Not the Ark Royal you were expecting

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

Hello peops.  It’s been a while.  Been busy at work, yes, but I have also suffered a major Mojo Failure since about Christmas.  Of all the things I could have been building, it was the Lynx(es) wot did me in; I just cannot get myself going - and it’s been going on for so long that I need to do something else, so onto the shelf of doom they go.  

 

The shelf is getting a tad crowded, too - what with a Ton, Dido, Ark Royal 1988, Walrus, Seafire 47 and Seafang sitting there in various stages of semi-completion. [Just thought I’d say that before anyone else dropped it into the conversation].

 

Several of those are awaiting paint, and since my current job means living in a London flat during the week, and 90% of my free / modelling time for the foreseeable future is on weekday evenings, painting is definitely out.  That leaves the Seaking and Ark 5, and both of those are not in a state to carry up and down to & from London on the train.  It needs to be small / portable, engrossing and time consuming - and a bit different.

 

But I’m here, aren’t I, so you’ll have guessed that something has got my juices going again.  The something was reading David Hobbs’ “The Royal Navy’s [sic] Air Service in the Great War”, published in 2017.  I knew some of the highlights, I guess - Dunning’s deck landing, the Tondern Raid, Naval 8 over the Western Front, Warneford & Bell-Davis with their VCs, etc. - but this book really opened my eyes.  It’s easy to get sucked into thinking that WW1 was just the Western Front, with a dash of Jutland, Dardanelles & the occasional airship thrown in - but there was so much more, and so much of it instantly recognisable as the Fleet Air Arm that I love; slightly maverick / improvised / piratical, a bit mad, but innovative, effective, brave... just brilliant; these guys were totally making it up as they went along, and without them Naval aviation might have gone down very different paths.  I cannot recommend this book strongly enough.

 

Yes, yes, but what about the model?  I have in my stash the Merit 1/350 Ark Royal 3 (1941), and the Atlantic Models 1/700 Ark Royal 4 (1978), as well as my own Ark Royal 5 (1988), heavily converted from the Airfix 1/350 Illustrious.  [There is even apparently a kit available of Ark Royal 1 (1588)...]

 

But all this talk of the RNAS will tell you that I am going for Ark Royal 2 (c.1917), using the AJM Models 1/700 kit that I stumbled on while looking something up about RNAS operations in the Dardanelles.  

 

This is the ship: 

[Edit: on further reflection I suspect this is her in her Pegasus guise; different rig aft, altered cranes and I think the large flat thing forward is the catapult... but you get the general drift]

 

...and this is the kit:

 

It’s certainly small (note the Swann-Morton scalpel at bottom for scale), but it looks a really nice kit - though I am not sure how much I am  looking forward to building a 1/700 Shorts 184 made up from 17 tiny pieces of resin and 24 even tinier pieces of PE!  [Mind you, it’s got a Sopwith Schneider and a Sopwith Baby that are even tinier...]

 

A quick question for @Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies [since my knowledge of WW1 colours is almost nil]; what colour hull, operating in the Med & Gulf in c.1917?

 

Anyway.  I’m back with more madness.

 

More soon.

 

Crisp

Edited May 29, 2019 by Ex-FAAWAFU

[Courageous]

Welcome back Crisp. This looks rather interesting and away from the norm. At your own speed, crack on sir.

 

Stuart

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

To our eyes she looks like an ancient relic, but I want to avoid falling into the “wheezing old banger” trap; in her day, this ship was absolutely cutting edge, and her relative lack of success was not so much to do with her design, but more because of the extreme limitations of the aircraft of the time (which were also cutting edge, but lacked power and were decidedly fragile for operations in anything but a flat calm), coupled with contemporary views of what aircraft were really for.

 

The Admiralty had conducted experiments with operating aircraft with the fleet in 1913, using the converted cruiser HMS Hermes [a protected cruiser from the 1890s - thus somewhat randomly associating the name ‘Hermes’ with Naval aviation, leading to 2 carriers of the same name later on].  These trials were successful enough for them to allocate funds to acquire a dedicated ship to advance embryonic Naval aviation a stage further.  They therefore acquired a ship “in frames” (i.e. still at an early enough stage for a major redesign); the hull was thus essentially a tramp steamer (proven sea keeping qualities).  

