PeterB

Yes, I thought it was Dark Sea Grey on Shacks when I built mine - I did quite a bit of research at the time, but I suppose I could be wrong. Preserved examples are perhaps a little suspect given the way the grey fades but they seem to agree. As to Extra Dark Sea Grey I like Xtracrylic as it definitely has the desired blue tinge, at least when first applied. I did try Gunze but theirs does not have the blue tint. I remember when I saw the BBC documentary "Sailor" many years ago I thought the Buccaneers were a dark blue and none of the paints I used had that effect until now. Pete

At least you got decals - mine just arrived in a bag as it was one of the early Russian mouldings. It too had a missing part by the time I got round to building it - the lowered ventral radome so I built it retracted. As it was my first GB I went rather over the top on detailing including buying some resin Viper engines, but it did look quite good when finished - of course typically Revell released their new mould MR3 part way through the build! I think it took me 3 months but then I was building another 7 kits for that GB as I had a fit of temporary insanity, and I was also trying to build a wall in my garden - you should be able to do it a bit quicker OOB I suspect. You are going to need a lot of Dark Sea Grey paint. Good luck. Pete

Ok, with my two B-25 builds nearing completion I can make a start on the Valiant before too long (I hope). Here are the sprues. Yes, the Blue Danube nuclear bomb was ruddy big - later nukes progressively became smaller and lighter - those are supposed to be 1000 lb bombs alongside it on the sprue - the Valiant could carry one 10000 lb Blue Danube or 21 x 1000 lb conventional bombs. As the Valiant was probably the least well known V Bomber, here is a bit of background I lifted direct from Wiki which sounds about right. 'The Air Ministry issued a specification (B.14/46) on 11 August 1947 for a "medium-range bomber landplane" that could carry a "10,000 pound [4,500 kilogram] bomb load to a target 1,500 nautical miles [2,780 kilometres] from a base which may be anywhere in the world", with the stipulation it should be simple enough to maintain at overseas bases. The requirements also included a weight of 140,000 pounds (64 tonnes). This request would become the foundation of the Royal Air Force's airborne nuclear deterrent. At the same time, the British authorities felt there was a need for an independent strategic bombing capability—in other words that they should not be reliant upon the US Strategic Air Command. In late 1948, the Air Ministry issued their Specification B.35/46 for an advanced jet bomber that would serve as a successor to the Avro Lincoln, the then-standard heavy aircraft of RAF Bomber Command, and that it should be the equal of anything that either the Soviet Union or the United States would have. The exact requirements included that the fully laden weight would be under 100,000 pounds (45.36 tonnes), the ability to fly to a target 1,500 nautical miles (1,700 mi; 2,800 km) distant at 500 knots (580 mph; 930 km/h) with a service ceiling of 50,000 ft (15,000 m) and again that it should be simple enough to maintain at overseas bases. A further stipulation that a nuclear bomb (a "special" in RAF jargon), weighing 10,000lb (4,500kg) and measuring 30ft (9.1m) in length and 10ft (3.0m) in diameter, could be accommodated. This request would be the foundation of the V bombers. The Air Ministry accepted that the requirement might prove to be difficult to achieve in the time-scale required and prepared for a fall-back position by re-drafting B.14/46 as an "insurance" specification against failure to speedily develop the more advanced types that evolved into the Avro Vulcan, Vickers Valiant and Handley Page Victor as this was to be a less ambitious conventional type of aircraft, with un-swept wings and some sacrifice in performance. The only significant performance differences between B.14/46 and the more advanced B.35/46 were a lower speed of 435 knots (501mph/ 806km/h) and a lower height over the target of 35,000 to 45,000 ft (11,000 to 14,000m).. According to aviation authors Bill Gunston and Peter Gilchrist, the specification's ignorance of a swept wing was odd for the era, and had been made in order to allow the prospective bomber to be delivered more quickly.' In reality the only aircraft built to the B.14/46 spec was I believe the Short Sperrin, a rather ungainly looking plane with straight wings albeit with a heavily swept leading edge, and 2 R-R Avons of 6500 lb thrust pod mounted on each wing in a vertical pairing. Its performance was actually pretty good but for all its "simplicity" Vickers rather more advanced Valiant actually flew before the Sperrin in May 1951 and the latter was not accepted for service, the two prototypes being used for engine and weapons testing for a few years. Production Valiants entered squadron service in February 1955 as the first of the V Bombers. Production ended in August 1957 after 104 had been delivered. The Air ministry wrote a revised specification B.9./48 when they confirmed the production order for the Valiant. I eventually managed to find Colonel Melchett's build from 2011 - most impressive but I think mine will be pretty much OOB though I may modify the top of the vertical tail as he suggested. Pete

