Dave Swindell

A well scrubbed teak deck can vary between a very light bleached bone when dry through to a very dark brown, almost black when soaking wet.

Wingnut didn't go bankrupt, Peter Jackson just closed them down and kept the tooling. If Ebbro have indeed gone bankrupt all the company assets including the tooling will be sold off by the liquidators for whatever they can get to cover whatever debts are are outstanding. Someone will buy them and hopefully reissue them.

I don't know about that, but the Liberator II - V were noted as being tail heavy, introduction of the nose turret went some way towards rectifying this.

That's brilliant Geoffrey, exactly what I was looking for, just need to reasearch the markings for these I'll keep my eye out for that so I can mark my own homework 😉

Dummy Deck Landing - training flight onto aircraft carrier deck marked out on runway directed by a landing signals officer, sounds like it stalled on base leg of approach?

I've been called a lot of things in my time, but I don't think that's one of them, it's not a term I've heard before. Well done (but that whistle doesn't look particularly clean 😂)

I can assure you they do, and the effects on diesel engines isn't good if it gets that far, boilers on the other hand are a little more tolerant. One of my most stressful nights as Chief Engineer was water in the fuel in the middle of the Arabian Sea at the hieght of the piracy problems. Got a call from the bridge at around 2am to tell me that the lights were flickering, the engine "didn't sound right" and the speed was dropping off. Legged it down to the control room by which time the main engine sounded like an asthmatic bag of nails, and the lights were decidedly dim. I managed to spot the fuel pressure was all over the place before the main engine gave a cough, gasp and wheeze and stopped, and then the black lights came on as the generators stopped as well. Next I had the old man on the phone from the bridge advising me the 2nd mate had just given out a "not under command" warning over the VHF ch16 advising everyone we had no power (pirates included, come and get us boys as we can't run away!) and it would be prudent and greatly appreciated if we could restore some sort of propulsion PDQ. The generators would start, but wouldn't carry any load, and I'd worked out that the fuel pressure fluctuations was water boiling in the fuel, gassing up the pumps. Fortunately we had one generator on Diesel oil (all the others and the main engine were running on heavy fuel at around 140C, hence the boiling water) which we managed to get going to provide power to the pumps, we could then change over to the other service tanks and flush the system through with good fuel before we could get the other generators going and start the main engine after about an hour. Source of the water was eventually traced to one of the purifiers in the fuel treatment plant which was supposed to take water out of the fuel but was in fact adding water and mixing it quite thoroughly with the fuel. After a few hours sorting this out it was time for a few well earned beers for breakfast! Oh and when we got to Salalah a day or two later, the Maersk Alabama was alongside (no sign of Tom Hanks though).

They would likely go the opposite way to what you're thinking, fuel would be drawn off the top of the tank and replaced with seawater from below, so displacement would increase, not decrease, and have list more to port. Not sure if this system was used on Flowers, but it wasn't uncommon on RN vessels where stability might be adversly affected by fuel consumption.

No walls on a ship, they're bulkheads 🙂 The colour in the photograph is quite dark, so not your light greenish colour (though you're free to paint them that way if you want). A couple of guesses would be black/very dark grey to match the hull colour, or possibly dark brown Faux wooden pannelling

Hi Graham, l don't have either Air Britain or Consolidated Mess, hence the question. I've just got the latest wingleader on the CC Liberators, from what I can see all bar 1 of the Liberators with nose turrets that served with RAF CC were J's, or a few L's,the exception being BZ970 which was a B-24H-1-CF. RAF mark no. doesn't appear to correlate with Consolidated mark/block numbers either. The purpose of the question was to try and establish which, if any, RAF Liberators match or can easily modified from the new Airfix kit. I have a stash of Hasegawa/Eduard kits which are planned for CC schemes, and a couple each of DK Decals and Kits at War Decals which feature RAF Liberators It might be easier to ID any of these as being B-24H's? - TS530, TT343, KH393, KH160, KL574, KL629, BZ938, KK320, KN746, BZ721, EW166 The kit purports to represent a B-24H-10-FO or B-24H-15-FO - so built by Ford at Willow Run Just a thought, would a Ford Willow Run B-24J look more like the Airfix B-24H than a Consolidated Fort Worth B-24J (Hasegawa/Eduard Kit) ?

I fancy building one of these in British markings. I don't think these were used by Coastal Command, but I suspect there might have been some in CBI? Anybody know if any of this type of B-24H were used by the RAF? if so which serials? @Geoffrey Sinclair production block / bu nos / serial tie-ups? TIA 🙂

Not necessarily, they could be pan head.....

