Graham Boak

Not grey/green. The description Graugrun for 74 is not official and misleading. The colour is a dark grey. I recall Ken Merrick posting to the effect that if you had something freshly painted, and peered very closely, you might make out a green tinge, but it disappeared rapidly. There are quite a large number of colour photos showing just greys on the upper surfaces. Modellers were mislead for some years by the Squadron In Action volumes on the FW190 and Bf109 showing quite strong greens for 74. However, had the Luftwaffe operated their standard fighters in much the same camouflage as their RAF opponents, I'm sure someone would have noticed.

Didn't Falcon do a Lancaster canopy? They certainly did one for the Halifax and other RAF bombers.

Early Me.262 were painted in the three greys, later ones in the green/brown. As an early one you should be fine.

It needed debugging, which it was. It went on to serve as a full geschwader with JG1 on the Eastern Front, and with KG50 and KG100 in the west. Give a dog a bad name and it sticks.

Nothing at all insane about the idea, it just wasn't done very well and was placed in production before the bugs had all been sorted out. Making one bigger engine by combining two smaller ones was not exactly a brand new suggestion - after all what do you imagine two-row radials are? At least, in principle. I wouldn't argue that all twin rows originated in two sets of an existing smaller design.

I entirely agree, which is why I stressed the wide range of possible approaches that could have been taken. However, far more accurate kits of the Vampire have been produced than this one. As shown above, the errors are multiple and could have been avoided by a more careful study of the original. and not least by returning to the references at intervals during the preparation and comparing what was available to what it should look like.

It's a heavy book, and postage of any books to/from the US is very high. The core problem is that it is no longer possible to get regular shipping so everything goes by air. Cash to spare, go by air. But you won't be disappointed with it.

The Vampire is not some rare device from the 1920s, no longer existing and lacking photographs or manufacturer's plans. There are thousands of photograph, many previous models to study, examples in museums around the world, books dedicated to the type, and access to the manufacturer's data. There is no excuse for anyone demanding money from modellers not to study the masses of information available before starting on their creations. Frankly, anything this bad is a blot on the hobby, and anyone defending it should be ashamed.

The later book is indeed better, and I wouldn't want to affect any sale, but if your interest is mainly in WW2 then the older one will not disappoint. For more modern operations the later book is clearly far superior, and I quite happily have both. This is a case where the discount on such books provided by being a member of Air Britain is more than worthwhile.

OK bob, but wasn't it pointed out that the F.Mk.IX had the gun camera replaced by the additional cooler inlet, so the wings would not have remained unchanged. There's somewhat more work required there than usually borne in mind.

Not that much. The engines were by far the most valuable (in time and effort and material) and like the propellers, cowlings and support structure they will all have gone into store for use as spares. Or indeed back to the production lines for the outstanding Mk.Vs still to be built whilst waiting for production of the Merlin 61s to ramp up.

The term "aircraft type" refers to the squadron role not the specific aircraft type. In 1939 it must have been uncommon to have more than one squadron of any given role or type on a single carrier. In wartime this was much more common. For example 4 and 5 would be Swordfish (or Albacore) whereas 6 and 7 could both be Sea Hurricanes. Or, indeed a mix of SH and Martlets. As an example on Pedestal Indomitable did not carry the carrier identifier but used 6 and 7 for Sea Hurricanes and 8 for Martlets, whereas Victorious use 6 and 7 for Fulmars but 8 for SH. Osprey are just being ambiguous in their terminology.

Not quite. There were no in-service Mk.Vs converted to Mk.IXs, but the first 50 aircraft were passed from Castle Bromwich to RR for conversion without passing through RAF hands. It seems that a similar case, but without requiring transfer, applies to the first 50 Mk.IXs from Supermarine. Both of these batches had individual cowlings different from those of production Mk.IXs.

The best book is Air Britain's Squadrons of the FAA, which is magnificent but rather more than you need here. I haven't attempted to list all it has to say on this matter, but basically you have it right. Except that the three number code, the first identifying the number of crew, belonged only to the British Pacific Fleet until postwar. The carrier codes did alter during the war, but the system was standard for the fleet carriers. A very similar system was also used on the Escorts, except in the Indian Ocean where the code letter belonged to the Wing. Land based units also operated this system. What can cause confusion is that the carrier letter was often omitted, as the RN carriers only rarely operated other than singly. The central number would also identify the squadron as TBR, Dive bomber or fighter, the lower the number being the more senior squadron.

