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This going to take some time - an hour here, an hour there & then towards the end I'll probably get impatient & mess the whole thing up. I was lucky enough to be given this kit for my birthday. I've added the Eduard photo-etch kit, but apart from that it'll out of the box - including the paints, well that's the intention anyway. first up - the box, lovely artwork & it is incredibly heavy for a 1/72 biplane kit. here's what's in the box I must say the floor was fairly uninspiring, but I doubt anyone will see it once the kit is complete The rest of the cockpit is very time consuming & some of those photo etch parts are microscopic The machine gun on the starboard side pokes through a hole on the side - when I put this through, it scraped all the paint off - so eventually I painted it once it was through & then positioned it correctly once it was dry. I painted the body under the gun beforehand with a brush. The gun is currently under a small lump of blutack. I have given the body a very fine coating of halfords primer. I've decided to paint each section before putting the thing together - here's the first coat on the body. My airbrushes are now totally blocked, so they both need dismantling before I make any more progress.

Question regarding color(or colour!) scheme of the Albacore during Operation Torch in November 1942. Looking at the DP Casper decal sheet 48007 it shows both the Albacore and Swordfish having the Dark Slate Grey/Extra Dark Sea Grey uppers, but also shows the upper surface of the lower wings to be Light Slate Grey/Dark Sea Grey. Was this standard practice or just typical of that operation? I cannot find any confirmation of this in my references and have not seen this before, so I tend to doubt the color call outs. Any thoughts or ideas, or point me in the general direction and give me a push?! Thanks much and apologies if this has been discussed already! Geoff

Hi All, This will be my first WIP and just my second build after circa 30 years of a layoff from kit building. After such a long break I reckoned I'd be pretty much be starting from scratch again so picked up a few of Revells' old Bi-Plane kits as practice pieces before getting stuck into some of the nicer or more complex kits that are on my wish list. I also reckoned that I could do with some inspiration and guidance along the way which led me to lurking here before eventually joining the forum and getting involved. My first attempt was an Airfix Vampire which I ended up painting twice and still not being happy with the end result but it was an enjoyable experience and I learned a lot. It ended up like this... Vampire T11 B by Martin Fay, on Flickr Vampire T11 by Martin Fay, on Flickr I've got a pretty thick skin so constructive criticism and advice along the way is both welcome and appreciated.

