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Showing results for tags '16 Squadron'.
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And at last it's time for this much awaited group build. My contribution will be a SAAF 16 Squadron Martin Maryland based at Addis Ababa, Abyssinia in mid 1941, which isn't exactly North Africa, but I got approval to build it. I'm 99% sure I'll be building a Maryland with serial 1604 for which I have a nice color profile as well as b/w photo (along with a/c log details and plenty "stories") in Graeme Gibson's excellent book Path of Duty about 16 Squadron's journey from 1939 to 1943. Off course I cannot post the profile and photo because of copyright. There were two Marylands active with 16 Sqn at the time (1603 & 1604) and was used for recce, bombing, strafing and also for dropping propaganda leaflets on the Italian's. 1604 was written of on 20 June after crashing on the aerodrome. As far as I understand these were Maryland Mk.I's originally intended for the French before the armistice, which means I have to make some slight modifications to the Mk.II kit. The props of these Mk.I's were Hamilton Standard's with diagnostic cuffed blades, which means I will have to try put cuffs on the props (already having nightmares because if that ). There's less aerials on the Mk.I, but that's an easy fix, and the paint scheme is a bit of a mystery. As far as I can figure out these were still in the French scheme when delivered to the SAAF - olive drab over light blue grey - vs. the one's intended for the British which were dark green / dark brown over sky. Apparently the SAAF *may* have applied a "chocolate brown" to the Maryland's uppers in the theatre, but I don't think there's solid proof of this. I chose to paint my subject olive drab over light blue grey like the profile of 1604 in Path of Duty. Hopefully that's enough info to peak your interest in this subject. And with that's here's the kit I'll be building. And here are some sprue shots (suprisingly low part number for a bigger kit) The clear parts And some resin bits These are the decals I'll be using. Since I'm not aware of any decals for the subject I'm building, I have sourced all the necessary markings from different sheets. These sheets provide me all the decals I'll need. And I received these for the fuselage numbers. These Maryland's didn't carry fuselage codes apart from serials. And here is the instruction sheet. Not the best but I'm sure I'll figure it out. Can't wait to get started. Cheers Jimmy
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