Troy Smith

There are plenty of profiles showing *-GZ on the starboard side, there is the image above, and a warbird, neatly matching the fibreglass replicas So easy enough for this to be an image in memory, especially as the images you linked are just so iconic, but apart from the one image of GZ-Z, all from the port side. It was only in the last few years I became aware of the remarkably anarchic nature of RAF squadron codes, which is even odder given the general regulation, and usually careful adherence to regulations of RAF markings in general. I was quite surprised at this when I found out... Some of these things take on a life of their own, like the Kuttlewasher JX-E from the profile book. Still, the important bit, your model reads GZ-B on the starboard side At least here it's on some interest.... "in Real Life" .. well, i'm sure you know what i mean....

The only starboard image I have seen from that famous Fox film series is the photo of GZ-Z coming into land, I'd be fascinated to see any more. Always interested to know more. Can you say where these have been published? The photos were taken by the still photographer, the Fox Film unit were making a training film, it wasn't a press day AFAIK. The only real press images I know of are the ones of 17 and 85 Sq at Debden in July 1940, and the ones of 501 Sq taking off, which was apparently filmed, though I have not seen the film. Having code running order vary in a squadron is very unusual, the only one I know of the 616 I mentioned. sorry about rambling on, I'm fascinated with piecing together these fragments of information, and by sharing and asking, to learn more. Nearly forgot, the models look great!

I nearly had, except I just found I'd broken and lost a bit of an Arma UC which you won't be using, as I have actually done some building.. Very interesting and neat kit that Arma Mk.I, though a bit fiddly. try bedding them in Kleer? https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235038987-bedding-decals-in-klear-future-or-equivalent/ also try fairly hot water for decals, I've used a large jam jar lid on a coffee machine hotplate, makes then very flexible. Not a good idea for very thin or fragile ones. HTH

If it's not on the site, it's out of print. @Jerry Crandall is the author, so could confirm. It was expensive when new, but it's a niche subject to be fair, although there are the two Crandall volumes and the two JaPo books as well... so the only option is to keep looking on the usual places, ebay, amazon, abebooks, etc, and hope one turns up in time, but titles like this often command high prices as one sold out they are unlikely to be reprinted, and buyer tend to keep them, meaning a low second hand supply available. HTH

the ONLY photo I have seen of a 32 Sq Hurricane starboard side in the battle, is GZ-Z. There is a photo floating about of some fibreglass Hurricanes which show the opposite, at Hawkinge IIRC @Heather Kay posted there whereabouts. but closer inspection reveals detail like the tropical vents and knuckle type tailwheels, as well as the lead plane with a bullet Rotol and fishtail exhaust stacks, and the 8 high high N2532 serial , which are all wrong details. There is a photo of a 32 Sq Hurricane captured, from June 1940, which while it has smaller codes, has the starboard side reading GZ-X and later Mk.II's show starboard to read like this. The ONLY unit I have seen where Sq code running order varied was 616 Sq, and they even were using the same codes as 92 Sq , QJ. The is a photo showing them QJ-* and *-QJ !!!!! some photo are fairly lo-res and it's hard to make out. My take is this, yes, Gloster did, and later in the Battle, they didn't get repainted. But earlier, I think they did get repainted, and I think LK-A did.... why.... because of this note the wing in the foreground, with the badly flaking roundel, which is considerably lighter tone than LK-A in the background. Note the barely visible noe flash. But @Stew Dapple, since you have not not put in underwing roundels, this could be before the flash as well, Note the non standard size and position of the underwing roundels The 87 sq photos were all taken by 'Watty' Watson, the whose plane was LK-G, I have a short monograph, Hurricane Squadron, No.87 Sq at war 1939-1941, by Perry Adams, which has these details and now I have the serial which is either P2823 or maybe P2836, (I'm sure I have seen a better image than this) the only ones that fit. There are other photos of LK-G, not showing the serial... the other pic from the in flight sequence is this, of note note again the non standard underwing on LK-T, and how LK-Z has smaller code letters, which later arrivals at 87 sq have. Note also the variations in fin stripes.. Hope of interest, this info is floating around out there, but usually lacks captioning/narrative. Perhaps more 87 Sq in the future? Very neat work on the kits, been very interesting doing mine, kind of wish I had added upper wing only to the fuselage to work on the join by bending the wing.... I meant to get some done but spent some time doing kit box Jenga trying to find my slate ripper for a neighbour. cheers T

No, it's shouldn't stick out the back, certainly not as much as Arma have it. This shows the oil ring which started to be fitted in Sep 40.

