Trumpy Wellington Mk III 1/48

[Crimea River]

I've recently pulled this one out of the stash to build but where I'll put it when it's done, Lord knows as it's a big one. I'll worry about that later.

 

The model will depict aircraft s/n X3763 coded KW-L of 425 "Alouette" Squadron RCAF at the time of her crash on the night of 14/15 April 1943. There are several pics of this plane on the available on the net when she was coded "KW-E" but at some point she was reassigned the letter "L" and carried that letter on her fateful night. This is one of the kit decal options.

 

 

On the night of 14/15 April, 1943, 462 aircraft of Bomber Command (146 Wellingtons, 135 Halifaxes, 98 Lancasters, 83 Stirlings) bombed Stuttgart. Of this force, some 30 Halifaxes from 405, 408, and 419 Squadrons were joined by 91 Wellingtons from 420, 424, 425, 426, 427, 428, 429, and 431 Squadrons from the Canadian 6 Group. A total of 23 aircraft (8 Stirlings, 8 Wellingtons, 4 Halifaxes, 3 Lancasters) were lost on this raid, representing 5% of the force. KW-L took off from its base at Dishforth some time after 2107 on April 14 and was among those that did not return as can be seen by the ORB report.

 

 

Aboard the aircraft were 6 crew though the Wellington normally carried 5:

Pilot F/O Joseph Alexander Theodore Doucette, DFC RCAF aged 24.

 

Sgt Albert Jones,RAF aged 19 (listed as pilot in archival documents, possibly on the mission as "second dicky" and the 6th crew member of what would normally be 5. Note that he has no missions credited in the ORB report, suggesting that this was his first mission)

Navigator F/O Joseph Omer Leopold Desroches, DFC, RCAF, aged 24

Observer Sgt Derek Vollans RAF aged 23

Wireless Operator / Air Gunner F/O George Paul Henri Ledoux RCAF aged 27

Air Gunner W/O2 Pierre Paul Trudeau Air Gunner RCAF aged 22

All of the crew perished in the crash and they are buried together at the MUSSEY-SUR-MARNE COMMUNAL CEMETERY in Haute-Marne France.

 

From a modelling perspective, I'd like to represent the aircraft as best as I can how it appeared on its last mission and the ORB lists the bomb load carried on this mission:

 

 

I had asked about this load out in this thread and got some great feedback from the esteemed members here so I now understand what it would look like. Problem is that the kit provides LOTS of ordnance options but none of them include the incendiaries referenced in the ORB so I'll either need to open my wallet and get some resin ones from Belcher Bits or scratch build them. Coin flip coming.....

 

Andy

Edited November 21, 2018 by Crimea River

[Crimea River]

Hmmmm. Picture links don't seem to be showing up.

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Ditto on the links.

[Crimea River]

They showed up when I wrote the thread but not after I posted. I used some of the same links as in the load out post I quoted too.

Edited November 21, 2018 by Crimea River

[Crimea River]

OK this is weird. The below pic links work and they're from the same site.

 

Anyway, I started in the cockpit - surprise, surprise. Oddly, Trumpeter have moulded the pit with dual controls so the first order of business was to lop off the second control column and the floor extension that picks up the right-hand rudder pedals.

 

 

Here we have the modified floor and single control column glued to the section that supports the w/o and navigator's area. The seat for the pilot is quite nice but those for the other two positions aren't quite right. Rather than fuss over those though, I'll leave them be as all that will be seen through the glazing is a fuzzy representation anyway. In the below pic, I have left the slot that supports the instrument panel but more on that later.
 

 

Trumpeter have chosen to mould the entire instrument panel face in clear plastic so that the instrument glass faces can reveal the dials behind them. These are printed on a clear film which is supposed to be pinched between the clear face and another grey part in behind. The latter part contains the tongue that fits into the slot on the cockpit floor mentioned above.

