Hamiltonian

This is the Eduard/Gavia 1/48 Lysander "Limited Edition", which comes with a bunch of additional photoetch and resin parts, and a truly horrible "Lord of the Rings" typeface on the box It comes with parts and decals for a number of aircraft, but not the one I wanted to build. My model is of T1508, the all-black Special Duties Lysander of B Flight, 138 Squadron, written off by Squadron Leader John Nesbitt-Dufort in a field in France in the early hours of 29 January 1942. After picking up Maurice Duclos and Roger Mitchell in a field near Segry, Nesbitt-Dufort ran into "the most wicked looking and well defined cold front I have ever seen" along the north coast of France. After several attempts to get under and then through this monstrosity, he found himself in severe icing conditions--a gloved hand pushed into the airstream grew a "thick glass gauntlet" of ice in twenty seconds. His passengers in the rear compartment had not donned their helmets, so he couldn't communicate with them. (It later transpired they hadn't donned their parachute harnesses either.) He made a forced landing with no airspeed indicator, and tipped the aircraft on its nose in a ditch. There was so little fuel in the aircraft he was unable to set it on fire even after firing three Very cartridges into it. (But it was later successfully destroyed by the Germans who, in attempting to tow it away, managed to have it hit by a train.) He and his companions spent some time on the run (hampered by the fact that Nesbitt-Dufort's survival kit contained only reichsmarks and a map of Germany) and were later pulled out of France by a Special Duties Anson. I have a couple of photographs of the crashed aircraft: I added control surfaces and slats from Czech Masters, though I had to build my own inboard slats (which are mysteriously absent from the CMK set) copying an excellent idea from @dnl42. I was able to repurpose kit decals for the pre-1942 markings, and used Fantasy Printshop 8" red characters for the tail number. There were a few modifications necessary to make the aeroplane look like it was sitting on the ground, some major adjustments to the appearance of the rear compartment, and a bit of razor-saw work so that I could open the canopy. Build log is here: I'm also grateful to @dogsbody for putting me right on the engine colour. Paints are Tamiya and LifeColor, with panel lines and some weathering using LifeColor Liquid Pigment. As an after-thought I added some O-gauge luggage and parcels to the rear compartment. These aircraft frequently flew in SOE agents carrying French luggage, as well as supplies for the French Resistance. The little white "4" on the side of the aircraft is inspired by a remark in Barbara Bertram's marvellous memoir French Resistance In Sussex. She says that the number of packages to be removed from the rear compartment was always chalked on the side of the aircraft, so that nothing would be missed during the frenzied few minutes on the ground, working by moonlight, unloading and then loading the aircraft. Here she is:

I added the exhaust cowling, which brightens things up a little. No overhead radio aerial in these SD aircraft, I presume to avoid garotting people getting in and out of the rear compartment in the dark, and to allow this sort of thing to happen: I presume they relied on the enlarged radio aerial on the underside, which I'll fit towards the end of the assembly, since I tend to keep knocking these things off while handling the model. The last tricky bit (he says confidently) is producing a convincing looking sliding canopy roof. (The side windows slid down into the fuselage, so are easy enough.) Here's what I'm after: The problem with the thick kit canopy is that of course, though I was able to saw it into the appropriate sections, the front bit (left) doesn't rest low enough on the rear bit (right): I suppose a vacform canopy would have addressed this issue, but I wasn't convinced the Squadron canopy (intended for an Italeri kit) would fit the Eduard kit well enough. I've ended up with a jerry-rigged solution--I thinned the lower edges of the forward canopy to allow it to sit a bit lower, then extended it downwards by adding a new frame (styrene strip) to the edges of the existing part. Here it is, complete with the rods extending from the rear: Dry fitting suggests an OK-ish result--and as the lesser of two evils, I'd rather have it a little oversized than teetering in place like a small hat on a large head. It's not in place yet, since the kit is currently upside down while the glue dries on the long-range tank. But that's probably the last bulletin here, unless I run into unexpected problems. It will float into the "Read For Inspection" thread in due course.

