Work In Progress

https://www.hannants.co.uk/product/CMQ72081

I assume you mean the Tallboy, as the Grand Slam was 22,000 lb and required aircraft with no bomb doors at all. The Lancaster II was not used for Tallboy ops. Tallboy and GS needed to be dropped from as high as possible in order to penetrate deeply into the earth and make large cavities, and the Lancaster II had poorer altitude performance than Merlin Lancasters despite its highler headline BHP figure. Detailed thread about the carriage of Tallboys and other big ordnance here, which might be of interest.

The cross section of the windscreen arch is a lot better shaped than the front arch of the sliding section. But that canopy is weirdly engineered in its breakdown, as well as its shape. I can't think of any good reason to make it three piece in that format. It should have been either one piece or windscreen / sliding section /fixed rear section. However, the sliding section would always need to be thinner than injection moulding can manage, in order to fit over the fixed rear section in the open configuration. What I'd do with that is just saw the back fixed section off, carve a new limewood sliding section and crash-mould it in clear sheet. But yes, for those who don;t want to make their own components it's a real shame they didn't do a standard one-piece fixed canopy, or vac-form it.

It doesn't really need a decal sheet: it's all straight generic markings, nothing specific needed at all. No squadron codes, just roundels, fin flashes, the 8-inch black serial and the prototype P which can be had from Blackbird and various other vendors http://www.blackbirdmodels.co.uk/sitemap.asp

Yeah, he's correct though in that I got my clockwise and anticlockwise the wrong way around. Pretty stupid, huh? Especially given the number of Chipmunk and Tiger Moth props I've swung over the years. Have edited my earlier post to prevent later confusion of future readers. Anyway, the point remains that you need props that go the other war round from those on the standard aeroplane if you're modelling a Riley.

While the diameter may not have changed much, the rotation is opposite. On the standard aeroplane, when you're standing in front of it, the props turn clockwise, as with the props of most British, French and Russian-designed aero engines. On the Riley with its Lycoming engines rotation is in the standard US direction, anticlockwise as viewed from the front. *Edited because when I typed this I got clockwise and anticlockwise the wrong way round, thanks to Eugenio for catching it*

If you want to build P7966 as Bader's aeroplane, then as Edgar pointed out a long time ago, the 'Mark V' style oil cooler... "...was introduced onto the Mk.II production line from 26-9-41, which was over a month after Bader was shot down, and 7 months after P7966 was built, so stick with the Mk.I type."

Or use the older Airfix kit.

Rather good!

I would.

Hmm... there's nothing about the individual ejectors which reduces exhaust flames over the three stack exhaust: in fact if anything, the opposite. You get approximately twice as much visible flame. This is inevitable when you are shorteniing the path taken by the exhaust gases from the front, third and fifth rows of cylinders before it vents to the open atmosphere. To reduce or eliminate visible exhaust flame you need a longer path (so that residual combustion completes within the exhaust system), meaning longer exhaust pipes, or a shrouded exhaust (to hide it). Both the quoted requirement "to eliminate as far as possible the exhaust flames" and the phrase "modified with exhaust manifolds" imply a more complex exhaust system than the individual, six-a-side ejector set-up, which is the shortest-path and least manifoldy system available for a Merlin. The world 'manifold' in the context of inlet and exhaust systems means branches into, or out of, a common system. Not individual stacks.

I can't vouch for it personally but whoever wrote the Wikipedia article for 284 Squadron says it was them doing ASR with Hurricanes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No._284_Squadron_RAF

Every Allison V-1710, including those fitted to the Lightning I, was supercharged. What the Lightning I versions of the engine didn't have was turbochargers in addition to the existing mechanically-driven superchargers. Similar deal with the P-40, P-39 and P-51 Allisons - all supercharged, but with single stage superchargers, so performance fell off quickly above around 12,000 feet. Rolls Royce went down the route of two-stage mechaniically driven superchargers, whereas Allison preferred a turbocharger to supplement the single-stage mechanical supercharger for high altitude use. But they were hampered by military purchasing authorities not ordering them - the Aif Ministry ordering the Lightning without turbos, and the USAAF ordering the P-39 without a turbo.

Do we know for a fact that the two pictures are of the same airframe? That said, in the airborne pic it also appears to have turbochargers. If that's the case then it seems o have had significant rework back into a more conventional P-38 configuration

I don't think so. I assume that you don't mean the Lightning I that comes on the same sheet, but rather the borrowed P-38J, 44-23517 According to this book all it carried apart from roundels and fin flashes were the small capital letters DPA, in what looks like black from the available photo, about the usual eight inch serial height, on the rear booms. Pretty much any eight inch black WW2 serial sheet, or scrap decals from remnants of used sheets, would do for that.