maltadefender

Many thanks Tony. Not so sure about cutting that triangle out - the fuselage is hardly determined to go together in the first place! I'll see how brave I'm feeling once I've convinced the two halves to hold shape with some degree of symmetry. No locating pins and fuselage halves like a cucumber. See earlier rant about Roden! Intrigued by the armoured screen. I'm aiming for a freshly-erected look from around May-June with the 2-blade prop. Do you think they had the armoured screens when the Gladiators were dropped off and stored in 1939 or was that something that arrived on a Sunderland once they were in action? Similarly I'm hoping that the actual early setup was with the two-blade prop as it looks so much nicer, even if it's all in black. Will make that call when I have to. I've always taken the pic below to be an early one - none of the wear on the paint that's seen on N5519 when she's got the three-blade prop and the codes and registrations aren't on yet so the camo follows its natural line behind the fuselage roundel rather than being pushed up to accommodate the lettering. Are you 100% sure that the fuselages were black/white underneath? This pic clearly has black/white on the wings but the rest of the underside is hard to tell. Equally hard to tell when that shot was taken, of course. Orders were, I think, night and white wings only, which was often carried over to the full underside at squadron level whether in error or eagerness... I'm tempted to keep a bit more Sky Grey on there but open to suggestions! I have taken a few more progress pics. Will post them in the morning.

Roden really doesn't like modellers, does it? I'm not even off the first page of the instructions yet. The engine cowling needs to be made from three parts that have no desire to stick together let alone form a circular shape once joined. Then the engine... wow... let's make it too big to fit inside the non-circular ill-fitting cowl, shall we? That'll be a laugh! And the 18 separate pipes? Let's make them impossible to align in the correct position. To my mind, the objective of a model kit company is to sell your customers something that gives them the best possible chance of building a representation of the vehicle/figure/diorama that they desire. That way, they'll be happy. They'll come back and spend more money with you and they might even come on forums like this and tell other modellers how good your products are. This is not going well. At all. Somebody from Roden should really talk to the people at Tamiya, or Wingnut... or just buy a knackered old tool Airfix Gladiator and learn how to make parts properly. Rant over. As you were.

Thanks John. Rigging is a challenge no doubt. I tend to find mounting the top wing to be my biggest problem. Getting the struts in, straight and at the correct angle of stagger and then getting the top wing on while the struts are still malleable enough to locate them properly without then collapsing like a bad soufflé is a bit of a trial but well worth persevering with!

That Herald is outstanding work... and the 1/144s are little crackers too.

Here are my MTO GB entries so far. The 1/72 Tamiya Mosquito built as the NF.II of 23 Sqn CO Peter Wykeham-Barnes: And the 112 Sqn P-40B of Neville 'Bowks' Bowker in original Temperate Land Scheme:

Thanks PlaStix. Still to finish: Tamiya 1/72 Mossie with Paragon conversion to prototype W4050 (just decals now), Revell 1/72 S.E.5a x 2 (props and detailing), and my MTO GB entries. Seven more before the New Year!

Thanks everyone - I got lucky with the weather yesterday, so was furiously superglueing the aerial wires on hoping that there would still be a spot in the back garden to catch the light! She's in the cabinet now and looks rather ominous.

I think the cake was my best effort of the year. Be warned, though. It's laden with prunes and sultanas. I have no idea how Ball didn't blow himself out of the cockpit!

I think the Spit is my favourite but only by a hair's breadth from... everything else! Consistently lovely builds.

Back to Malta and I finally finished off the two 1/48 Hurricanes that were my incomplete/out of time builds from the 2012 Malta GB. Two Hobbycraft Hurricane Mk.IIs built as topicalised 'B's', one a 261 Sqn day fighter with a slightly off Tropical Land Scheme and one from the Malta Night Fighter Unit, both with Propblurs in place of static blades. I scratched the anti-glare panels from plasticard. Otherwise both kits are standard apart from the Aeromaeter decals.

Back to WW1 again, and here is the only S.E.5 that I've completed while writing the Haynes Manual for same. It's written with modellers in mind, and features the beautiful job that AndrewE made of his Wingnut Wings example. For my part, I contributed a 'bargain end of the spectrum' model build: the Revell 1/72 kit enlivened only by some lovely Pheon decals. Here's a close-up of my little 'un, made without rigging to show the basic kit: And here is the picture of it that made it into the book, complete with a slice of Albert Ball's 'ripping cake' made to his sister's recipe as was sent out to him in France (and some suitable reading matter for model making and cake eating!)

I finished off the old Airfix 1/72 Hurricane Mk.I in the VC winners' box set colours of 'Nick' Nicholson. Since the decals were made it has been discovered that Nicholson had his own emblem on the port cowling - a red devil figure with red and yellow rings around him. If I'd been sensible about it I'd have scaled down a proper drawing of the emblem and printed it on decal paper. As it was I painted the white centre and red and yellow rings, then drew the figure on top. I'm happy enough with it and still love the old Airfix Hurricane.

