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Mark's Supermarine Stranraer/s


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Hi all,

 

Here's my place holder for the GB. I'll be doing the Matchbox or Revell 1/72 Supermarine Stranraer. As I mentioned previously I've got both versions......well nearly, so as they say 'pick the bones out of that!' which is what I'll have to do!:

 

and to quote Wikipedia:

 

"The Supermarine Stranraer was a 1930s flying boat designed and built by the British Supermarine Aviation Works company principally for the Royal Air Force. It entered operations in 1937 and many were in service at the outbreak of the Second World War undertaking anti-submarine and convoy escort patrols."

 

46048791441_fc1a9947e3_b.jpg

 

The only work completed so far is to replicate (vac form) the lower wings from one kit (Revell) to enable me to build the second (Matchbox) kit:

 

44232931830_5227701abc_b.jpg

 

So the question is will I do one or two examples of the 'whistling Sh!£house'

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

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Welcome Mark!

 

To quote a glorious GB 'extremo' Enzo "build 'em all!' thought I will leave it to your better judgement as to what you do.

 

I myself have around 10 kits I could build for this group build, but sanity should prevail and I hope to get one or maybe 2 finished

 

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Great choice Mark

 

I have a long stalled Matchbox one which you have now reminded me about !

 

If you are making both you can build the silver one and the camouflage one....result :yahoo:

 

Very impressed with the vacforming skills

 

Cheers Pat

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38 minutes ago, Colin W said:

Always on my wish list as a kid but I only recall seeing 1 finished. 

Is the one in the Battle of Britain museum still there? 

Colin 

There's still an example in the RAF museum in Hendon, I had a look not long ago but building the Stranraer wasn't on my radar at the time so I may have to pay another visit for some more detailed piccies.

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I've just had a lunchtime revisit to @Vulcanicity dual Stranraer / Heyford build thread and there is some really top notch stuff in there, I hope its considered too impolite to borrow some of the detailing ideas and modifications.

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Mark, on the contrary, please do! Feel free to message me with any questions or if you need any extra reference material! I have both the Jul 1979 Scale Models and the April 2001 Aeroplane which might help, as well as fair few photos and notes from the AP at the National Archives.

 

Great work on replicating those wings - the vacforming has really captured the texture pretty well :)

 

Not wanting to dictate your build (!), but here are a few things I tackled early on, in case you're concerned about correcting them:

 

Removal of the large freight door and replicating the missing window to starboard (plus recess for starboard sliding cockpit window)

Cutting the bomb recesses in the lower wings

Cutting the landing light in lower port wing

Correcting a couple of panel lines (if you're scribing)

 

Good luck, and happy Stranraer-ing! Here's some inspiration, straight out of the 1936 Marine Aircraft Experimental Establishment testing report:

 

46009401552_9d6aa91174_b.jpg

 

 

 

 

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13 minutes ago, Vulcanicity said:

Mark, on the contrary, please do! Feel free to message me with any questions or if you need any extra reference material! I have both the Jul 1979 Scale Models and the April 2001 Aeroplane which might help, as well as fair few photos and notes from the AP at the National Archives.

 

Great work on replicating those wings - the vacforming has really captured the texture pretty well :)

 

Not wanting to dictate your build (!), but here are a few things I tackled early on, in case you're concerned about correcting them:

 

Removal of the large freight door and replicating the missing window to starboard (plus recess for starboard sliding cockpit window)

Cutting the bomb recesses in the lower wings

Cutting the landing light in lower port wing

Correcting a couple of panel lines (if you're scribing)

 

Good luck, and happy Stranraer-ing! Here's some inspiration, straight out of the 1936 Marine Aircraft Experimental Establishment testing report:

That's very good of you, thanks I may well take you up on that.

The cargo door had already been pointed out to me as a post service addition and I had just noticed the fairly substantial holes in the lower wings today when pouring over reference on the internet so lots of extra stuff to fit in to the GB, especially if I tackle a couple of them.

BTW that is a lovely portrait of the Stranraer.

Cheers,

Mark.

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2 hours ago, Vulcanicity said:

Mark, on the contrary, please do! Feel free to message me with any questions or if you need any extra reference material! I have both the Jul 1979 Scale Models and the April 2001 Aeroplane which might help, as well as fair few photos and notes from the AP at the National Archives.

 

Great work on replicating those wings - the vacforming has really captured the texture pretty well :)

 

Not wanting to dictate your build (!), but here are a few things I tackled early on, in case you're concerned about correcting them:

 

Removal of the large freight door and replicating the missing window to starboard (plus recess for starboard sliding cockpit window)

Cutting the bomb recesses in the lower wings

Cutting the landing light in lower port wing

Correcting a couple of panel lines (if you're scribing)

 

This could be interesting for others, like me for instance. I've herard something that is wrong with starboard door - why they have to removed? This Canadian Strarear https://www.airliners.net/photo/Canada-Air-Force/Supermarine-Stranraer/715982

has some large doors on starboard. So when exactly one should remove them if you know it?

