Hornet133

Yes it was attached to 1 AAU for a while. Which is why we in 'Oz' are very glad to see that photo.

Actually to correct that, 3 Mk.Is were supplied to Turkey from a pre-war order. Due to a lack of spares the Turks had to cannibalise one of them to keep the other 2 flying. In 1942 the Turks agreed to supply the 2 survivors to the RAF in Egypt in exchange for later supply of Mk.Vs. As said they were given HKxxx serials.

Hi PTM. Never noticed before but BR537 has an unusually tall aerial mast. Steve Mackenzie

Yes the ground crews, including the Admin Office who wrote up the ORB were taking the long way via the Cape. Thus there is no mention of 601s activities on Malta in the ORB. They probably only re-united when the aircrew flew their machines across to N.Africa. Same situation occurred the year before when 260 Sqn flew off a carrier to Malta and then on to M.E while the Ground crews took the scenic route onboard ship to Egypt. In the meantime 260 Sqn was involved in the Syrian campaign (flying Hurricanes) being serviced for 3 months by the Ground crews of 450 Sqn which had arrived without pilots or aircraft. 450 shipped to the M.E as a complete unit apart from pilots and airframes which were planned to be supplied through RAF channels under an 'infiltration scheme'. But because they arrived at a time of crisis there were none available. They were available to be married up with the 260 Sqn contingent however to form what was referred to as 260/450 Sqn which took part in the Syrian campaign and remained there for a time. The Syrian operations are thus recorded in the 450 Sqn ORB (as they were the ones writing up the records) and are not in the 260 ORB. After about 3 months, when 260 Sqn was re-united with their own ground crews, 450 then had to endure about six months of doing things such as sorting captured Vichy equipment, operating as an Aircraft Repair Depot etc till they got their own aircraft (Kittyhawk Mk.Is) and pilots in Feb 1942.

Were they really going to try to fit a Merlin 61 (a Mk.IX engine) to BR234 (a Spitfire Mk.V) ?? OK it is possible ala the 78 Rolls Royce converted Mk.V airframes with 60 series engines, but it sounds like a very BIG job for someone other than the original factory or engine makers.

Dinghy Cole thanks for your two posts, the info is very helpful Steve Mackenzie

I originally looked up the wrong serial in my 451 Sqn records. By co-incidence both Z4117 which I originally talked about by mistake and Z4771 served with 451 Sqn at different times. I have attached a photo of the subject airframe Z4771 below, the pilot shown is Ray Goldberg, talking to the Air Liason Officer, having just returned from a recce. The Air Britian records for most M.E Sqns are very incomplete. The Aircraft History Cards for M.E airframes were destroyed postwar and the only way to make a listing is to go through all the unit records. But many of those are very sketchy. There are NO serials in the 451 sqn ORB prior to June 1943, long after the period in question. I have a few more sources but things are very incomplete.

Yes I can confirm that Z4177 was with 451 Sqn in 1941. Z4117 which I originally put was also with 451 Sqn C Flight 1942 in Syria.

I have tracked back to the Wings Palette site as they usually say what the source of their profiles are, but on this occasion they say 'source unknown' i.e whoever uploaded it did not specify.

RAAF Earth Brown / Foliage Green over Sky Blue There is some very good colour film on the AWM website.

Oops... Sorry I messed up, it was 250 Sqn that D.H.Clarke was with not 260 Sqn. His Kittyhawk Mk.III was LD-(2 dots) FR313 per the Aircam book. I do know the difference but had a brain fade on that one. So 250 Sqn for the 'Saintly' G.50 which I had not seen before. thanks to Giorgio for additional info.

Red spinner, Yellow fuselage band (matches the outside of the roundel). Those were the colours that were pretty much standard for captured enemy airframes. Not 450 Sqn but 260 Sqn. F/Lt D.H.Clarke did a stint with them, his 'Saint' marked Kittyhawk Mk.III flown in Tunisia early 1943 is well known, having been illustrated going back to the 1960s in both the Aircraft Profiles and Aircam No.6 Kittyhawk in RAF Etc etc service. I'm surprised that no one has made the connection between him and the Fiat G.50 previously. 260 must have had two different G.50s as this is not the same one marked 'HS' due to differences in the camo, similar style but quite different in detail.

The new wheel design was first used on the FW-190A-6 model. Quicker, cheaper and easier to produce being a stamped metal design.