It's now looking a little care-worn, in an approximation to the appearance in my reference photos. LifeColor Liquid Pigment in various shades from dark to pale, and a few little chips to the paintwork along removable panel lines and around the gills in Tamiya Flat Aluminium. I've also taken off the canopy masking and successfully popped off the two transparency panels to expose the cockpit. Some work to be done there, showing them in their open positions, and various bits and bobs to be added--pick up hook, underside aerial and long-range tank, the front of the cowling and the exhaust, but nearly there.

Decals are on. I now have a fair bit of weathering to do, and need to produce a matt finish at the the end of all that. I'm not looking forward to that--matt varnish on dark surfaces never seems to work out well for me. The markings are from the kit decal sheet--pre-1942 roundels and tail flash were supplied. These took a bit of work to bed down, with repeated applications of Micro Sol. I was disappointed in the minor bits and pieces of red text, which seem to be printed out of register with an underlying white layer. In retrospect I should have scanned the decal sheet and printed my own version on transparent film to avoid that. The tail number is assembled from a Fantasy Printshop sheet of 8" red RAF letters, and it kind of emphasizes the shortcomings of the kit's red lettering. Sigh. (The scribbly little number "4" to the right of the ladder is my own addition. In Barbara Bertram's excellent and entertaining memoir French Resistance In Sussex, she recorded that it was customary, before leaving England, to chalk on the side of the aircraft how many packages (luggage, supplies etc) were stowed in the rear compartment, so that nothing could be overlooked during the frenzied few minutes on the ground in France.)

Thanks all, for the encouraging comments. The wings connect robustly to the central strut section and its associated flanges. I did find that easier to assemble once I'd inadverently popped the central strut/flange part off the cockpit assembly--you can use the central transparency as a spacer and assemble the whole deal on a flat surface, rather than juggling delicate parts in midair. The connection between the whole wing assembly and the rest of the aircraft is potentially quite delicate--really just a four-point connection between struts and support framework. But once you get the canopy parts glued in place, above and below the wings, that firms up a bit. If you have a closed canopy, then the way the upper and lower canopy parts come together like a clamp around the wing roots will make a pretty robust joint overall. Because I'm going to have the upper cockpit canopy slid back, I have a slightly less firm connection. That said, having used CA on bare plastic surfaces when I reattached the part I'd dislodged, I'm pretty confident of my four-point connection with the rest of the aircraft.

The rear canopy is not a good fit in the closed position, so I ended up assembling the cockpit canopy (with a view to a partial dismantle later), and masking the rear compartment. It looked a lot less messy once primed. Then a couple of coats of Tamiya black diluted with white and a touch of blue, added the slats and part of the cowling, and recoated. It needs some small areas painted in other colours (ladder rungs, pitot tube), but it's just about ready for the decals. Here's what I have to go on: This is January 1942, so I'm thinking A.1 roundels for the fuselage sides. I'm a bit puzzled by the appearance of the upper wing roundels in the top photograph--they almost seem to have a thin dark outer ring, like yellow on orthochromatic film, but I haven't encountered such a thing. There are no evident squadron letters on the side of the aircraft, but I guess red lettering might not appear to great advantage in such a photograph. At present I'm going with omitting lettering altogether, and adding the correct tail number in 8" red.

Thanks, all, for the kind words. Yes, it definitely should have been in a Bond film.

You're very welcome. I hope the decal images are of some use.

Some small, fiddly progress. I decided to divide the upper canopy part into its static and sliding portions at this point, because I think this will make the positioning of the canopy parts easier. Here's the kit part: And here's the necessary division, which involves a little awkward side cut with the razor saw: The tail wheel also needed a bit of work, removing a fairing and shortening the part. Kit part again: The chunky fairing needs to go, and the remaining part needs to be trimmed down to reflect a shorter (and compressed) oleo strut. Here's the final assembled tail wheel: I fitted this temporarily so that I could get the correct orientation of the fuselage, to fit the ladder vertically (there are, predictably enough, no orientation holes in the fuselage): Finally, some bits and bobs have had a coat of paint: The engine is now black, thanks to @dogsbody. The propeller is slightly tricky to assemble, since the kit gives no indication for the correct angle of attack of the blades--photographic reference required. I've used the short kit spinner, which sits entirely in front of the blades, because that seems to be a match for photographs of my chosen aircraft. The front part of the cowling and its associated exhaust have been coated in a mixture of Titanium Gold and Bronze. Interior green on the inside of the canopy parts, using a Montex interior mask, and a little grab bar formed from brass rod and stretched sprue on the inside of the forward canopy. And the odd grey object in the middle is the message hook with a coat of primer, which was (I think) removed from later pick-up aircraft but is visible in one photograph of Nesbitt-Dufort's plane. The kit provides a resin part for the fuselage attachment, and a tiny photoetch spiral hook, but requires a length of styrene rod for the middle portion. I managed to mangle the little hook while trimming it, so what you see above is a hook formed from stretched sprue wrapped around the tips of a set of needle-nose tweezers.

