Search the Community

Greetings from Australia. After much procrastinating about what kit to build for this GB, I’ve chosen Airfix’s 1980 moulded 1:48 Mosquito Mk. VI. At the time of its release, this kit was ‘THE’ Mosquito kit to have. It eclipsed everything before it and pretty much held its own until Tamiya graced us with their excellent selection of 1:72 and 1:48 kits in the late 1990’s. I first heard about this kit when it featured quite prominently at the start of the 1977 Airfix Catalogue and since then have always wanted to build one. I have no idea why it took a number of years to eventually be released as the year ‘1980’ is clearly embossed inside one of the fuselage halves? For its day this was quite a well detailed kit and from what I’ve read in old magazines it was initially designed as a 1:24 scale Superkit. Cockpit detail probably matches what Monogram were doing at the time, however the undercarriage is a little plain in comparison. On the plus side, it looks to hit all the right accuracy points and once built up has that Mosquito stance that ticks even more boxes. A while back, I hunted down an initial issue ‘New’ kit in the hope of ensuring the kit parts were as crisp as possible, however I have to say, my examples moulds seems to have suffered badly in certain places. There are quite a few sink hole marks and the engine pylons are warped to some strange degree. Thankfully I also possess an example of the ‘re-tooled’ Mk XVI kit and here Airfix kindly supply a whole Mk. VI kit along with upper wings, nacelles and fuselage halves to make the dedicated box version. Inside the box you almost get two complete kits, so I’ll use the better moulded parts here to help me with this GB build. Chosen Scheme? (Now amended) My choice of scheme is No.47 Squadrons’ KU:H RF942. This is an early Post War machine that along with 84 and 110 Squadrons performed air strikes against the Indonesian Independence movement after the collapse of the Japanese occupation forces at the end of WW2. I’ll try to print my own Squadron codes, so we’ll see how well that goes! As with ‘most / all’ SEAC based Mosquitoes, tropical filters are also required and thanks to a talented local Aussie modeller, I now have a set of resin tropical intakes for this build (thanks Uncle Les!). Enough of the long waffle, best of luck to all STGB modellers and roll on the 29th of March. Cheers.. Dave