It was a good idea, but poorly done, as the new bits were a bit agricultural.... The Mosquito upgrades were the best idea, as it used a good base kit and did two stage engines. If they'd been done with a bit more finesse, they would have great. This would better done as AM, a spar made of folded etch could work, just Eduard these days churn out sets for kits that don't need them, rather than upgrading the only game in town. Oddly enough, these original Superkits seem to have almost no AM upgrades done, Waldron did some in the 80's, Airscale do some IP's, that's about it AFAIK.

Yes. There was a discussion here as to when this occurred, no time to search it up right now, but I think there was a idea when it happened. A least the Americans had the sense to use block numbers, which makes these changes much easier to track.... but where the fun it that

Figure I'd better do something else for this GB. I did start a project, convertingthe Airfix Mk.I to a IIa, but I crumpled with the heat in early August, and drifted a bit in general. I do intend to restart, so this this is one of my KUTA builds. Arma Hobby were kind enough to send me a expert kit when their Mk.I came out, having read my innumerable posts on Hurricanes, and one useful comment on their CAD images. So, this has been a 'to do' for a while. obligatory contents. 50620167 by losethekibble, on Flickr I forced my self to clear enough space, and then locked in, once I started I then found it was 3 hours later, and was very hungry, but was here. Not done lots of photos as setting them up and posting takes time , so went for significant ones. I found the peg on the two wheel bays halves needed careful filing for it to fit the slot, getting these parts to fit snugly is important, as this is where the main UC leg goes later, and affect fit of wheel bay into wing. Also in need of enlarging are the holes in the main spar for the UC leg retraction. The instructions would have you fit the UC legs early on, but they can be wiggled in later, as was demonstrated by @Procopius a while back. OOB, except for one odd omission, which is the pipe in the wheel well. The Arma instructions show a hole, but no pipe. Drilled a couple of holes, and using an Airfix part as reference, added one from lead wire. Cleaning up the upper and lower edges of the WW front back back is very important, and I used the wing upper and lower as a jig to get everything aligned dry, and the wick a little TET to attach the WW parts to the upper wing. I then removed the lower part, and made sure the ends were properly joined, for the UC leg fixing. the cross pieces took some wiggling into place, with the lower wing dry fitted, once happy, TET wicked to fix. and I dropped the etch upper part in later. 50620168 by losethekibble, on Flickr You can see the little peg closing up the wheel well corner I've attached the etc side walls, and bits of etc to the cockpit framework. The aluminium and black are Tamiya, the Grey Green is AK. I had given the etch a waster coat of Tamiya medium grey to act as primer as well. And later, meant to sleep, and then had 'quick potter' and found it was 4 am. First time I have really played with etch, having only used the odd little bit, even though most won't be seen, I persevered. The seat harness is a right PITA, which took some time to get right, Tamiya buff for the seat straps. I was quite impressed at the IP when done, but was fiddly, not as bad as the seat, and the top layer decal was glossy, so added matt varnish with a tiny touch of mid grey, and the re-did the dials with Kleer. I followed the sequence, file back kit IP, paint black, add decal, add first layer of etch, trying to align the dials, then the centre RAF panel, then the top decal. I used Kleer to stick the panels onto the decal and to each other. The top decal holds it all together, and then I used Microsol, and left it. The end result is impressive, but glossy. This is before the oil wash has added some depth to the seat, or matt down the IP 50620170 by losethekibble, on Flickr To matt the IP, I used W&N Galeria Matt, with a tiny amount of grey, and when dry, picked out the dials in Kleer. Jumping ahead, the etch is a fraction larger than the plastic, and cause a gap when trying to join the fuselage halves, scraping the slot in the fuselage deeper was the solution, though perhaps just a line for the etch would do. The alignment holes for the cockpit sidewall tubing needs enlarging I found, but a few twists of a 0.6mm drill bit sorted that, it was just what was still in the pin vice, and also the right size for the lead wire in the wheel well. I scraped off the buff on the buckles, and then used some cheap oil paint Paynes grey dissolved in lighter fuel as a wash. You can remove or move the wash abut with a bit more lighter fuel if it's too much. Again, I deviated from the instructions, assembling into the starboard half, side tube, the dry fit seat bulkhead, and tack in place from behind only on starboard side, then IP and centre tubing, as this can be attached to the bottom on the seat bulkhead and IP. I had attached the port tubing, and by it's possible to make sure everything aligns from underneath without gluing to the starboard side. As usual, most of the assembly was done using cheap superglue, mostly applied with a needle, tiny drops, it's brittle but if careful, strong enough, and easy enough to snap off and rejoin if not aligned. The black lid in the background is covered with small dried drops of SG, as I put down drop, to dip the needle into. I nearly forgot the etch compass, which was very fiddly, and for all you can see, might be easier adding the etch dial to the moulded compass. At this point I realised I had missed the seat adjuster lever, which I was able to wiggle into place. 50620193 by losethekibble, on Flickr I also found the lower tubing/footboard piece which has the control column and rudder pedals can be added to the underside, not the wheel well roof, so I'm going to do that. two bits of etch I did'nt use, the rudder pedals, as the lack the centre bar, and a handle on the port wall side console, as the moulded part looked better, but I added the two tiny dial supplied as a decal to the port side. they can be seen on the left below... 50620188 by losethekibble, on Flickr All pics with my 'toytown' camera, it's an old basic point and shoot digital by Concord, the first digital camera I had was one of these, in fact, a slightly more basic model, this one has some "improvements" that I don't much like, mainly an autofocus sensor ... still it was a fiver posted from ebay... I mention this as while not brilliant pics, they show what going on and I'm still amused at how good a result can be got from such basic technology. Plus the batteries last for ages, and it's simple to use, turn off flash, use close up, snap away. the 3 pics above have been cropped and then enlarged on Flickr using their editor. I can see why etch can drive folks mad, I used what was provided as practice. If built closed up you could skip some of it with no problem, even with an open canopy you need to use a light to see most of it, so these pics are interesting reminder. I must say, I did find the lack of locating holes for the centre cockpit parts a bit trying, the moulding is very precise and it will all line up but really requires a lot of care, and dry run test fitting. I note that their IIc kit has simplified the cockpit construction. I have one of those they sent me, and a great scheme, so will have to see how that goes. I'm pondering on schemes, I'm waiting to idiot check the above to make sure I have not missed anything or made some other silly error before doing the main construction. I may need to do some edits for coherence later..