 

 

After realizing that the instruments on the clear film would need the grey part to be painted white to bring out the details, I opted to go down a different path. The main reason for this decision was not having to paint that part white but that the detail provided is not quite correct in that the panel does not extend to the floor. Rather, there was space under the center console and this was taken up by an underslung compass which Trumpeter have ignored. (Note: there's a thread on this site with pics of a Wellington under restoration and these are very useful for my work here.) I therefore opted to discard the grey plastic part and pinched the clear film between the IP face and a new piece of white sheet styrene as seen below.
 

 

Flipping the assembly over reveals a rather unconvincing looking instrument panel. Of course the face still needs to be painted but the disadvantage of the clear panel is that you can't spray the thing black without masking every instrument face. The alternative is to brush-paint the whole thing, taking care not to get paint on the instrument faces. I chose the latter option as I didn't want to fiddle with tiny masks, nor did I want to go out and buy a bottle of liquid mask, something I've never used before.

 

 

Here we have the panel painted Tamiya Rubber Black using a very fine brush and things are looking much better now. I thinned the paint down a fair amount and allowed it to run up to the raised instrument faces. More importantly, you can see that I lopped off the bottom of the console and scratch-built a compass. The discarded grey part can be seen underneath the assembly.
 

 

All of this now means that the IP will need to be glued to one of the fuselage halves rather than to the floor, a small price to pay for a more realistic result in my opinion. As this area will be easily seen through the beautifully clear canopy glazing, I wanted to get it right. This also means that the slot moulded into the floor, shown in the second pic, can be removed.

Thanks for checking in and, as always, comments are welcome.

Edited November 21, 2018 by Crimea River

[Roger Newsome]

That one worked. 👍

[Crimea River]

Yeah, I edited the post to add some more. Links are from the same site so I don't get why they don't work. I'll fiddle some more with the first post.

 

EDIT: No joy. The last pic in the first post now shows because I linked it to my other thread in BM. I can't get the others to show in the post for some reason but if you click on the links the pictures show in a new tab. I give up at this point and will continue to post progress shots as I go. Hopefully they will continue to work.

 

Thanks for your patience.

 

Andy

 

 

Edited November 21, 2018 by Crimea River

[dogsbody]

I still can't see the images in the first post.

 

Good job on that instrument panel.

 

 

Chris

[Mancunian airman]

I have just clicked on both images and YES, I can see them.

I quite like the profile  . . . .

[Crimea River]

Thanks all.

 

8 hours ago, dogsbody said:

I still can't see the images in the first post.

 

Good job on that instrument panel.

 

 

Chris

Yeah I know. I gave up on trying to make them appear. Just click on the link and they show up,

[dogsbody]

16 minutes ago, Crimea River said:

Thanks all.

 

Yeah I know. I gave up on trying to make them appear. Just click on the link and they show up,

 

Actually, they don't for me. I've tried a few things but nothing works. Might just be down to my older system.

 

 

Chris

[Boman]

Please delete 

Edited November 22, 2018 by Boman

[Crimea River]

My plan is to pose the crew hatch open so some detailing will be needed under the cockpit floor and in behind the nose turret. I've gone through this excellent set of pics here and elsewhere on line but have not found much that will help me in this regard. If anyone knows of a picture or two of this area that they can post, please let me know. 

[Mancunian airman]

16 hours ago, dogsbody said:

 

Actually, they don't for me. I've tried a few things but nothing works. Might just be down to my older system.

 

 

Chris

Cant be much older than my 'XP' version ???

Ian

[SandyBay]

All the links and pics are showing up and working on my iPad, someone must have switched the internet off and back on again.

[dogsbody]

I can now see the images in your first post, Andy.

 

 

Chris

[Crimea River]

So can I and I didn't do anything!

[dogsbody]

Ah! The mysteries of the Interweb.

 

 

Chris

[Greg Law]

This is good. I haven't seen a Mk.III built. 

[Mancunian airman]

I would very much like to build the Mk III myself so shall watch with interest.

 

I am rather hoping Airfix will bring out a new mold of the MK III following their success of the Mk.1c

[Crimea River]

Thank-you sir. Proceeding very slowly at this point but hope to update soon.

