Chuck1945

Update time, but first one of my helpers Beginning assembly, first the cockpit. My initial thought had been to do like Tempests and Typhoons; black for side panels and grey-green below. However after asking about it in the WWII forum, there was reference made to the old C&M section on the Meteor. Turns out the cockpit was pressurized and seam sealant was black so they just went ahead and painted the entire thing black. The kit supplied gun sight is probably to scale, but the way it mounts looks to make it hard, if not impossible to use so I used some plastic strip to fashion a new one. I’ve not read anything about Whittle’s design/thought process but at least with hindsight, the idea of a centrifugal flow jet turbine instead of an axial flow one just looks weird. On to the engines then. The directions for this are not particularly useful. The location for some nose weight is clearly marked, but could have easily been worked out without instruction. What would have been helpful would have been a suggestion of how much weight! Even worse the engine assembly step is just plain wrong. Turns out (after much fumbling about and use of bad words) part F5 actually goes between F2 and F4, not between F4 and F1. Next will be dry fitting to determine if the nose wheel assembly can be safely left off until after basic airframe assembly and painting is completed. I hate to tempt fate with what could have been a premature attachment of something I would probably break off doing subsequent work.

Thanks. That kind of matches the picture I remember, thinking it was in a mostly picture book published in the 90s that was about the early days of either the RFC/RAF or the NAS/FAA.

The 56 FG mainly flew escort missions so tanks, not bombs were the normal load.

This topic in the WWII section reminds me of picture I’ve seen from pre-WWI as best I recall, of an early plane that is stuck on or near the op of what looks like a very tall early radio tower. Google’s results are primarily on the Twin Towers and also a light plane that hit a power transmission tower. Anyway if this rings any bells, I’ve been curious regarding any story about the incident and crew.

Still trying to get a handle using Flickr and then getting the images to appear. Anyway, more on my Meteors. First the kits Another reference that has been quite helpful for aircraft serial and squadron code connections My plan is to build one as an anti-Diver F.I Meteor for which I have a pilot and aircraft connection and the F.III will be one of the overall white ones used over NW Europe in the late Winter/early Spring 1945 to help familiarize both ground and air forces that while the Meteors were jets, they were not Me 262s. There are some niggles with the Dragon F.I, one of them being the canopy molded with bump on the top of the hinged portion that was present on the development Meteors but absent on the production F.Is. Pavla did a vac canopy set that had both More to come

Not just a shelf of doom rescue, but a major rebuild as well!

If it were me, I would use a dark (ish) grey but not whatever color you are using for the underside Neutral Gray.

I’ve that kit too, never started it though so will be watching this. Hope to eventually do the one at Pearl Harbor that was launched in attempt to find the Japanese carriers after the attack. Fortunately for the crew they failed to find the Japanese fleet.

Well doh… I have the C&M bound copy, never thought to look there 😳

I’m planning to build a pair of 1/72 Meteors (F.I,III) for the WWII Twins group build using the Dragon/Cyber Hobby kits. I’ve got the Pavla vac canopy for the F.I and replacement decals for the F.III and that the elevator shape on both need correcting. What I don’t know are the interior colors used. Guessing the gear bays are painted aluminum and, absent any pictures, intend to use interior green for the lower parts of the cockpit as well as the seat with the upper parts of the sidewalls a dark grey (black is too stark IMO for this scale). Any idea if this is reasonably close choice of colors?

Thanks for the welcome. The Meteor book has almost a day by accounting of Meteor operations against V-1 bombs but doesn’t have any code/serial connections that I’ve found so far. A-ha I thought, I’ll go to the National Archives website and seek the 616 Sqd ORBs. Downloaded them late last night/early this morning and no tie ups there either, just daily summaries of all the Meteor operations, drat! At least the book has one photograph of an operational F.I, EE227 YQ-Y, and that FO Dean was flying EE217 when his guns wouldn’t fire and he ended up using his wing to tip the wing of a V-1 that upset its gyro causing it to roll and dive into the ground. One take away from reading about the encounters is how much easier the Meteors were able to overtake the bombs than the other types (Spitfires, Tempests, Mustangs).