Tamiya can be brushed, but needs to be thinned with water and a tiny amount of flow improver. A good water is de-ionised water, sold in supermarkets for ironing, or batteries. Windsor and Newton make flow improver. I use a tiny 1ml syringe, suck up 0.95ml water, and 0.05 ml flow improver, give it a shake. Add a small amount of stirred Tamiya to a palette, add water/FI mix a drop at a time, until it's like milk, it's right when it brushes out really easily, dries fast, can be recoated fast, as you are putting on very thin coats. experiment, thinning is the key, if you use the dedicated thinners it will be too 'hot' and lift the previous coat. Use a flat brush. Practice on scrap, it's all in getting the paint to flow smoothly and go on thinly. Even if you switch to the airbrush for main parts, still useful for small jobs. I suggest having a look at the work of @PlaStix, who only brush paints, and his video on brushing acrylics. HTH T

Tail markings seen late war for daylight use, bands like this sometimes for lead bombers with gee sets IIRC. 186 was formed late, autumn 44, as a bomber sq, they had been a Hurricane unit in early 44. Occasionally seen. Prop type has nothing to do mark number, the difference between a Mk.I and a Mk.III is engines, Mk.I are Rolls Royce made, Mk.III are US made Packard, they were not interchangeable, same thing with Spitfire IX and XVI. The Packard engines were popular as they had really high quality tool kits apparently. The serial tells you the mark. Air Britain has NG354 as Mk.I, 186/626, SOC 14.12.44 HTH T

