Graham Boak

I agree with your description of inset ailerons, and also that it may well be a repair requirement. I have not encountered any aerodynamic reason, but speculate that given the importance of the tip vortices for lift and drag, having a moving surface waggling about in them might not be ideal. If this is an effect dependent on speed, then that might explain why ailerons extending to the tip exist happily enough on slow aircraft but disappeared from designs as speed rose. I'm not sure how this effect, if true, would be got around in the case of very short-clipped wings such as the Spitfire, where there is precious little tip beyond the aileron. However, as aircraft grew faster and larger and more expensive, the more important the ease and low cost of repair becomes.

Why was the S.81 such an anachronistic design compared to the S,79.and S,82? I can imagine that it was designed perhaps as a colonial bomber-transport to replace the C.133, but was this true? Or did S-M simply have a more confusing (to me) non-chronological design number sequence?

You will also need to reshape the ventral fairing and add a bit of filler to represent the 4-way fairing at the leading edge of the tailplane/.fin intersection. The doors for the undercarriage legs are too long and need a section removing from the top and gluing into the hole, then filling. The door will then need to be severely thinned and the kink at the bottom has a curve. I glued the main wheel doors in place then created a hole for the wheels, with a section removed where the outer door kink fitted. Fiddly but a great improvement. I have not yet approached the A Model kit re the same details.

It's not really surprising that the existing colour in 1944(?) differs from that described in 1939.

I tend to think of the Breda camouflage as being mainly hazelnut with small sparse blotches of green. If so, then thank you but no, as I feel I could do that myself and I lack a photo of a recce aircraft in that scheme. Caliaro describes (and shows) it as being thicker streaks and blotches of the green giving a darker overall effect. The photo of 85.3 is one of these - possibly an Ambrosini build? I do have a sheet of the "smoke rings"", which would do for the Veltro as shown above (yes this is the photo in Caliaro) but I don't think I have anything suitable for the tanks Though I do have two Veltros and don't fancy a grey one. I would prefer the Folgore if I could cobble together an consistent 85-3 from the available transfer sheets. Maybe from the Sky sheet.

I know. I found it amusing that a modern model should be criticised for removing features, when those same features had been so disliked for being present 50 years or more ago.

Separate ailerons. elevators and rudders? Back to the early Sixties. The next step will be retractable undercarriages (but fixed doors).

The Pa-9 was, I understood, a metal airframe. The comment was regarding the wartime airframes.

Yes and no. The first of two prototypes of the C.201 flew in September 1941, after some delays due to the engine. The single C.200bis was some seven months later, but a less advanced airframe being basically a re-engined C.200 fuselage. Or a case of one being how to do better overall, the other being what can we do with the same bits. As I understand it.

Now to try to find transfers for them, or indeed other Italian fighters of the period. Hannants offered very few, and mainly for the C.200. I might have some old ESCI ones, but doubt there value now. Unit badges might work - but the numbers? Are there such things as generic sheets (I doubt it)?

It certainly did have a turret. If you want to find the original posting, search for references to Scarfe's codes around the time that Airfix released their Blenheim. Airfix's research was up to date whereas most older published work was not, As part of the discussion there was a link to several excellent colour photos of the squadron lined up and this aircraft taxying past. As I recall, most of the discussion was also around the fit or not of belly guns to these Blenheims for their double role as fighters. I believe that the photos were taken down by Life Magazine for whatever reason but there may be reference to the missing tip in the postings. If you do find the thread, there is a lot of good stuff in it but the photos would have been much nicer still. It is possible that some of the posters may have downloaded and kept the photos. The photos were taken at the squadron's base in April 19411 (as I recall), somewhere up-country?

Except where it actually introduces a confusion as to the meaning. Which it usually doesn't. However, I don't think offering corrections is belittling nor bullying, but extending a helping hand. If someone gets stroppy about such a thing, the fault is internal. These mistakes do break up the flow of reading and understanding, and you are better off not making such errors. The purpose of language is communication, not miscommunication. I only wish I could avoid such errors myself, and if anyone corrects me I cannot promise not to be peeved... PMs preferred. But I know that my typing is worse than my spelling and proofreading is never perfect, whether electronic or personal.

Thanks Giampiero. The style of this drawing is very similar (if slightly less detailed) to those of the C.200, 202 and 205 in Caliaro's book. It does seem to me that the fuselage is the same width as the C.200,with all due allowance for problems with eyeballs, though I don't believe that the panel behind the engine cowling would be left sticking out in the breeze. Because of this I still wonder. Was this part of the drawing just copied from that ot a C.200 and this point missed? The photo of the C.201 shows a flush skin. As I write, KRK4m has posted with the difference in frames between the C.200 and C.202, which is what I would expect and rules out the prototype C.202 using a C.200 airframe, considering the photos of the prototype. MM445 is a 3-fugre number from a list produced for prototypes, and does not match a C.200 MM. It may well have used a C.200 wing and tail. Compare this to the creation of the prototype C.205V, which was not considered to rate a distinct prototype MM but was just a development of an existing airframe. I suspect this simplification (as in Munson) is what inspired the remembered drawing of a C.200 with a DB601 which started this thread. A development of, yes. Using an existing airframe, no. I may be biased by the British system where the identity of an aircraft is with the fuselage: wings, tails, engines etc are spares, but I suspect that most nations use much the same principle. Whilst coming down on the "single design stage" side of the discussion, you have not provided the actual numbers. I do feel that changing the fuselage frames from attaching a radial to attaching an inline would be likely to call for more work than attaching a new radial. However, were I attempting a model of the C.201 there is more that I would ask about - engine diameter for example - and perhaps enough is enough.