Regards

J-W

 

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35 minutes ago, JWM said:

This could be interesting for others, like me for instance. I've herard something that is wrong with starboard door - why they have to removed? This Canadian Strarear https://www.airliners.net/photo/Canada-Air-Force/Supermarine-Stranraer/715982

has some large doors on starboard. So when exactly one should remove them if you know it?

Regards

J-W

 

The truth be told I would have taken the Stranraer displayed at Hendon at face value but as with a lot of museum aircraft they quite often proport to be something other than they are. In this instance, I believe the aircraft is one that was used in commercial service and had a larger cargo/freight door added. @Robert Stuart brought my attention to the fact in the GB chat thread which included an illustrative couple of images, very useful! and of course I'm very lucky to be able to refer to other builds and in particular as I mentioned earlier @Vulcanicity's excellent build thread is addressing a lot of the issues with the Matchbox/Revell kit, which BTW its still an excellent kit that I've been looking forward to building for some time.

Cheers,

Mark.

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As others have said, the large hinged cargo door was cut out at some point during the civilian career of the Canadian Vickers-built, ex-RCAF Stranraers. The new door occupied the area on the starboard side of the hull previously taken up by the smaller lozenge-shaped access door, and the fixed rectangular window forward of it - the previous configuration seen on all military Stranraers (although I have seen photos appearing to show the fixed window forward of the door overpainted in camouflaged aircraft). The conversion also required the removal of the recessed area immediately behind the side of the canopy on the co-pilot's side - this recess was designed so that the side panel of the canopy could be slid back for fresh air - presumably on Stranraers with the freight door, the co-pilot's side window could not be opened.

 

Note that the original access door (complete with its own rectangular window) was retained, and set back into the larger freight door such that it occupied its original position in the hull. Indeed, the "freight door" comprised chiefly a rectangular extension of this door forward, with an extra set of hinges. Aircraft with the freight door can still be recognised by two pairs of raised door hinges on the starboard side, plus the lack of the window forward of the inset small door, and the lack of the canopy sliding recess above.

 

This is the configuration in which survivor 920/CF-BXO is seen in the RAF Museum. Matchbox copied this very faithfully, presumably without realising the modification wasn't appropriate to the military schemes modelled!

 

However, like the Wright Cyclone installation also seen on Canadian civil machines, the door mod wasn't an immediate conversion when the aircraft were "civilianised". Photos do exist of Canadian civilian aircraft just post-war with the old door and Pegasus cowlings. The best I have found is this one of 920/CF-BXO presumably in 1945-6 or thereabouts. With the small access door opened, the place where the extra hinges would be is obscured, but note the forward most window (visible through the window on the opened access door), and the rails for the sliding canopy section:

 

http://progress-is-fine.blogspot.com/2017/10/supermarine-stanraer.html

 

Now compare this image of 920/CF-BXO at Hendon:

 

https://www.airliners.net/photo/Canada-Air-Force/Supermarine-Stranraer/715982

 

Now you may or may not want to change this - it's a bit fiddly! I managed to grind off the raised freight door, reducing the raised section to a narrow rim around the small door, cut a new square window and reinstate the recess by cutting out the area and adding a slightly sunk piece of strip plasticard.

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dogsbody those are stunning images which I hadn't seen - thanks for the heads-up! Good quality period photos of Stranraers are hard to come by...

They also add weight to another theory that I have - that there were two subtly different Pegasus cowling designs on the RAF and RCAF machines - differing in the width of the frontal opening... (see last photo for an aircraft that seems to have one of each fitted!

Also, the last image is the first cast-iron confirmation that I've seen that the large  wing bomb cell definitely housed a Small Bomb Carrier.

Edited by Vulcanicity
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6 hours ago, Vulcanicity said:

dogsbody those are stunning images which I hadn't seen - thanks for the heads-up! Good quality period photos of Stranraers are hard to come by...

They also add weight to another theory that I have - that there were two subtly different Pegasus cowling designs on the RAF and RCAF machines - differing in the width of the frontal opening... (see last photo for an aircraft that seems to have one of each fitted!

Also, the last image is the first cast-iron confirmation that I've seen that the large  wing bomb cell definitely housed a Small Bomb Carrier.

 

Whoa! Good eye there, Vulcan. I never even noticed the difference in the collector ring diameter.

 

 

Chris

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11 hours ago, Vulcanicity said:

that there were two subtly different Pegasus cowling designs on the RAF and RCAF machines

Hmmm - IIRC, some Stranraers were re-engined with Wright engines.