The caravan looks a bit like the semi derelict one the old couple in the house opposite my parents had standing in their back garden in the 1950's, alongside their hen run - needless to say the hens got out quite often and probably spent more time in the caravan than their "official" enclosure. After the old man died his wife had the caravan burnt in situ as I recall. Pete

Not to worry Rob,, After all it is a FROG GB so we are not expecting anything like total accuracy - I doubt I have ever built a really accurate kit in my 65 years modelling, though the kits are getting better nowadays!😄 Pete

I remember seeing Leeds trams not many years before they were withdrawn - no idea what type they were but I think they were a darkish red/maroon all over - may be wrong at it is over 60 years ago! Certainly darker than the London Transport red. Pete

The US planes that were used during the desert campaign were painted with ANA 616 "Sand" and like many other colours it is not that easy to pin down what it looked like exactly. The few wartime colour photos I have seen are not entirely helpful due to exposure and the film enamel perhaps, and range from a sort of "normal sand" colour via a darker/browner version to a definite pink colour - apparently it faded rapidly in the sun and the slight pink hue it had when fresh became the dominant colour, hence the nickname "Desert Pink". I have seen numerous discussions on the subject on various modelling forums, with a number of suggestions as to what paint to use, including various so called "flesh" colours, but Airfix suggest Humbrol Hu150 "Desert Sand" which I used on my Buccaneer in the Gulf GB a couple of years back- That does not look bad and perhaps represents a halfway point between "fresh" and "heavily faded" but I don't have a lot of that particular paint left so I thought I would "undercoat" it with something else and just use the Hu150 as a topcoat. Digging around in my paint stock I found some Desert Pink from the Colourcoats British Army range of paint - this was introduced on tanks etc from late 1942 to replace the earlier and "yellower" Light Stone colour, so I thought I would give it a try. It is sensitive to lighting and does indeed have a hint of pink in natural light - the camera has distorted the colour slightly and made it lighter and more yellow under artificial light, so I decided to stick with that, at least for the moment. and put on another coat, followed by some Xtracrylic RAF Azure Blue on the undersides, and ended up with this - Again the artificial light has distorted the colour slightly but I am happy with it. As you can see I have gone for the black de-icer boots as shown on illustrations of the plane I am modelling - quite a few had them but many more did not it seems. I will put a coat of gloss varnish on and then it will be ready for the decs - rather more than on the Frog kit!. Pete

I can't remember what it was I built, many years ago that had a light inside but I remember that at night the light was actually visible through the plastic - of course back in those days there were no LED bulbs and the "lamps" were probably far too bright, Foil was probably not available back then but it should stop that leakage, and maybe could even be used as a "reflector" to enhance places where you do actually want the light to be visible as well. Pete

Hi Graham, In terms of depth just in front of the tailplane the same applies - the old kit is 1mm to 2mm deeper. Pete

The fuselage width just in front of the horizontal tail is virtually the same in both the Frog kit and the new Airfix one, and both are noticeably wider that the old Airfix one, which of course has the raised section and modified glazing over the tail gun position. Pete

I wonder if there is anything to be said for adding some aluminium baking foil inside the fuselage to reduce the risk of stray light seeping through the plastic/joints - better than paint I suspect. Just a thought Pete

