Dave Swindell

https://www.scalemates.com/search.php?fkSECTION[]=Kits&q=Destroyer Sheffield-class type 42*&fkTYPENAME[]="Full kits" https://www.scalemates.com/search.php?fkSECTION[]=Kits&q=Landing platform dock Fearless-class*&fkTYPENAME[]="Full kits" https://www.scalemates.com/search.php?fkSECTION[]=Kits&q=Frigate Type 12I-class leander*&fkTYPENAME[]="Full kits"clas https://www.scalemates.com/search.php?fkSECTION[]=Kits&q=Frigate Type 12M-class rothesay*&fkTYPENAME[]="Full kits" The above links should give you an idea of what has been kitted for the classes of ship you're enquiring about, not all the names are kitted, but if you choose a sister in similar fit it shouldn't be too difficult to model the one you want. I can't find reference to a Tribal HMS Rhyl, the last one was a Rothesay class Leander, ditto HMS Coventry was a type 42, not 22. If you're just beginning modelling you might want to stick to plastic injection moulded kits to start with, they're much cheaper and easier to obtain than resin kits and generally easier to build, though they have less detail. Of the ships you've listed, Airfix do kits in 1/600 scale Fearless (Intrepid) and Leander (Ariadne/Rhyl) they're older basic kits that would need a bit of modifying to be fully accurate for the ships you want but wouldn't be far off out of the box. Dragon/Pitroad/DML/Revell have done type 42's in 1/700 scale, they're a later more detailed kit, the plastic is the same in all the Batch1/Batch 2 kits so any of these should do for Cardiff or Coventry, there's a good selection of parts for different fits so you can model them pretty much any time throughout their life, just avoid the batch 3 kits as these have the longer focsle of the last ships.

Sorry, but here's another slight distraction if you've not seen it before (prepping for decals can wait if if you haven't ), it might also help inform with what they were like in the cockpit from a couple of the pilots that flew them! 23rd November 1944 according to IWM, which isn't infallible; as @Graham Boak suggests above, D-Day stripes when operating from Banff in November 44 sounds unlikely, but NT225 joined 248 sqn 2nd june at portreath cornwall and operated from there over the bay of biscay until early september. I'd suggest that it's more likely these were taken from there shortly after D-Day than at Banff - NT225 was part of a large strike on 23rd November so not likely to have been swanning around on an air test/photo shoot. Yes, as per above which I was typing when you posted! Again, yes; Merlins were notorious for their oil leakages... Just the MkXVIII, the rocket armed MkVI(coastal command) came later, these and the standard MkVI's didn't have any extra armour. From what I understand, the MKXVIII's were all conversions of FBVI airframes albeit at the factory - small batchs of FBVI's were pulled off the production line and converted in Hatfield's experimental shop. There were only 17 produced, NT225 was 2nd of a batch of 2, NT224 went to 248 sqn on the 5th June and was coded E1. With all the applique armour, deflection plates and blast plates on and around the nose it needed repainting, which accounts for the non standard camo demarcations round the cockpit. NT225 was quite busy and firing the gun took it's toll as I'm sure you'll be aware, so I'd say repair and touchups wouldn't be unusual.

Not necessarily, full stripes were applied for D-Day and about a month afterwards, then they were supposed to have been removed from the upper surfaces, but there was a period in late 44 when they were re-applied to the upper surfaces before they were no longer needed in 45. These photo's are 23rd November 44, which would fit with the second application of upper surface stripes. I'm wondering if it's not actually black on the roundel, but new blue touch-up from removing the upper stripes earlier in the year. Rob @Zephyr91, apologies for the slight hijack, paint what you see in the photo's, you're doing a grand job so far 🙂

Sorry I don't have a definitive answer for you Mike, but something to bear in mind if German practice was anything like British, buses were manufactured by buying in rolling chassis and adding the coachwork on top, so the style of the windows and bodywork will fit a particular coachbuilder, and the front grille and bonnet will follow the chassis builder's style. If the kit bodywork matches what you see in the photographs and you can get a Mercedes grille as per @Graham Boak's suggestion that might be your best option.

