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Morning All, With the release of the new Revell Beaufighter there seems to have been a steady stream of them lately, so as I've not done a RFI in this section I thought I'd join in! This is the classic Tamiya 1/48 kit. No real fit issues apart from ones I created myself, like having the wheel bays closed. Paints are a mix of Vallejo and Tamiya, I scratched up some extra aerials here and there and got some plain while markings for MB T, I don't think it's right but I prefer the look to the yellow or red options. All comments, criticism and advice welcome. I should have said at the beginning that this is my first attempt at a 1/48 model, working on the Tamiya Spitfire mk vb and the Special Hobby Seafire at the moment so it won't be my last. And a couple of edited pics just for fun. Hope you like em. Geoff

Were the early 1945-introduced SEAC white bands around the wings and tail surfaces limited to the day fighters and strike aircraft (namely Hurricanes, Spitfires, Thunderbolts, Vengeances, Mosquitoes and Beaufighters TFX) or is it possible to find a night fighter Beau VIF (only No.89 and 176 Squadrons flew them in this area AFAIK) in DG/SGM scheme and white bands? Having penetrated several books, dozens of magazine articles and hundreds of pictures I cannot understand while still in June 1945 the Ceylon-based Mk.VIF had no white bands painted on. Any help will be appreciated Cheers Michael

So I have recently joined Britmodeller and decided I should share what I am currently building at the moment.. Unfortunately I am due to deploy so I won't have much done for a few months but I hope to come back and get this finished. Will be my first model in a very long time (Family )

I'm trying to work out what were the visible external differences between a late mark 1F and an early Mark VIF. It seems that he Dihedral tail was introduced after the VIF, but many aircraft, including 1Fs in service, were retro fitted. So this is not a clear indicator. Again, from some photos in the Warpaint book it seems that some early VIFs may not have had the centimetric AI Mk VIII radar with the nose scanner. So, other than from the serial number, is there any certain way to know if the nightfighter is a Mk1F or a Mk VIIF? Any advice or suggestions most welcome!

Constant Endeavour As I type this, the nation is marking the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Jutland. The outcome of WW1’s largest naval battle may have been indecisive, but it marked the final fleet action between battleships. Subsequent naval engagements have tended to be on a more tactical level, with small groups of hunters and killers at work. But one thing above all else changed the face of naval warfare. Air Power. Once planes became more than string and sealing wax, they took new tactics and threats aloft with them. Nothing personified this more than the actions of the Banff Strike Wing, as it sought to deny the Axis powers the use of the Norwegian Coast and the North Sea for raw material transport. ROYAL AIR FORCE 1939-1945: COASTAL COMMAND. © IWM (C 5212)IWM Non Commercial Licence But they were not the only units operating from Scotland. Many other flights across the unforgiving North Sea also operated, and among these were the famous Mosquitos operated as fast transports, by BOAC. BRITISH OVERSEAS AIRWAYS CORPORATION AND QANTAS, 1940-1945.. © IWM (CH 14389)IWM Non Commercial Licence One of two memorials to the crews of Coastal Command is situated in North Berwick RAF Coastal Command Memorial by jongwinnett, on Flickr The text of the memorial reads: TRIBUTE TO ROYAL AIR FORCE COASTAL COMMAND IN SCOTLAND During the Second World War, aircraft of Royal Air Force Coastal Command operated from the 27 Scottish bases depicted on this map display under control from a headquarters at Pitreavie Castle in Fife. The British Isles presented a physical barrier to the submarines and ships of the German Navy, around which they had to navigate before they could operate against Britain’s vital shipping lifelines across the Atlantic Ocean. The first task of the maritime and photo reconnaissance squadrons, operating from these bases, was therefore to search for and attack enemy submarines and warships attempting to sail around the north of Scotland or through the Faeroes-Iceland gap. Patrols from bases on the East Coast also swept out across the North Sea towards the coasts of Norway and Denmark on reconnaissance and anti-shipping strikes in the face of fierce opposition against German convoys sailing down the Norwegian coast. Others, took off from the West Coast and flew far out into the Atlantic constantly searching for U-boats and raiders deployed to attack our convoys carrying food, war materials and men to Britain from Canada and the United States. German naval units were also based in Norway, following the occupation of that country, making the tasks of Coastal Command yet more difficult with its aircraft operating over the inhospitable waters of the far north, to stop the U-boats reaching the Atlantic and also to support our convoys sailing to Russia round the north of Norway. Among other roles, the meteorological squadrons, operating at long range over the Atlantic in all weathers, were pivotal to the success of Bomber Command and in preparing for the Allied landings in Normandy in 1944. While the Air Sea Rescue launches, deployed around the Scottish coastline, played their crucial part in the rescue from the sea of airmen and seamen, both friend and foe. In their long and demanding patrols across the featureless expanse of the ocean searching for the enemy, the crews of Coastal Command faced danger not only from enemy attack, but also from extreme weather. In contributing to the Command’s overall task, and its magnificent record of 189 submarines sunk and a million tons of enemy shipping sunk or disabled, many made the supreme sacrifice. But by their courage and perseverance - as for those of a later Cold War age - they helped preserve the freedoms we now enjoy. The self-sacrifice of the crews of all units was enormous, and my humble skills will, I hope, produce some fitting tributes to them all. Some of the raw materials can be seen below: Next projects by jongwinnett, on Flickr