 

Checking:

British production - Bristol Pegasus X

Canadian Production - Bristol Pegasus XXII, later converted to Pegasus X and Wright Cyclones

Source: The Supermarine Walrus & Stranraer, Knightly, J and Wallsgrove, R Mushroom Model Publications, p38

 

I believe the Wright engined conversions were given Hudson cowles, and that the changes were made in civilian service.

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9 hours ago, Robert Stuart said:

Hmmm - IIRC, some Stranraers were re-engined with Wright engines.

 

Checking:

British production - Bristol Pegasus X

Canadian Production - Bristol Pegasus XXII, later converted to Pegasus X and Wright Cyclones

Source: The Supermarine Walrus & Stranraer, Knightly, J and Wallsgrove, R Mushroom Model Publications, p38

 

I believe the Wright engined conversions were given Hudson cowles, and that the changes were made in civilian service.

True, but both engines in this picture are Pegasus engines. Check the prop rotation.

 

46118001791_0dd47ccb8f_b.jpg

 

 

 

Chris

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Yes those are definitely both Pegasus - the Cyclone installation didn't occur until around 1949-1950 on surviving Stranraers in Canadian civil service.

That makes at least four cowling designs in total, as prototype K3973 sported narrow-chord cowlings with cylinder head bulges at one point!

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I’ve just noticed that the RAFM example has a ladder fixed to the forward port engine nacelle whereas it doesn’t show on the ‘period’ photos.  Another postwar mod.?

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Afternoon Chaps,

 

I have made a small start with the Stranraer. As per all the great reference already supplied to me I have a couple of post service modifications to remove so I can represent a Coastal Command service machine and the first to be dealt with was the Cargo door and change to the Co-pilots window area:

 

45551664304_98565619a3_b.jpg

The Co-pilot's sliding window recess will be created by inserting a blank of plasticard into the area removed by scoring with a scalpel. The raised door detail was removed with an engraving tool that a friend of the family thought I could make better use of than himself and it saved me a lot of time and effort, really useful, its quite low speed so it didn't heat the plastic up too much at all, bloody noisy for a small power tool though! SWAMBO wasn't impressed!

 

45551664474_76d6acfeec_b.jpg

For the fuselage I want to try and represent some of the texture evident in the Hendon example, I love the look of the metal and rivets and even though I intend to do a camouflaged aircraft I hope it'll add some further depth of character to the model. I used some plans to pencil in the rivet lines, it is a bit of a compromise as the model and plans don't quite tie up in regard to the position of windows and other features entirely accurately.

 

45551664864_c32e28c25d_b.jpg

I ran my riveting wheel over the lines and then scraped the spaces out with round scalpel (not uniformly), sanded back and manually re-instated the rivets, a bit time consuming but I like the look. Once one side is complete I can match the lines to the other.

 

With reference to some of the great pictures posted above I am trying to decide what sort of munition load I could include. I do have some left overs from my recent Swordfish build including the bombs and carriers which look like they might be suitable:

 

45551665124_1aa2bb9510_b.jpg

Sprue of Swordfish bombs and carriers which look like the type displayed next to the Hendon Stranraer:

45551970404_4108eb310a_z.jpg

I'm assuming that these would be slung under the wings. I'm unsure what type of munition would be carried in the under wing bomb cells?

I'd be interested to know a bit more about the colours that should be used for service munitions though, yellow seems unlikely.

 

Anyway a start has been made!

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

 

 

 

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Great start Mark - like the rivetting, and good job with that door. Yeah there are a few minor errors in placing of windows, I too chose to ignore these!

 

Here's a photo from the AP suggesting possible bomb loads. The four small bombs in the large recess each side would have been carried on a standard Small Bomb Carrier as per the head on photo above; if you didn't fit any bombs to your Airfix Swordfish then you should have these free (parts 8A and 9A). The Airfix kit also comes with appropriate flares (Part 27D). The bombs Airfix provides are 250-pounders which looks to be what's on display at Hendon in your photo. Oddly the fig below only shows a single bomb of around the 500lb mark, but there were definitely two hardpoints outboard of the recess under each wing, so it's reasonable to assume 4x 250-lb was an option as well!

 

44510453320_7ce03ed289_b.jpg

 

I think yellow was a pretty standard colour for standard GP bombs until about 1942, but specialist antisubmarine bombs might have been different I suppose!

 

@JonnyThe ladders were a standard fit from the beginning, designed for maintenance of the engines and nacelles; when not in use (including in flight) they were stowed in the rear fuselage behind the mid-upper gunner. There were also servicing platforms:

 

46276763382_e7f37652f6_b.jpg

Edited by Vulcanicity
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