Graham Boak

Fairly typical early project drawing (see also HP 56) - where's the cooling for the engines? And is that really enough vertical tail? Perhaps that's the cause of the disproportionately-long fuselage without the Stirling's excuse of an over-long bombbay. Nice to see these things.

There has been continued discussions for many years (including in the 1950s Tail Gunner magazine for ex-RAF gunners) regarding the respective merits of four 0.303 and two 0.5s. There seem to be two main factors affecting RAF procurement. The first being trials held in the early 1930s which came to the conclusion that the 0.5 Browning offered no great advantage over the 0.3,. In order to help stocks and inter-service compatibility, it was decided to licence build the Browning 0,3 but in 0.303 form. It was recognised that to get the required weight of fire against bombers eight guns would be required in fighters, two or four in turrets on larger aircraft. With hindsight, it was clear that this trial showed the effect on fabric-covered aircraft, but the stressed-skin designs that actually featured in the war. Against such stronger structures the 0.5 can be assumed to be more effective, as proven. Then the RAF encountered the Hispano and were converted to wanting this, four in fighters and two to four in bombers. Producing suitable turrets for future bombers proved much more difficult than expected, and the pressures of war lead to the future bombers being cancelled anyway. This meant that fighters were to be well armed (four proving two too many for the prewar fighters) but the bombers underarmed as the war proceeded. This was recognised early and work was done on 0.5 turrets, not entirely satisfactory from their size but the BP design was passed over to the US and contributed considerably to the design of the successful Sperry. However the main problem, and the second major factor, with the 0.5 became not its problems of fit but the availability: once the US entered the war they were not available in sufficient numbers to standardise on, because priority went to meeting the huge demand for US forces. However, as far as the BoB was concerned, it was largely fought with only lightly armoured aircraft, and the 0.303 shot down an awful lot of aircraft, not just then but later too. The plans were of course to have interceptors armed with 20mm, but the Whirlwind was slow in getting into production and service.

I would look even sillier to have all the metal parts except the fin protected by the Cerrux grey.

The RAF were completely sold on the advantage of the 20mm cannon as opposed to putting a few holes in thin metal areas. As indeed were the Luftwaffe, the L'Armee de L'Air. and the VVS, and when they could the Japanese. What you are missing is the difference in effect between the comparatively light 0.303 round and the heavier 0.5in/12,7mm round The latter was capable of penetrating the limited armour, and/or damaging structural elements, carried on WW2 fighters whereas the smaller bullet wasn't. The 0.5 was also effective at longer ranges. The Italian 12.7 round was actually explosive, and was generally thought to be ineffective because of that. The small amount of explosive carried would explode on contact with the skin rather than hitting hard. If Allied pilot armour was being penetrated in the Desert war then it was probably fired by an MG151, Of course, not all 20mm cannon had the same effectiveness. The Hispano was very powerful and long-ranged, but the price for that was weight. The MG FF in the Bf.109E was much lighter and hence with poorer performance, although later versions with the FFM round were better. The MG151, and Russian cannon, were superior all round to the early Swiss/German gun. The US obsession with the 0.5 was partly that the cannon was "not invented here" and early licence builds of Hispanos had proven troublesome. However they were slowly coming round with more and more types using cannon rather than machine guns, Significant is that they were rarely required to fire at strong well-protected aircraft, being almost entirely deployed against fighters in Western-Europe and the light unprotected structures of Japanese types. The point about a single central cannon is that it is much more accurate than wing-mounted guns and thus it is easier to hit your target. That's why Moelders thought the early Bf.109F, with its initially 15mm MG151 cannon, was a better mount than the Emil with 2x20mm MGFF. Despite what was thought at the time, there were no central cannon fitted to the Emil. The Russians had a similar philosophy, many of their pilots preferring the slow-firing but harder-hitting 37mm of the Yak 9T over the 20mm cannon of earlier Yaks.

The Bell X-5 was clearly based on the P.1101 design origins, but it takes some imagination to see a Sabre. OK, a tricycle undercarriage and a nose intake.

The original question had been answered. As commonly happens, additional questions are raised leading from these answers. Do you suggest that these should go completely unanswered? With any misunderstandings, should there be any, left to spread unhindered through the web?