Hi all, I recently completed this beaut of a kit I had no problems whatsoever with the kit and throughly enjoyed the build Masked and sprayed the stripes as I didn't feel like risking it with the decals Used the pilots to fill the seats because I feel the decal seatbelts looks a bit flat Constructive criticism very much welcome! -Cam

THE SSV NORMANDY REMEMBRANCE FLIGHT (link here for what this is.) Urdnot Wrex: Bristol Beaufighter ARMAX ARSENAL AFTER SERVICE REPORT Substantial repairs needed after the SSV Normandy Remembrance flight did its scheduled show on Tuchanka. As de facto leader of the Krogan people, Urdnot Wrex was invited to take a flight in the aircraft he chose and designed. Eyewitness reports state that the aircraft returned a short time later filthy, dust-scarred and full of bullet holes. When asked for a comment on how the aircraft could end up with damage from weapons unseen in combat for over two hundred years, Wrex just grinned and sniggered. So, this was... let's say it was a troubled build. This is one of the first models I made when I was getting back into the hobby, using rock bottom cheap materials and gear. I made a start on it over two years ago, getting as far as painting. It's a really nice kit, Tamiya's Beaufighter from 1998, great fit if a little skimpy on internal detail. That time round, the paints were all dark and muddy, the surface finish was all sandpapery - and to make matters worse, after completing the quite complex camouflage pattern I had spilled a load of paint on one wing and wiped off the existing paint when I tried to clean it up. So, I stuck it on a shelf, telling myself I'd do it when I had the energy. Two years later, I thought "sod it, I'll give it a go". I think it's come out alright. The finish was a bit of a headache, I was trying out Tamiya polishing compound for the first time and it got all over the place. I experimented with various varnishes, and in the end a few coats of Future worked nicely. The heavy weathering and battle damage didn't come in until right at the end, when I decided it was missing something. The paint chipping is done with aluminium paint on a washing up sponge. The dirt and all over dark was done with artist's oil paint straight out of the tube. The good side of that is that if it's going onto a gloss surface you can blend it really well and choose how much or how little you want to stay on the surface when you wipe it off again. The downside is that it takes days to dry. Looking at the photos shows me just how many bits have obvious wipe marks, but *shrug* I know for next time. But yeah, if you read this far, I'm happy with how it came out given how much punishment this poor model has taken.

Here are some completed images of the Tamiya 1/48 Beaufighter converted to a Mk 1c as used by 30 SQN RAAF. PS. yes the tail flash is supposed to be that way around as it was back to front on the real aircraft. The build log is at the link below:

Testing to see if this will load up the image.

It is said that comparisons are odious. Well, being called odious is nowhere near the worst that has been said about me... I will be building the new Airfix Beaufighter as well as the Hasegawa one, comparing them as I go. My problem is that I can never make things easy for myself. I could simply build the OOB. That would certainly provide me with a good comparison. But noooooo.... I'm going to mess 'em about. The Airfix kit will be built as a Mk. VIf with a radar nose and non-standard camouflage scheme. The Hasegawa kit will be built as a RAAF Mk. Ic, with flat tailplanes and Australian colours. Hold on tight, rider!

Hello, Here's my recently finished 1/48 Tamiya Beaufighter Mk.VIf, done as ND243 "Kampala Queen", as flown by W/O Roy Butler and radar operator W/O Ray Graham with No. 46 Squadron in the Eastern Mediterranean. You can read about their missions from Gambut in Libya here. I used decals from DK Decals. Now, these performed well, and are nicely printed, it appears that at least the profile and colour instructions for this one are somewhat dubious. The profile suggested this one was painted in the Temperate Sea Scheme, but a discussion here on BM suggested it was more likely that it flew in the standard night fighter colours Dark Green, Medium Sea Grey and Night undersides. So that's what I did, using Humbrol for the top, and Tamiya for the bottom. Now, I know not a whole lot about Beaufighters, so there might be a few errors here and there. The exhaust collector ring is a bit too shiny for a plane that has been flying around for a while now, and the paint looks maybe a tad too fresh for months of desert and sea operations. But hey, fun was had, and that's what counts. I hope you like it. Thanks for looking.

