Jure Miljevic

Hello, Old Man According to William Green's book Warplanes of the Third Reich they used ten pre-series unarmed Bf 110 B-0 for various trials. The first Bf 110 B-1s went to combat evaluation unit I(schweren Jagdgruppe)/Lehrgeschwader 1. By the time French general Vuillemin visited Germany on 22th August 1938 four Bf 110 B-1 had been produced and the production rate was two planes per week, so by the end of September there were probably 12 or 14 planes in service. At least some of the pre-series aircraft would have been armed and pushed into service in emergency, so I think one can assume that if the hostilities started on 30th September 1938, Luftwaffe would have had about 20 heavy fighters, capable of (barely) reaching England on bomber escort missions. Cheers Jure

Hello, by the end of September 1938 enough Bf 110 B-1s had been produced to arm a Staffel or two. These aircraft had been powered by JuMo engines with lower power and thus lower fuel consumption. Over Poland they had been used as escort fighters. Bf 110 B-1 had about 1000 miles maximum range so could probably reach Eastern Anglia and return back to Germany, but type's loiter and combat time over target area would have been severely limited. Cheers Jure

Hello, JohnT IIRC the old Profile booklet about Lancaster suggests that "Getting Younger every day" above nose art actually refers to a beer brand, so your assumption is probably correct. Cheers Jure

Hello, Dave Aircraft from first series had converted Typhoon fuselages, hence fish plates and bulges. Cheers Jure

Hello There is also Hartmann's Bf 109 B-2 TB+NZ from his training days: https://me109.info/display.php?from=site&lang=de&auth=e&name=version_display&fotonummer=2291 Already discussed briefly here: Cheers Jure

Hello Pat. Which kit did you acquire? Blonde Bomber II was B-24 D-1-CO 41-23659 and was built with Bendix ventral turret. However, none of the photos on Bestweb here shows it so the turret was probably removed. The Goon was B-24 D-20-CO 41-24183 and by then production reverted back to tunnel machine gun, starting with B-24 D-15-CO 23970. Sperry ventral turret was not introduced on production lines until B-24 D-140-CO 41-41160. Cheers Jure

Hello, David Looks like Luftwaffe SC 250 to me ... or at least something mascerading as one. Cheers Jure

Hello I have Academy/Minicraft B-24 M. It looks decent in the box and apart from differencies between versions (tail turret, navigatior's side windows etc) parts are very similar to those of Hasegawa B-24 J kit. Cannot say much about how it builds as I have not touch it yet. Cheers Jure

Hello, Julien No, they have not. Most of the sources only mentions the type's use in Six day war and says nothing about Yom kippur war, but in From kfir to lavi, special issue of Defence update magazine from 1984, M. J. Kessler wrote: "After the 67 war, the Fuoga reverted to trainer status and was not used as an attack aircraft subsequently." Cheers Jure

Hello, Richard In the old Profile 220 there is a five view drawing of Dakota IV, that dropped Union Jack and Stars and stripes on Government House in Rangoon on 4th May 1945. This is the side view, found on Wing palette webpage: There is a photo of Dakota III FL503, taken in India, and of Dakota III KG459 in SEA theatre markings with no specific location given in the same publication. There is precious little information elsewhere. US publication Air supply in Burma campaign (USAF historic studies) mentions that in early 1944 RAF had 177 Transport wing with 31, 62, 117 and 194 squadrons available to support Burma campaign. In early 1944 the 194 Squadron took part in both operation Thursday and later in Imphal airlift. Not much, but someone with better knowledge on the subject will soon chime in. Cheers Jure

Hello, as Paul said. There were probably others, but at the moment the only radials I can think of were Salmsons for their 2A2 two-seaters. These were water-cooled engines, as with airspeeds of that period airflow alone could not cool radial engines, hence the rotaries. Several photos of Salmson 9Z can be found here: https://forum.ww1aircraftmodels.com/index.php?topic=2183.0 Cheers Jure

Hello In the meantime I got G.24 1. Bauserie (Reifra kit from the first modelldoc's link) kit as a gift. Its building instructions are not particularly user-friendly, but contain no significant errors. Sketch, illustrating step V, is copied from Mastermodell G.24 3. Bauserie kit instructions (apart from floats assembly section) and shows later series vertical tail. It hardly matters as the vertical tail building sequence is correctly described in previous step. Cheers Jure

