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I’ve been working on this Airfix 1/48 EE Canberra kit for a few weeks now and I’d like to share progress with interested Britmodeller colleagues. I’m looking for advice from those who know more than me about Canberra B. Mk 62s in Argentine service during the war in the South Atlantic 40 years ago. My aim is to recreate as closely as possible the configuration of aircraft B-110 (ex RAF WJ619) in the immediate period prior to it’s loss to a Sidewinder 9L launched by Lt. Curtis flying 801 NAS Sea Harrier XZ451 on May 1st 1982. I plan to build the Kinetic 1/48 SHAR as XZ451 to complement the Canberra early next year. If interested, please read on after the pictures. I’ve already made some major decisions which I may yet regret, but in the main I think I’ve made a fair stab at it and so before I finish the placard decaling, weathering and final sealing coat, there may still be room to modify, add or remove some details based on any further advice I get. I made an obvious error in selecting the wrong intake parts. I should have selected the parts with the transverse slot in the top surface, but only realised my mistake when I'd attached them to the wing sections and the cement had set. I bought the re-release of the original kit and so missed out on the decal set supplied for Argentine sister aircraft B-105 in the original boxing, which looks as if it came with a plethora of placard markings, notably the wing walkway markings which are missing from the Aztec “Canberras in South American Service Part 1” decal set I tracked down on-line and bought from Blackbird Models in Sheffield. If anyone out there built the original boxing in it’s RAF scheme and still has the Argentine decals that they would be happy to part with, perhaps we could reach an arrangement? It’s entirely possible of course that the FAA overpainted many of these during maintenance prior to the aircraft’s loss and maybe even the white walkway lines themselves, but a forward starboard fuselage photo of B-110 taken from low down has evidence that it did at least carry the latter on the upper wing leading edge at the time the photo was taken. I’ve only been able to identify one other good quality image on line of B-110 which shows a full length starboard side view. All other aspects of the model are based on images of her sister aircraft and after reviewing other on-line info I’ve made the following modifications and additions to the kit. Cut out and inserted a transparency for the missing bomb aimers ventral viewing window. Scratch built the locally designed and manufactured chaff/flare dispenser scabbed-on to the lower rear fuselage which I believe was installed just prior to 1st May 1982. I didn’t have any accurate dimensions for this and it’s based on two image frames grabbed from a Spanish language video on Youtube shown here, but it looks to be roughly about the right size and in the right place. Added a circular camera port just to the rear of the bomb bay doors that's present in a photo on the IPMS Canberra SIG site here of a sister aircraft in an Argentine museum. I think this was present on B-110, because the rather crude “angle iron” re-inforced v-shaped support ahead of the camera port, also present in the photo and presumably added in the field to replace the jacking point where the camera port now is, appears to be also present in the starboard side view of B-110. Removed the two moulded on clear vision panels from the canopy transparency. Airfix were presumably planning on releasing a training version of the Canberra, but why they are elongated ellipses when the clear vision ports were circular is a bit of a mystery. Aztec provide some nice decals to replicate the circular clear vision port on the port side of the B. 62. Scribed in place the missing rudder, aileron plus elevator trim tabs and added their actuators using stretched sprue. Manual trim tabs were also made from plastic card and added to the ailerons. Added missing dorsal and ventral fuselage navigation lights. Made starter cartridge exhausts from embossed foil on the engine nacelles where I think they were originally located. These are based on a realisation that the Avon engines are non-handed articles and that the ports are diagonally opposite one another on each nacelle. I admit these do look a bit over scale, but this is due I think mainly to the red outline around them not having a ring of camouflage colour inside them. I’m still trying to figure out how to accurately recreate these features. Added the white Bendix ADF aerial to the top fuselage behind the rear cabin. Added the two blade aerials on the fuselage and the dipole aerial on the starboard wing. Corrected the angle of the tail plane leading edge root fillets. I’ve yet to affix the open cabin door, or the aerial cable from the forward fuselage to the tail fin, which I’ll do when remaining work is completed. The Aztec decals are very good, but I’ve spotted some minor discrepancies. Placard decals lettering is either black or yellow on the supplied decals, but some of the lettering on B-110 appears to be white in this photo and I need some guidance on whether some of the placards were located, or even present on B-110. Most notably: Red, black and yellow warning placards for the starter exhausts which Aztec place low down on the outer front of the nacelles. I can only see evidence of these on B-101 when it was flown in the UK prior to delivery to the FAA. This aircraft also carried full wing walkway markings, including some white lettering placards based on an in-air photo. (see here) Rectangular red and yellow cut-here signs for first aid kits located just ahead of the fin on the rear fuselage topsides The exact location and orientation of the rear cabin ejector seat warning triangle placards on the top of the fuselage behind the rear cabin windows. Pointy end forward, or rearwards would be a start. (Aztec don’t supply top or bottom views, so markings on the top, or bottom are otherwise mysterious.) Any positive advice or further information would be most welcome. Hope to finish this soon and post it up as a completed article. Cheers

Updated on 8th Aug 2022 ----------------------------- Hi Folks, This thread started in the Falklands War 40th Anniversary Group Build... but I ran out of time. It also started as an Airfix FRS.1 build, but reading up, the Airfix SHAR isn't that highly regarded (I checked on BM 🙄). So I looked for the 1983 kit that is still considered the best FRS.1 in 1/72. I quickly found out that the ESCI (now sold by Italeri and just re-released) is actually a much better and more accurate model. £7.00 on that well known auction site. Looks nice, More parts, still wrapped. Not entirely sure how good the ESCI decals are, though they were printed by Cartograf, just rather a long time ago. The Airfix decals however do get good reviews, they were put together with the help of Nick Greenall 9f the IPMS Harrier Special Interest Group, and I'll be using them. Both kits, and a carefully selected selection of modelling stuff (tools, paint...) are got packed for a week away in Yorkshire to fill those idle minutes when I'm not getting dragged over the hills by the dog. It was on a previous visit to the North York Moors that I sat outside a pub in the twilight revelling to the sight and sounds of Harrier GR.7s screaming low overhead. Sigh.