Fairey Swordfish Mk.1, (E)5H/P3999. 824 Sqn. Taranto raid, Nov.11, 1940 Pilot: Lt(A) J. Welham Observer Lt. P. Humphreys Model: Matchbox 1/72 When I began this Matchbox build back in March, WIP here: http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234999297-another-matchbox-swordfish/page-1 I naively assumed it would be a relatively simple undertaking. Nearly six weeks of research and obsession later I feel able to present my first RFI on this forum of a Swordfish from the Taranto raid. I'd like to start start with the words of the pilot, John Welham, describing the run in as part of the second wave: 'There was some light cloud but it was a beautiful starlit night with a rising moon, and I remember that it was surprisingly cold. When we were more than an hour's flying time from Taranto we could see flickering lights on the horizon, and when we were closer this was clearly the mother and father of all anti-aircraft barrages.' (Sturtivant, Ray. The Swordfish Story p.60) A Matchbox mystery... I don't intend saying anything derogatory about the limitation of the kit - it was fun to make as a teenager in the 70s and just as much fun to do again now. However, as I started doing a bit of research online about the 824 Sqn aircraft option offered in the kit (and featured in the typically evocative box art) I started to get rather confused at the lack of clarity on aircraft 5B/K8419, as an aircraft seconded from HMS Eagle with this designation didn't seem to have taken part in the Taranto raid. Not being a naval historian, I put this down to my inexperience and duly posted a query on this forum about the matter. I'm greatly indebted to 'Seahawk' who solved this conundrum, pointing out that John Welham's autobiography (p.85) clearly states that (E)5B was ashore at Deikhela airfield in Egypt at the time of the raid. Indeed, the last page of Stuart Lloyd's magnificent Fleet Air Arm: Camouflage and Markings reproduces a photo of 5B undergoing repairs in the Western Desert in late August of 1940. For the Taranto raid in November, Welham was flying (E)5H instead, so by a process of elimination regarding aircraft from Eagle, the Matchbox box art and decal option would appear to be wrong. The individual aircraft histories in Sturtivant's Swordfish book backs this up by indicating that 5H/P3999 did take part in the Taranto raid. 5B's only engagement is listed as the Bomba Bay raid on 22/23 Aug (when presumably it sustained the damage seen being repaired in the photo in Lloyd's volume?). Last night I discovered an apparently correct illustration of 5H from Replic magazine (issue 100), reproduced online here: http://wp.scn.ru/en/ww2/b/564/9/3 Mentioned in dispatches.... A number of other individuals have also been provided invaluable help on the build: 'iang' did his best to keep my colours and markings matching the historical record (though I'd already applied 'Sky' undersides by that time and decided to live with the shame..). 'John Aero', 'Ex-FAAWAFU' and Nick Millman also weighed in with info and images on the Observer's 'monkey-chain' that stopped him pitching over the side. 'Seahawk' also confirmed the weapons loadout. 'Spadgent' just made me keep buying more gear - watch that lad.... The build... This marked a number of firsts for me: airbrushing, scratch building, photo-etch, custom decals, rigging. Some plan views: And some obliques: Technical matters For those interested the following changes were made to the basic kit: 1. Opened up rear cockpit and added long range fuel tank. 2. Cut Observer in half and rebuilt him as standing figure. 3. Built a new arrestor hook and carved out a recessed channel for it to sit in. 4. Added sleeves to oleo legs. 5. Rebuilt torpedo with more detailed prop/fins at rear and added detonator. 6. Built new torpedo cradle. 7. Added a pitot tube and wiring to port wing. 8. Added torpedo sights. 9. Built a new rear cockpit interior, including a (slightly) more accurate mounting for rear Lewis gun. 10. Added control horns for elevators and rudder. 11. Added control cable shrouds, ballast inspection hatch and catapult attachment to mid/rear fuselage on either side. 12. Scribed sides and undersides of fuselage/wings, added fastener details. 13. Added dinghy housing to port topside wing. 14. Added x4 mountings and azimuth compass to rear cockpit. Also added leather trim. 15. Built (Marabu M72011) PE flare racks and a flare. 16. Added folding wing tie-backs onto underside of tail planes. 17. Added canvas cover to housing for rear Lewis gun. Decals Roundels and tail flash were OOB, serial and tail number added from Ventura V7252 RN number set. (I'm aware that the tail number/letter should be a bolder style but I only had the ones in this sheet to work from...) Weathering Tamiya acrylics for paint scheme, home-made pin wash, various W&N black/umber/sienna oil washes for detailing. Powdered lavender chalk for final fading/weathering prior to final matt varnishing. Thanks for reading and to all who pitched in on the WIP. Now to try and choose the next build. Meteor or Stranraer - anyone any preferences? Regards to all, Tony

An old airfix Swordfish given to me by a friend who found it in a box of ebay stuff. And since his very young daughter wanted to send me something too I've named it after her. Thus the non original naming of it Jess.

Hello! After Spitfire build has been completed, I decided to make a new model - Fairey Swordfish. So, I have: Model: Tamiya 61099 Resin parts: CMK 4063, engine Vector Photo-etched: Eduard 49212; Tamiya TA61069 I would be grateful for any help - especially I need of good quality drawings and walkarounds. Thank you!

Another recent build, a swordfish. Again built straight from the box, although it spent two years on the shelf, half build with almost no hope to be ever finished until something made me approach it again. It is a 00b build, only added bomb racks from the eduard pe set. The are so tiny that I manged to break a couple of smaller ones while photographing it. I'm now so afraid to touch them that decided to leave them as they are. The lights are placed in wrong way, I understood that when looked at the pictures, so now the are in correct places. And I painted it in lighter colors than it was to be as the rigtht colors made it look unrealistically too dark. Lower wing were painted in lighter shades, but subsequent weathering made the differnece very subtle. The shadow from the upper wing on the pictures make them look absolutely similar

Does anyone know what camouflage and markings were carried by the swordfish that attacked the Bismarck?

Hi folk's, here,s Revells Swordfish finished as an aircraft that took part in the hunt for the Bismark,it,s been a blast re-visiting this one as I last built it many years ago in it's Matchbox day's.I cut off the coaming over the observers position as this was found on later ASW aircraft (thank's Martin) and thank's to Adrian on the better method of stretching sprue to avoid the scaffolding poles I usually turn out.I rebuilt the interior in a fashion so if you want to see how things were done here's the WIP. http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234989292-stringbag-theory-172-revell-swordfish/page-1

Hi all,just fancied a quickish (maybe a couple of weeks anyway) build just to keep in touch with my 1/72 side so swapped my eldest a kit for this as I only have a couple of 1/72 small kit,s in the meager stash,It,s the old Matchbox kit which accuracy issues aside was one of their better mold's.the cockpit is none existent so a bit of scratchbuilding will be needed just to "busy" it up and It's been a while since I did a biplane.Finish will be for an aircraft that attacked the Bismark flown of Ark royal. the box: The spru'es: and a shot of the fuselage: and my only other bi-plane to date,Revell's old Nieport with streched sprue rigging which I will be doing on the Swordfish.