My entry will be a pair of Dragon Meteor kits, the F.I and F.III. I built an all white Airfix Meteor F.3 back when it was a new kit, now long gone. The Dragon kits have been in the stash for some time and this seemed like a good opportunity to get them built. Both will be from 616 Sqd, 1944 and ‘45. I acquired this book (Kindle edition) last week to learn more about the Meteor operations, specifically the anti-Diver story for the F.I kit and on the continent with 2TAF for the F.III kit

It isThe entire bay is woefully shallow, the rear should not follow the outline of the bay, rather open to the spar, and the inboard center section should be open to the engine compartment. Instructions to the IBG Doras will give you an idea what I mean. I don’t think there is any ‘simple’ solution if you stick with the Hasegawa kit, but you could perhaps cut away the ‘roof’ and make a straight line plastic card back to the bay area that connects the port and starboard side openings …

Your battle with this kit should at least move the release date of a more modern kit (are you listening Dora Wings?) forward by at least a decade.

Your reasoning looks good to me, no obvious inboard .50 machine gun nubbin.

What @gingerbob said. Intermediate Blue was part of a 1943 change to USN aircraft painting. Blue-Gray was darker and more grey than Intermediate Blue. There isn’t a good Tamiya match and Mr Color 367 is reasonable. In service Blue-Gray faded quite a bit and the Navy revised the color formulation at least once. Again Intermediate Blue is not representative of the 1942 color Blue-Gray.

I’ve not done any of the group builds so this would be my first assuming I’m allowed in. As for an entry, I’m thinking perhaps the Dragon 1/72 Meteor I since I have a couple in the stash and need some impetus to actually get one going. I also have hopes to build an Airfix Wellington this year too but no way I can realistically expect to finish by the end of April.

Thanks for the reply, when (if?) I get around to building one, that is what I had planned on doing. Perhaps mask and paint the turret as well as the undersides around where the turret fits before putting the fuselage together, assemble the turret and mounting per the instructions and than just build a tent-like mask over the entire area when ready to the overall painting. Maybe even make a heavy paper or cardboard covering that could protect the turret and guns during the rest of the assembly. In theory this seems reasonable…

Looking at the instructions, if you want the turret to rotate, you need to follow the assembly sequence. If you don’t want the turret to rotate, you can assemble through part F32 (skipping part F38) in step 8 and then insert and glue the turret and it’s hanger when all painting, decals, etc are completed

Going off in a tangent here; prompted by a post here perhaps a month ago on a different topic. Our model club is doing a throwback to Christmas time when kids. Take a kit from the stash that is probably old and has a rather remote chance of actually getting into the build queue and put it together in one day, just like Christmas’s past; paint and decals optional. The only requirement being it has to be in one calendar day. My first choice is probably going to be a FM Bf 109 since they are rather simple builds and I have lots of them.

Email to newsletter subscribers

AFAIK, the Price book doesn’t have the details you seek but it may at least indicate RAF squadrons that participated. I read the book years ago so memory is kind of vague. WingLeader has a series of books that are detailed accounts of each day’s activities derived from squadron pilots’ reports. However that is a rabbit hole I didn’t want enter so have not purchased any of the books in that series.

That is looking good. I was there when the B-24D (I won’t attempt to get by the censor by stating the name painted on it) flew into W-PAFB, Dayton Ohio headed for the Air Force Museum on an Armed Forces Day open house. It made quite an impression on 12 year old me and I too prefer the B-24 over the B-17. Built the Revell 1/72 kit back in the late 60s, but none since. I did start a Hasegawa ‘D’ to build for the 75th anniversary of Tidal Wave but now the 80th anniversary has passed and it still isn’t finished! I’ll be following this with interest.

I don’t have a picture handy, but the ‘Y’ portion of the Sutton harness feeds up from the slot in the seat back with the arms attaching to the long straps feeding out from the slot in the head armor

Short answer, not really. As a minimum, new wings would be needed and, if building the Messerschmitt produced 210s, a new fuselage as well. Hungarian manufactured Me 210ca (I think that’s the corrrect designation) had the longer 410 fuselage. SBS is working on a resin conversion