There are no shortage of camoed B-25H models with the CACW out there in internet land. Rather than trying to upload them individually here I have put some in an Album on my Flikr account which can hopefully be accessed by you guys at the following address: https://flic.kr/s/aHsmTERwCc Hornet133

They match as far as I can see. If you are talking about the roundel, the photo is taken with a filter which makes the Yellow appear very dark. The roundel IS as per the Montex mask profile.

@Stefaan Not the first time someone got it correct. See DK Decals 72082 which has been on sale for best part of a year. Also I note that Extradecal show the Springbok facing to the rear on the Port side of DB-H, whereas all the photos that I have seen show the badge with the Springbok facing forward on both sides. Do you have photos of EV421 that show that Extradecal are correct ?? Steve Mackenzie

Hi Guys, I am the author of the ipmsnsw article listed above. Ed Russell sent a review copy of the Red Roo Airborne Lifeboat conversion (RRR72179) to IPMS (NSW). I did a review (also in issue 34-4 of our publication 'in Miniature' listed above) and quickly did an additional article emphasising some of the points that the modeller needed to look at to make the RAAF Airborne Lifeboat Hudson A16-214 (per the article linked by @fubar57 above). One of the major problems that I ran into was that I could not find anything which clearly said what the differences were between the Uffa Fox designed Mk.I. Mk.Ia, and Mk.II lifeboats (if you looked at 3 different websites you could get 3 widely differing answers). So I can edit and correct the text, could someone advise if they have the info for - a) the lengths of the Mk.I. Mk.Ia, and Mk.II lifeboats (and also for completeness the post war Mk.III used with Lancasters). b) what is the exact difference between the Mk.I and Ia lifeboats ( could find nothing which actually told me). c) there is a preserved lifeboat at the RAF Museum which they claim to be a Mk.Ia and photos of it online show a clinker built hull construction. Is that what makes a Ia different to a Mk.I. Many boats were I believe built at small boat building operations around the UK and not by Uffa Fox. We now know that the boats underneath the Barracudas are 17' 9" clinker built naval cutters, so I will need to amend the text on that point. For those interested in RAAF subjects, the full back archive of the IPMS (NSW) magazine articles are available for download at ipmsnsw.com/magazine. Steve Mackenzie Editor 'in Miniature' IPMS (NSW) magazine.

@M20gull The 2 special high altitude Mk.IXs in overall Natural Metal finish were MA504 and MH946

Those renders make it look as if the rear seat is fixed to the frame behind it facing forward. The real thing swivelled, other wise he could never use the rear gun... And if you go on to do an A-35 model, be aware that there are major differences to the A-31 including a change in wing incidence which ruined it as a true vertical dive bomber.

These waist and tail gun positions that we are talking about WERE NOT field modifications. The Mod centres that William Wolf mentioned were in the USA, co-located (read next door) to the actual factories. The work was done there, not in the field. The USN had similar mod centres set up for later PBJs. The B-25D programme was designated B-25D2 (no dash after the D as this is a mod programme designation, not a block number) and the B-25Gs were done under the designation B-25G-12. Phil ('Flip') Marchese is the main researcher and expert on these mods (and has done a number of posts in places like Hyperscale in the past and runs the Facebook page 'B-25 Michell History'). There were Field modded examples but they were in N.Africa where a line was set up in the Sidi Ahmen depot to add defensive armament to early B-25C/Ds that had been received there before the work started being done in the USA. These mods were very different to the ones above. 'B-25 Mitchell- the Ultimate Look' - that's a joke, all W.Wolf does is take other people's research and trys to present it in one place (very expensive place it should be said) without any actual knowledge of the background and processes involved. 'Mitch the Witch' should have the modded waist and tail guns as all photos of other 17 TRS B-25Ds that I have show them in place.

One can see the over painted fuselage stripes on A8-J and the under wing ones are clearly there (with the wing pylon fitted on top of one, thus likely a replacement as postulated). Thus an August date seems correct. Lack of under fuselage ones are unusual, but would not be unique.

fasterry Yes good point. I have not seen the photo of that airframe, thus hard to tell.

Standard spinner colour in Meditteranean fighter units was RED. It was a friend/foe I.D marking. Thus I strongly doubt the Blue. Another point - the spinner is in direct sunlight, the rudder is in shadow. This affects the apparent colours.

From memory the Ju 87s of II./SG 103 were not on an operational sortie but were caught in the air when transferring from one base to another. Sometime during the Normandie campaign NSGr 1 and 2 started operating Ju-87s on night ground attack sorties.

Syd, Attached is the closest I have. One can see the first digit of the code 'F' under the wing root. They carried the sqn codes to the front going by other photos so it should not be the individual letter that we can see. Steve