maltadefender

I've got the Pedestal Martlett decals going spare... will PM you! Here's a shot of the Wasp:

Does it still have the moveable elevators, undercarriage etc.? My Dad built one when I was v small and I've often wanted to replace it after a teenage pyromaniac moment!

Good choice! There are markings for a Martlet in the Operation Pedestal 1/72 set or the Wildcat would be the pale grey jobbies on the USS Wasp when she was delivering Spitfires.

Looking good thanks for the interest guys! Can't believe I forgot the Martin Maryland on the list! Regular mount of Adrian Warburton. Fingers crossed - think my stash would have something suitable!

That's enough for one weekend... put the Twin Wasp together and put her in place... Then made a horrible mess of my lovely blue paint with my first ever go at weathering. Fortunately the US Navy seems to have been fastidious so there aren't many chips to be seen on the 1:1 photos, and so I textured the exhaust gases with a mix of light grey, dark brown and black all thinned down and scrubbed in, and then just light grey and black on the guns. Not as happy with the guns, but quite pleased with the exhausts: So with the lights in and the tail hook tucked away, she can sit on the shelf and look pretty before the undercarriage, fuel tank and radome go on...

Loving that... inspiration to crack on with mine!

I've bought some Revell Decal Soft and it's none too clear (Klear?!) on the correct method of applying it. Do I use water to place the decal in the traditional style and then paint it on as it dries or paint it on the area where the decal is to be positioned beforehand? Any guidance gratefully accepted as I really don't want to mess up!

Glad you like her, guys! Okay, closed her up with the rear windows and etched frames stuck in with Klear. Only drama so far was stabbing myself in the thumb while cutting out the hole for the long range fuel tank... d'oh! Oh, and a bit of seepage under the window masks but, heck, what a must-have those are! I don't think I'm ever going to buy another kit unless it comes with them! First job tomorrow is finishing the reflector sight, then it's down to the underside... Good night!

Right then, she's finally underway after a couple of confidence-building 1/72s this week to get my eye in. Actually they didn't build much confidence, but I took the plunge anyway. Well the idea that with Eduard you can throw the pieces in the air and have a museum-quality model by the time it hits the deck might be a bit far-fetched, but not too much. Certainly it's in another league to a lot of kits I've known and loved. After the washing, rinsing, drying and waiting for an opportunity to crack on (with a bit of Klear application to the clear panels) the interior green bits were painted up using Revell enamel. I put the cockpit together using the photo-etch parts (there is the option not to, but I figured that on a £30 model I'd better give it a go). I used a combination of Super Glue, poly cement and ignorance - seems to have worked! Now... on a bigger scale aircraft I can see the virtue of adding each and every piece of etch, but on 1/48 I lost the will to live a little bit. Assuming that you can see in to the cockpit, will you really be able to see the toggles aren't there? Or aren't straight? Frankly I made the executive decision that life's too short for some of the etched details and got on with the rest of the job. Now then: the terrifying part. I don't know if it's me or whether paints these days are mixed knowing that the vast majority of people buying them are committed hobbyists who are going to use an airbrush but I haven't managed to get a finish I'm really happy with on a brush painted model since I got back into the hobby. Fortunately I still had a Tamiya rattlecan left in US Navy Blue (which kind of decided what I was going to build for me...) so with fingers and toes crossed that it would be enough and that I could get the job done at the first go, off I set. No primer... I wanted a mirror-smooth finish if possible... and the results are... OK!!! I can live with it and loved the painting process as the colour changes shade with each application from real Pacific glue to a darker glowing tone and finally the full-on Navy with the third coat. It's as smooth as I'd hoped and means that I can put the fuselage halves together and get on with the fiddly bits over the weekend.

I think the order to change from Dark Earth/Dark Green/Sky went out in mid-August 1941... but stand to be corrected! Typical 1941 scheme therefore as per 1940 but with the Sky fuselage band towards the tail. Not sure about spinners. I'm doing 'Jumbo' Gracie's BoB Hurricane for the BoB GB... trying to work that spinner out as I write! White or Sky. The decals have Sky Blue leader's stripes across the tail, but I think they should be Sky to match the undersides. Although I've seen the aircraft profiled with grey and with Sky undersides... so it's pin the tail on the donkey time!

