Hasegawa Lancaster - 617 Sqn Dortmund Ems Raid

[mick b]

Justifiably there has been much in the news and on this forum to remember the heroic events in May 1943 by 617 in their attack on the dams. Perhaps less known is the next major operation by that squadron which was an absolute disaster. Namely an attack on the Dortmund Ems Canal in September 1943.

This raid was the first for the new CO W/C George Holden, taking with him a number of Gibson's crew, as well as numerous personnel that also took part in the dams raid, many of whom, including Holden and his crew perished that night, the 15th September 1943. David Maltby, a dams raid success, died with his crew the previous night after an aborted sortie on the canal due to bad weather and the following night conditions had not improved and five of the eight aircraft failed to return, most hit by flak.

Although it is sad that such fine men were lost I always felt that the death of Les Knight was particularily so. Here was a pilot that had made the only truly successful attack of the Eder,as his mine alone breached the dam, having made a near perfect approach which has since been described as 'impossible'.

On the night of the 15th Knight's Lanc hit trees whilst searching for the target in thick fog, he managed to control the aircraft and gain sufficient height for the crew to bail out, the Lanc then crashed killing young Knight. All the crew survived and there was some mention of a VC but nothing came of it.

So....I wanted to build Knight's Lanc as per that raid, at the time it had bulged bomb bay doors and carried a 12,000lb blockbuster (1 x 8000 and a 4000 bolted together) and so the only option available was the Hasegawa Lanc in its Tallboy guise.

I know there are issues with the Hasegawa offering but the Revell one came out after I had bought this one cheap and the new Airfix still look to Corgi like for my liking so I thought I'd carry on as best I can.

To help detail the kit I have the following:

Eduard interior and bomb bay,

Flightpath interior,

White Ensign Exterior,

Belcher Bits for the 12,000lb

Quickboost gun barrels

Pavla main wheels

Falcon cockpit set.

Photos of progress to follow

Cheers

Mick

Edited August 23, 2013 by mick b

[mick b]

Here are some pics of my efforts so far. I seemed to be spending the majority of time cutting and bending photo etch and on all fours(!) studying the carpet looking for bits rather than cutting and glueing plastic but it has to be said that the Eduard sets do mark a vast improvement over the very poor Hasegawa interior.

I had to add plastic stringers in the fuselage halves as well and some minor mods on the cockpit floor.

I made a milliput cushion for the pilots' seat and its still awaiting its armour plate. Hopefully the injector pin marks wont be noticeable once its all closed up.

Lots to do yet though but I warn you my progress is painfully slow as I dont get much time in the week! By the way this is my first WIP and I hope to enter the FAA GB too!

Cheers

Mick

Still to add radio ops seat and other details to pilots seat. Painted using new Lifecolor 'Black' range, the main colour being 'Deep Cockpit'.

I gently rubbed the paint off the raised studs on the Eduard floor to show some wear.

Edited July 29, 2013 by mick b

[Vicarage Vee]

A very good choice of subject if I may say so, and fine work so far.

[jaffa]

looks fantastic so far ill keep an eye out for any progress..

[mick b]

Thanks for the kind words Gents. As I said progress is slow but here are some more updates:

Partly done cockpit fitted to port side.

Having looked at many photos of Lancs at dispersals I noticed most show the crew door open. So this combined with the fact that I didnt like Hasegawa's very proud representation of the door helped me decide to cut it out. Consequently I added the Flightpath rib detail and foot plate to the port and starboard sides respectively.

I will give the rib detail an oil wash later and I may need to add a floor section here too to hide joins, etc. I then made a start on the turrets, front and mid upper here with Eduard and Flightpath etch added. Quickboost barrels will be added later.

Again most Lancs at rest seem to have some droop on the flaps. The labourious task of cutting, sanding down, bending and super glueing these Flightpath flap details seem to take an eternity and they are no where near finished yet!

I found the Flightpath instructions slightly vague with regards these intricate flap parts and the 'gates' holding the parts to the 'sprues' are quite thick so I have had to change the No11 blade regularily, or it may just be me!