Hmmm, that depends on your point of view, surely? Whether it's a tractor or pusher is irrelevant, it's whether its a right hand turning prop (turning clockwise when viewed from behind) or a left hand turning prop (turning anticlockwise when viewed from behind) that is important. Any prop will work as a tractor with the engine attached to the back of the prop and a pusher when the engine is attached to the front, provided the engine rotates in the correct direction? The DH 2 used a LH prop, whereas the DH 4 used both LH and RH props depending on engine type and whether it was geared or ungeared. Provided your DH4 prop is LH rotating it should be possible to adapt it to at least a close approximation of that used on a DH 2 - DH 2 dia 8ft, DH4 dia 9ft - 10ft depending on engine, so some trimming of blade length would be required. From a modelling point of view if you want a LH pusher prop and have a LH tractor prop, all you need to do is drill through the hub so that it can be mounted to the engine on the front face, and add a new boss (punched plastic disc) over the old mounting point on the back face.

Charlie, I'm seeing that outer white stripe neatly painted around the blue of the roundel. The black on the other hand appears to extend over the roundel blue (both from forwards and rearwards), or there is fresh blue paint in line with the black stripe, difficult to tell for sure. The paints used for the stripes were a water based distemper which were supposed to be removable with hot water and a scrubbing brush. This would have been quick drying and I doubt very much it would have been able to be swept back by airflow. The black apears to be relatively fresh, whereas the roundel apears to be mostly faded/worn.

It's part of the armoured conversion process, the area from the rear of the 303mg access hatches to the windscreen had a 10swg alcad deflector plate added to the fuselage exterior. There were also 4mm external armour plates on the cockpit sides, and 9mm internal armour plate under and in front of the cockpit. There was also external stiffening to the underside of the inboard flap sections, but this was due to blast from the gun and not protection from enemy fire. This airframe does appear to have had remedial paintwork to the nose forward of the armoured areas and a non-standard demarkation on the armoured area. No repainting under the tailplane, the dark area is shadow (see shadows at same angle on fuselage and nacelle under the wings. There has been some repainting of the fuselage above and forward of the tailplane junction, this area should be dark green but appears to be grey primer or medium sea grey. The S shaped demarkation running fwd-aft is shadow of the canopy and fuselage top, the diagonal demarkation running from the engine nacelle to the fuselage (partly circled) is a camo demarkation. I'm seeing the black stripe extending rearwards from the leading edge over the blue of the roundel, almost as if someone has started to overpaint the roundels. The white and the black at the rear appears to approximately follow the edge of the roundel - the wing stripes on this airframe weren't particularly well laid out, those on the fuselage appear to be a bit better. As stated, the above photo's are from the same photo shoot and are on the IWM website, if you link them from there you can zoom right in to see the details THE MOSQUITO Mk. XVIII [23rd November 1944]. © IWM (CH 14112) IWM Non Commercial License AIRCRAFT OF THE ROYAL AIR FORCE 1939-1945: DE HAVILLAND DH 98 MOSQUITO.. © IWM (CH 14113) IWM Non Commercial License And a couple more from the same shoot THE MOSQUITO Mk. XVIII [23rd November 1944]. © IWM (CH 14115) IWM Non Commercial License AIRCRAFT OF THE ROYAL AIR FORCE 1939-1945: DE HAVILLAND DH 98 MOSQUITO.. © IWM (CH 14114) IWM Non Commercial License And one that shows the armour plate (note that the photo is mirrored - door on the wrong side!) THE MOSQUITO MK XVIII [23rd November 1944]. © IWM (CH 14111) IWM Non Commercial License

Close but not quite. The mosquito doesn't have any undercarriage door operating jacks, the doors are held closed by spring tensioned cables, and opened by those brackets or door guides pushing against rubbing plates on the inside of the doors as the legs are extended..

Nice result on the repairs! as for the large MF/HF whip aerials, they were quite flexible and could have a fair bit of curve in them in a stiff breeze.

I don't know what problems you're having with the Hannants website, I find it very easy to search - for your example, type in phantom in the quick search box, select 1/32 in the side bar, then Aircrat seats and you've got 5 different products in less time than it took me to type this reply. https://www.hannants.co.uk/search/?product_category_id=0&product_division_id=0&scale_id=953&product_type_id=2573&manufacturer_id=0&sort=0&search_direction=asc&keyword_search=phantom Scalemates is slightly longer and will give you a wider set of results, some of which might be appropriate and available, some might be OOP, but it will give you an idea of what has been produced and might help in what to go looking for. Search Phantom in the top right box, then select kits, detail & conversions, 1/32, and type seat in the secondary search box to refine your search https://www.scalemates.com/search.php?q=McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II&fkSECTION[]=Kits&fkTYPENAME[]="Detail and Conversion sets"&fkSCALENORMALISED[]="1:00032"&ssearch=seat or eject in the secondary search box will give a smaller list https://www.scalemates.com/search.php?q=McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II&fkSECTION[]=Kits&fkTYPENAME[]="Detail and Conversion sets"&fkSCALENORMALISED[]="1:00032"&ssearch=eject