For the life of me, I couldn't work out how Eduard intended me to fit the parabolic reflectors of the landing lights into the spats. The kit is pretty short on locating pins and flanges anyway, but this was just annoying. The kit part seemed to be shaped to fit something, but nothing inside the spats matched. I ended up sanding and chiselling away a significant amount of plastic and fitting them right behind the transparent covers. I suspect they're supposed to be set a little deeper somehow, but here's what I ended up with, once the spats and wheels were assembled: Then it was a matter of getting all the big bits glued together. This was a fairly demanding task (for me, at least), because of the struts connecting the wing assembies to the wheel assemblies, and the fact that the locating pins on the bottom of these struts don't remotely fit into the locating holes on the wheel assemblies. So a certain amount of fiddling ensued, during which I managed to pop off the pair of locating flanges for the wings from their position on top of the cockpit assembly. This made things much easier, and I'd recommend ignoring the kit instructions and assembling the wings and central support structure as a unit before setting them in position on top of the cockpit assembly. I also used the upper central part of the canopy transparency as a spacer to make sure the wings were fitted correctly, as its possible to slide them too far towards each other, leaving inadequate space for the canopy parts. So here it is, looking a real piebald mess at present: Some more detailing to apply before the paint goes on, and I need to consider how I'm going to mask the cockpit. Eventually I want the rear canopy slid back, the front upper canopy slid back, and the port windows slid down, which will involve a bit of work with a razor saw to divide the kit parts. But at present I'm thinking I'll leave them intact for now, and glue them in place temporarily with some weak clear glue while the paint goes on. Then I can pop the parts off and modify them for the final configuration. (He says, confidently.)

The CMK rudder looks like a pretty neat fit when matched against the kit tail, but then needed a little adjustment with filler and sanding once I'd scribed away the kit plastic. Here it is in place, completing the tail assembly: I've also fiddled the CMK flaps into position: The kit provides a set of photoetch flap hinges, which are of course configured for the "up" position. I found it was easy enough to clip this part in half along an etched seam, and position the two halves realistically. The inboard hinges are in place; the outboard hinges await further assembly, since they're mounted on the wing struts.

I've finished work on the CMK parts for the horizontal stabilizers. I seem to have two port tailplanes, to judge from the fitting tabs. There's no difference between the top and bottom surfaces, and in any case I need to revise the tab position so that I can model the tailplanes in the tilted "Take Off" position (a notorious feature of the Lsyander). So it was just a matter of sawing off the tabs and repositioning them. This is slightly complicated by the fact that a triangular plate, properly mounted on top of the tilting tailplane, is moulded into the kit tail: So I laid a bit of Tamiya tape over it, drew an outline of the shape, and then transferred to styrene card before removing the feature and scribing the interrupted panel lines: You'll see I've also hacked out the kit rudder in preparation for the CMK replacement, which I'll eventually mount with a slight offset to match the rudder pedals. And here's the tailplane assembled and in place, with its take-off tilt (and a bit of elevator deflection):

You're very kind, thanks.

While waiting for my repainted Bristol engine to dry (thanks, @dogsbody), I made an adjustment to the undercarriage. As other have noted before me, the Eduard kit portrays the wheels with shock-absorbers uncompressed, so I did a bit of work with a fine chisel to reposition the wheels a little deeper inside the spats, working from photographs of parked aircraft. Before (left) and after (right):

Well, I messed that up, didn't I? Thanks! I spent a lot of time peering at photographs to convince myself that "dark iron" was wrong, and there was a flat bare-metal finish to the cylinders. Sigh. The gear casing's just neglect on my part, though.

