thorfinn

Beautiful job!

My new answer to the question -- not applicable to the website question, I truly understand -- is taken directly from Jimmy Carr: "My pronouns are he he he: I identify as a comedian."

Superb accomplishment, my good sir! I suspect none of the kit's original designers are still left on this side of the pale, but they would be properly wide-eyed and slack-jawed at how you transformed their...thing...into such a lovely replica. Masterful work! (BTW, in my early years in Baltimore in the 1980s, I had the rare good fortune to actually meet some of the splendid folks that built these and other Martin designs. I suspect they would be equally thrilled that one of their 'babies' is still remembered with such care and distinction!)

Not sure where your 'smaller' cuts off, but there's the old Matchbox DeHavilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter. It was rereleased a few years ago by Revell and/or Revell Germany. It's a nice enough kit, w/cockpit but no cabin detail, and has options for floats, wheels and skis. Plus the short military nose or the longer civil nose.

FWIW, I've been using Postimage for a few years now and have found it easy to use...and delightfully free!

Is he related to the Hamburglar?

Very nicely done, my lad. That's one I've had in the stash for years and not yet quite gotten around to. Yours is a gem!

If you see even late-war photos showing airfield areas with piles of drop tanks stacked up and waiting for use between missions, with the exception of the paper tanks -- which were normally silver -- you will typically see a mix of bare aluminum, all NG, and OD painted ones -- some of the latter even showing a 'textbook' demarcation with NG or NM below. I even recall seeing one painted and one NM tank on the same a/c -- probably in one of the Squadron/Signal volumes. Considering everything going on with prepping a/c for important missions, I'm pretty sure that whether the drop tanks matched the a/c scheme (or each other) wouldn't have been on anybody's radar. (Plus, as WIP pointed out above, planes would likely have different tanks for nearly every mission, so any configuration is likely correct unless you're modeling a specific incident or day.) Cheers

For the pilot's canopy, yes, since the kit part seemed sort of 'squashed.' I was fascinated by the kit nose bubble with its panel lines molded on the inside -- something I'd never encountered before -- but it worked out well, as it let me sand the slightly-too-wide glazing to match the fuselage, then clean and buff it up, and still have the interior frame lines as a guide to masking. As to colors, the fighter ones might indeed be correct. The caption to the possibly-recolored photo I based my Malta-based bird on said TSS, so that's what I went with...it seemed plausible...but one is never sure how carefully (or not) these sorts of statements are researched. Looking forward to following your progress!

Much admire your choice of both kit and scheme -- though you're doing high art (and showing vastly more patience) compared to what I did on my poor old thing. Loving every minute!

Deleted - Swearing Removed

Well done that man!

Can't disagree, but I think it's pretty plain from the gun's odd location that a/c weren't seen as much of a threat at the time. When the Wickes and Caldwell DDs began to be refitted in the '30s and '40s, most of the Mk 14s were replaced with more powerful (and much better situated) AA guns better suited to the threat.😁

Superb work thus far! 👍

Exceptional work! Just as an FYI, the little one -- which the old Revell 1/240 instructions always called a 'practice gun' -- was in fact the USN's first purpose-built anti-aircraft gun, the Mark 14 3"/23 Poole gun. It was a UK-engineered mod of the older 3" gun designed for submarines and small patrol boats. (Just a bit of the mind-clogging trivia I so rarely get to share.... )