[Crimea River]

Some progress to share:

The finished instrument panel. The scratched compass has been painted and the landing gear (red) and cowl flap levers were added from stretched sprue. The two oil temperature gauges have been picked out in yellow and the two boost gauges at upper center have received red-brown bezels. A very light dry-brush with silver was then done to complete the panel.

 

 

It's important to me to catch as much detail as is reasonably possible in the cockpit as this area as well as the bomb aimer's position will be clearly seen through the nice glazing included in the kit. On the bulkhead behind the pilot's seat, I fabricated a lattice framework on the centerline to represent what can be seen in detail pics. Fiddly work for sure and not perfect but good enough to suggest that something is there. Also, the engineer gets a headrest made of styrene card. The bulkhead is temporarily held in place with tape for this picture as it needs to be painted separately. The "plate" behind the pilot seat is a bit of a question to me as detail pics of the Cosford restoration seem to show this as a canvas curtain. I'm not sure if this is part of the original aircraft or a tarp used in the restoration but I nonetheless scribed some rough seams to resemble that and will paint it a khaki colour unless someone has knowledge that this should be different. Also missing is what I believe to be a door to the w/o and observer's compartment which I will need to add. (I use as a reference the Eduard PE detail set instructions available on line which are very useful for scratch building detail. The detail set itself would be a great addition but the cost is prohibitive for me.)

 

 

The engine control console and trim wheel assembly next got my attention. Here's how it looks as provided in the kit:

 

 

And here it is after I put my tools down. Throttle and mixture control levers were added using styrene card and the pitch levers are stretched sprue. The knobs on the throttles are sliced stretched sprue. The rudimentary trim wheel was cut away and a new on built up using stryene card, rod, and stretched sprue. I also added the link to the control column and tilted the rudder pedals forward.

 

 

That's all for now. Thanks for looking in.

[dogsbody]

Good stuff, Andy.

 

 

Chris

[Crimea River]

Thanks Chris. Rethinking the trim wheel assembly at this point as it may not be true to the mark.

[Crimea River]

Today I'll start with what I did on the port wall of the cockpit a couple of days ago The "before" pic below shows the rudimentary detail on the kit wall and the after pic shows the detail I added based on the reference photos of the T Mk X at Cosford. If you look closely on the before pic, you can see a scratched line which I use as a reference for the floor location.

 

The cockpit area was painted Tamiya Rubber Black and drybrushed with silver to bring out the detail. Not all of the lines seen in the reference photos have been added but I figured there's plenty there to represent the guts of it. That said, I discovered after the fact again that my Mk III layout was slightly different than the photo references so I'm not really kosher here. Don't tell anyone....

I also decided to continue depicting the "bulkhead" behind the pilot as a khaki coloured fabric and here's what I came up with:

 

In the above pic, you can also see that I added the silver handle attached to the vertical frame which I take to be an emergency hydraulic pump. Various lines have also been added with lead wire and stretched sprue. On the now-painted pilot's position, you can see that I changed the trim box. The elevator trim, which is actually just a series of spokes with no wheel has not been added at this stage and just the rudder trim wheel is shown.

Moving now to the next compartment, I added the door which I cut from sheet styrene using the bulkhead opening as my template. With the door painted and swung to the open position, nothing of the wireless set-up nor the w/o's position will be seen through the cockpit glazing so I'm not going to bother painting all the details here. Had there been a window, I would have done so but I limited myself with just painting the area to roughly simulate the wooden floor and partition wall.
 

 

The other news is that I just used my yet-to-be-received Christmas money from my mother to buy the beautiful, pricey, but discontinued Eduard bomb-bay PE detail set. This detail set costs 3 times as much as I paid for this model though I got a good deal on the kit. Hopefully the detail set will arrive before the holidays but I won't hold my breath as we've had a postal strike here that is backlogging a lot of stuff. There's plenty to do before I get to that point anyway.

Once again, thanks for your interest and support.