I meant this kit to be a bit of a quick build but it turn out a little more involved. The fit of the wings in-particular is pretty poor and the detail is a work of fantasy for the interior. Fortunately you can't see much of it. However, it can be bashed into something that looks half decent from about 3ft away. I am surprised no one has come out with a new Beau with the recent increase in 1/32 kits as the Revell kit is looking very tired in the market.

Hi peeps, hope your all good. I've just recently picked up the Airfix Beaufighter 1/72, it is stunning, such a Beau-tiful kit (see pics below). So I decided to pop it straight onto the workbench along with a friend, a Hurricane MKIIC. I purchased the Hurricane off ebay for nearly £14, they are going for high prices and I assume, like me peeps are buying them purely for the decal sheet of that white sea hurricane. Since I was left with a kit without decals I had an xtradecal sheet with several versions of the MKIIC one being a SEAC and since my plan was to build the Beaufighter in SEAC I have decided to build them both side by side. Will keep you all updated as it goes, and hope you enjoy. Both will be OOB apart from the aftermarket decals.

Finally finished another one. Happy with some aspects, bit disappointed with others. This is the Tamiya MkVI Beaufighter in 1:48 scale. The build thread can be found here: So the kit is pretty much OOB - the only aftermarket addition was some Eduard seatbelts to improve the cockpit a bit. Paints were acrylics from AK Interactive, with gloss finish by pledge, final matt finish by Model Master Acryl matt clear cote. I made use of Flory washes for some weathering, with some AK Interactive dust and dirt and pigments for an extra touch.

I bought this kit on a whim when I was in the model store a couple of weeks ago. Having access to the intertubes via phone is dangerous, because I looked this kit up while in the shop and the reviews were all very positive. So that was that. Anyway, this is a build I have going so I can turn to it while the paint is drying on my spitfire. It's a lovely kit, really well designed, with very clean moulding details. I started off by undercoating with vallejo grey acrylic primer (after washing everything in soapy water of course), and then airbrushing interior green on the cockpit tub and inside the fuselage. I am using Ammo of Mig acrylics for the interior. I also washed the interior fuselage with Ammo of Mig interior wash. My original plan had been to basically paint everything for the cockpit on the sprues - but after reading a couple of other build threads, and thinking it through, I realised that would just result in having to redo and touch up a lot of stuff, so today I assembled the cockpit tub somewhat. The decal sheet comes with some instrument dials. They are a little bit off register, but I don't think it's going to be possible to make that out through the cockpit windshield, and they will likely add just a little more detail to the instrument panel, so I will use them. I'll also make some seatbelts, but first I have to finish painting and weathering the tub.

Hi Guys Having recently acquired the old Revell 32nd Beau Mk1F and decided to re-acquire and read Jimmy Rawnsley's "Night Fighter" (which I last read about 30 years ago) I decided to spend a quiet Sunday morning doing some online research. In doing so I came across a pic which looks like it could be WWII era and shows NG-R with a serial of T4625. Everything else I've seen has had Cunningham's NG-R as a serial of R2101. Can anyone enlighten me on this, please? Many thanks Kev

I've been plodding away with this since finishing the Halifax, straight forwards OOB build bar a few tweaks here and there, great little sanity build and goes together lovely. One of my favourite schemes is the medium sea grey over black, so it had to be that one! I'll certainly be doing more Airfix Beaufighters and there's some great schemes to choose from. Thanks for looking

Hello fellow modellers I happen to run across this during this spring: I couldn't resist the temptation to start it, especially since a saw a few magnificent builds here. My intention was not to start a build thread in the vain hope that if I don't I can finish it off more quickly. See how that went... After close to 6 months or so, it's time to finish this and a bunch of Spitfires and hopefully a FJ-4 Fury before christmas. What's the rush? Well, I think I've entered in three possible group builds, and I really want to start an Academy F-4C too, but my modelling space is littered with other half stalled attempts. Time to get cracking then. This is what's done until today: I had some Eduard belts that were put to good use, and I also took a little artistic freedom in swivelling the gunners chair, and adding a few levers in the cockpit. All of a sudden, the fuselage and wings just jumped into place, and I was left with this for a few months. The lack of progress might be due to finishing a rather big Tiffy in 1/24, and also selling the house and moving to an apartment I guess... The only hard part of this kit is the engine covers. They're festooned with bumps over every cylinder and naturally Airfix wanted to show this. Their way of solving it is with three plastic parts, and together with the zero tolerance policy they have this leads to problems. At least you can choose where you want the gap! Hopefully it will be hidden under the exhaust. This week I got the mojo back to finish this bugger, and I started with Ultimate primer. Top stuff! Tried to scratch a landing light too (airfix gives nothing of the sort) Since I'm doing a rocket armed Beau, the landing light is very much covered in sheet metal, so maybe nothing will be seen anyway. I saw Ronnirex rather spiffy looking La-5FN http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235010214-wip-148-eduard-zvezda-la-5fn/ and decided that imitation is a form of flattery, right? Let's test this with my poor skills. After the primer, some dark grey was painted using Tamiya Acrylics. Step two was white preshade And finally , a thin layer of Medium sea grey: As always, I seem to stop painting a few minutes after I should since the shading is almost gone... But it works, after a fashion :-) Let's mask this up in preparation for Dark Earth.