Too simplified. The desire within the Wehrmacht for close air support (as opposed to ground attack in general) came for von Richthofen, as early as the Spanish Civil War, and the Hs.123 was designed as an interim type filling this role, to be replaced by the Ju.87. This had largely happened by 1939, so the end of production was preplanned before then. The RLM wished to reduce the number of types so the Me.210 was intended to replace both the Ju.87 and the Me.110. The failure of the Me.210 meant that the planned run-down of the two earlier types in late 1940 had to be cancelled and further development continued. The surviving Hs.123s proved their use in the French campaign, so were retained. The Ju.87 proved of wider value then the limited CAS role so the Henschels were retained for their supplemental value until attrition took them down to unsupportable numbers. Close Air Support came to be too expensive in terms of aircraft and pilot losses (as the RAF had learned in 1918) so faded from use throughout WW2 other than in particular situations such as support of amphibious operations. For most land warfare the fighter-bomber took over the general Ground Attack role.

I don't think anyone would have supposed I intended equality of interest between the P-51D and the Ar.240 or SludgeAero Slurryspreader. There's a lot of demand for more and more of all the popular (and many less popular) types. I am saying that the P-51D is not outstandingly under-represented amongst what is available. There is also the truism that new releases bring new transfer sheets. A little patience and the market will be filled with new P-51D sets. (Unless Eduard are regarded as too small a producer to matter? I don't think so.) Which will no doubt suffer from some inevitable inaccuracies and cries of "not the one I want". And it will be the turn of (perhaps) Spitfire Mk.V fans to declare that there aren't enough transfer sheets for them...

All of which statements apply to every aircraft type for which aftermarket transfers have been produced. That doesn't make the P-51D modeller particularly hard done by. What you are really saying is that the ones you want are not available to the quality you demand. Life's rather like that, I'm afraid. Ones I want to see are missing to.

Thar depends. The staffel had 12 aircraft full stop. The squadron had 12 operational aircraft with additional spares. However, I suspect that is far from being the only or most important reason why the Luftwaffe underestimated RAF fighter strength. Their intelligence was generally poor and British production rates comfortably exceeded German. I doubt that Holland was unaware of these matters.

Brown was however standard on the prewar scheme, still common on 2nd line aircraft for many years, It is recorded during the BoB on crashed aircraft, in the later stages of the desert campaigns, and was used in some of the JG54 schemes on the Eastern Front. But otherwise very much non-standard.

The earlier Zeros were painted properly, so little wear would be visible at this stage. Later (1945) the US stranglehold meant that there was no primer so the paint was applied directly onto the metal, with the appalling peeling seen at the end of the war.

They were not operated in North Africa. I feel that they would all have been gone before the night harassment flights in Italy. Interestingly, it appears that they did not appear in the standard Luftwaffe scheme of 70/71, or at most very rarely, Possibly this was because they were seen as being phased out at the start of the war. I know that the 70/71 scheme has often been mistaken for a single dark green top, especially with partial white camouflage, but it does seem that this single green was the case with the Hs.123.

The operational strength was 12 aircraft, but there would be others available to allow for unserviceability. I think 4 would be normal. allowing for 75% u/s. Possibly 6. There was no set rule for allocated individual codes, but commonly the first half of the alphabet was given to A Flight and the rest to B Flight. The C/O would normally have A but could choose whatever he liked. Sometimes this was true for other senior pilots.

Aids to formation keeping. Yellow and pink were also used, with on or the other or both wingtips and one, two or three stripes. They were used for the mass formation raids on London - there a very often printed photo of a Dornier over the Thames. Paul Lucas did a good article some years back explaining the full system - or perhaps one possible interpretation of it, as the original German instructions have not reappeared.

This may seem harsh, but you have broken one of the basic rules in modelling - always test fit parts and adjust to fit before proceeding to the assembly and painting stage. The usual step here would be to file and reshape the canopy and the fuselage until they did fit, and use filler of some kind in the regions where they didn't, which is a bit difficult now without some damage to the paint. The best replacement canopy would probably be the Falcon vacform, but whether this would actually be ideal or more work would be required, I can't say. Another alternative would be the Rob Taurus, which I think exists. One of the vacform canopies would be much better for what you want, because of the thinness. The other modelling rule for canopies is that open canopies from the kit parts don't work. The thickness of the canopy means that the open part does not fit snug onto the fuselage as the real one does, and the remaining fixed parts appear incredibly thick. Hence the use of vacforms for this. They do fit flush/look appropriately thick. As a third point, there were no jeeps in 1940. The Airfix Tilly would be a suitable alternative. There are many suitable vehicles from railway modelling sources, but these will be underscale (1/76) and not really suitable unless the diorama was rearranged to have the vehicle at the back to benefit from "forced perspective".