Here are the two of them together. Looks like it has lost its pitot tube! Although they are two different versions of the Mitchell, the fact that Airfix released theirs only a year or so later than Frog is probably why I never bought the Frog one even though I rather fancied it. Of course the Airfix one came with 3 alternative noses - the glazed one as above, the long 8 x 0.5"mg version, and the short version with the 75mm cannon. I think Airfix did a better job on the tail endplates shape-wise and the Frog one looks a little "bulkier" in the fuselage as I mentioned earlier when comparing it with the later Airfix 2nd moulding. It certainly has a lot more panel lines and rivets - the Frog kit has very few of the former and none of the latter! The wheels also seem to be bigger as they probably should be. Pete

Interesting film clip Adrian! During the course of this build I have been working on the dorsal turret. I have always felt that besides the lack of interior detail and the sometimes basic undercarriages, one of the main weaknesses of Frog kits from this period was the guns/turrets. This is what the kit came with. The usual crude oversize barrels and slightly fogged transparent part which is a poor shape, has gun slots which don't go high enough, and a nasty ejection pin mark at the top where it cannot easily be polished out. They also provide a small "floor" with a seat and crew figure which might just be visible. I had intended to get a replacement Squadron canopy but Hannants were out of stock but I remembered that I had scrapped my old 1960's Airfix kit a few years ago when I built a replacement and that I am in the habit of keeping things like props and guns so I dug around one of my numerous spares boxes, some of which date back from around 60 years ago and found this. The glazing was sitting in a bath of oven cleaner when I took the photo. When I built the original back in around 1965 I was still using normal plastic cement so it was a bit fogged in places and generally showing its age, but it cleaned up quite well in the end, though is not perfect as it also has what I presume is an ejector pin mark, but it is not as obvious, so I decided to see what I could do with it. Having chopped down and mutilated the figure and added a sort of sighting scope I ended up with this for the interior. And here it is assembled. Looks better from a distance! As I mentioned earlier I seem to have lost the kit props and I could not find the old Airfix ones in my spares boxes, so either I have used them for something else or more likely they had missing blades like a few of my really old kits. I therefore bought a Quickboost set and assembled them. The instructions show the pin on the end of each blade going into holes in the hub but of course it was not quite that simple as the holes were just shallow dents and needed drilling out. I started with a very fine drill and gradually increased the size to avoid overstressing the hub moulding as I suspect it would be easy to shatter them. I the had to shorten the pins on the blades a little but I got there in the end. They were advertised for the later versions of the B-25 but seem the same length as those in my current Airfix kit, though perhaps because of the previously mention problem with the wheels and legs being undersized, I suspect they would come very close to "touching the ground" as it were - maybe the kit ones were a bit shorter! So with those two final problems overcome it was time to finish the build. Curiously Frog made a better attempt at the nose gun so I decided not to bother using one of my Aeroclub ones this time. With the nose glazing in place, the props on and the turret dry fitted, all that remained was to fabricate the two radio masts and fit a pitot tube from my spares as Frog did not provide either of these items. Now all it needs is a coat of varnish and I will then glue the turret in place. A bit crude by modern standards perhaps but I think it does not look too bad. Pete