I hope I've got time to finish another build before this GB draws to a close; with unlimited time I think I would have at least a dozen more builds in the stash, but I'll stick with this one for now: The sprues: Clear parts, instructions and transfers: ... and the aftermarket stuff - the Alley Cat Early Beau conversion set, the Peewit canopy mask set and the DK Decals sheet 72024 "Bristol Beaufighter in Royal Air Force and Commonwealth Service": The aircraft in the middle - T4843 WRoX - is the one I intend to represent: ... and finally the paints; Phoenix Precision Paints Interior Grey-Green, Sky, Extra Dark Sea Grey and Dark Slate Grey: I hope to make a start shortly... Cheers, Stew

Morning folks finished a day or so ago just managed the light for photo's.Tamiya Beaufighter,what can I say builds itself,beautiful fit of parts and a fair size model when complete and a menacing looking thing in black,Painted mainly in Tamiya NATO black with a few passes with the airbrush in lighter shades,leading edges and panels painted aluminium then maskol before painting might of overdone it but you get the idea Many thank's for looking in.Taking on board comments from Polo(quite rightly) I have toned down the cowl fronts and a much better result has come forth I,ve added a photo further into the post,

I have a few partially completed kits sitting on the shelf, but I am having a few problems getting up the enthusiasm to finish them off. So I thought I would turn to a very recent arrival in my stash, the second boxing of the new Airfix 1/72 Beaufighter. I enjoyed my first go the first boxing of these back in June ( see here), so I hoped this would help me get my mojo back. I am a bit rusty, so the paintwork is not as good as I would like. I also made a couple of daft mistakes, but still I enjoyed it and feel I am in a better place to start on some more challenging kits. Brush painted with Tamiya Acrylics as per usual. Build thread can be found here. The model was completed straight out of the box with the rather smart grey and black TF10 from 45 Squadron RAF based in Kuala Lumpur in what was then Malaya in 1949. Thanks for looking. And here it is with the SEAC Beaufighter I made earlier this year.

I have a few partially completed kits sitting on the shelf, but I am having a few problems getting up the enthusiasm to finish them off. So I thought I would turn to a very recent arrival in my stash, the second boxing of the new Airfix 1/72 Beaufighter. I enjoyed my first go the first boxing of these back in June ( see here), so I hope this will help me get my mojo back in time for the long stint of leave coming up. Box top: I will be building this colour scheme - I love the combination of black and medium grey: As far as the extra parts are concerned they are all on one new sprue:

Hi! I've just finished Airfix' Beaufighter as a machine belonging to 404 sqn. This particular machine was flown by the Sqn. Leader on "Black Friday" - 9th february 1945. The model is painted using Xtracrylix and Vallejo colors. Weathering is Flory wash and pigments. Regards Rune Haugen Norway

Beaufighter TF Mk.10 Upgrade set + Landing Flaps 1:72 Eduard for Airfix kit The set contains a nickel fret and a brass fret. The sets provide many parts for use in the cockpit; flap leavers, throttle levers, instrument panels, side panels and seat belts. There is an ammunition belt for the observers gun, along with the rear radio sets, and seat mountings. At the rear of the aircraft there tail control linkages. The gear doors have extra parts. There are firewalls for the engine nacelles along with other interior parts. There are parts for the engine fronts and the landing gear. You get new frames for the landing lights, and new intake grill covers. Finally there are parts to improve the torpedo and firing lines for the rockets. If the modeller does not want the full airframe set then the nickel fret is available on its own. The landing flap set is just what it says on the packet in that they provide a full set of landing flaps. They are cleverly made in that all the ribs just need to be twisted up into place. There is some kit surgery needed to get them in. Conclusion The new tool Airfix Beaufighter is a good kit, however their are limitations in plastic which photo-etch can readdress. Recommended. Review sample courtesy of

A few weeks ago we had a long weekend here in Western Australia, so I thought I might have a go at a quick build. I had been itching to do the new Airfix Beaufighter I picked up before Christmas last year. It was an absolute joy to build. Brush painted Italeri Acryl acrylics for the top side camouflage, Tamiya Acrylics for the rest. WIP thread can be found here. Apologies for the rather dark photos, not much sun in the yard this late in the afternoon. Thanks for looking. Even though its winter time here this little fella came out for a look.