 

She was built in Blyth, and commissioned on 10 December 1914 (almost exactly 45 years before I was born, which rather makes you think; psychologically, WW1 feels as though it should be much more distant than that!).  Quite why they resurrected a name last used 350 years before in the era of the Spanish Armada is unknown, but as we all know there have been 3 more carriers of the name since.

 

The redesign consisted of moving the boilers and machinery spaces as far aft as possible (instead of midships, as in a conventional merchantman of the time), and adding a large hold for aircraft, extensive workshops, two 3 ton steam cranes and a flat deck forward on which to prepare aircraft.  The flat deck at the bow was never designed as a “flying-off deck” for wheeled aircraft (see below) - she did sometimes carry wheeled aircraft, but operated as a depot ship, unloading them to airfields ashore via lighter.  Wikipedia says that the hold was big enough for 5 seaplanes (or “hydro-aeroplanes”, to use the terminology of the time) and between 2 & 4 wheeled aircraft.  She operated a bewildering array of types - Sopwith “Folder” [aka 860], Shorts 166 & 184, Sopwith Schneider & Baby, Wight “Pusher” [“Improved Navyplane Type A2”] and others; in the long run the most successful of these were the Shorts 184 and Sopwith Baby (itself a development of the Schneider).  The kit, incidentally, makes an admirable attempt to reflect this array, having a Sopwith 860, Schneider, & Baby, Shorts 166, Shorts 184, and Wight Pusher.

 

Being a merchant design, her range was good, but her top speed (c. 11 kts) was nothing like enough for her to operate with the Grand Fleet (nor to generate a decent windspeed over the foredeck, which was otherwise easily long enough for landplanes to take off from it).  She was therefore never really going to test the dream of integrating air assets with the fleet, because she had to stop to launch seaplanes and then had nothing like the speed to catch up with the fleet again [indeed she would waste the destroyers needed to protect her while stopped].  As things developed, the Admiralty acquired faster ships for that purpose - such as the channel steamers Engadine & Empress and the Isle of Man steamship Ben-My-Chree, all capable of 20 kts+, and then the Cunard liner Campania, before Argus, Eagle etc appeared (plus the assorted early versions of Furious).

 

However, when she was acquired this (direct fleet support) wasn’t seen as the priority, and the earliest aircraft struggled to operate in the North Sea anyway - either it was calm and they lacked the power to get airborne with a reasonable payload, or there was enough wind but they damaged floats, propellors or both in the swell.  And of course landplanes were one-shot jobs that ditched at the end of the sortie (CAM-ship style) unless they were lucky enough to have sufficient fuel to make land - which was rare, since most RN North Sea ops were right across near Denmark.  Dunning’s landing on Furious was an attempt to address that, but his death trying it for the 3rd time meant that routine deck landing was a post-WW1 thing.

 

It’s also worth bearing in mind that in 1914 aircraft were seen as useful only for reconnaissance and for spotting fall of shot for big guns - with some justification at that stage, since payloads were minimal.   [Google “Rutland of Jutland” to see how tantalisingly close a Shorts 184 operating from Engadine came to a significant impact on the battle of Jutland.  The remains of Rutland’s 184, badly damaged during WW2, are in the FAA Museum].  Even as late as 1917, you’d only launch a proper landplane fighter (e.g. a Camel from a lighter towed behind a destroyer) in extremis - like, to shoot down a shadowing Zeppelin... and even then it was a pretty dicey business (especially for the poor pilot).  

 

So we’re talking almost entirely seaplanes, and the limitations of Ark Royal which seem blindingly obvious to us were far from clear at the time.  She was a seaplane carrier, pure and simple, and as such a pretty successful one given the constraints of the time.

 

And she had a useful career, notably in the Eastern Med and Dardanelles; she was the depot ship for 2 Wing RNAS, mostly at Mudros, for most of 1916-1918.  I will be depicting her during this period, probably as in 1918 when her aircraft were involved in the so-called Battle of Imbros against the German battlecruiser Goeben & light cruiser Breslau (operating under Turkish names, but still crewed by Germans).

 

[After the war she spent 2 years operating in the Black Sea during the Russian Civil War, then came home and went into reserve in 1920.  She was then recommissioned in 1922 in support of Argus, ferrying Bristol Fighters and operating Fairey IIIDs.  In reserve again from 1924 to 1930, when she acquired a large modern catapult on the fo’c’s’le and emerged as a catapult training ship, in which guise she served throughout WW2.   She was renamed HMS Pegasus in 1934 to free up the name for Ark Royal 3, and finally scrapped in 1950.]

