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1/144 Roden Transglobe Bristol Britannia


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Hi all,

 

Here is another Britannia that I made a few months ago. It has languished on the 99% finished shelf just requiring the addition of antennae, nav lights and a one or two other things not covered by that lot.

 

Transglobe can trace its origins back to the registration of a company called Air Links in 1958 who used a Dakota purchased from Aer Lingus. Over the next few years, Air Links flew a series of inclusive tour flights with the Dakotas and later Hermes aircraft (which commenced operations with Air Links in 1962) all over Europe, sometimes leasing out their aircraft to other operators as required. With the introduction of the three Hermes, the Dakotas left the fleet. However, with the increasing popularity of the IT flights, Air Links began searching for a Hermes replacement and initially thought they had found it when the they started negotiations with BOAC to buy their 100 series Britannias then parked up at Cambridge. But BOAC wanted too much money and Air Links walked away. 

Aware of the pressing need to replace or supplement the Hermes fleet, Air Links bought some C-4 Argonaut aircraft (there's a beautiful colour picture of G-ALHW resting at Gatwick in June 1965 on page 52 of Adrian Balchs' fantastic book Vintage Glory - this is probably the one book I want to be buried with - I love it) and together the fleet roared all over Europe during the 1965 season carrying passengers to such destinations as Brindisi, Zurich, Barcelona, Palma with some long range charters to the Middle and Far East for MoD trooping flights.

May 1965 marked the introduction of the Britannia to Air Links fleet and shortly afterwards changed its name to Transglobe (August 1965). From then on, the Argonaut fleet were slowly withdrawn as more Britannias entered service, with two of the type ready for the start of 1966 operations followed by another in May. 

Expansion plans by the company saw them purchasing six CL-44 and applications for trans Atlantic passenger routes. Finally being granted permission to operate the CL-44 and given the licences they sought, Transglobe started passenger trans Atlantic charter flights in mid 1968. However, competitors were flying these routes with jets and so a couple of the CL-44 were leased to Trans Mediterranean Airways as passengers preferred the speed and newness of the jets.

Suddenly in November 1968 operations ceased as the major shareholding companies sought to wind up the company that had been having financial difficulties for a number of years.

 

As detailed in my IAS Britannia thread, this is the lovely model put out by Roden. This was the first one I built just after its release. I hadn't intended to build it, merely dry assemble it but things went so well that glue was used and by the end of the day the model was more or less built. 

 

Painting took the route of Revell matt black enamel then Tamiya XF-2 white followed by a couple of Kleer coats. The underside natural metal was AK Interactive xtreme matt aluminium. This over the matt black didn't work, so next time I'll use a gloss black. 

Decals came from 26decals and worked very nicely. However, I chose to leave the windows unfilled and noticed that the decal cheatline window spaces didn't fully line up with the kit. Not sure if I stretched the cheatlines a bit applying them, but Revell Aqua Lufthanse blue (I think) matched almost perfectly and was used to touch up. 

 

It's been sat on my 99% finished shelf which, sadly, means it'll probably never been fully completed. Once a model ends up there that's it. All i need do is add some antennae, paint a couple of nav lights and that will be it fully finished. Don't study the nose area too closely, the anti-glare panel is a bit rough.

 

On with the pictures

 

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Thanks for looking,

 

 

Jeff

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Hi Jeff,

We're really getting spoilt with all these Britannias!

I like the Transglobe livery best it's one of those that just look good. Nice trim tab actuators too!

What's wrong with using matt black under the aluminium? Looks fine to me.

Thanks for the history of Transglobe. I'm going to have to dig out my copy of Adrian's 'Vintage Glory' book now.

Are you planning any more Britannia's?

Cheers,

Ian

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That's another cracker Jeff, another classic livery beautifully applied! Must remember that exhaust staining on the tailplanes when I do my Crab Air one...!! :whistle: :winkgrin:

 

Another top job!

 

Keith

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Thank you all for your comments.

The matt black paint under the metal top coat didn't turn out the way I wanted. If you look closely at the paint finish,  there seems to be areas where the metal coat is shiny and other areas where it appears to be frosted - around the wing/ engine sections and a few patches on the wings. I'm not sure if this was a reaction to the undercoat or even the plastic causing a few issues. Either way it's not what I wanted. I was aiming for the greyish oxidised colour aluminium adopts after a while. I may even try this new fangled painting method called black basing.

 

As for adding more Britannias to my collection, well I've dug out a very nice sheet from classic-airlines.com for a Canadian Pacific Brit and have put it next to a 26decals Aer Turas sheet...but I've also been looking at my Minicraft C-97 as I flick through a book called "Shadows". If only I could find "International Red Cross" decals or someone who could print me a few.

 

Thanks Martin, when did I do Italian?

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3 minutes ago, keefr22 said:

That's another cracker Jeff, another classic livery beautifully applied! Must remember that exhaust staining on the tailplanes when I do my Crab Air one...!! :whistle: :winkgrin:

 

Another top job!

 

Keith

 

Thank you Keith. On YouTube there's a brief clip of a couple Britannias flying over Africa where it can seen that the exhaust staining builds up quite heavily if not removed. But I doubt this was ever a feature of RAF Britannias - they have to be used to create the stains!! 

 

 

 

Actually, to be fair the basic scheme of white/ blue cheat line/ light grey was used by numerous smaller operators after they acquired the retired RAF fleet. It just requires the fuselage titles to make them along with the RAF decal sheet.

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5 hours ago, pinky coffeeboat said:

 

 

It's been sat on my 99% finished shelf which, sadly, means it'll probably never been fully completed. Once a model ends up there that's it. All i need do is add some antennae, paint a couple of nav lights and that will be it fully finished. 

 

 

Jeff

 

What at a lovely pair of Brits  It's such a shame to leave 'CC unfinished when she's so close.  Go on, do it!  You know you want to.

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Jeff

 

Lovely well finished Brit & I agree about Mr Balch book some fabulous photos  within its pages.  You've done another fine job on this model.  Thanks for the Back story too.

 

Thanks for sharing

 

Eamonn

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1 minute ago, keefr22 said:

 

Resistance is futile....:tease:

 

K

 

No it's not Keith !

 

I've spent the last couple of months coming to the sad realisation that buying models is by far the easiest part of the hobby !

 

Building and painting them used to be the hardest part, but when you start having difficulty in storing them, then you know you're on the edge of..............stamp-collecting ?! :P

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Superb build of this classic.

Very interesting backstory too.

 

I plan to start my Britannias once the Roden African Safari version arrives at my local hobby shop...

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