" on the wings point in different directions. So you have concealment, deception and confusion together. I don't suppose anyone ever thought they made the aircraft invisible - but every little helps.

Don't compare them to other paints, that's how errors are multiplied and become established. Compare them to the original references, as much as is possible. Merrick's paint chips were prepared by the original paint manufacturers using their records.

They are indeed called mass balances. There's an awful failure case called "flutter". This was first recognised on one of the Parnell biplanes, which tore itself apart to everyone's initial mystification. What happens is that the aerodynamic forces and the structural forces create a resonance: the control surface will begin to vibrate at such a high frequency that it will rip itself off the aircraft and likely take the tail with it. This is minimised by having enough of the weight (mass) forward of the hinge point. This is what happened to Typhoons - the engine vibration caused metal fatigue in the arm of the mass balance, which broke. Whereupon at the right (or wrong) combination of speed and altitude the elevator fluttered and the entire tail came off. You can also see a large balance at the base of the fin, called a horn balance. (I started typing before the postings above)

Don't go by Tamiya, go by the colour chips in the rear of books such as those by Ken Merrick and Michael Ullman. Graugrun is an invented term: the RLM did not give name to their paints.

Andy Saunders' book Spitfire on the restoration of P9374 GR.J has no suggestion of non-standard red centres to the roundel on 92 Sq.'s aircraft. There were some Spitfires build with non-standard roundel centres, but I don't recall the details. They are probably in the Ducimus booklet, if anyone has it handy.

It wasn't used in Korea. Look for the Il.10.

They shouldn't be green. There was some confusion with the name Greengrau given to 74 - NOT by the Germans - and Squadron Signal took to presenting their Bf109s and Fw190s in colours like the RAF scheme of the time. But a green 75 appear to be original to Gunze... There are lots of other paint ranges with 74/75 - Xtracolours and WEM Colourcoats are the ranges I'm most familiar with. From the sound of it any combination of dark and medium greys would be better than what you've got.

I'm not asking who wanted the scheme - it seems clear that both did, at least for the Western Desert. The point I was raising was that it was some time between the ruling being made by the AM and scheme being "fully" adopted in the field. Some Hurricanes and Blenheims do appear in the scheme early but others clearly don't. There doesn't seem to have been any "change now!" ruling to squadrons in the front line, nor any consistent campaign to repaint examples in MUs (or ASPs?) - which may have been partially a matter of the shortage of aircraft not allowing the necessary time. The sheer time taken to ship aircraft to West Africa was obviously an influence, particularly on the Tomahawks which also were delayed by engine problems. Nick's query as to why they didn't just use Light Earth is perhaps most relevant in this interim period.

Mark: Or is it just very faded Dark Earth? As for the dates, the AM may have described this in December 1940 but there is absolutely no doubt that aircraft kept arriving in the ME for some six months in TLS. It is worth remembering that the ME command covered a much wider area than the Western Desert, although obviously that's what we tend to concentrate on. Palestine and the arc of the "Fertile Crescent" are greener. Malta didn't like the Desert Scheme either. Chaddy: The majority of the photos in the book are perfectly convincing as TLS. As indeed are the two close-ups of VT.G. There are just a few examples that strongly suggest otherwise, and heavily faded TLS remains an option, if to be considered carefully rather than too vigorously. A check on just how standardised the Blenheim patterns were could influence our thinking, but there's always the odd one out (at least) as far as the colour allocations are concerned. I'm re-reading Shores' Vol 1 at the moment, and the Blenheims do seem to be all in TLS before August 1941 or thereabouts, but I must admit I wasn't checking too carefully.

For the Halifax, there's an old set by Ken Merrick from Aeromodeller, and a slightly less ancient set of the Merlin variant by Alfred Grainger, but I'm not sure how good they'd be for sections. You might be better contacting the Yorkshire Air Museum because for their Halifax they had nose and tail sections built from scratch, so must have had access to decent drawings. The other source would be the Handley Page Association: Harry Fraser-Mitchell was keen on modelling and has been a great help in the past. He has been ill recently, however. The HP archives may be held by the RAF Museum, but I'd try through the HPA first. More generally, look for the old or the new books from Ken Merrick. The civil Halifaxes have been regularly featured in aircraft magazines: I'll dig some out next week and let you have copies of the schemes.

This is one of the photos in the book. I think the T is just lost against the camouflage colour rather than being over-painted. There is a high contrast between the upper-surface colours in two of the views of VT.G - counting this as one of those - but in the other two which are both close-ups there's much less contrast. (Yes, I have found a fourth photo of this aircraft.) However, the darker colour is "exchanged" in views of at least one, possibly two or more other photos of Blenheims. This could imply a repaint on K7095 (Mid Stone over the Dark Green) but the low contrast picture casts severe doubt on this. This kind of exchange is also seen on Greek Blenheims, so it may have been a feature of Blenheim production - I haven't looked at enough Blenheims to have any opinion. It's also a little early for the Desert Scheme, which is dated as being from August 1941 in Shores' new Vol. 1 on the Desert War with its appearance on Tomahawks - though I think (pretty sure) some Hurricanes predate that. Not in this book is the photo of 211 Sq Blenheim wreck in Greece which is normally interpreted as being in the Desert scheme. For the collector of odd camouflage pictures. there's an FAA Swordfish with very high contrast upper-surface colours. The very dark ring around the roundel (yellow) suggests this is another example of the extreme effect of ortho film (and a certain filter?) on the Temperate Sea Scheme, as noted elsewhere on the famous Skua/Ark Royal photo and the less well-publicised view of Faith in its final days.

