Chewbacca

Very tempted to join in with this but for vintage Airfix it would have to be one of the many 1/600 scale ships in the stash and there's no way that I can complete one of those in 3.5 months especially noting that I'm just finishing off the Carriers GB with a Trumpeter Seahawk so realistically won't even be starting this for a month. Last one I finished was the conversion of BELFAST to GLASGOW and that took just over a year. I'll have a rummage through what I've got and see what I can come up with.

Thanks everyone for your responses, there does appear to be more out there than I thought though still limited when compared to the plethora of German and US figures. I must confess that although I know that the Royal Marines have flown helicopters with the Royal Navy since the Malayan conflict and Sea Harriers during the 90s and early part of this century, and I knew that some RMLI formed the nucleus of the Royal Naval Air service, I hadn't appreciated that they also flew with distinction with the FAA during WW2 until I read your post and did some investigating.

Fascinating stuff! And there's me just choosing the colours that I think look "about right". I shall have to order some Colourcoats for my next WW2 project.

There's a great book by GLAMORGAN's navigator, Ian Inskip, entitled Ordeal by Exocet which details the whole of her Falklands deployment. It is well worth the read.

Of course there is a suggestion from some that after her collision with HAWKE, OLYMPIC had such serious damage to her keel that she was in effect uninsurable and so with the White Star line being in serious debt, the conspiracy theorists have put forward the suggestion that nameplates were swapped with TITANTIC. The evidence is quite compelling: https://social.shorthand.com/TitanicMystery/jCPyIbzzPVc/did-the-titanic-really-sink-or-was-it-Olympic. Either way, great model, especially if it was only your second ship and I particularly like the seascape. Which technique did you use?

Thanks. Those KHSG074 are still available (I found them for sale on Michtoy.com) but unfortunately they're the only RN figures they do in 1/48. Can't find any listed in the Airwaves catalogue and the only PP models I can find is Peter Pig but they're all 15mm wargaming figures now.

After much sanding and rescribing, I think I'm almost there with the rear fuselage join although there still appears to be a slight bump as you transition aft even on the upper surface and I thought I had that aligned. I'm hoping once it has some extra dark sea grey on it it won't be too noticeable! Got the wings fitted and they didn't go on too badly so I'm almost at the point of masking up the cockpit and wheel wells for the first coat of primer. Now here's a question for those more knowledgeable than me. The kit is going to be modelled on the deck and so it is natural to expect a plethora of remove before flight tags. Yet I cannot find any photos of Seahawks with RBF tags fitted. I've only found a couple with a intake blanks fitted. Were they not used in the mid-50s? Assuming they were, does anyone have any information of where they might be fitted? I'd be expecting at least pitot head, static intakes, rocket safety pins, ejector sea safety pins etc. Thanks

Does anyone know of a source of 1/48 Fleet Air Arm figures? I'm actually looking for all periods from the start of WW2 to present day for the various Navy aircraft that I am working on or have in the stash. Years ago I bought a cracking set of white metal figures which included one SHAR pilot and two ground crew in typical early 1980s foulies, flight deck surcoats etc but that's about it as far as I can see, I've converted Eduard US Navy ground crew figures for the Martlet diorama and I'm in the process of modifying some CMK RAF WW2 pilots to represent a Firefly crew in 1946, but despite extensive searches, I cannot find any dedicated FAA personnel in 1/48. With the resurgent interest in both this scale and RN aviation, I would have thought that someone might do them. Grateful for any suggestions.

According to Hobbs (British Aircraft Carriers, 2013) page 41, both of VINDICTIVE's flight decks were steel. No indication I'm afraid of colour but I'd suspect some from of dark grey

Shouldn't have criticised the fwd fuselage fit. The aft fuselage fit is shocking. I lined the upper faces up together and that left a step at the bottom of nearly 1 mm. And if you line up the top two panel lines, none of the others align so will need filling and rescribing. To think I believed it when a friend at our local model club said that the fit on Trumpeter kits was generally very good! No more updates from me for a couple of days - got to go away on business for the rest of the week so no work on this after tonight until the weekend..