The engine, with its PE parts, is assembled. I briefly turned it blue, because I forgot that LifeColor's panel liner leaves a slight blue residue on metallic paint, but a very light overspray corrected that. The cowling comes in four parts--three curved panels and the front end. I'm keeping the front separate, for now, to make painting easier. I also dug a square hole to accommodate the kit's PE air inlet The CMK exhaust (dark grey, bottom) is a better match for my proposed aircraft than the kit part (pale grey, top), so it will be getting a coat of pale gold-bronze to match the front of the cowling. I think I'll need to mix the colour myself to match photographs, since it doesn't look like any standard paint pot I can think of.

The interior is assembled. Positioning the upper tank, behind the pilot's head, was a bit of trial and error, since the Eduard diagram is unhelpful, to say the least, and it's a tight fit. The unpainted flanges at the top connect to the wings, in due course. My depiction of the rear compartment is that the plywood has been given a coat of interior green, and is just starting to get a bit worn, with just a little wood showing through and some dirt on the floor and bench--nothing too bad, since in January 1942 the French pick-up service hadn't been running for long. In a couple of places where there should be holes (like the tranverse support in the cockpit floor) I've contented myself with filling the "holes" with LifeColor black panel liner. I'm anticipating that once sunk into the fuselage assembly the impression of a dark cavity with something beyond will be convincing. Either that or I'm just too lazy to drill out the holes properly--we'll see how it turns out. Depth of field not very good on some of the images, I'm afraid. We've had precious little actual daylight in my part of the world, these last few days.

While painting and assembling the interior parts, I wanted to make some progress with the wings. I wanted to dry fit these to the locating flanges which attach to the top of the interior assembly, rather than discover a problem later. I want to depict this one with the flaps and leading edge slats deployed, which happened automatically at low airspeeds. (I chased around for a while trying to find more information about a passing reference in Hugh Verity's book, about passengers being asked to "push back the automatic flaps as they left the aircraft", which would also have stowed the inboard slats, but didn't turn up anything that gave me confidence to model the aircraft with that geometry.) So first I had to carve big chunks off the wings: The Czech Masters resin conversion set provides flaps and the parts for the outer slats--a replacement wing edge, the slats, and three supports for each slat. But there are no inboard slats, which is a significant oversight. Again, I took a leaf out of @dnl42's book, and built my own inboard slats. I used the central part of the section removed from each outboard leading edge to create a new leading edge for the inboard section of the opposite wing. Once these were in place, I stuck some Tamiya masking tape over the area, traced out the required shape, peeled off the tape and stuck it to some 0.1mm aluminium sheet, cut the sheet around the marked outline on the tape, discarded the tape, then taped the lower edge of my flat aluminium shape to the underside of the wing leading edge in the correct position, and moulded the aluminium around the leading edge. This produced a pair of slats that should look convincing once undercoated. Finally, as you can see, I placed the supports for the extended slats provided in the Czech Masters set--and there are enough spares to provide the necessary parts for the inboard wings as well, provided you don't lose too many to the carpet monster. (These are not actually the right shape to match the real structures, but they'll make it so much easier to align the slats that I've let them be.) I'll leave the slats off meantime, for ease of painting. The subsequent dry fitting of the wings required a little trimming of the locating flanges to get a fit, so I was glad to be able to do that with the flange part in my hand, rather than already glued to the complicated and delicate interior assembly.

