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"My objective is peace in Europe, I trust this trip is the way to that peace." -- Neville Chamberlain, 22 September 1938 "How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas-masks here because of a quarrel in a far away country between people of whom we know nothing." -- Neville Chamberlain, 27 September 1938 England expected every man that day To show his motives were ambivalent. They played the fool, not to appear as fools In time's long glass. A deprecating air Disarmed, they thought, the jeers of later schools; Yet irony itself is doctrinaire -- Donald Davie, "Remembering the Thirties" "My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time." -- Neville Chamberlain, 30 September 1938 "[W]e have sustained a defeat without a war, the consequences of which will travel far with us along our road; they should know that we have passed an awful milestone in our history, when the whole equilibrium of Europe has been deranged, and that the terrible words have for the time being been pronounced against the Western democracies: 'Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting.' And do not suppose that this is the end. This is only the beginning of the reckoning. This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigour, we arise again and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time." -- Winston Churchill, Hansard, "Policy of His Majesty's Government", 5 October, 1938 20170402_141451 by Edward IX, on Flickr I've struggled all week to think of what I wanted to build next. I have something coming in the next few weeks which will be a drop-everything build, so I didn't want to get too involved in a big kit (Wellington, Halifax II, Whitley ruled out, then), or do anything too complicated (CR.42, Tempest II, Blenheim, PZL P.11c with PART photoetch). Additionally I've been under so much stress at work that I'd just go down to the grotto and find myself paralysed with indecision, too mentally exhausted to even just pick a kit. I must have pulled seven or eight out of the stacks and looked over the sprues before putting them back. Finally, with less than two hours before I had to go to the airport and collect Mrs. P and Winston and (sigh) my mother-in-law, I settled on an AZ Gloster Gauntlet. It's a small kit, has a low parts count, comes with PE for the seatbelt (the windscreen is a PE frame with acetate sheets for the panes, which is a little worrisome), and is the rare RAF biplane to not use the shadow scheme of Light Earth and Light Green on the lower wings, which is good, because I forgot to buy a pot of Colourcoats Light Green. Anyway, as we all know, the Gauntlet was Gloster's predecessor to the Gladiator, and the fastest RAF fighter until the late 1930s, faster even than the Hawker Fury, which certainly looked faster. For the RAF, it was the last gasp of the open-cockpit biplane fighter with two machineguns; every fighter that came after it had an enclosed cockpit and four or more machineguns. Some have said that this marked the end of the romantic era of aerial warfare (if a contest between two men, intended to lead to the death of one, can be romantic, but Twilight sold a million copies, so why not?), particularly at the time, but then they couldn't see forward a few years to see a few handfuls of Hurricanes and Spitfires trace contrails in the blue expanse over the cliffs of Dover as they curved into the attack. So the romance might not have died with the Gauntlet. But the Gauntlet did see the end of the interwar RAF, the "best flying club in the world", and the birthing pangs of the fighting service that would save the world in 1940. In 1938, the Munich Crisis broke out. As Chamberlain and Daladier scrambled to sell out the Czechs, who had put their faith in allies who now rushed to abandon them, the Royal Air Force's sliver biplanes were being readied for the war that appeasement would only delay. The colourful squadron markings were painted out; the silver wings were painted Dark Green and Dark Earth. Had war come, the RAF's Gauntlets would have been more than a match for the Luftwaffe's He 51, slower by nearly 30 MPH (the He 51 was even more inferior to the Czech Avia B-534: 50 MPH slower), but would have been woefully outclassed by the new Bf 109B/C/Ds in service; the Germans had five hundred of them, though none of these early models could exceed 300 MPH in level flight. So let's get going. The kit has a resin cowling, which I separated from its casting block: 20170402_142926 by Edward IX, on Flickr 20170402_142932 by Edward IX, on Flickr Cute. It also has a little resin Bristol Mercury radial engine, which fits in the cowling quiiiiite snugly and likely won't once paint is added: 20170402_142941 by Edward IX, on Flickr I then sprayed the photoetch instrument panel with some aerosol Mr Surfacer 1000 rather than fire up the ol' compressor: 20170402_142941 by Edward IX, on Flickr I'm labouring under the impression that the Gauntlet had a wooden (or wood-coloured) instrument panel, as seen on this preserved Finnish example: Some of those instruments look suspiciously modern. Of course I just glanced at it earlier and thought it had a wood grain, so I painted the panel Light Earth with intent to go over it with Clear Orange later and then some oil paints for a sexy wood grain effect that's now going to fall by the wayside. Bother. 2017-04-02_10-09-06 by Edward IX, on Flickr The interior of the aircraft seems to be a rather lurid green up top and then grey below -- does anyone know what RAF examples might have been painted with? I also put together the cockpit floor, less the seat. There's, uh, not a lot to it: 20170402_152854 by Edward IX, on Flickr You may notice it's slightly more substantial than the actual floor of a Gauntlet. Also, some googling uncovered this thread (started by yr. humble corresp. way back in 2014, when the world still made some measure of sense), which seems to indicate Gauntlets may have actually had the shadow scheme of Light Green/Light Earth on the lower wings. Looks like I need to order more Colourcoats. On the other hand, I'm inclined to doubt that everyone went to a lot of trouble to do the shadow scheme on the lower wings -- certainly the colour photos of Gladiators linked to don't seem to show it. However, if anyone has any information on Gauntlet camouflage (or access to the old Colours and Markings book, mine is in a storage locker still), please let me know. Lastly, I know the UK is having an interesting time right now, in the Chinese curse sense of the word, and I thought I'd just say to you what my parents never said to me after I ran away from home: I'm worried about you, and I love you, and I hope you're doing what's best for yourselves. Please don't destroy yourselves in the process. Anyway, that's a bit heavy, so here's a truly ridiculous picture of Winston: IMG_0087 by Edward IX, on Flickr My friend Jessica suggested "ONLY THE DEAD HAVE SEEN THE END OF PLAYTIME" as an appropriate caption.