Caliaro's book includes the serials of the 12 (at least) C.202 modified on the production line, 8 aircraft modified from previous batches at the same time, and four more from later production. All Aer-Macchi airframes except two, which he states were Breda but his serial table puts them in a batch from Ambrosini. However no link to unit codes/serial. There is a photo of 85-3 in the desert, but no MM. There is another photo which appears to be in the Continental camouflage but too dark to discern numbers or the badge - although perhaps it will be identifiable by someone with better knowledge of such things. he also covers the earliest work with a leading edge camera on the C.200, the distinctly different cine-camera work for propaganda, and other C.200/205V work, including a nice photo of 310-5, MM9378, with the underwing tanks. All in four fairly densely packed pages.

Yes, but how does the C.201 fit into this tale of a slimmer fuselage? And to describe the C.202 as an "appropriately modified C.200" is exaggerating it: there are few parts in common other than the tail, part of the wing and (perhaps) the undercarriage. The design parentage is clear, but the engineering is different. The prototype did not start with a C.200 airframe, which is what the text suggests.

There are lots of variations, but you do have good photos to work from. I think that they show the last of 3 variations of the Consolidated turret. Airfix provide options, so this is probably available in the kit, There is also different top turrets, I think this should have the earlier flatter variant. It looks as though the side gun positions are not standard. It looks like inward retracting nosewheel doors. Because none of this batch went to the US, sadly Consolidated Mess does not provide diagrams but the fit can be assessed from adjacent batches, And in the end, you're going to make what you see in the photos anyway. Academy did a wide range of Liberator variants but the basic kit was criticised and I doubt they match the new Airfix. The Hasegawa one was good but the precise variant unknown to me and probably not available for anywhere near the Airfix price. I haven't had a Lib since the old Airfix and Revell ones, so cannot compare them from actual experience. Monogram did a fairly good one in 1/48, but we don't mention funny scales in this house. Given that the Airfix kit is new and so probably more accurate than the others, and comes in a variant very close to your choice with optional parts to help, the choice seems clear.

Mirage IIIE not IIIC.

KG923 was a B-24J-50-CF. These appear to look very similar to the new Airfix kit

KRK4m: Yes, the C.201 fuselage lacked the hump of the C.200, and this required changes to the central frames.. No possible argument. I wasn't clear however that the rear fuselage, from the back of the cockpit fairing, was any different at all. And was it actually slimmer (i.e. side-to-side) or is this a misunderstanding? If you have access to drawings of all sprues you can confirm/deny this, And how did these revised frames compare to those of the C.202? Clearly this was an interim stage, but were there two steps in the design or does the C.202 own more than possibly acknowledged to the C.201?

Manuals have been known to be wrong. This is not a definite proof, just an indication,

There was no single standard for all the production lines for all the batches of any of the Liberators. Modifications were introduced as demanded, although generally were limited to between the batches. This is actually true for every long production type - how many different Spitfire Mk.IXs can be produced? The US system does allow for tying the most significant changes to the individual batches. Consolidated Mess does however give the serial breakdown for each batch of each variant at each factory, together with drawings of the appropriate changes, and mention of those which were also carried out in the field so would not appear in any production information. To produce an accurate model you benefit from photos of the aircraft you are modelling - as always for everything. Sadly not always possible, but the combination of works such as Consolidated Mess and Oughton's work for the RAF and Commonwealth types (plus the profligate US photography) we are a lot better off with the B-24 than many other aircraft. The continuous modification of aircraft was something Ford fell foul of, thinking to be able to churn out bombers like cars, but found themselves complaining about the steady flow of modifications that meant scrapping jigs and making new ones. Partly as a result of this the entire first year's production was deemed unfit for frontline service and used to fill the training units in the US - although a few did reach the 8th AF. From a more general modelling point of view, it is a great shame that this level of photography did not occur in the training system. Of pretty well every nation, come to that.

If the whole engine had moved further up, then the bulges over the cylinder heads must also have moved up. I find it difficult to see how this could have been done without a more significant difference in the top cowling line between the cylinder heads. Spitfire the History has loading diagams for the Mk.XIV and the Mk.XXI. There appears to be no difference in where the Horizontal Datum Line passes through the spinner. I think it would have been shown.

Yes to Recce. I wouldn't entirely agree about the previous debate being "fruitless", as I learnt a lot including the units operating these. The new book has several photos. I've just reached that chapter. It wasn't your comment about "the same wing" that I was alluding to, but a previous posting.

If the exhausts line up with the thrust line then the entire engine has been moved up, and hence the engine bearers will be different.

He was caught out and wriggling. Surprised? Not really. Model manufacturers are well aware of the loudly-expressed preference for making the appearance "interesting".