The nacelles need some work too with the drilling out of the intake fronts ready fo the WEM PE grilles and some filler applied around the bottom of all four. These are probably the worst fitting parts so far.

Thats it so far, hope to crack some more this week, all comments welcome.

Mick

Edited August 23, 2013 by mick b

[magman2]

Mick, A great start and nice to see another Lancaster Bomber

[perdu]

this is going to be tremendous

(easy to say that because it is getting that way already)

[Smiffy]

A very nice choice of subject. I'll be watching this one progress, with great interest.

[Kahunaminor]

Mick,

Great work on the cockpit area. The Lancaster is a favourite of mine so I shall be looking in!

Regards,

Kent

[brianthemodeller]

Great subject and I have a feeling this us going to turn out as a superb model.

I have a Revell one that will be next out of the stash but I can't make up my mind about the detail sets. Could you post some pictures if what you get in each of the ones you are using?

Thanks

B

Edited August 20, 2013 by brianthemodeller

[(ex)Sgtrafman]

A very interesting back story, one that I must be honest was unaware of. The build so far looks excellent and you can never have too many Lancasters.

Keep it up mate I'm watching with avid interest.

Yours aye

Iain

[woody37]

looking forwards to it, such a tragedy about the crews.

[chaddy]

looking forwards to it, such a tragedy about the crews.

Tragedy indeed. The exact circumstances surrounding Maltby's loss has never been fully explained. At the time one of the reasons suggested was he hit the slipstream of another aircraft. Another theory put forward is that he struck, or was struck by, another aircraft. Mosquitos of 139 Sqn were operating that night, and their return route from Berlin crossed the route of the outbound 617 Sqn aircraft. One Mosquito DZ958 went missing that night and it is not known where it went down.

Although Maltby's body was later recovered the remainder of his crew were lost. The Bomber Command War Diaries (Middlebrook & Everitt) says that the names of the other six crew members is recorded on the Runnymede Memorial. Elsewhere I have read that there was seven other crew members as there was an "extra" gunner on board. I've only ever seen the abridged version of 617's ORB and that didn't list the crew for that night. Perhaps somebody can confirm, or not, as the case may be?

[matthies]

S/Ldr Maltby did indeed have an extra crew member that night: F/Eng Sgt W Hatton; Nav F/Sgt Nicholson; W/Op F/Sgt Stone; B/Aimer P/O Fort; Gunners Sgt Hill, W/O Welch & Sgt Simmonds. Incidentally the 12000lb blockbuster was three 4000lb units bolted together - it wasn't three 4000lb cookies bolted together.

Matthies.

[chaddy]

S/Ldr Maltby did indeed have an extra crew member that night: F/Eng Sgt W Hatton; Nav F/Sgt Nicholson; W/Op F/Sgt Stone; B/Aimer P/O Fort; Gunners Sgt Hill, W/O Welch & Sgt Simmonds. Incidentally the 12000lb blockbuster was three 4000lb units bolted together - it wasn't three 4000lb cookies bolted together.

Matthies.

Many thanks for that info.

Cheers

[mick b]

Great subject and I have a feeling this us going to turn out as a superb model.

I have a Revell one that will be next out of the stash but I can't make up my mind about the detail sets. Could you post some pictures if what you get in each of the ones you are using?

Thanks

B

Thanks to all for the kind comments.

Brian, the etch sets are pretty much in bits so not much good for providing images now but personally I would stick to the Eduard sets. I have had the Flightpath set in the stash for years as its intended for the old Airfix kit but I wanted to utilise it in some way. The set has been updated since with instrument panels etc but this early version didnt have it, an image of the fret can be found on David Parkins website.

The WEM exterior set again I bought some time ago and it has proved useful in providing nice details for the main wheel well nacelles as well as intake grilles, shutters etc.

A minor quibble with both the Flightpath and WEM sets is that they do not have the recessed fold lines that Eduard employ which make for sharper bends and ease of bending. I have to take extra time with the 'Hold & Fold' to ensure I have the part clamped in exactly the right place.

If I don't get totally peed off with photo etch I have the Eduard bomb bay set too as I was intending to show the 12000 pounder either in the bay or on a trolley as per the photo of Knight's Lanc which can be seen in a number of 617 books.