Correct. All the internals apart from the rear bulkhead and upper cockpit walls was painted with aluminium dope. in this shot you can make out the the insides of the metal access panel under the cockpit are also painted aluminium Hawker Hurricane Mk. I "HC-452/Black 5" by Nils Mosberg, on Flickr You seem to have done your research well though! It's a well engineered easy to build kit, but a bit fat. Tamiya decals are notorious, this a a suggested method of dealing with, which makes sense, as the Japanese domestic market is big, and why would Tamiya, who are noted for quality, include sub standard decals https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235008098-dealing-with-thick-decals-ie-tamiya/&do=findComment&comment=2464801 Re Bader Famed, inspiration leader, strategic liability..... "What was perhaps the most amazing part of Bader’s career during the Battle of Britain was how a lowly Squadron Leader managed to get the ear of Air Vice Marshal Trafford Leigh-Mallory, the Air Officer Commanding 12 Group, to which 242 Squadron was assigned. It was apparently due to force of personality on the part of Bader, and the fact that Leigh-Mallory had no understanding of fighter warfare, having spent his career in Army Cooperation Command. Leigh-Mallory was also well-known as being a sucker for flattery regarding his unseen-by-everyone-else intellectual abilities. (In 1944, Air Chief Marshal Tedder, second in command of SHEAF, threatened to resign if Eisenhower didn’t get rid of Leigh-Mallory for incompetence in his role as commander of Allied tactical air forces in the invasion. The problem was solved by kicking Leigh-Mallory “upstairs” to take command of Air Defense of Great Britain, which by then was not the crucial command it had been four years previously, and was thought to be an assignment Leigh-Mallory would not screw up.) Where 11 Group’s assignment was to intercept the bombers before they unloaded, that of 12 Group - which was mostly out of range of the Luftwaffe at its bases in East Anglia and the Midlands - was to be the “back up” for 11 Group, with an important assignment to defend the airfields in 11 Group as they increasingly became the targets of the Luftwaffe through August, 1940. While 11 Group sent interceptors in two-squadron units, Bader was an advocate of the “Big Wing,” also known as “the Balbo” for General Italo Balbo, the Italian airman who had pioneered mass long distance formation flights. Bader advocated sending forth formations of anywhere from three to five squadrons. The argument against this “Big Wing” strategy was that it took too long to organize such a large formation, and that the enemy would have already bombed and be returning home. In fact, this had happened on several occasions when 12 Group squadrons were supposed to be flying cover over 11 Group’s airfields, and failed to appear in time to prevent attacks while assembling their “big wings”. There was the additional argument that involving the RAF in extended fighter-vs.-fighter combat in large numbers would lead to unnecessary losses, given the pilot superiority of the Luftwaffe over many of the hastily-trained RAF pilots. Dowding just couldn’t afford those potential losses, not when the losses he was suffering as it was were stretching Fighter Command nearly to the breaking point. Bader’s strategy, had it been adopted by 11 Group in August 1940, would have assured the RAF losing the Battle of Britain Bader’s reply to this agreement was strategic nonsense: “I’d rather shoot down 20 going home than 10 before they bomb.” This was said during a confrontation at Fighter Command H.Q. between Leigh-Mallory and Keith Park, to which Leigh-Mallory brought Bader as his intellectual voice. Park’s reply was “you’re not shooting down 20, you’re not even shooting down 5!” (This scene is shown in the film “The Battle of Britain,” sans Bader; no one could bring themselves to put Britain’s most famous pilot on the wrong side of history.) Following Hitler’s decision to divert the Luftwaffe to the bombing of London after August 24, 1940, the nature of the fighting changed. Once the RAF knew where the Luftwaffe was going, there was finally time to organize the “Big Wing” and launch it against the raiders in time to have an effect. With the Bf-109s operating at the extreme limit of their range, the likelihood of an extended air battle was minimized. On September 7, 1940, Bader led 242, 616 and 310 Squadrons from Duxford against the Luftwaffe over London. The wing claimed 20 German planes destroyed, 10 by 242 Squadron. On September 15, he led a wing of five squadrons, the largest RAF formation to take on the Luftwaffe, and claimed 30. “The Legless Ace” was immediately the toast of Fleet Street. Following the successful end of the Battle of Britain, the usual British policy of not allowing any good deed to go unpunished resulted in Dowding being summarily fired as AOC Fighter Command and forcibly retired from the RAF, while Keith Park - the man who won the battle on the front lines - was exiled to Malta, where he would repeat his performance of 1940 to good effect over that embattled island. The men who had it wrong about how to fight the Battle of Britain were the winners of the bureaucratic war. Sholto Douglas became AOC Fighter Command, while Leigh-Mallory took over 11 Group. When the victors shared the spoils, Bader became a newly-minted Wing Commander. 1941 saw the RAF take another wrong turn in strategy, a turn lauded and led by Bader, with the traditionalists making the entirely-idiotic decision to “lean into France” the way the RFC had “leaned across the Western Front” on the Somme in 1916. Granted the Luftwaffe seemed to invite such a strategy when all Jagdgeschwadern but JG 1, JG 26 and JG 2 were returned to Germany, but the fact was the RAF could not really accomplish anything of strategic value by exposing six to nine wings of fighters during a mission to potential combat with enemies mounted on superior aircraft (the new Bf-109F was clearly superior to the Hurricane I and II, and the Spitfire II, and was marginally superior to the then-new Spitfire V - not to mention the average German fighter pilot individually was still superior to his RAF opponent). All those fighters were there to defend four Blenheims, carrying a maximum of four ineffective 250-lb bombs each - a total of two tons of bombs combined - on raids that never penetrated further than 50 miles past Dunkirk, hardly the site of strategic targets in the Third Reich. Even when Stirlings were substituted for the Blenheims to create a “high value target” to entice the Luftwaffe into combat, the result was the loss of valuable brand new airplanes for no military value. During the “Non-Stop Offensive” (called by the Luftwaffe “the Nonsense Offensive,” a far more accurate name), RAF losses approached those of late 1916 and early 1917 over the Somme, with the Germans (as in 1916-17) mounted in the superior fighter - Bf-109F and the even more superior Fw-190A that appeared that summer - with the additional benefit of being able to pick and choose the timing of combat, to maximize their strengths. Had all the fighter pilots and all those Spitfires and Hurricanes so uselessly wasted by the RAF traditionalists over the Channel Front in 1941 been sent where they could do some good - to the Western Desert, to Malta, to Greece - the outcome of the Second World War might have been significantly different. The home font propaganda value of the “Non-Stop Offensive” did not outweigh these military facts. Not only was Bader a strategic nincompoop, his grasp of developments in fighter technology was wrongheaded. While he used his position as leader of the Duxford Wing to obtain metal ailerons for his wing’s Spitfire IIs in the Spring of 1941 - which did provide a serious performance enhancement - he rejected the introduction of the Spitfire Vb with its armament of two 20mm cannon, saying that it would encourage fighter pilots to open fire at too great a range. Bader himself obtained one of the few 8-machine gun Spitfire Va’s built when the unit switched over in June 1941, with the rest of the Duxford Wing happy to get the additional punch of the cannons." from http://modelingmadness.com/review/allies/cleaver/gb/tmcbobh1.htm (ignore the build details, the prop is wrong for starters) HTH T

