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Good morning everyone .. Ive been able to finish a couple lately. This is my recent Beaufighter from the Bristol aircraft group build. It is the Airfix Mk.X thats been backdated to an early VIc flying with 272 Squadron Malta 1942. I modified the tail planes to flatten them out and then cut the gunners glazing back and did my best to add the correct Vickers type gun in back. Please feel free to ask questions, post comments or visit the build thread. Dennis

Prelude to Black Friday - 9th February 1945 Not showing the clash between allied and axis forces directly. My image is showing the first units of JG5 from Herdla entering the scene of Fördesfjord, western Norway, where the Black Friday clash took place on february 9th 1945 as RAF Dallachy Beaufighters is attacking the german destroyer Z33 and suporting vessels in the area. The Fw190A-8 Blue 4 was piloted by Rudi Linz, a 69 kills ace, whom also was killed that day. Shot down by an escorting 65 Sqn Mustang. 10 allied and 5 german planes were shot down. 18 allied and 2 german airmen were either KIA or Prioners. Perhaps my scene should have had more smoke and Flak from the attacked ships, but I think I like it as it is. Participating RAF units were 9 Beaufighters from 144.(RAF) Squadron 11 Beaufighters from 404. (RCAF) Squadron 11 Beaufighters from 455. (RAAF) Squadron 12 Mustang MK IIIs from 65. (RAF) Squadron 2 Warwick MK Is from 279. (RAF) Squadron Axis units were: 9 Focke-Wulf Fw 190 from 9. Staffel 3 Focke-Wulf Fw 190 from 12.Staffel

I signed up for this GB with the idea of something Vichy, maybe a carrier. I looked through my stash, looked at Hannants for decals and found the fantastic Xtradecal set X72161 - Battle of Malta RAF. So, i start thinking and come up with the idea of building Malta based aircraft! Now, my stash consists of (WARNING! EXTREME UNDERSTATEMENT!) one or two Bristol aircraft, and with the Airfix Beaufort on the way i thought i may build a Beaufort, Blenheim and Beaufighter. So three Bristol's (No sniggering!) with a pair of Bristol's (Stop it!) each. After purchasing said decals and also Xtradecal set X72319 - Bristol Beaufort Collection as i aim to build one or two (WARNING! EXTREME UNDERSTATEMENT!) i had to raid the stash. So, one Beaufighter TF.10 and one Blenheim IV pulled from the stash: Xtradecal set X72161 has these two beauties on the sheet: Starting with my first pair of Bristol's (I can now see the level of humour in the room..) i shall be backdating the TF.10 to a Mk1C.

Finally another model is finished! The last one was a 1/24 Typhoon 6 months ago... Well, here it is, in all it's splendid jungle colors. Almost OOTB with the exception for some Eduard belts in the cockpit, rigging wire from Uschi Van Der Rosten and scratched fuse wires for the rockets. Here are the pictures: //Christer

As with a lot of other people I've been eagerly awaiting the release of the Airfix Bristol Beaufighter TF.X since it was announced last year and when it arrived I couldn't wait to start it so thought I would do a WIP like I did with the Defiant. (I still need to take some more photos of this one!) Airfix 1:72 Bristol Beaufighter by Mark Maclean, on Flickr I was surprised that Eduard managed to release aftermarket before the kit was available and after looking at the instructions on the Eduard Website I decided that it was worth purchasing. While I'm building the model I'll try and take pics of the parts before and after the etch is added to show the difference it makes. I was initially tempted to do my Beaufighter as an operation Firedog aircraft and buying the necessary conversion parts to portray this scheme but as the molds indicate that the parts I need may feature in a future boxing I decided to go for a Wartime Coastal Command aircraft. There is nothing wrong with the kit decals or marking options but I had been inspired by the Article in the May 2015 Issue of Airfix Model World along with the built up Airfix kit and decided to go with the Aviaeology decal sheets. Airfix 1:72 Bristol Beaufighter by Mark Maclean, on Flickr Although I've never used Aviaeology decals before I can highly recommend these decal sheet on the research and the supporting material alone. They have photos of the chosen aircraft and a lot of notes regarding Armament, colour schemes and how they were weathered and retouched along with lists of the different modifications represented on the aircraft chosen in the sheet. It's almost complete package of research material and decals. The Above mentioned issue of Airfix Model World has an excellent article on the variations found on the Beaufighter TF.X and compliments these decal sheets nicely. I think I'm probably going to make this model to represent LZ451 of 404 Squadron Late on in it's career when the invasion stripes have been partly painted out and the fuselage codes have been moved to above the wing so there is a good opportunity to do a scheme with a bit of a patchwork paint finish with over painted markings etc. I made a start on assembling the interior. and made a few deviations from the instructions. There are a few ejector pin markings on the inside of the fuselage. I'll doubt you'll see any of them on the finished model but I was still compelled to fill them all! Airfix 1:72 Bristol Beaufighter by Mark Maclean, on Flickr I then filled in the forward area of the wing root while I was filling the ejector pin marks and at the time didn't realise that the consoles covered this gap and the filling I had done meant I now had to modify the parts to get them to fit. Not a problem but a bit of extra work that I didn't need to do. As I had done this I decided to fix the consolses to the cockpit floor as opposed to the fuselage as stated in the instructions. Airfix 1:72 Bristol Beaufighter by Mark Maclean, on Flickr As you can see from the above photo of the fuselage the interior has the vertical frames moulded onto the inside of the fuselage but no horizontal ones. As you can see I've had a go at reproducing these and think it has made a big improvement to the inside of the fuselage. To be honest I didn't really need to do the whole interior I could have just done the bits around the openings but htought it was a good opportunity to practice the technique and I'm glad I did because I got quicker and more consistent as I went on. Just got the other side to do now.... Thanks for looking, Mark

Hi Following my reshaped or converted Bristols, a series made out of Frog kits in 1996: Beaufort from Malta, Beaufighter Mk II F (Merlin engined), which I posted about a week ago I made today photos of my TF MkX - also converted (like Mk II) from Frog Mk XXI kit. I would like to share with you with those photos... Model was deeply changed - new larger cowlings, shortered nose and main canopy, new rear canopy, longer tail, radar, new tail wheel and some smaller additians/conversions were done here. I regred that in 1996 I was not convienced to engrave lines, remaining rised pannel separations.... Anyway - I hope you still can find it somhow interesting Markings are of RD351,QM.F of 254 Squadron RAF, 1944-45. Decals from drawer, not from Aeromaster set - what is funny, recently I bought this set when I needed some RAAF roundels... I ommited serial on bottom - I have doubts that in 1944 there it was already there, perhaps it was added after the VE day. Comments welcome Regards Jerzy-Wojtek