Quite right Dave - I need new reading glasses. Anyway, I have added a few bits and pieces to the nose interior based on the Airfix kit. Airfix provided what seems correctly to be a Norden bombsight, but in their subsequent reboxing as an RAF Mitchell II they use the same part which is unlikely to be correct as the Americans were rather touchy about not exporting the sight in case it fell into enemy hands - so much so that it annoyed the Brits to the point of almost refusing to continue the transfer of technical knowledge on such items as Radar, Jet Engines, and Asdic/Sonar. In the end the RAF introduced the Mk XIV sight in 1942 which would have been fitted to the Mitchell, so I have made something that looks vaguely like that. Actually, whilst the Norton sight could be very accurate when used by skilled crews training in the US, in combat over Europe it was perhaps a disappointment and this seems to have resulted in the decision to change to formation bombing on command from the lead bombardier and statistics suggest that RAF crews using the simpler Mk XIV were just as accurate, perhaps even more so. Incidentally, when in use the Norden sight was fitted with a destructive charge and when on the ground they were removed to secure storage - what they did not know was that a Norden employee of German extraction had given the Luftwaffe most of the details of the sight as early as 1938 and that some of its characteristics may well have been incorporated by Carl Zeiss in their standard Lotfernrohr (Lotfe) 7 bomb sight! Besides the flexible gun for the bombardier in the nose, US versions had also a fixed 50cal mounted on the Starboard side of the nose compartment and some units fitted one on the other side as well as a field modification, but the RAF did not use a fixed gun, so Airfix include two alternative clear parts. I have also added the ventral turret together with a pair of resin gun barrels, and mounted the open wheel doors and struts. Nearly finished! Pete

I painted in the de-icing boots. I also added the glazing for the landing lights and have fabricated some navigation lights as well. The Airfix kit has them moulded as small bumps above and below the wing a little inboard from the tip but my sources show them as being actually at the end of the wings so I built up the "lights" with PVA glue and painted them. Then I dug out the one original Frog Mitchell decal sheet I got in my cheapo multipacks of 40 mixed sheets bought after Frog folded for between 50p and £1 back in around 1980 - I believe I bought 3 from various sources and they are still completely usable So here it is in the markings of 120 (Dutch) Squadron. The colour density is perhaps a little poor as they seem a bit faint, but are a much better colour than those that came with the kit where the red and blue are too light. Unfortunately the outer yellow ring on the fuselage roundels is slightly out of register, but then so are all the AM ones I have bought over the years from Modeldecal and Xtradecal. You get a better view of the navigation light in this pic. Next up - adding a bit more "furniture" to the nose compartment and fitting the ventral turret. I will also be adding a rear retraction strut to the nosewheel to make it a bit more like the Airfix kit, and also retraction jacks for the wheel doors when I add them shortly. Pete

I will see if I can dig out my second attempt at the old Airfix kit for comparison. Pete

The model has now reached the stage where it is ready for painting. This original boxing comes with two optional schemes - the one on the box art is a B-25D retained in the US for anti submarine work and painted in OD over white. The other is a B-25C in desert pink over neutral gray, but as it was on its return to the US for a promotional tour, and the nose art is not to my taste as I am unsure if it was as applied during combat or maybe somewhat "enhanced" for publicity purposes. The USAAF did not use the Mitchell in the ETO, but it was used in the MTO so could be seen in either a desert scheme or the more normal OD over Neutral Gray in Italy. I have an Xtradecal sheet which has several desert options but with 3 choices of camo - Sand over Neutral Gray, Sand over Azure Blue, and Sand with OD over Neutral Gray, and I think I will go for the sand/blue combination - either "Pink Petunia" or "OH-7". Pete

A quick comparison with the Airfix build shows that the latter kit sits noticeably higher off the ground. Some of that is due to the larger wheels I mentioned earlier but the legs themselves seem to be slightly longer as well. Due perhaps to my misinterpreting the Airfix instruction sheet I seem to have got the scissor links on the main gear on the back of the legs when they should be on the front. They are hardly noticeable so I won't bother moving them. Hannants interpretation of Neutral Gray for their "Xtra" paint range seems rather on the light side (though it is actually darker than the camera shows it) - other brands I have used go for a darker colour and the Colourcoats version I have now found is if anything darker than the Hu 27 I have used as primer on the engines of the Airfix kit above! That is probably correct but I wonder why the USAAF went for such a dark shade - the general approach to underside colour was to go for something light. Again, I will not bother repainting it at this stage. I will make a start on the de-icing boots later today now that the Airfix kit has reached the paint stage. Pete