Thanks Peter. I'm glad that corroborates my research. I was aware of the inner main undercarriage doors being closed on the ground but thanks for the reminder anyway Best regards

Thanks. Inspired by reading Basilisk's thread on his Seahawk I though I too would open up the cockpit air vents because as he rightly says, they are very prominent. I took a slightly different approach in that having cut away the existing moulding and put the two fuselage halves together, it was readily apparent that the rear bulkhead for the nosewheel came right across the intakes and would foul any deep intakes. So I added a 10thou plasticard backing plate, shaved an equivalent amount off the bulkhead and then added the intakes from the top, again from 10 thou plasticard. While that was all setting it was time to do the CG test to check whether there was enough lead weight. So with the fuselage halves taped together, the exhausts added and the rear fuselage taped on, I checked for balancing point: at least 20mm in front of the undercarriage mounting points so should be okay there. Therefore it was time to start putting the fuselage together. Must be said the forward fuselage is not a great fit and there is quite a lot of tape trying to hold it together while the liquid poly sets! As an aside, why did I spend a whole evening priming the jet pipes and then covering with Alclad gloss black and then burnt exhaust? When they're fitted, there's barely any of the outside visible! Now a question. I'd quite like to display this with flaps and airbrakes extended, purely because I can and because it adds interest. Yet I can find no evidence that they were ever parked like this? in fact the only photos that I can find of Seahawks with extended flaps on the ground are those just about to take position on the cat and its a little late to be thinking about putting a pilot in there. Does anyone have any evidence that might counter my research so far? One interesting website that I did come across while looking for Seahawk images was this one: http://daiyee.com/shop/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=597. Never heard of them before but that looks stunning - wish I'd found it a few weeks ago.

Well having searched the study for over an hour on Wednesday with no lead anywhere to be found, I thought I'd try to take some new photos with a different camera and in going to the mantin where I knew the lead for that was, because I saw it on Wednesday, lo and behold there was the one I had been looking for all along. I must have looked in that tin at least three times on Wednesday! Anyway, progress to date: Completed bang seat. It wasn't until I took this photo that I realised that having fitted the bar across the top of the seat, I forgot to fit the "curtain" that attaches to it. I also realised that I made an error earlier when I said that the seat belts were scratch built. Getting confused with the Wasp that's also on the go at the moment. Of course the seat belts in this are PE that come with the kit, though I would suggest that they are too small as when fitted in the correct mounting positions they are fairly taught across the seat. Almost completed cockpit. Still got to add the glass for the sight and some extra cabling up the rear bulkhead. There was a lesson learnt here. Don't do the shadow wash after you've done the silver drybrush as the wash picks up the silver pigment! Normally I would put a coat of Klear on before the wash but for some bizarre reason I forgot. I think it just about looks okay. Main undercarriage wheel well. As you can see, I opted for sky but I doubt if anyone will ever see it when its finished as it will be on a dark grey base, no mirrors for me! Nose weight added. Interesting to see if this is enough - I'll give it a CG test before I finally secure the fuselage - as this was a departure from the norm for me. I usually raid the garage for old nuts & bolts but there was so little space in there that I bought a 1kg bag of diver's lead shot weights from Amazon and put some of that in. There's about 25g which I think should suffice but time will tell. The CG test will be this weekend so watch this space...

Thanks for all your comments. My apologies for not posting for a few days, unfortunately my father-in-law passed away on Saturday so my focus has been elsewhere! I did manage to get a little work done, so the cockpit is now installed in the upper fuselage, the rear fuselage put together, nose weights added and exhausts sprayed with Alclad. I do have some photos which I will upload to Flickr and link to here when I can find the lead to connect the camera... Thanks for that. I have now found a source of white lettering on an Xtradecal set so that's now on order. I can print the Ace of Diamonds logo quite easily. But I realised that one of the jobs I did while away was to open up the holes for the rockets, so I have decided that this will be one of the Op Musketeer aircraft, I've got another one of these in the stash so will finish that in 806 Sqn colours

There are some nice photos of EDINBURGH in the Neil McCart book on the Town Class though few of her post her 1941 refit. There are a couple showing her post the torpedo attack with the sloop HMS GOSSAMER alongside taking off survivors that appear to show a camouflage pattern although its very indistinct. Appointment only sadly! I upset too many people (especially Captain D) to go any further.

Thanks

Thank you - which one did you do? My next planned BELFAST conversion is likely to be BIRMINGHAM which is harder still as she was the one ship in the class that had an un-chined "destroyer" bow, so even more hull reshaping!