Hello I think these are undercarriage position indicators. They can be seen on various B5N photos. This one shows position of one of them on B5N1: Cheers! Jure

Heller kit keeps appearing in various reboxes. One such is SabreKit Piper J-3 Cub. I specifically asked if this is another reincarnation of the old L-4H kit, but an employee in our local hobby shops assured me that this is a new mould. It turned out to be Heller kit with new side transparencies and incorrect Super Cub windshield. Cheers Jure

Hello, Pappy Metal skin covered sections starts with the third rib on the folding section and finishes with the seventh rib from the tip. Drawings can be found in several books (very good Ian Huntley's drawings in Warpaint series book for example) and articles. Those on the link below look very similar to the drawings in ancient L + K article: https://alldrawings.ru/en/pictures/item/fairey-swordfish-mk-ii-aircraft-drawings-dimensions-figures It can be also spotted on the photos once one knows where to look, like on this Duxford Swordfish Mk.III photo: https://www.airhistory.net/photo/65613/NF370 As far as I know slots deployed automatically with drop of air pressure on the leading edge. I hope it helps. Cheers Jure

Hello OneDay Here is a discussion about AA Comets colour schemes which strayed into Comet 1/72 kits' accuracy in general. It also touches Mach 2 Comet kit: Drawings of Comet 4b and some earlier variants on the link below; http://airwar.ru/other/draw/comet.html Not much, but I hope it helps. Cheers, Jure

Hello, as ClaudioN said. Some time ago there was an AM resin exhaust pipe for Swedish J-34 (basicaly Hunter Mk.4). Possibly it is the one on your photo. Cheers Jure

Hello Yugoslav RV i PVO dark green, ocean grey and blue scheme perhaps? It was discussed a month or so ago. Cheers, Jure

Hello Ron According to James Roeder's book 357th Fighter Group (Squadron) the unit had been stationed in Leiston (AAF station 373) from February 1944 on. The station had thee 6.000 ft long concrete runways. I found the photo here https://toflyandfight.com/357th-tribute/leiston-airfield/ There is plenty of photos of Mustangs with or without invasion stripes taxiing and taking off concrete runways in the mentioned book. There are some photos with PSP, but the only show planes parked in revetmenst. Cheers Jure

Thank you, tempestfan, I did not know this. Cheers Jure

Hello At least one of Fujimi Spitfire Mk.XIV kits (I have the one with painting of Dutch squadron aircraft as a box art) includes V-1, the same goes for the old Matchbox Ar 234. Apart from Frog Spitfire I have all above mentioned kits and among them Dragon's and Fujimi's V-1s look the best to me. Of course, there were certain differences during V-1 production run (cannot tell which, as I am away from my sources at the moment) so perhpas some of the older V-1 kits come closer to one or the other version. Cheers Jure

Hello, Scott You probably already found this site, but still ... http://clubhyper.com/reference/misskingsvillebs_1.htm Photo of the crew, leaning on the aircraft's tail, also shows aft fuselage with what looks like windows to me. Of course, it is a bit difficult to tell if the Lancaster on the photo really is LL636. Cheers Jure

Hello Agreed about Monforton book. In 2019 remains of Spitfire IXc MR116 had been dug out with Merlin 63 engine practically intact, which is now displayed in Park vojaške zgodovine Pivka. Unfortunately, nobody put walkaround on line yet. On the left front you can see an upper main fuel tank with its light alloy armoured cover, which actually came from another Spitfire. A book about the MJ116 and her pilot Peter Clark on her last flight (MJ116 had been shot down while straffing Luftwaffe planes on Ljubljana airfield) has also been published. The book includes hundreds of photos, most of them of the engine. Unfortunately, it seem to be out of print. https://knjigarna.uni-lj.si/sl-SI/product/"Jekleni-pozdravi-iz-zraka"-%2F-"Iron-greetings-from-the-sky"-/1002392 Cheers Jure

Hello I stand corrected. There is not much one can add to Troy's comprehensive post except perhaps that VY-G's landing light on Phoney war photo seems to be situated close to port MLG leg, which of course is consistent with fabric covered wing. I checked 85 Squadron's ORB for serial numbers, but unfortunately in that period it only contains individual aircraft letters. Cheers Jure

Hello, Brad I have the same kit and I think the Hurricane in question had the metal wing. Will check my books for the serial number when I come home. Cheers Jure