I'd just like to say that whoever was responsible for the choice of that horrible "Lord of the Rings"-style typeface on the box should be shot. Really. This is going to be yet another Special Duties Lysander. I'd like to build John Nesbitt-Dufort's all-black Lysander from 138 Sq., famously pranged in a French ditch (and then destroyed by a train) in January 1942. Tail number was T1508, squadron code would have been NF, but I don't know the aircraft letter, or how the plane might have been marked--photographs don't seem to cover the necessary parts of the fuselage. So there's a problem ahead. So far, I've got to the stage of assembling "largest paintable units" of interior detail, using Eduard's photoetch. Above are all the bits that needed gluing together or modifying at this stage. The tray seat came together fairly easily, and will be painted and weathered a bit before the photoetch harness goes on. I built myself a little rudder bar assembly, rather than just tacking the photoetch rudders on to the cockpit floor, as the instructions require. This was mainly because I want a slight rudder offset. A little bit of wiring, made from stretched sprue, on the visible rear surface of the instrument panel. I gathered my wires into two bundles, because a lot of this wiring seems to join a couple of cable runs on either side of the cockpit. And of course the vexed rear compartment. I've elected to make it very stripped-down. Here's the extended flooring and the plywood bench, made from styrene sheet: I also removed the gun-related fittings from the rear compartment cover. For the radio stowage, I've come down heavily in favour of the sliding shelf discovered by @dnl42: https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235057615-lysander-iiia-sd-161-squadron/page/2/ This makes sense to me in terms of creating space for people, luggage and supplies in the cramped rear space. Given that it will be out of sight, I've done nothing to represent it in modelling terms except to provide the rails on which the shelf would slide, which will be partially visible in the completed model. I'm not sure about the armour plating behind the pilot. Given the need to reduce weight, and the the nature of these missions, I'm currently planning to omit it. But I'd love to hear from anyone who thinks otherwise!

Thanks all. I feel I can make a very marginal case for flaps up and inboard slats retracted, but I'm leaning toward slats out and flaps down. The deciding factor will really be how well I can manage to make a set of inboard slats (I have the outboard slats and the flaps from CMK). A bit of experimentation required before I start sawing, I think!

Very useful, thanks. It's interesting that the flap lock (with options for up and 3/4 down) is described as having been removed in later aircraft. This is borne out, to some extent, by the labelled photo of the port side of the Lysander III cockpit in the Pilot's Notes, which shows the curved slot for the flap lock (just behind the throttle), but doesn't attach a label to it, and doesn't seem to show any kind of control knob. But if there was no flap lock in the French SD Lysanders, what would be the point of the passengers fiddling with the flaps? The flap lock slot is also visible in photographs of the Shuttleworth Lysander, and seems to be unoccupied by any sort of control knob. So I guess that means the take-off run is actually started with full flaps, which retract as speed increases.

The agents who were being ferried out certainly got a fair amount of training, including practice at exiting the aircraft--there was a well-established drill to get people in and out in the shortest possible time. So it would seem possible that they also practised whatever it was they were supposed to do with the flaps. The flaps were certainly easily accessible from the rear compartment, but do look like they'd be more of an exit hazard in the "up" position rather than "down". Here's an illustrative photograph from the Haynes manual: That does look as if the corner of a raised flap would catch you right in the back of the head as you tried to get on to the exit ladder (out of sight in this image, on the opposite side of the aircraft).

Thanks for this. The Pilot's Notes for the aircraft seem to imply that slats and flaps deployed smoothly, rather than in stages, driven by air flow. The Haynes manual says that the pilot could lock the flaps (though I can't seem to find the relevant control in the Pilot's Notes cockpit diagrams). This explains the photographs of parked aircraft with inboard slats stowed and flaps raised. But asking the passengers to find an appropriate flap position for take-off, in a rush, in the dark, seems fairly fraught. But likewise, locking the flaps fully raised (an easy position for the passengers to find), then unlocking them at some point during take-off when speed was sufficient to stop them fully deploying, also seems like a way to complicate life.

I've started thinking about my planned 1/48 "Special Duties" Lysander, and I ran across something in Hugh Verity's We Landed By Moonlight which has puzzled me. I'm aiming to model an aircraft as it would have appeared on the ground in France during a pick-up, and had assumed that this would involve wing slats extended and flaps lowered. But in Peter Proctor's appendix on "Modifications to the Lysander" he says, "I also remember the pilots telling the passengers to push back the automatic flaps as they left the aircraft." I think this means that the passengers in the rear compartment lifted the flaps into the horizontal position (thereby also retracting the inner slats) once they had the rear canopy open. I've certainly seen photographs of parked aircraft with the flaps raised, so presumably this was possible to do, despite the entirely automatic operation in flight--I just can't puzzle out why they would do this, minutes before a short-field take-off.

Ah, that's great, thanks. Looks like I'd have had a lot less messing around with plastic card, brass wire and scribing tools if I'd waited for the Avis model! I see I was mistaking the separate roof panel for a side door in your initial picture. Thanks again.