Another WW1 subject. I'd wanted to do the Ruston Procter 'Wings of Horus' for ages, and as a little experiment I downloaded a 'skin' of the colour scheme from a computer game and scaled it to fit the Revell 1/72 Sopwith Camel. Then I printed the decals onto clear paper and laid these on to the kit. I find this little Camel to be a truly horrid kit but it was a worthwhile experiment. I also think that the colours of the computer skin are off by some way... a bit too bright and vivid for available paints in period... but it sort of works. I'll draw the eyes on the cowl soon. Maybe some rigging, although I'm inclined to leave it. I have painted the cowling red because Horus was a red disk with wings on it, and the logical thing to do would be to paint the cowl that way. In one or two photos it looks like this is what they did, but subsequent interpretations have differed.

A Malta Spitfire - in this case, AB262 as she appeared when flown off the deck of HMS Eagle, in factory-applied Desert finish (Mid Stone painted over the Dark Green sections of the camo) with Sky undersides and spinner. Kit is the Italeri 1/72 Mk.Vb with the optional 90-gallon slipper tank fitted. Xtracolor enamels throughout.

Back to WW1 and another triplane. This is the Eduard 1/48 Sopwith Triplane reposed by Smer and it fought me tooth and nail from start to finish. Aftermarket decals ordered from Australia. After the seismic battle to build it, she looks rather pretty on the shelf alongside her Fokker rival.

Next up and one of my 'for Edgar' Spitfires. This is a Mk.I from the 1/72 Airfix kit, built as one of the first arrivals with 610 Squadron at Hooton Park in 1939. I had to cut up and re-jig the code letters to match the slightly eccentric way in which they were applied on the real machines. The Spitfires were all from L1000 to L1049 in the Spitfire production run but no registrations could be seen in the pictures so I went without. All the Spitfires had three-blade props and bubble canopies but not the armoured glass on the windscreen. I bought a set of vac form canopies but was a bit uncertain of my ability to do them justice. In the end I cut the original kit windscreen down to better represent an un-armoured screen. It's my intention to complete a full set of 610 Sqn Spitfires in their various appearances from 1939-40, from this first delivery to the end of their part in the Battle of Britain. Edgar was an enormous help in getting the required information together to do this, and so I humbly put this one forward as my first 'thank you' for his help.

I've finished a few long-standing hangar queens this year and built a few from scratch. One or two more to complete before the year is out, but surprisingly productive! First up is my Eduard 1/48 'Weekend Edition' Fokker Dr.I in the celebrated scheme of Leutnant Friedrich Kempf. It's an aeroplane I'd wanted to build for years and this kit is pretty stat-of-the-art so the mistakes were all mine to make! I think really it's just a couple of mis-glues on the rigging wires, which look a bit messy in close-up pics but it all looks nice enough on the shelf. Camo was done with a base coat of Tamiya Buff, then dry brushing Tamiya Olive and finally deepening the scrubbed-in sections with Tamiya Olive Drab. This was the kit that broke my modeller's block and got me back into the painting and gluing business. My other half is overjoyed (!?)

Curtiss P-40B Tomahawk II, Flt Lt Neville 'Bowks' Bowker DFC, Sidi Haneish, September 1941 Kit: Airfix 1/72 P-40B from the 'El Alamein' Dogfight Double set Decals: Supplied with the kit Paint: Upper surfaces Tamiya and Humbrol, interior 'home brew' mix of Tamiya, underside Tamiya, tyres/prop blades Revell Build thread is here. Thanks again for looking.

De Havilland Mosquito NF.II, Wg Cdr Peter Wykeham-Barnes, 23 Squadron, Malta, 1943 Kit: Tamiya 1/72 Mosquito NF.II/FB.Mk.VI Decals: Xtradecal X72091 RAF 23 Squadron 1940-1990 Paint: Upper surfaces and interior Tamiya, underside Xtracolor, tyres/prop blades Revell Build thread is here. Thanks for looking!

Beautiful job. One to be very proud of.

Thanks, Beard. I think that standard Navy finish is about right on the Hal Far Gladiators. It looks to me as though the identification letters and larger serials were added later, that the Sky Grey was extended up over the camo to give space to paint them on the fuselages. I think that's the only real decision to be made, but would be nice to hear what Tony thinks!