I know I'm joining this late and the model has been started but in my defence I only joined the site a couple of weeks ago and only came across this particular thread on Tuesday. So I'm going to be putting together the Trumpeter 1/48 Seahawk. I actually started it on 7th April while we were on holiday in Wales - I though it might be a little easier to transport than a 1/48 Wasp, a 1/600 LONDONDERRY (from the Airfix LEANDER) or a 1/600 ALACRITY in a South Atlantic Sea State 10 which are the others on the bench at the moment. Unfortunately I didn't take too many photos of the early build because the lighting in the holiday cottage wasn't great and in any case I didn't think I'd need them. The only one taken during that first week was of the bang seat. I'm basically building this out of the box so yes, I could have bought the Aires resin cockpit but this was going to a relatively fun quick build and so let's keep it simple. Unfortunately, I couldn't do that so armed with photos of a MB Mk 2, I set about thinning the sides, adding the bar across the back where the curtain is attached which tips the pilot out of the seat after ejection and adding a bit of texture to the very plain seat back. You can see the initial work below: . That was day 1 or 2. I then went on to complete the rest of the cockpit, again largely out of the box but with some light embellishment such as the addition of throttles, sea belts (from wine bottle top foil) and paint the interior of the UC bays (and hence my interest in the other thread on that subject before it was too late to repaint if I'd got it wrong). I got back from leave 2 weeks ago and set the Seahawk to one side in order to concentrate on the Wasp (based on the very aged and fairly crude Fujima kit being built as XT420, HECLA Flight in June 1982 in which I was serving as a fresh-faced Midshipman, straight out of Dartmouth). But I'll swap over this weekend and see where the Seahawk takes me. Haven't decided which aircraft to go for yet. I'd like to look at doing WV908 in RNHF colours of 806 NAS but I haven't found any decals for that variant in 1/48 and I don't relish printing the white serials or ROYAL NAVY logo without access to a white printer, so I'll probably do one of the two Op Musketeer aircraft for which kit decals are provided.

Is it too late to join? Only swapped over to this forum 10 days or so ago after 10 years with the Airfix Tribute Forum and only just spotted this GB. Being an ex-WAFU (albeit on FF/DD rather than flat tops, though I was the first OOW1 of ARK ROYAL when she came out of build in 1984) this is right up my street. I started the Trumpeter Seahawk on 7th Apr while on holiday in Wales and did the cockpit while I was away - so in terms of parts significantly less than 25% but in terms of effort probably quite close - but then I did start it after the GB started even if I didn't report on it! Not being too familiar with the process of BM GBs, if approved to join do I just start a build thread or is one created for me as in the ATF? Thanks

Biggest is not always best. If I'd been judging I would have awarded it first based purely on the seascape - that's stunning, especially since from reading the WIP thread that was your first.

I fear they may still be classified despite the aircraft having gone out of service! I'll have a chat to my old chums on Handling Squadron and see what I can do Edited to add, I looked at one of those models a couple of weeks ago at a local model show. I was tempted but £30 for a 1/72 Jetstream - they're taking the proverbial! Best rgds

I must confess that part of me does feel like that at times. Then the other part of me says that I will know it is wrong. Like the time I scratch built the entire interior on an Airfix Jetstream converted to the T2 that I flew on my final air test based on the drawings in the Topic 15 that I still had in my come in handy one day box, only to find once I'd buttoned up the fuselage that because the windows were so thick and there was so little light in there that you couldn't see any of it... But I know its there!

Not at all bad if that's only your second model - certainly a lot better than my first BELFAST which was when the kit was first released back in the 70s and indeed I would argue a fair bit better than my most recent example which was the first kit I made when I returned to modelling 13 years ago after a 25 year lay off. Whilst you are right about not applying adhesive over paint, sometimes it is difficult to avoid with ships as it is so much easier and you generally get a much better finish to paint the decks, for example, before all of the various fittings are added. You can mitigate the adhesive damage by using either tiny amounts of cyano-acrylate (super glue) applied with a pin or an ultra thin liquid adhesive. But don't be hard on yourself. BELFAST is not the easiest kit in the world and you've done a good effort.

I'd be interested in the answer to this as well. Currently doing the Trumpeter kit and the only colour photos I can find of the undercarriage are all museum shots. Most of the research I found suggested that they should be sky, but that could be based on the restored aircraft.

I joined BOXER as she was approaching the end of her CACS trials in 86 and then deployed her to the Gulf in early 88. True, CACS didn't fulfil the requirement that had been specified, but it was still streets ahead of any other command system that we had at the time. I have a recollection that it was never formally accepted into service, even when the last ships were sold/scrapped. I remember doing Command Team Training at DRYAD just before we deployed and at one point left the T22 Ops Room and wandered into the T42 to see how they were doing. The CO (a very young Nigel Essenhigh) looked at me and asked what I was doing. I explained that I was from BOXER; his response was "Great, what on earth is going on"!