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No. 601 (County of London) Squadron was formed in 1925 at a Gentlemen's club in London's West End when a group of wealthy aristocratic young men formed a Reserve Squadron of the Royal Air Force. Service as a light bomber squadron began at Northolt in May 1926 with Avro 504Ks and DH9As. In January 1927 the squadron moved to Hendon, and from November 1929 received its first Westland Wapitis to supercede the 504s and DH9As. In turn Hawker Harts replaced the Wapitis in June 1933 and in July 1934 the squadron was redesignated as a fighter squadron. Hawker Demons replaced the Harts in August 1937 and then in November 1938 were themselves replaced with Gloster Gauntlets. From January 1939 the squadron began to receive its complement of Bristol Blenheims. 601 was in action with its Blenheims from the day war was declared until March 1940 when the squadron exchanged them for Hurricanes. The squadron went on to aquit itself honourably in the forthcoming Battle of Britain but at a huge cost to the squadron's aristocratic pre-war pilots. Having bought myself the Airfix 1/48 Blenheim for Christmas (and passing it to son #1 to wrap and give me as my present!) I really had to clear the workbench and start cutting plastic as soon as possible. The plan is to complete it using Eagle Strike 48015 - Bristol Blenheim, Part 2 decals as a 601 (City of London) Squadron machine, coded YN-B, based at RAF Hendon at the outbreak of WWII. Now I have searched and searched the net for images of this craft, but the closest I can find is a decent print of YN-A at this link. https://www.krulantiquarianbooks.nl/catalogs/bristol.blenheim.if.l6680-yn-a.jpg If anyone has any pointers towards any publications with photos of YN-B please point me in the right direction. Let's start where we all start, the box shots: I have to say how impressed I am with this kit and if it builds as well as it looks from the off then it's going to be a stunner. There are plenty of sub-assemblies to keep me out of mischief. Unsurprisingly I started with the cockpit and centre section/wing spars. Then I couldn't resist the turret assembly. Airfix have included a natty little jig to help the assemble the 11 wonderfully detailed parts that comprise the turret - what a great idea and I have to applaud them for that OOB thinking. Next to go together were the undercarriage units that have to be constructed and inserted at quite an early stage of the construction. Usually this would fill me with dread, especially as I have twanged a tendon in my left forearm at football this week so my clumsiness has rocketed to the top of the FatCawthorne Scale (the officially world-recognised measurement for clumsiness and stupidity!), but these sub-assemblies are so well designed that they are immensely strong and may even withstand my best efforts to snap them off. After that the nacelles had some internal framing added and the wings had their rear spars glued into place. Lastly the Bristol Mercury engines were constructed in 2 parts to allow one to receive an initial aluminium coat and the other gloss black without any horrific masking. The cockpit/centre sections have had a coat of Halfords primer. A few more bits to add, some ejection marks to clean up with PPP and then an initial coat of interior grey/green can be shot. This kit is CatNip for plane nerds, I just can't put it down! Next is to add some details to the fuselage sides and to fill some prominent ejector marks and then prime some more sub-assemblies. Until next time, "Keep 'em Peeled!" Chris

On the new Airfix 1/72 Blenheim kits, the roof hatch above the pilot is depicted with a thin transverse frame about halfway back. That frame is certainly a feature of the rebuilt Blenheim currently flying but I have been unable to find evidence that it is present in any photo I have seen of in-service Blenheims I, IV or V (the Aviation Icons bookazine has a goodly selection of helpful photos.). Nor is it present on the example preserved in Finland. It was definitely not present on the original Airfix Mk.IV and I don't recall MPM depicting it on their Blenheim kits (though memory may be at fault there). Can anyone provide evidence of this frame's presence on a WW2 era aircraft? Or should I conclude that this is an error Airfix have copied over from an atypical preserved airframe and polish it out on my Airfix Blenheim models?