The Tamiya kit, while looking the part, has plenty of detail issues. One thing, I saw some a series of problems/glitches listed for the 1/32nd HKM kit, (discussed on Large Scale planes?) as a mish mash of airframe detail IIRC, if they took onboard those issues that would be great. Not helped that these Lancaster airframes are in classic British fashion to an extent arcane, confusion and dotted with yes, mostly except in this case ... details. There are enough Lancaster experts about that these can be sorted out though. Be interesting as well, now Eduard have just done a Spitfire with the correct raised rivets on the rear fuselage, if HKM could try to replicate the real external structure that would be great.

Is there a date for the photo? it's either after early August, when the underwing roundel came back in, or perhaps May/early June, and the port wing is still black? A quick check "P9386 Ia 569 EA MIII FF 1-3-40 AMDP Airspeed trials with company test pilots 6-3-40 38MU 11-5-40 257S 18-5-40 19S 'QV-K' 3-9-40 152S 26-9-40 58OTU 23-3-41 Scottish Aviation 12-9-41" So, both are possible dates. The light coloured spinner is a feature more associated with the early/Pre BoB era. Probably cobblers. The outer ring of the roundel appears darker. But a fully equipped base would have? Indeed, but. AFAIK the outer well section of the Spitfire is just a well. no moving parts, and factory painted the underside colour. I'm sure there are variations. and they do tend to be in shadow, shame the sequence of R6692 being rotated is not clear, and that there is not a clear port view after the repaint. Or done on a main base? R6692, filmed at RAF Northolt, has been repainted during the filming. The date is mid June, as the 1 Squadron Hurricane in Reel 5 shows, around 1.20, 1 squadron was only at Northolt very briefly after returning from France, @JackG posted up the dates in another thread, 16-23 June IIRC (I'll edit this if if i can find it) As always, if it makes us look harder at what we have, then on occasion some new data comes to light. @Peter Roberts. I hope the thread drift on your build is not too annoying! cheers T

From what I can see from photos, the outer wheel part of the well got repainted as well, this is a screen grab of R6692, from reel 5, at 1.51, when it has been repainted into 'sky', note the roundel is grinning through the new paint, and the well does not appear any lighter in tone, while the wheel hub has stayed white. Spitfire Mk.I maintenance film Sky repaint reel 5 by losethekibble, on Flickr if you at at reel 5, from 1.20 on, while the port wing is in shadow, it has been repainted. Bear in mind the wells as delivered where underside colour, Spitfire Mk.I maintenance film UC well colour by losethekibble, on Flickr as clearly seen in the film, so the repaint would have repainted those. One aspect not usually touched, given that the roundel is 'grinning' through the 'sky' paint, perhaps the black port wing should appear slightly darker? I have only ever seen one Spitfire photo where the well is clearly a different colour to the underside, and that is an oddity. this one from here as with all these discussions, I'm presenting observations and theories from what is visible, and what is known of painting practices, hopefully of interest and also to get other eyes looking for counter and confirmatory examples. cheers T