A rather nice piece from the Beeb about the Swordfish being flown for VJ day. Good video of start-up and take-off. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-33921031

Hi, From deep archive shelf - Fairey Swordfish Mk I and Fairey Barracuda. Both kits by Frog (or rather Novo). Both those Faireys nemes are of fishies. I made them about 1992-3. Swordfish was my first ever build with riging. Swordfish is from 700 Sq. FAA, HMS Malaya, Mediterranean Sea 1941. In some sources I found that she should wear letter "M" on side - some others were not saying this. I made with letter... Here she is: Barracuda Mk II from 812 Squadron HMS Vengeance, Pacific, 1945 (decals by early Techmod - thick ....) Comments welcome Regards Jerzy-Wojtek

FAIREY SWORDFISH in British, Canadian & Netherlands Service in World War Two by AIRfile The Fairey Swordfish; a canvas covered, open cockpit, biplane which was already obsolete at the start of World War 2 and yet achieved everlasting fame in those early years of the war. The Swordfish was the first aircraft to achieve a successful torpedo attack on an enemy fleet when, in November 1940, twenty one aircraft took off from HMS Illustrious and attacked the Italian fleet anchored in Taranto Harbour. Six months later, in May 1941, a torpedo attack on Germany's super battleship KM Bismark disabled the rudder, making the ship unmanoeuvrable and caused it to turn in an arc that brought it within range of the British fleet which was persuing her and subsequently sunk by them. This new book from AIRfile is a departure from their previous titles in that it is dedicated to a specific aircraft type, rather than 'theatre specific' subjects they are normally well known for. The layout is still arranged to the earlier formats, containing historical context interspersed with full colour profile illustrations, photographs and a selection of full 4-view illustrations of a particular aircraft. The book is separated into chapters describing the timeline of this iconic and famous aircraft; with sections on the pre-war period, the early war years, Taranto, the Bismark chase, the Channel Dash and finally the latter years of WW2. The textual content within these chapters, nicely complemented with appropriate black & white images, provide the historic perspective of the work and role of the Fairey Swordfish. They provide information on the nations, squadrons, ships and shore establishments that these aircraft were allocated to plus the time periods in which they were in operation. Set out within the card covers of this 72 page, A4 portrait format book, compiled by Neil Robertson, are no less than 123 full colour profile drawings of various Swordfish Aircraft; each beautifully illustrated by Peter Scott. The profile illustration shows a specific aircraft depicted at a certain time-frame within its career. Alongside the drawing is a short but detailed heading and supporting narrative of that aircraft. The heading provides details of the: type, mark, serial and unit lettering, Squadron, parent ship or station, date referred to and the pilot & crew details. The narrative gives additional historical data relating to the production and colour details of this aircraft during the period the illustration refers to. There are also 19 pages of 4-view colour illustrations with an individual aircraft shown on each page. Again the drawings are supplemented with narrative particular to that airframe and time period. These drawings can be of particular benefit for the modeller wishing to ascertain correct colour demarcations all around the aircraft. Throughout the book there are over 45 black and white images, each showing various views of the Swordfish. There is also information on changes of codes and the use of camouflage patterns, with their respective admiralty colour coding etc. With reference to the colour profile illustrations, Neil Robinson has delved into more research on variations of the camouflage schemes used, not just the 'standard' sea-going colours, coming up with some unusual colour schemes,which Peter Scott has produced as interesting illustrations. Some of these must surely tempt the modeller to build something out of the ordinary; perhaps this all black version with D-Day markings for June 1944? Conclusion This publication is a nice departure from AIRlife's normal 'theatre specific' themes, although I hope they don't stop doing them, and I believe the Fairey Swordfish is a good first choice here. Don't expect this to be the definitive on the Swordfish, there is only so much one can achieve within 72 pages, however Neil and Peter have managed to cover over 145 aircraft which is at least 5% of the 2,392 aircraft built by Fairey and Blackburn. As a modeller, I find the illustrations to be particularly useful; especially when checking with factual content within, before deciding which variant and period to build a kit to represent. The layout is just right, with large colourful illustrations and just enough historical data to enlighten and interest the masses without getting unduly bogged down reams of tabulated data etc. Hopefully there will be more of these 'type specific' subjects forthcoming from Neil and the team! Review sample courtesy of Kindly mention Britmodeller.com to the supplier when making enquiries or orders

Hello, While waiting for the Tamiya paint to arrive for the Mosquito, I've been faced with a dilemma about this kit and that is to either build this or to put it up for sale. After speaking to the local model shop and also a few friends who have an interest in building kits & leaving them unpainted, I've took the first steps to starting it as I'm trying to thin the amount of kits I have to build. For the moment here is the Box & Sprue shot's: I'm not entirely sure which scheme this is going to be finished in just yet, at the moment I'm verging to the White Fuselage Coded LS726. I have a feeling this could be a slow build! Thanks for Looking.