 

[The really eagle-eyed might have spotted from my signature block that I have also acquired a 1/700 kit of HMS Engadine...]

Edited May 28, 2019 by Ex-FAAWAFU

[varifleman]

I second your recommendation of Hobb's book which I've just acquired; lots of good photos and information about the HMS Ark Royal and other seaplane carriers. I also have the AJM 1/700 HMS Ark Royal and HMS Engadine kits and will watch your progress on the two kits with great interest so I can get some hints when I start both kits. Keep up the good work!

[Terry1954]

Welcome back indeed. I've had a minor touch of mojo loss this year myself, what with one thing or other, but having recently fully retired, its coming back in spades!

 

What a fascinating subject, and a very interesting read on the subject (as ever). 1/700 is a scale I like very much, but very challenging to get things looking "just right". There is definitely a knack though. That looks like a stack of etch in that bag. I reckon this will be a good'n to follow!

 

Good luck

 

Terry

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

Small beginnings; hull sanded to remove (minimal) casting block (no photos!)

 

Bridge / wheelhouse (PE bulkheads & deck, with resin deck on top) built, thus:

 

 

Tiny gap to be filled, but so far so good.  Nice PE, by the way.  Nice resin, too, for that matter - though it’s hard to tell from this over-exposed iPhone macro, the deck engraving etc. is very nicely done.

 

More soon

 

Crisp

 

 

Edited May 28, 2019 by Ex-FAAWAFU

[Bugle07]

Good to have you back Crisp, thus should be a very interesting build! I don't envy you the rigging...

 

I think the FAA museum has a model of her, late 1917 possibly? Some really good photos of that model are here

 

https://dawlishchronicles.com/2019/01/04/in-the-dawn-of-naval-aviation-hms-ark-royal-and-hms-argus/

 

Can't vouch for the paint scheme but it's a start? Also Ark is detailed in the Osprey book WW1 Aircraft Carriers and Seaplane tenders, full cut away image of her.

 

Hope some of that help?

 

Geoff 

[Courageous]

Looks rather delicate Crisp, something for scale.

As for the macro function on phones, I tend to take the pic, then crop in.

 

Stuart

[TheBaron]

Great to see you back in play Crisp.

Splendid historical briefing to set the scene.

Pulling up a deck chair for the duration and promise not to make any bad puns about 'Love Me Tender'. Oops...

[Massimo]

On 27/05/2019 at 16:40, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

Been busy at work, yes, but I have also suffered a major Mojo Failure since about Christmas. 

...I know the feeling!!!

Interesting subject and it Looks like a beautiful kit!!!

I'll be watching with interest!!!

Ciao

Massimo

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

9 hours ago, Bugle07 said:

Good to have you back Crisp, thus should be a very interesting build! I don't envy you the rigging...

 

I think the FAA museum has a model of her, late 1917 possibly? Some really good photos of that model are here

 

https://dawlishchronicles.com/2019/01/04/in-the-dawn-of-naval-aviation-hms-ark-royal-and-hms-argus/

 

Can't vouch for the paint scheme but it's a start? Also Ark is detailed in the Osprey book WW1 Aircraft Carriers and Seaplane tenders, full cut away image of her.

 

Hope some of that help?

 

Geoff 

Thanks, Geoff - I’m going to the Museum in a few weeks, so a bunch of detail photos of that model seem indicated!  That looks almost white (which seems pretty unlikely). 

 

The aforementioned Hobbs book has some plans of Ark, though I need to copy them and blow them up a bit to read them better.  But Osprey books aren’t expensive, generally, and you cannot have too many references.

[perdu]

A fascinating time in aviation

Who should we get to model it?

I know, send for Crisp

 

I don't understand the early times of Naviation but I love learning about it

 

I'm at the bar, gizza nod when you need a small tot

[Chewbacca]

Welcome back Crisp.  We all go through those spots and come out the other side. 

 

I was given that book for my birthday a couple of months ago but haven't read it yet - that's a summer holiday read methinks.

 

I look forward to following this.  It's a period of FAA history about which I know very little other than the more famous bits like Dunning, Rutland and Warneford VC.

