BillF67

Off again on another madcap scheme? What scale Camel will you be building for this Beagle? As always, watching with much interest, old boy.

Wow. Just wow.

I do like a brush painted model! Very nice.

Following this with interest, old bean. Just wondering where the catapult for the Hurricat goes? Don’t those big sticky up thingies get in the way?

Bl@@dy amazing the stuff that comes up on this site!

Kites, Birds and Stuff, Miles Aircraft, suggests 21 Mk ll and 5 Mk lll went to Egypt: Mk ll (Swindon) - DL 976, 977, 978, 979, 983, DM 166, 167, 168, 170, 173, 179, 180 Mk ll (Woodley) - DL 251, 252, 271, 272, 275-8, 280 Mk lll - DM 227, 232 - 235. (Any errors are probably my poor interpretation of info provided!) I have a 1/48 Mk 1 Master in the stash - I’m saving it as a treat to myself one day

I’ve got some of that so I’ll give it a try. Can’t be any worse than my paint jobs! VMT

I think this is a perfect definition of modelling entropy and as such qualifies as the first entry to the Group Build!

So albatrosses are fine but penguins are a no no?

Good call, Usirius. Seems to fit the facts. VMT.

Thanks Geoffrey. WRT the dorsal blister - any ideas? I’ve seen one other a/c photo but it was a very late build destined for overseas.

James Halley (Squadrons of the Royal Air Force) offers PH318 (built/delivered 1944/45) as a 17 Sqn aircraft. A Google search returns several images of this a/c crashed near Exeter in 1956. Noel Collier has images of her (ABPic site) and places her with 3/4 CAACU. I can accept this could be 17 Sqn, handed over to Exeter when the CAACU was formed. So far so good. looking at the images, there is no dorsal turret but there is a dorsal blister, and the side windows appear to be blacked out? Any ideas?

(From Wikipedia - I know, hardly the most authoritative source but………..) (17 Sqn)”The Squadron adopted No. 691 Squadron's role of being an anti-aircraft co-operation unit. During this time the Squadron flew a mixture of aircraft including the Spitfire LF.XVIe and target tugs: Airspeed Oxford T.II; Miles Martinet TT.I; North American Harvard TT.IIb; Bristol Beaufighter TT.X.” I can’t find any evidence of an Oxford Target Tug. I can find an image of an Oxford with a dorsal turret on gunnery training so this would be a Mk.1 presumably, but not a T2 (whatever that is?). I can also find several published references to a T2 variant: JDR Rawlings in Aircraft Profiles 227 photo of T1214, (which elsewhere is identified as a Mk2). I can’t see anything in this photo to say that it’s a tug. JG Halley - Squadrons of the RAF W/Cdr CG Jefford - RAF Squadrons. As I want to make a representative 17 Sqn a/c I’d like to at least get the Mk1 with turret/Mk2 without turret right!

I did wonder about the T2 as a Tug but I can’t find any reference to such a beast anywhere. T2 is, I believe, not a Mk2. I also would have thought that a Tug version would have been a TT, in common with all tugs of that era? I have checked several references and where the T2 is mentioned, it’s always caveated with the small number built. 691 Sqn had Mk1 Oxfords but when it became 17Sqn in 1949ish, T2 Oxfords appear on the roster.

Can anyone provide any info on the Oxford T2? I believe 9 were produced, some (or all?) were modified Mk 1’s. According to D. Evans in “The Long Line” Mk1s were used ‘in conjunction’ with Target Tugs for Gunnery Training but no mention of T2s.