My frog build has suddenly raced ahead so I thought I had better try and catch up with this one so I made a start on the undercarriage and engines. The first stage was to glue the main legs onto the wing underside, checking the alignment with the outer part of the nacelles. I then glued the two nacelle halves together for each side, added the separate section which comes in two versions in the box, on which more shortly, and then the front end, and tried a dry fit. As the balance looked a bit marginal I added a couple of grams of lead inside the front of each cowling. Once the assemblies were dry I glued them in place. The fit was pretty good. I then added the flaps, selecting the flaps up. The cylinders and cowlings came next and the kit contains parts for both early and late versions. Apparently, according to my Squadron/Signal books, The B-25 A, B, and early C versions had exhaust collector rings connected to just one large exhaust. the cowlings themselves being smooth. Then, part way through B-25C production a switch was made to individual exhausts in the cowling itself - the so called Clayton "S" stack system. This was more efficient, weighed nearly 60lb less for each engine but was nosier than the earlier system and was supposed to be fitted to all subsequent models, though problems were experienced with the upper stacks breaking so some planes had a collector fitted for those stacks leading to a single exhaust, and some actually had two collectors fitted - one upper and one lower and had two exhausts - apparently. The kit comes with 4 cowlings, 2 optional panels for the nacelle (one plain and one with a big exhaust), and two stets of 2 cowling cooling flaps. On the right are the early cowlings and exhaust panels - I am using the ones on the left which come with the rear set of 7 exhaust fairings moulded on but you have to add the forward ones yourself which is a fiddle - Airfix actually provide a couple of spares but I managed to avoid feeding the carpet monster. Once everything was dry I inserted the cylinders into the cowlings - aligning them was slightly vague but I thing I got it right. I then added the correct pair of cooling flap rings, and added the assemblies to the nacelle fronts. The fit was not very positive and there was a bit of a gap where the cooling flaps meet the intake at the top of the nacelle but it was easy enough to fill. Once the cowlings were on I added the nose leg. Again the location was a bit vague but then it seemed to find the correct place and slotted in. I will now get some primer on to see what if anything needs to be worked on, and add the wheels. Pete

A couple of coats of Xtracrylic OD and Neutral Gray have been applied. I have also added the D/F "football", rear glazing, astrodome and cockpit canopy. The latter was a little narrow and sat a bit low so I added some packing to the cockpit sides and it is about right now. The OD is a bit more yellow/brown in natural light. I am going to leave it now for a day or two before masking up for the black de-icing boots, which will give me a chance to try and get the Airfix kit up to around the same stage. Pete

Filling done and it has worked out better than I expected though I may have to do a little more work on it. I could not be bothered trying to match the shade of the primer so it has ended up looking a bit like the "new style" Airfix instructions where the part you fitted in the previous step is shown in a different colour.😄 Time to start painting I think. Pete

Having got all the parts primed and painted I decided to get the engine assemblies done. It turned into quite a struggle and I was so intent on beating them into submission that I forgot to take any step by step photos, not that there would have been much to see anyway. First up I cut some "scissor link" parts from thin card and glued them onto the 3 wheel legs as Frog forgot them entirely on the main undercarriage, and just moulded a small solid triangle behind the nose leg. I also glued together the two rows on cylinders and cut blanking plates to go behind them to prevent the cowlings being "see through". Once they were dry I glued together the two cowling halves, trapping the cylinders inside, and also glued together the two nacelle halves which were not a brilliant fit, trapping the main legs between them, and repeated this for the other assembly. Next up I added about 5g of lead behind each of the the forward bulkheads I had made - probably about the equivalent of 3g nearer the nose, bringing the total ballast to around 36g! After a few minutes I added the main wheel doors that were closed on the ground - I think Frog intended them to be open as the fit was pretty bad. I also added the engine/cowlings and then did a dry fit to check the balance - the fit was far from perfect and I had to make a few adjustments. The balance was "neutral" - it would sit either tail down or nose down - so I went ahead and glued on the nacelles and added the nose wheel and door and left it to dry overnight. Compared with the Airfix kit the wheels are all a bit small in diameter but I have left the main wheels alone as they don't look too bad. The nosewheel however is pretty poor so I have dug out a slightly better replacement which I will fit later. It is going to need a fair bit of filler, particularly on the Starboard side where the nacelles seem to have suffered from old age and have slightly "short-shotted" in one or two places, but overall it has worked out reasonably well. Hopefully the Airfix kit will cause less problems! Pete