If any of these are your bag say 'ho'!! RAF Air/Sea Rescue Launch Avro Anson Bristol Blenheim Mk.IV Bristol Beaufighter Mk.I, Mk.II Bristol Beaufort De Havilland Mosquito PR Mk.I Empire Class flying boat Fairey Albacore Fairey Fulmar Fairey Swordfish Gloster Sea Gladiator Grumman Martlet Hawker Hurricane Mk.I Hawker Hurricane Mk.II (all types) Hawker Sea Hurricane Mk.I Lockheed Hudson Martin Maryland Miles Magister Short Sunderland Supermarine Spitfire Mk.Vb (trop), Mk.Vc (trop) Supermarine Spitfire PR Mk.IV Supermarine Walrus Vickers Wellington Luftwaffe Junkers Ju52 Junkers Ju87B Junkers Ju87D Junkers Ju88A Heinkel He111H Heinkel He115 Messerschmitt Bf109 E7 (Trop) Messerschmitt Bf109 F2/4 (Trop) Messerschmitt Bf110C/E (Trop) Reggia Aeronautica Cant Z.501 Cant Z.506b Cant Z.1007 Fiat BR.20 Fiat CR.32 Fiat CR.42 Fiat G.50 Macchi MC.200 Macchi MC.202 Reggiane Re2000 Savoia-Marchetti S.79 Savoia-Marchetti S.81 Savoia-Marchetti S.82 U.S. Grumman Wildcat Royal Navy HMS Warspite HMS Ark Royal HMS Illustrious HMS Eagle HMS Furious HMS Argus U-class submarines Assorted merchantmen and destroyers Regia Marina Practically anything and everything US Navy USS Wasp (CV-7) British Army Matilda tank Austin Tilly Austin/Morris trucks Anti-aircraft guns etc. etc. etc.

Robvulcan they're all gorgeous. Thank you for building them.

Well I guess that's between you, me and AVM Hugh Pugh, whose grasp of single-engined aircraft was minimal. He repeatedly asked for 'fighters' rather than specifying 'Spitfires' and thus gave plenty of scope for inferior equipment to be dispatched overseas by a self-serving Fighter Command under Sholto Douglas and Leigh-Mallory which had 80 squadrons of Spitfires to call upon and no enemies to fight against. When finally 'Hugh Pugh' was shown the value of adequate fighter protection and the deadline for surrender that he and the Governor had set had passed, he asked for the Spitfires to be painted in 'Sea Scheme'. On balance, yes, Temperate. As the main mover and shaker in all the later Spit deliveries was 'Jumbo' Gracie he would have been familiar with it from FAA types. Not as good as roundel blue for camouflage over the Med however!!!

Makes retrospectively applied 'sea scheme' - as per the order for Spits on 07/04/42 - a possibility, though, doesn't it? Spinner black overpainted in red? Candidate no. 4,356 has just emerged!

Funnily enough I got stuck in Malta this year courtesy of the Icelandic volcano - perhaps they're inextricably linked. Someone call Mulder and Scully!!!

Aha - thank you! Yes that's on the cover of the current edition of Faith, Hope and Malta, G.C. by Tony Spooner! I think it dates from summer 1942 - those are the later roundels, aren't they? - when there were numerous unemployed FAA staff around and some Hurricanes going spare at Hal Far after 185 had coverted to Spitfires. A Kiwi Swordfish pilot collared AVM Keith Park and suggested that they could be of some assistance... there's a documentary about the pilot going back to Malta in 2005 called 'A Quiet Little Rock'. I've often wondered about the markings on this Hurri... roundel blue is alluring (much like imagining that all the Malta Spits were blue!), but I imagine that EDSG is the more likely culprit.

I'll bite - which books?

RAF Museum has at least confirmed that Z4048 was sent to Iceland, not Malta. I don't know whether or not to be upset about my lovely print being of a non-existant scene!

Thank you all so much - I'm going to have to report this back to the RAF Museum... I think they need a little help on this too! So then, it looks like a concensus is forming! After the original supply of Temperate Land Scheme in 1940 (and the anomalous Desert scheme aircraft on Operation Hurry), deliveries in the first half of 1941 arrived in Temperate but were heading towards a uniform Tropical Land Scheme (Dark Green/Mid-Stone with Azure or Sky Blue undersurfaces). I've got a photo of the night fighter Z2827 photographed after a wheels-up landing and this does look suspiciously like Desert over Black but it feels like we're getting closer...

Thanks Graham, I have to say I rather like Mid-Stone/Dark Green as a combination! Certainly it would have been pretty good for spring and autumn in Malta... on the ground at least. In the air surely Mid-Stone would have stood out like a sore thumb over the Med, hence the order to apply 'Sea Scheme' to the Spits later on. What's your feeling for a Hurricane unit in mid-1941? A mix of Dark Green/Dark Earth/Sky and Dark Green/Mid-Stone/Sky Blue?