The Bf.109 ones were excellent - the value of an author who knew his subject.

I think that the Nomad would have overpowered the Ambassador, and certainly with four of them. The fact that it was named does suggest British, or at least European. It also suggests small later engines, whether turboprop or turbojet. Or two P&W2800 to 4 PT6?

Yes there are two different companies Yes, Valom did release a Hampden with poor transparencies Yes, it was then rereleased by AZ with improved transparencies Valom have announced they are rereleasing their Hampden. It is said that it will have the same plastic AZ have now announced a Hampden. I presume it is the Valom one with their improvements, again. I believe they have not said that it is to be a new tooling.

As always, because it is seen as an independent interpretation of the shapes, and is a remnant of the time when such drawings were made by professional draughtsmen relying, if not on actual production drawings of the subject or measurements taken of the real thing, then at least on real world experience of their shapes, and engineering requirements. Not that this ever was entirely reliable, largely because of lack of access. Nowadays it seems that many people, let's call them artists for the benefit of doubt, who create such plans have not bothered to check what has been done before nor the problems that arose. Or are simply copying one such previous plan whilst adding additional detail. However, I view the series "modellers datafile" with a large red caution light. They appear to have taken material from previous works and copied them across without passing through the mind of anyone involved with publishing or with knowledge of the types concerned. There is, or can be, a lot in them that is exceedingly useful to modellers, but too many relics of an earlier, less well-informed, time.

Not warning shots but a deliberate bounce, with kills. There was no border because there was at this time no state of Israel except in the minds of the Jewish immigrants intent on restoring the ancient state/taking over the land of Palestine (choose which according to your view of history, both seem equally correct to me). Palestine was then under the (remnants of) British rule, so the RAF were entitled to fly where they liked. Indeed, given the state of anarchy existing, required to find out as much as possible of what was happening. The Jewish pilots included a number of ex-RAF pilots, who would have been aware of the differences between RAF Tempests and Egyptian Spitfires. Probably more experienced than the mainly inexperienced RAF pilots. Apparently the RAF planned a return strike the following day to wipe out the nascent Israeli Air Force but this was banned from on high. This was not the only strike against the RAF in this fluid and confused time. The Egyptians mounted an unsuccessful strafe of the main RAF base, apparently thinking it had been taken over by the settlers. It hadn't. and the RAF had top cover. There are a number of published accounts of air events at this time, Gibb Street's Wings over Suez likely to be the latest and least biased.

With the qualification that the torpedo bomber has a corrected ventral gun position.

No problem, until your van travels by air. RM puts much of its business into the air nowadays. An explosion in the air can have massively greater consequences than in a van on the road. And apparently yes there were examples of paint tins exploding. Not to the extent of losing any aircraft, but a hold full of expensive luggage sprayed silver (if that's what it was) wouldn't exactly be popular. Jamie Duff is the one whose business is affected by this, and he said quite a lot on the net about when it was introduced, and his trials in attempting to find a legal way of distributing his paints. It wasn't just RM, but the other carriers who demanded payable levels of insurance, I believe). If you don't believe me, contact him. (It may still be up on the Sovereign Hobby website.)

Simple answer is that RM relies heavily on air freight, and the rules are set by the airlines. Yes, it was possible to send such paint by air years ago, but it is not now. You will also find that it is not only Royal Mail that acts under such constraints: Jamie Duff of Colourcoats spent some time trying to find ways around this problem before finding the solution he uses today. Other methods, which can be seen, are illegal.

I disagree with the comparisons: it is a lot slimmer and more shapely that the G4M or LeO. Closer comparisons would be the Mosquito or Pe.2, though it is somewhat larger than either. The Vichy one (or one example) was in overall silver.

The Atlantic scheme is rather later then 1941: which the national markings support.

Given the Allied air superiority and air-ground weapons (with the Tiny Tom rocket on the way) the main problem for the Tiger II+ would be finding somewhere big enough to hide in.