Well that's interesting, most references quote the same or near as dammit length for all the FAW's, the only one that I have that doesn't is Tony Buttler's Warpaint on the Javelin, which gives a difference of 18.6" between the FAW9 and FAW8, and 13.6" difference between the FAW1, 4, 5, & 7 and the FAW2, 6 & 8. I would say photo comparison isn't straightforward due to the differing size of radomes and position of the radome joint.

The pressurised Mosquito's as depicted in the Airfix kit BXVI/PRXVI and B35 had reinforced canopies with heavier framework than the earlier unpressurised BIV/BIX bomber canopies as depicted in the Tamiya kit. The Airfix kit moulding isn't quite as refined as the Tamiya kit which might result in the Airfix canopy framing looking a bit on the heavy side if you're not careful when painting it. Masking the glazing and painting the whole of the raised frames will emphasise the heaviness of the frames. Sanding the raised frames off, polishing the canopy and replacing the frame with strips of painted decal film (or masking and painting) should improve the look. There's a spare canopy for the version you're not building to have a practice on first. If you don't fancy sanding and polishing the canopy, using painted decal film strips on the top of the frames might help reduce any overheavy look, again you could test this out on the spare canopy, maybe try this first before sanding off the frames to see which method gives a look you like and suits you and your skillset best?

I'm not aware of any change in canopy between the B35 and BXVI, but there's a subtle change in the framing and glazing between these pressurised canopies and the earlier non pressurised BIV / BIX canopies which may have resulted in a slight increase in external dimensions on the pressurised canopies, but as you say, any size increase would be negligable in a scale model.

Could you clarify the short and long nose terminoligy please? My understanding of the Javelin is the only version with a lengthened nose was the T3, and all the fighter versions irrespective of which radar was fitted had the same length and overall shape nose. The AI17 equipped Mks 1, 4, 5, 7, & 9 had a shorter radome attached to a frame further forward in the nose than the AI22 equipped Mks 2, 6 & 8 which had a larger radome attached to a frame further aft in the nose.

The Airfix BXVI (not XIV, that was an unbuilt Nightfighter variant) is based on lidar scans of the TT35 at Cosford. TT35's were converted from B.35's, so removing the TT modifications that Airfix erroneously left in the kit will give you a B35 airframe. Modelling wise there's not really any difference between the B35 and the BXVI, hence why Airfix have boxed it as such. B35's had Merlin 113/114's instead of 72's, and the radio fit/aerials varied depending on useage. Check photo's of your chosen subject for the details. Well I am rather fond of the Mossie....

Were those the ones that flew from Heathrow carrying C S Lewis's invention? I found his autobiography "The Lion, the Witch and the Bouncing Wardrobe" particualrly enlightening....

The new Airfix kit includes the rear boarding steps kept in the aircraft, Eduard and Airwaves etch sets for the DC-3/C-47 also include these steps.

OK, maybe not, my line of thinking was it was a technical reason for the change rather than a colour scheme design change.

Same colour renumbered - it was 641 in 1964, but by 1980 had been renumbered 241.

Replacement tailcone?

The ORB's are as good as the person recording the information. Some give just serial number, some just code letter, some give a partial serial and code letter and some give full serial and code. What is recorded can differ over time in the same squadron as the person making the entries changes. If the squadrons ORB is in AIR27 it's likely to be digitised and free to download, and whilst not infallible, it is a primary source document which can give at least part of the story, and IMHO is worth a look first. If you can find a serial, a photo can provide a positive tie up. If you've just got a code letter the serial might be more difficult to tie up as several airframes may have carried that particular code, and even if an airframe stayed with the squadron it might not have kept the same code for it's whole time on squadron. As @Far North thinks his ORB isn't digitised, it might still be catalogued online, if he can't visit in person there are researchers who could check this info for him if he can provide document references. It's a logical argument, and in the absence of any further information one you could use, but it's just as likely to have been a replacement for "D" which received Cat B damage a couple of days previously and was sent to an MU for repair (made up to illustrate a point)

Announcement from Solway Aviation Museum now they've achieved the target funding to move the Beverley from Fort Paull to the Museum:- We will be keeping the fundraiser open through the summer to help build funds for the Beverley's restoration, and we've got some exciting announcements to come in that regard. Donations can be made via https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/dougie-kerr or https://www.paypal.com/gb/fundraiser/charity/3264692 or by cheque

No, but they have been ( I got a couple from him on there) and he's only got UK postage, so if you don't see what you're after or you're outside the UK I'd suggest dropping him an email 🙂