Thanks for the thoughts, chaps. Yes it seems that type isn't too much in question, but appearance is any bugger's guess! Being a simple soul I am trying to keep things straightforward in my own mind, but struggling to achieve this loft aim! RAF Museum came back to me this morning and they're now as foxed as I am. 1940: Initial deliveries 'overland' were in Dark Green/Dark Earth/Black and white, but the first carrier launch (Operation Hurry) shows a desert scheme of Dark Earth/Mid-Stone/Sky Blue (pre-war). The one surviving aircraft photographed from the fateful November launch (Operation White - 8 aircraft lost from 12 launched) looks to be Dark Green/Dark Earth/Sky with black port lower wing surface. 1941: Photos of the first launch of 1941 (Operation Winch) show a mixture of Dark Green/Dark Earth/Sky patterns (wavy upper/lower surface lines, Sky tail bands, a riot of different spinners...), as does the recollection of Tom Neil for Operation Splice in May. The fact that the vast majority of Operation Splice's aircraft were ferried on to Egypt would indicate that repainting was done ad hoc wherever the aircraft ended up. Where this is of no help whatsoever is in getting to the bottom of the mystern Dark Green/Mid-Stone/Sky colours apparently flown by 185 Squadron when formed in May 1941 although there is a photo of a Mk.IIc delivered in June 1941 which seems to be at least partially painted in this way at the front of the fuselage with darker (presumably Dark Earth/Dark Green) on the rear section and tail. Ah, 'tis fun...

She's arrived. Time to go to work...

Just heard back from the RAF Museum regarding colours used on Hurris... now getting bamboozled! So far I've got: Malta Air Museum: states that all aircraft were delivered in 1940-41 with Dark Green/Dark Earth upper surfaces and and repainted on an ad hoc basis (e.g. the 'Bosun Blue' and PRU Pink Mk.Is of 69 Squadron or the partial/all-black night fighters). RAF Museum: states that Hurricane Mk.Is were delivered in Dark Green/Dark Earth until August 1940 when Dark Earth/Mid-Stone/Sky Blue (pre-war) became standard. The museum also states that 185 Squadron was operating Hurricane Mk.IIs in Dark Green/Mid-Stone/Sky Blue during May 1941... although this conflicts with the squadron diary (below). Tom Neil: states in Onward to Malta and in discussions with Michael Turner for the cover art that when he arrived in Malta with 249 Squadron in May 1941 it was with Hurricane Mk.Is in Dark Green/Dark Earth/Sky and that there were no Mk.IIs until the June deliveries. The majority of the Hurricanes flown in by 249 left for North Africa the next morning, leaving the newcomers with clapped-out aircraft abandoned by 261 squadron until Mk.IIs were delivered in June 1941. As a result Turner's painting Malta Defenders shows Neil flying Dark Green/Dark Earth/Sky Hurricane Mk.IIa Z4048 during the summer of 1941 - although according to our resident Hurricane expert, Diamant, Z4048 was shipped to Iceland in July 1941 - so something's amiss! The 185 Squadron diary shows in late May 1941 there was a shared pool of 30 Hurricanes - two being Mk.IIs - dispersed at Hal Far and Takali to be shared by 185 and 249 Squadrons (the two units operating from each airfield on alternate days). All photos indicate that these were painted Dark Green/Dark Earth/Sky. After these were reduced to 15 serviceable aircraft 30 Mk.IIb and IIc Hurricanes were delivered at the end of June and thus allowed the units to re-form as individual entities - with photos from Ark Royal showing a mix of aircraft including Z2593 with Dark Green/Dark Earth/Sky with Sky fuselage bands and spinner - this becoming S/Ldr Rabagliati's mount at 46 Squadron. Malta: The Hurricane Years shows the vast majority of Hurricanes in what can only be Dark Green/Dark Earth/Sky including the April 1941 delivery of Mk.IIa's, of which several have Sky tail bands and spinners, and several others have the 'wibbly-wobbly' divide between upper and lower surfaces on the leading edge and cowling. It also has a photograph of 249 Squadron 'at readiness, Summer 1941' with what looks like Dark Green/Dark Earth/Sky colours as per Tom Neil's recollection. Osprey's Hurricane Aces 1941-45 shows the vast majority of Hurricanes in all theatres wearing Dark Green/Dark Earth/Sky and being repainted on an ad-hoc basis, which ties in with the Malta Air Museum. All in all... I'm still a long way from getting anywhere close to the bottom of this lot!

And... confirmation emailed today that the model has shipped. Woo-hoo! Talk about last of the late brakers! I think she's going to be wheels up, guns armed and out there looking for trouble.

That's why I used the word supremacy as opposed to superiority. The Luftwaffe never gained supremacy in fact... but it was widely believed at the time and has subsequently been written into the folklore. The Luftwaffe repeatedly gained superiority in every theatre, but that's where it ended... but until 1942 that weakness was backed up with greater results on the ground. Time and again we are told that Germany 'steamrollered' nations under the Blitzkrieg yet the evidence reveals that German territorial gains were achieved despite mounting losses among her airmen. In Poland 21% of the aircraft committed were destroyed, in Scandinavia 49% and in France, Belgium and Holland 60% of the aircraft committed were destroyed. Yet in return Germany gained control... so somebody somewhere was doing something right. Just not Goering, Kesselring, Milch et al. The claims of supremacy for the Luftwaffe must therefore be called into question...