Landing Mat runway San Carlos

[LaurieS]

Building a diorama of the Falklands.

 

At San Carlos Bay they built a a runway HMS  Shafbill.

 

Can any body, please, point me to pictures of the planks they used and any details etc.

 

Tried for 30 mins to find info. but came to a dead end. Found Masden planks used during the WW11. but that is all.

 

Laurie

 

[TimB]

Laurie,

From this picture, the planking looks like the standard aluminium mats used by the REs for field sites in RAFG.  The planks were corrugated in a nearly square fashion, giving good grip in one direction and none in the other.  

 

Here is a view of the matting at a "field" site (Osnabruck Atter), with a bit more detail visible.

Regards

Tim

[LaurieS]

Thanks Tim. Just what I needed. How I replicate in 1/48 will be interesting.

 

Thanks for your time much appreciated.

 

Laurie

[spruecutter96]

Hello, Laurie.

 

I know this is a very obvious question, but have you tried Hannants? Flightpath UK do some 1/48th scale Marsden matting and Eduard probably do something similar. Alternatively, there is an A4 sheet produced by Evergreen (I think) which looks quite a bit like the photograph. If you're ever in London 4D Models in Leman Street (near Aldgate East Tube) sell them, but I don't think they do Mail Order.

 

Cheers.

 

Chris.

[LaurieS]

Thanks Chris.  Found a number of outlets for the Marston matting. Unfortunately, it looks so much different

to the one in San Carlos. R B Productions also produce Marston.

 

I will have a go at the Evergreen.

 

Thanks for your time very kind of you. Matter of interest I did some architectural work in Leaman St. in the late 50ties

or early 60ties. It was for the company who supplied M & S clothing at that time. By coincidence came to Jersey and

designed their outlet in the island.

 

Laurie

[pdsvidioman]

Hi,

Noy's Miniatures,  Code Number:, NM72038 £4.40 printed on cardstock is available at the big H ( Other retailers are available). Paul

 

( Not exactly the same I know)

Edited August 30, 2018 by pdsvidioman

[LaurieS]

Hi

 

Thanks for your info and an introduction to Noy's miniatures.

 

Unfortunatly, code is for Maston planks which were used in WW11. 

Those used in the Falklands were different type which is making

it difficult to replicate.

 

Many thanks again.

 

Laurie

 

 

[LotusArenco]

I had a go a while back at making a San Carlos diorama in 1/72 incorporating a Harrier GR3 (XZ989) in trouble. I was going to try to replicate the matting using lots of plastic strip glued together to form the  _ -_-_-_-_ shape of the individual decking mats, but gave up on the idea and cheated by just modelling the general grassland. It may be easier to scratchbuild using plastic strip in a larger scale?

 

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235015132-italeriesci-harrier-gr3-172/

 

Mart

Edited September 2, 2018 by LotusArenco

[LaurieS]

49 minutes ago, LotusArenco said:

I had a go a while back at making a San Carlos diorama in 1/72 incorporating a Harrier GR3 (XZ989) in trouble. I was going to try to replicate the matting using lots of plastic strip glued together to form the  _ -_-_-_-_ shape of the individual decking mats, but gave up on the idea and cheated by just modelling the general grassland. It may be easier to scratchbuild using plastic strip in a larger scale?

 

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235015132-italeriesci-harrier-gr3-172/

 

Mart

Thanks Mart. Struggled with this on and gone through various possible solutions which I have ditched.

 

The diorama is 8feet long and has a runway one end. I wanted the Maston type but upgraded to the 1980's.

There will be about 15 models, Lynx, Wessex HU5 & Has3, Seaking, Chinook, Harrier Shar, 2 Landrovers,

Scorpion, Scimitar, Captured Huey. : Argentinian : Dagger, Mirage, Entendard, Sky Hawk & Canbera..

 

On top of that 1/72 the larger aircraft used which to compensate for scale will be hung over the diorama.

Thanks for your thoughts. Very much appreciated. Reasonably authentic or if not just the grassed area                                                                                                                                                                             

Laurie

[Parabat]

Found this image (there are more) by typing in 'san carlos fob psp runway', that does look a bit like the Noys Miniatures Maston planking.

[Parabat]

And from an article on 'Think Defence' about the capability of the F-35, thinking of Falklands and Belize with Harriers ( https://thinkdefence.wordpress.com/author/thinkdefence/page/134/ )

The following - 

Seems there is some lacking of knowledge?

[Greg B]

It’s not Marston matting, it’s PSA (Prefabricated Surfacing Aluminium) which is very different, Marston has big holes in it, PSA has square corrugations. As can be seen, pieces are also, colour coded on the tips for their position in the build.

 

It’s laid diagonally for runway’s in order to prevent bow waving from the aircraft, where the slack in the mats could be taken up as a heavy aircraft moves forward. Pans are the normal parallel laid sections as per the photo, and taxiways for Harriers were normally about four planks wide for the main gear and gaps before a couple of planks were laid for the outriggers. I have a Pam somewhere electronically with the pattern, used to kick tin with an ADR Sqn and one of my mates was on the San Carlos job as a young sapper so we may be able to confirm what was used. However l’m pretty sure that most of the AM2 went on the Atlantic Conveyor and there was then a massive flap trying to get all the PSA they could from all the different ships it had been squirrelled away on.

[LaurieS]

Thanks all fantastic lot of information there and very interesting.

 

The sad fact is that the options are just near nil. The only one found so far which is near is https://www.hannants.co.uk/product/NM48038.

 

On 30/08/2018 at 12:34, pdsvidioman said:

Hi,

Noy's Miniatures,  Code Number:, NM72038 £4.40 printed on cardstock is available at the big H ( Other retailers are available). Paul

 

( Not exactly the same I know)

Thanks pdsvidioman. Apologies I rejected your suggestion thinking it was the old Maston WW11 system which it is not. It looks, although

not the same it appears, close to the real thing.

 

Laurie

 

 

[Greg B]

Here you go for a basic set of panels:

 

 

[Parabat]

Definitive answer! 😃

[LaurieS]

40 minutes ago, Parabat said:

Definitive answer! 😃

Not quite! Where do you get them in 1/48 scale ? 😜

 

Thanks for the info.

Laurie

[Parabat]

18 minutes ago, LaurieS said:

Not quite! Where do you get them in 1/48 scale ? 😜

 

Thanks for the info.

Laurie

Evergreen does some corrugated (straight edge corrugation) in sheet form, I will take pics later when I get back to my kit and you can see what I mean. Might just do the trick.