I don't think diecast and plastic/resin occupy exactly the same market place, but they overlap. Certainly for 1/144 airliners, long the classic subjects for 1/144 scale whether diecast, injected plastic, vac forms or resin. I see the civil Halifax variants as the one major omission. Much of the work for a civil Halifax will of course carry over for a military model. Fitting into a similar multi-design slot you have the Wellington/Viking/Valetta/Varsity. I'd prefer a Hastings myself. PS there is the very recent Amodel 1/144 Lancaster and Lancastrian, so despite its popularity I'd avoid that one. Certainly as far as an initial resin subject. However following that line, I suspect a Shackleton might be popular.

I'd like an HP Halton, with options for a civil C Mk.VIII. It would go well with the earlier Corgi 1/144 postwar airliners.

Neither. MPM is a big distribution company who established a short-run production company which released kits under a number of different brand names, Karo-As being perhaps the first. MPM was initially the most common but more recently Special Hobby has been the most prolific. You could get different versions of the same kit under different brand names. Eduard is completely separate, and their products are generally a cut (or two) above the short-run companies..

Olive Drab over Neutral Grey is certainly the most likely - you will probably need an Emerson turret. Details of the various noses, which existed in astonishing variety, are to be found in MMP's Consolidated Mess. I'll dig it out later and edit this posting should I find anything useful. You might prefer not to bother. I don't know which noses are represented by the various kits - I presume you are using an Academy or Hasegawa rather than the more elderly attempts. Air Britain's Liberator in RAF and Commonwealth Service doesn't quote a code for KG942. The following aircraft KG943 was a Mk.VIII and a photo shows it in RAF Bomber Command colours. However that served with 614 Sq which was I believe a pathfinder unit: most of the RAF and SAAF Liberators were indeed in the standard US colours. Edit: KG942 was built as 44-10445 by Consolidated Fort Worth, and was a B-24J-45-CF. As such she had an Emerson turret but retained inward-retracting nose-wheel doors. The nose arrangement is fairly simple with a smooth side and one flush large vertical side window. If you don't already know about it, Jim Auton's autobiography RAF Liberator over the Eastern Front includes his time as a bomb-aimer with 178 Sq. It's a rather more forthright tale than the usual list of heroic endeavours. Photos show 178 Sq Liberators in OD/NG.

If you look at the car paint range of any manufacturer you will find a range of whites. (Strictly a historical comment based on experience - I haven't looked on the shelves recently!)

There was a topic, here or perhaps elsewhere, on the appearance of 30 Sq Blenheims in the Middle East early or pre-WW2. I've looked in the usual suspects, but have been unable to find it. So here's what I've to say, in the hope that the right person is reading it! Brian Cull's new book "Blenheims Over Greece and Crete" has three photos of VT.G K7095. This is in fighter fit - 30 Sq operated both with the respective numbers fluctuating as the unit's role changed from bomber to local defence. I interpret the photo as showing a faded Temperate Land Scheme but that's without checking the position of the darkest colour in the pattern - a job for this afternoon, perhaps? There are a number of other photos of RAF, Greek and Yugoslav Blenheims. The book follows the usual pattern of a chronological account of missions with personal anecdotes where available. As good as ever.

Ye gods well spotted - but it's difficult to see how this pattern variation could have been maintained as they'd no control on the serials of arriving replacements.

Both my earlier Battles are labelled MPM.

SH is just another brand name used by MPM, and the same basic kit is sometimes issued under both names, with variations. They do seem to be playing down the MPM brand recently, but the new tooling part is the key. Let us hope, but I don't see myself buying one on the off-chance. More likely to drag out the older kit and finish it.

I shortened the bomber, but with having to sand and sand the resin parts to get them to fit in the bodged fuselage, I rather lost heart. The trainer remains unmade - and unshortened.

MPM did the standard Battle, a trainer, and the target tug. Which came out under which label I don't recall, but I do have the first two. There was considerable discussion over it's length, Paul Lloyd producing an article claiming it was considerably overlong in the rear, but I don't recall any final conclusions being reached.

I can't see the sprues at the moment (Network54 problems) but could it be in order to get the correct shapes of the fillet at the rear, always a problem with tooling?

No, as I understand it the Double Mamba was also intended to have one half closed down in flight to save fuel in the cruise/loiter parts of the missions, and that's how it was operated.