Yes, the instructions are not to glue the legs in place, but as with many other kits eg Airfix, they do not provide "hinges" for the wheel doors so it is all a bit pointless - I suspect the Frog B-26 was the same. I remember trying to make hinges for the doors of my Airfix B-29 using some pins I "borrowed" from my mother's sewing kit but it did nor work. The only one I remember working after a fashion was the Airfix B-24 where the main wheel doors were attached to the "hinged" legs and the nose door were provided with hinges that stuck down under the fuselage slightly. Of course their Anson, B-17, DC-3, Hudson and perhaps the Il-2 did not have doors so they sort of worked - in fact I seem to remember that the Airfix Anson was the first kit with a "retractable" undercarriage I ever built, but, together with the "working" control surfaces I now regard them as being too "toy-like" and cause accuracy problems, though I was probably impressed with them at the time.😄 Speaking of undercarriages, I will have to do some work on the legs for this bird - at the very least add the missing "scissors links". Like guns the wheel legs were often one of Frog's weaknesses - sometimes quite literally in the case of the legs! I have done what I can with the joints, unmasked it and touched up the primer. The Frog fuselage is between 1mm and 2mm wider than the Airfix one and less "slab sided" so it looks slightly fatter and more rounded, but I think it still looks pretty good for its age. Pete

This is almost exactly the same post as the one in my Frog Mitchell thread. I had a go at sorting out the various joints and then added the wings. The Airfix ones fitted almost perfectly but the Frog ones needed a bit of packing on one side. The wing is a bit unusual as there is pronounced dihedral between the fuselage and engine, but then there is a slight anhedral outboard so the wings appear to droop slightly. The Airfix one is still missing the flaps and ailerons at this stage. Once they were dry I did a bit more filling then masked the kits up ready for a spray of primer. I then gave them a blast of Halfords grey plastic primer. I have seen recently on one of the current GB that somebody was having problems with Halfords primer but I wonder if they were using the normal variety which is meant for the metal part of car bodies - I have been using their acrylic plastic primer for several years and have so far had no difficulties. I will have to do a little more work on the joint behind the cockpit as both of them are slightly "dished" but otherwise they look pretty good. Once that is sorted I can make a start on the engine nacelles. One thing that puzzles me slightly - Airfix have moulded the de-icing strips on the leading edges, but the two versions in this boxing do not have them painted black. Looking at photos it seems most if not all RAF versions had black de-icing boots but only some US versions have them. I suppose they could be there and were overpainted in camo paint, or maybe the did not think they needed them in North Africa or when flying anti-sub ops off the US seaboard? Then again the illustrations on my Xtradecal sheet for desert Mitchells seem to show the black boots, rightly or wrongly - anybody out there have any info on this? Pete

I had a go at sorting out the various joints and then added the wings. The Airfix ones fitted almost perfectly but the Frog ones needed a bit of packing on one side. The wing is a bit unusual as there is pronounced dihedral between the fuselage and engine, but then there is a slight anhedral outboard so the wings appear to droop slightly. The Airfix one is still missing the flaps and ailerons at this stage. Once they were dry I did a bit more filling then masked the kits up ready for a spray of primer. I then gave them a blast of Halfords grey plastic primer. I have seen recently on one of the current GB that somebody was having problems with Halfords primer but I wonder if they were using the normal variety which is meant for the metal part of car bodies - I have been using their acrylic plastic primer for several years and have so far had no difficulties. I will have to do a little more work on the joint behind the cockpit as both of them are slightly "dished" but otherwise they look pretty good. Once that is sorted I can make a start on the engine nacelles. Pete