Jump to content

Dave Fleming

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    10,173

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Posts posted by Dave Fleming

    F4 (J)

    in Aircraft Cold War

    Posted

    QRA birds would be fully armed - 4 x AIM9, 2x or 4x Sparrow or Skyflash (The J used the former longer than regu;lar RAF F4s) and either a centre pod of the SUU-23 gun pod)

    One point worth mentioning is that when not on QRA, the Js rarely carried the wing tanks

    Contra-prop Spits

    in Aircraft WWII

    Posted

    All this leads me, still, to believe that the bigger, XVIII, rudder was a post-war mod, which was retro-fitted to some (but not all) F.R.XIVs, and it was found to be necessary on the contra-prop 21, to counteract the fin offset.

    Yep, I would agree with that. Timescale would appear to be about 1947/48.

    Just to throw a cat amongst the pigeons, photos of 17 Squadron's mk XIVs in Japan in the Lucas book on post-war RAF Fighters Overseas show HIGH BACKED mk XIVs fitted with the enlarged rudder. Interestingly, these appear to be a single colour - perhaps confirming them as a recent retro-fit.

    One thing I've never seen is how much wider this later rudder should be. (Post to trailing edge)

    Contra-prop Spits

    in Aircraft WWII

    Posted

    There might well have been a mod., but I haven't found it. Photographs don't bear out John's theory; No.2 Squadron's F.R.XIVEs, photographed in Gatow, 1946, still have the standard XIV rudder, with the small horn. The only clear photos, that, so far, I've been able to find, of XVIIIs, (but taken around 1948/50,) do have the bigger rudder & the deeper horn, but the specs., for the fin, and rudder, areas, for all marks of XIVs(including the high-backed) & XVIII, in the "Spitfire bible," are identical, and I believe that this could only be true, if the XVIII fin/rudder was altered at a later stage.

    Edgar

    I looked into this one a few years back, and it's one area that 'The Bible' is incomplete on. They mention testing of the enlarged rudder on the XIV/XVIII but not it's introduction. I beleive they were retrofitted to some XIVes - I'll dig out a picture of a 602 Squadron one along side some mk 21s where you can clearly see the larger 'horn' (oo-err missus)

    Contra-prop Spits

    in Aircraft WWII

    Posted

    Additionally, on the 21, only, the horn was made deeper, which took a small amount out of the fin.

    Was the same not also true of most low backed XIVs and also mk 18s? I'm sure that's what John Adams said

    1/48 Hasegawa GR7 'Operation Telic'

    in Aircraft Modern

    Posted

    Another way of spotting the 100% LERX aircraft are the two little intakes on top of the fuselage. This is due to the original intakes on the leading edge of the wing being faired over by the larger LERX (see Wills pics).

    Except so far the GR9s with the 65% LERX have the little intakes added......

    http://www.airliners.net/open.file/1116604/L/

    Incidentally, the reasons for not re-fitting with 100% LERx are cost and operational need - the LERX was developed to add turning/manouvrability

    Contra-prop Spits

    in Aircraft WWII

    Posted

    There weren't many, mainly experimental (IIRC only the late mark Seafires had them as standard)

    mk 14, mk 21, mk 22s and a single mk 24 (PK684) all carried them at various times

    You could use the contraprop from the Airfix Seafire kit with the mk 22/24 kit

    Lightning F.6 1/72 kits

    in Aircraft Cold War

    Posted

    The original Frog release was from Hasegawa tooling. Frog then made their own tooling copied from Hasegawa mouldings. I suspect it is the latter that was issued in Revell boxes.

    This one

    http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Revell-BAC-Lightning...1QQcmdZViewItem

    Is the Novo/Frog mould and was released along with a batch of other ex-Frog kits (Shackleton, Sea Vixen etc)

    Hasegawa revised their tooling in the late 80s/early 90s to include some additional parts (cockpit IIRC) - didn';t do anything about the shape errors on the fuselage.

    Ironic that the best small scale Lightning is the Tamyia one in 1/100th, also released by Revell, then the Revell in 1/144th!

    Eurofighter Typhoon

    in Aircraft Modern

    Posted

    Copied from a post on ARC I saved for future reference:

    The official colours are as follows:

    Overall: BS381C no. 629 Camouflage (Barley) Grey.

    Cockpit is BS381C no. 632 Dark Admiralty Grey.

    Leading and trailing edge flap interiors: FS595B 36280 (Slightly lighter than RAF Ocean Grey).

    Intake Flap interior: BS381C no. 626 Camouflage (Barley) Grey.

    Intakes (Aft of intake flap - Inside intake ducting): FS595B 26492.

    Radome: FS595B 36314 Flint Grey (This is supposedly an FS equivalent to Barley Grey, however looking at the real aircraft it appears to have a slight brownish tint), possibly BS381C no. 626 with a "dash" of Dark Earth

    Also of note is the canopy tint, Johnsons Clear with a dash of Tamiya Smoke should be a good match

    HTH

    Richard

    To give credit to the originator, this came from Rob Monfea, who works at BAESYSTEMS at Warton and was first posted by him on the IPMS UK forum.

    It was then posted in various other forums, usually by me!!

×
×
  • Create New...