Hannants has a load of Wellington decals, some include MkVIII wimpeys https://www.hannants.co.uk/search/?scale_id=956&search_direction=asc&search=wellington&product_type_id=2677

I'd agree with your fixed location and etymology for the RN, with fandeck being a US term. For the MN we'd refer to it as the poop deck or aft mooring deck. Whilst accomodation ladder might be the correct technical term we would invariably refer to it as the gangway. Brows were shipyard items used in drydock. 🙂

That would be DD712 / YP*R, the all black scheme with 23 Sqn markings is correct as per photo below, but almost certainly no radar, note lack of wingtip receiver aerials 23 Sqn had been operating on night intruder missions for 18 months prior to converting to mosquitos, fisrt on Blenheim and then on Bostons and continued in role after conversion.

A link to the post would be useful, but I wouldn't read anything into a photo of a model. AFAIK all NFII intruders had the radar removed. NFII Intruders discussed in topic below There are some photo's of 23 Sqn Intruder mosquitos on Malta on the IWM site, none have radar THE ROYAL AIR FORCE IN MALTA, JUNE 1943. © IWM (TR 1081) IWM Non Commercial License THE ROYAL AIR FORCE IN MALTA, JUNE 1943. © IWM (TR 1076) IWM Non Commercial License THE ROYAL AIR FORCE IN MALTA, JUNE 1943. © IWM (TR 1075) IWM Non Commercial License THE ROYAL AIR FORCE IN MALTA, JUNE 1943. © IWM (TR 1077) IWM Non Commercial License THE ROYAL AIR FORCE IN MALTA, JUNE 1943. © IWM (TR 1070) IWM Non Commercial License ROYAL AIR FORCE: ITALY, THE BALKANS AND SOUTH-EAST EUROPE, 1942-1945.. © IWM (CNA 2088) IWM Non Commercial License AIRCRAFT OF THE ROYAL AIR FORCE 1939-1945: DE HAVILLAND DH 98 MOSQUITO.. © IWM (CM 4766) IWM Non Commercial License

From the AP, the Mk VIII had a type F voltage regulator mounted low down on the port side between frames 11 & 12 (numbered from the front, frame 11 has the seat mounted on it)

Lovely model Norbert, now you need the aircraft carrier to put it on!

All Walrus had retractable undercarriage, you can just make out the wheel well in one of the photo's. As to why it's got the wheels down in the photo, I don't know. As @Graham Boak says, you wouldn't want them down when landing on water or catapult launching in case of engine failure as this could induce pitchpoleing, both scenario's he mentioned are possible, but the wheels wouldn't need to be down moving on deck onboard the KGV class, as they sat on a transport cradle that ran on rails in and out of the hangars and onto a turntable on the catapult for lining up to load onto the catapult cradle for launch, however they do need lowering to fold the wings to get it in the hangar as the legs are attached to the fuselage side and the wheels sit inside the wing when retracted. All you need to know about launching and recovering a shagbat (and what happens if you land with wheels down!:-

Absolutely! I've seen many variations from the absolute basic to a double length fully automatic spit for suckling pigs (philipino crew!) but I've never seen a triple level multi chicken spit before

They were still being used as garbage containers when I was last at sea in 2018, if anything the tightening up of MARPOL and the requirement to retain all garbage on board increased their use for storage of stuff that would have previously gone straight over the wall. Whilst modifying oil drums, don't forget the other ubiquitous use of an old drum, there was always one on the poop deck or boat deck...

A couple of show reports up on youtube

Think you've got top and bottom mixed up there Troy, the undeside should be Medium Sea Grey

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I think I've only ever broken the two smaller sizes in my set, and like you I've bought packets of 10 so as to have spares in stock. Shesto do the sets and packs of 10 individual sizes, so you have a choice of what suits you best. Personally, I like the set in the handy storage box, and I'd recommend it to anyone looking for a general purpose set of small drills, however I've only ever bought two sets, one for the home workshop and another for a travelling toolbox.

Shesto do a good range of general purpose drills suitable for plastic in sets or packs of replacements - https://www.shesto.co.uk/craft-tools/hand-drills/drill-bits#1 The sets are available in Hobbycraft and other model shops in the UK