Sprue shot: And the kit decals - they look a bit bright but let's see how we get on. I've got some others from Aeromaster:

Well here's a hoary old subject for a winter's build! A Malta-based Sea Gladiator of the Hal Far Fighter Flight. The story is well worn and a bit tatty around the edges. When Italy declared war on Britain and France in June 1940, there were only a handful of Gloster Sea Gladiators available to defend Malta from the attentions of the Regia Aeronautica. These had been among 24 Gladiators that had been stored at the Kalafrana seaplane base during 1939 for onward transit to the carriers Eagle and Glorious. Six were sent elsewhere, the Eagle received her complement of eight but the ten bound for the Glorious remained unclaimed, and these were reassigned to form the Hal Far Fighter Flight. An appeal for volunteers to fly them brought forth eight pilots, led by staff officer George Burges, but then the Navy decided that actually it wanted its Sea Gladiators aboard the Eagle and ordered them to be dismantled and prepared for transit. A last minute change of heart saw only three of these Gladiators removed and remaining seven were left on the Island to be erected and flown from Hal Far. The arrester hook and naval gubbins were removed, armour plate fitted behind the pilot's seat and an intensive period of training began. Given the paucity of aeroplanes and spares it was decided to organise the pilots into two flights of four, working a rotation, and no more than two aeroplanes could be in the air at one time. When the Italian bombardment of Malta began, this was initially increased to three aeroplanes but practical reasons brought this back down to two after a couple of days. The sight of the Gladiators flying out to engage incoming fighters and bombers was a significant morale booster, and almost immediately the Hal Far Fighter Flight became enshrined in myth. Who first used the term 'Faith, Hope and Charity' is unclear: it may have been a devout and thankful Maltese, it might have been an LAC remembering his mother's locket, it may have been a member of Churchill's propaganda team. Whosoever may have coined the phrase did little to describe the realities of the Gladiators' battle but did give Malta a talisman. The Gladiators and their pilots gave as good an account of themselves as could be hoped for a handful of hopelessly outdated machines. They weren't fast enough to get their teeth into the bombers but their presence and persistence caused some disarray among the Italian formations. On 22 April, George Burges happened to spot an Italian reconnaissance aircraft below him and dived on it over the capital, Valletta, shooting the port engine off and causing it to crash into the sea. The following day, Burges was attacked by a Macchi C.200 which tried to follow the little Gladiator when it went into a defensive turn. When it overshot its target, Burges duly fired and hit the Italian fighter, which promptly caught fire and crashed. These victories brought enormous cheer to Malta and celebrity status to Burges and the Gladiators. In total, the Gladiators were credited with nine enemy aircraft destroyed and five damaged. By that time, the first Hawker Hurricanes had arrived from an overland crossing via France and would soon take over the lion's share of the defence. Nevertheless, the Gladiators remained in service thanks to the ingenuity of the ground staff. When two Gladiators were written off in landing accidents on successive days, they were cobbled together into one functioning aeroplane. A six-gun Gladiator was built, with additional Brownings located under the upper wing. Famously, worn-out engines were replaced with those taken from wrecked Blenheims, and jury-rigged to operate their three-blade variable pitch props. Burges was awarded the DFC on 19 July for being credited with three enemy aircraft destroyed and three more damaged. On 31 July the Gladiator N5519 was shot down, with its pilot suffering severe burns. On 2 August, Operation HURRY brought another 12 Hurricanes launched from the carrier HMS Argus and all the Island's fighters were amalgamated as 261 Squadron. The Gladiators remained on strength until January 1941, when there were sufficient Hurricanes for them to be retired from front-line duty. In 1941, the remaining Gladiators were officially on the strength of 806 Squadron, Royal Navy, making Meteorology flights. One by one they gradually disappeared either from lack of spares or bomb damage. As with so many old airframes, the broken Gladiators were dumped into an old quarry near Luqa airfield and forgotten about until 1943, when one skeletal fuselage purporting to be that of N5520 was presented to the Maltese to mark the lifting of the siege. To this day it remains in the Malta War Museum in the old sea fort in Valletta, and is the subject of much debate between the various historians and organisations on the Island. I love the Gladiator, it's just about my favourite aeroplane and has been so since the age of five, when I was first taken to the Shuttleworth Collection and came away with a postcard of their glamorous silver machine. There's a fleet of 1/72 Gladiators in the stash - mainly the new tool Airfix - a but for this GB I'll be doing the bigger Roden kit. My plan is to build it in original June 1940 trim, with the 2-blade prop and no arrester hook. The decal options for Malta in the kit cover N5519 in her June-July appearance and N5520 as she appeared in the summer of 1941, but I'll make the final decision on markings further down the line. To get us started, here's a rather charming little film that someone has done about the legend of 'Faith, Hope and Charity'. It's littered with errors of all kinds but rather enjoyable nonetheless:

We can scratch my Hurricane now as well. I ordered a set of 1/48 Vital Storm decals to do the Operation HURRY delivery P3731 using the new Airfix Mk.I Trop. The decals appear to be sold out everywhere in this country but there was a Canadian shop selling them at a reasonable price with postage. Unfortunately they've arrived and are 1/72 scale. If anyone wants the 1/72 set for Mk.I Hurricanes it's yours for a tenner! As it is, getting the Gladiator done should take until Christmas. Not a major problem.

Thank you Tempest. A long way from perfect but I like her!