Hello All, I got a really cheap Swordfish from Ebay without undercarriage or decals. I decided to do it on floats using the decals from the one I have in the stash. Here's the parts layout from the one that does have the undercarriage (well, I borrowed a tail wheel...): The kit has fine raised lines and fasteners/rivets to detail the metal areas. The fabric on the flying surfaces is represented by "hill and valley" construction, finely on the tail but quite heavy on the wings. The fabric parts of the fuselage are rounded in section with raised stringers, and had some sections of stringer either faint or missing - I would have preferred a polygonal cross-section, but I went with it as was. The kit provides basic accommodation for pilot and observers, but I cut out the observers coaming and scratched up a new cockpit interior with some foil belts: Progress was swift until I tried to get the upper wings on. I couldn't get the struts to line up and so I had to cut them all off and make some more. I chose some hardwood which I have in thin section, and made some templates (the white card thingeys) using the struts from my other kit, in order to line up the outer struts. Once I had made the plunge it wasn't too bad, apart from the pyramid in the centre section! When I did the old mould Airfix kit, which has a similar approach, I had no problems with the alignment, so I'm not sure what I did wrong this time. It did make cleaning up the bit between the struts easier! You can also see the engine and the gun, which both came up well after a lick of paint. I added a windscreen, control wire guides, control horns, wing hand holds and the catapult spool thingeys, and later I added the step too from a bent brass pin. I sprayed Humbrol acrylic primer followed by Metalcote polished aluminium over a Humbrol 25 blue band, masked off. The Cerrux grey is brushed Humbrol 129. The silver was brush coated with future to protect it, but wore off during construction, so I ended up extensively brush painting it again at the end. I thought the floats were going to be easy: they had moulded one-piece strut assemblies and some detail for the top. However, I realised that I had to sand off and replace the detail, and some struts were misaligned and some were short, so I had to re-align and extend them with some inset brass pins for strength. The diagonal struts then didn't fit so I had to make and fit some more wooden ones. I also replaced the rudders with much thinner card and added the rudder control yokes and cables. I used the kit decals for everything - they worked like a charm, even the warning lines on the floats! Rigging was done with some nylon invisible thread, which was finer than my previous batch and a bit too fine (it looks OK in the photos but in real life it's still a bit invisible). I drilled blind holes in the top wing and all the way through on the lower wing. I did the float rigging with elastic thread from Aeroclub, which was great, so I may just use that in future. I sanded down the raised panel lines and fasteners after painting. This exposed the dark plastic/primer and provides a realistic effect - photos of the real thing show plainly visible panel lines and fasteners. No stealth here! I took advantage of the unseasonable weather to grab some outdoor photos of the finished item: Here it is posed with the old Airfix kit, which I modified considerably about a year ago: Those of you that have the Putnam book on Fairey Aircraft will recognise this pose from the full-page plate: This is a much better representation than the old Airfix and Matchbox/Revell offerings, but it has its issues in the floatplane incarnation (and my floats are still a bit out). Surprisingly, although the old Airfix kit is quite chunky and lacking in detail, it is surprisingly sturdy and well engineered, and I enjoyed the build. I have all the old Swordfishes in my stash and I want to build one of each, so building the old ones works for me. But I also have the new Airfix kit (I have fondled the plastic but not built it) and it is far, far better than any of the old ones in accuracy, detail and engineering. Not only has the industry progressed in forty years, but I think the new Swordfish looks like the best Airfix kit ever. Of course, when I build it I reserve the right to change my opinion! Thanks for looking, Adrian

Hi folks! Let me present you my latest model of legendary airplane of WWII from Airfix. The set was very clever and gave me great pleasure during assembly. Bravo to Airfix! I applied as, a traditional, set of etched parts from Eduard and replaced the regular gun with more accurate from "Mini World". But the model still quite consuming and I did not have the enthusiasm to do everything I wanted (((.

Good afternoon. Again from early EXPrompt This modification was developed in 1943. In total it is let out 2391 Swordfish, from them 320 MK.III. Fairey Swordfish Mk.III NH-M NF374 board, from the 119th squadron RAF which were based in Bircham Newton in 1945. Engine..