Cheers

Mick

Edited August 21, 2013 by mick b

[thepureness]

good subject, watching this one

Builds coming on great thus far

[mick b]

A small update....I've got a bit bogged down in getting the Flightpath flaps to fit. As I said before they were intended for the early Airfix Lanc so I am assuming that is why there is a major discrepancy in sizing, etc.

The Hasegawa kit seems to fit, nigh on exactly, the plans produced by A.Granger in the Aerodata Book for the Lanc as I compared the flap size of the kit to the plans and there is no difference, the wings also match the plans for dihedral which was recently picked up on Hyperscale as possibly being a little excessive but we'll see.

I have had to cut down the various assemblies in depth, mainly chord wise, in order to get a better fit. Still a long way to go with these I feel. You can also see some of the WEM detail added to the wheel wells, a good fit but some bits very fiddly!

I wasnt happy with the Flightpath rib detail that I have put in the port side opposite the open crew door as it was a bit 2 dimensional and I realised that this area is going to need further detailing to look acceptable so I started by adding some more plastic rod, ignore the paint scheme here as it was an early attempt to hide the lack of detail. Its not perfect but its a start.......

Finally I started the rear turret. The picture shows the basic Hasegawa parts and this will be detailed using the Flightpath parts and probably the Falcon glazing as the Hase one wont fit once the PE is on.

I will hopefully make more progress next week once the school hol's are over.

Cheers for now

Mick

[jeewee]

Hi mick,

Great progress on the lanc. I have the flightpath set aswell so it's handy to see how several parts will fit. The flaps were indeed a time consuming operation to fit in the wings.

Greetz jw

[mick b]

Quick question to the Lanc experts out there......when did the flare chute move from the back end of the bomb bay to the port side of the fuselage opposite the entry door?

[mick b]

As is often the case, progress is not as rapid as one would have wished but here's a quick update:

I have added some more detail to the internals of the fuselage by the open crew door on top of the ribbing I had put in earlier. After much studying of photos of preserved Lancs and some very detailed 48th models on the web I plumped for the layout you see here. I added a floor, elsan toilet, ammo feeds for the rear turret, some flares on the sidewall, a rear bulkhead behind the loo and part of the hydraulics for the mid upper. It may not be 100% accurate but it makes it look a bit busier should someone peek in!

On the stbd side I put in the ammo feeds (the reason for the step being there) and a little ribbing:

Work has continued on the intricate flaps. For my next Lanc I will definitely be getting the Eduard set as it appears more refined than the Flightpath one with thinner material and of course it would probably fit much better as it is designed for the kit in question. To make this set fit, which as I said before was for the old Airfix kit, I have ended up cutting up the various sections instead of folding them and trimming them to help them go together. I'm using my Dad's old sturdy metal guillotine for the trimming!

Work has begun on the starboard wing too...

And finally I have cut out the radiator shutters on the outboard nacelles ( Hasegawa chose to mark them on the outer nacelles but not the Inner ones) ready to receive the WEM replacements which I have squared off a bit as the trailing edge was far too rounded in my opinion. Removing the plastic has also revealed how poorly the internal parts fitted so more filler has been applied.

The propellers and spinners are also together after a good clean up as they have raised lines moulded on them to show where the yellow tips are meant to be ( how quaint!) So with a KUTA I should get the fuselage together soon and some real progress made, all comments welcome ladies and gents....

Cheers

Mick

[Smiffy]

Coming along rather nicely, there.

[jeewee]

top job on the flaps!!

jw

[tonyot]

This is coming along really well, keep up the good work!

I`m building a Tallboy Lanc at the moment as a Tirpitz raider and wanted to get hold of the kit that you`ve used here because I like the decal option on the box top and it is one of the few 617 Sqn Tallboy aircraft that I can confirm the tie up between the codes and nose art. In the end I`ve had to settle for a 9 Sqn option instead as the decals were easier to find but I`ll still keep my eyes open for the kit as I still fancy building `Honor' to `honour' one of 617 Sqns later raids!

All the best

Tony O

[magman2]

Good progress, and Super detailed work