Thanks for clearing that up. However, if you look at the model in the link above fitted with what I assumed was the MDC "spigots" they are not small stubs but something better described as spools, as fitted underneath the Sea Hurricane for its catapult pick-up points.

It appears to fit remarkable well for a museum bodge. Could it actually have been either trials or limited production variant?

I see a couple of holes in the photo, into which such a spigot could/would be fitted. It would pick up, sensibly enough, on the main fuselage frame. So for a static aircraft on the deck, just after arrival/before removal by crane, they could be fitted, but would not be present operationally.

It is a pretty good indication. It certainly shows that it is not a fixed tab adjusted by force. I suppose we shouldn't completely rule out the angle being set by a fitter via some internal control, but it seems pretty unlikely.

Chris: The position seems sensible, but a spigot (to me) would be something sticking out, and I don't recall seeing such. (Aerodynamically it would be a very unsuitable place.) Is it a location hole into which a spigot could be inserted?

As in the stereotype, when young I drank beer (Newcastle Brown), when mature I drank wine (Aussie dark esp. Durif, various German whites), now I'm old I drink whisky (Ledaig but others are acceptable. Current open bottle is Cardhu). Not that I've stopped drinking beer (pretty well any red beer will do but not the yellow muck) or wine (Portuguese dark reds and any white from Alsace, but the king is Gewurtzraminer.)

There is one problem with the manuals. Surviving ones, and those reproductions published using them, suffer from the continual updating of them (with destruction of outdated pages) so that it is never possible to go back to know what the original users saw. In this case, if the trim tab control had not been present on the first production batch but been a later modification, then the page discussing this would have been marked AL (number something). If some other detail on the same page had later changed, then the page would be marked AL (higher number) This process makes it impossible to trace the history of the detail from the existing manuals. Unless, of course, the detail is on a page without an AL number, so that it can be assumed to be original. Whether this is a safe assumption or not may depend upon whether it is an original or a reproduction. It should be added that it was common in this period for at least some trim tabs to be set on the ground according to the aircraft's handling, and not be adjustable from the cockpit. This would however seem unlikely for the rudder. I suggest that it the trimtab has a visible hinge arm, then it will have been adjustable from the cockpit (as opposed to a light tap from the fitter's 2lb persuader). Cue for peering at as ma y photos of Hurricane tails as possible - particularly early ones. A relevant question might be to ask if earlier Hawker aircraft had rudder trim adjustable from the cockpit. If they did, then so would the Hurricane from the start.

Where are the lifting sling spigots? My understanding was that there were no external spigots but internal mountings. I thought that at the rear the hole for a trestling rod was used for slinging.

PatG: isn't this the same source that started the discussion? This thread has, unsurprisingly, wandered a bit. I hope I can be forgiven for addressing some of the points raised. What I recall from reading about McIndoe and the burns unit, much of the trouble came from the hot glycol from a damaged engine sticking to exposed skin, something equally true of Hurricane and Spitfire. Possibly the routing of the pipes may have contributed to some cases? This is meant to be an addition to, not a contradiction of, what has been said above. It is not a myth that Spitfires were used to attack the higher formations whilst the lower ones were attacked by Hurricanes. This is because the Spitfire did climb more steeply than the Hurricane, something known in advance from A&AEE trials. Thus in mixed attacks it was an ideal sensible tactic - not always possible for 11 Group. The value of not attacking superior numbers multiple times but massing for a massed attack was not something invented by Leigh Mallory but goes back to Lanchester's work before WW1. It was later rediscovered (if that's a little unfair phrasing) by the Luftwaffe with their "company attacks" on the 8th AF. It had been standard good military practice for all services many years before the BoB. The argument here is that of hitting the bombers before they bomb, particularly forward airfields! Yes, Park did also successfully defend Malta (with Spitfires where Hurricanes had been incapable), but not by attacking enemy formations as soon as possible as in the BoB. He did it by climbing out to sea away from the enemy to gain height, then returning at altitude. The problem with relying solely upon anecdotal evidence from pilots is not the value of what they say about what they experienced (let us discount He.113s, nose cannon in Bf.109s, and inflated claim numbers) but the limitations of their position/rank/knowledge. They could not have seen "the big picture" of everything that was going on. Every pilot in a good aircraft will think it better than what other poorer people have to fly. Every Hurricane pilot who shot down a 109 knows the Hurricane was a better aircraft. Sadly every 109 pilot who shot down a Hurricane knew the reverse. And in the end there were more of those - something it was not possible to determine at the time. And circumstances always modify cases.