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

Chewy, the book was a real eye-opener; I was like you, in that I knew the ‘highlights’, but what those guys achieved with the technology of the day was extraordinary.  Some stunning photos, too.

 

I enjoyed it so much that I have immediately moved onto Hobbs’ follow-on volume about the inter-War period [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dawn-Carrier-Strike-World-Lieutenant/dp/1473879922/ref=sr_1_8?crid=39V76JQ1UTMHM&keywords=david+hobbs&qid=1559472145&s=gateway&sprefix=David+hobbs%2Caps%2C296&sr=8-8]

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

Hi Crispin,

 

I decided to pull the proverbial finger out and finish the WWI stuff.

 

The overall 1-pager for the Royal Navy is now in portrait and quite hard to read, so I split it:

 

 

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

Fantastic, Jamie!  Were WW1 camouflage schemes “official” colours, or improvised?

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

1 hour ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

Fantastic, Jamie!  Were WW1 camouflage schemes “official” colours, or improvised?

 

I imagine you've probably seen this before:

 

My understanding is that the allied navies mostly shared this, but I am not (at least yet) aware of an industrialised means of producing these shades at least for British use. I did read an account covering the idea of naturalist camouflage but the guy who came up with it wrote a letter to the Admiralty describing blended shades and how the concept would work, then he was staggered to find out that the Admiralty had merely sent his vague/conceptual letter out to the fleet as an instruction. I read that various ships turned up separately for an engagement of some sort and in the chaos of improvised camouflage and colours all round, the British officers had not a clue who was even friend or foe let alone which individual ships they were supposed to be formed up with. I understand this melee of improvised camouflage was undone by retraction of said order sharpish, and the guy who invented it remarked something along the lines of "I didn't think you'd just issue it like that!".

 

The original Colourcoats GWxx range is based on the above though.

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

Blimey!  No, I hadn’t seen that - at least, not in full; the drawings I have seen, but not I think the boxes at the bottom of the page.

 

To be honest, it looks as though picking camouflage colours by eye will be good enough...  [This all assumes that I decide to build Engadine in her late-war guise; at Jutland she seems to have been grey, but by 1918 she was camouflaged...]

 

P.S. thanks; you have been a huge help

Edited June 3, 2019 by Ex-FAAWAFU

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

There is progress, worry not - but as those of you who work in 1/700 regularly already know (I am normally a 1/350 man) this stuff is SMALL.  I find that I can only work for a couple of hours, tops, before my concentration starts to wander and/or my eyes start working in two watches.

 

Anyway... not much to look at yet, but this is the beginnings of one of the two steam cranes (this time with a scalpel so you can judge scale better). I have given the whole PE sheet a light coat of primer (helps me to see the finer pieces, to be honest - even with an optivisor!), and you can see the mixture of resin & brass.  The initial good impressions of the kit are being borne out; it’s a nice piece of work.  But to give you a clue about the level of fiddle-y-dom (a technical term), that dot visible to the right of the chimney of the resin boiler piece front and centre... that’s a part...

 

I’m having fun, but I’m also deliberately taking my time - trying to crack on before some of these tiny pieces are cured properly is, for instance, a recipe for disaster.

 

While waiting for Gator’s Grip to do its thing, I have been experimenting elsewhere. 

 

Different scale (1/350), different war, but a common theme which no doubt you clever people will get immediately. [Jamie certainly will, because he sold me the PE set that I am testing in this photo!]. That brass strip on the right will eventually be the interior of the semi-folded aircraft on the left; it has a seat on it, and in due course will have a second.

 

Working tomorrow night, but more soon

 

Crisp

 

 

Edited June 4, 2019 by Ex-FAAWAFU

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

Ooh a Fulmar

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

37 minutes ago, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

Ooh a Fulmar

Indeed.  Merit combined with Tetra.

[Terry1954]

Looking at that Fulmar, I assume there is a clear canopy involved? You could detail the cockpit if that's the case ............... 🤨

 

Great work on those steam cranes. I love this small scale stuff.

 

Terry

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

1 minute ago, Terry1954 said:

Looking at that Fulmar, I assume there is a clear canopy involved? You could detail the cockpit if that's the case ............... 🤨

That’s part of the experiment; there is a (really nice) PE canopy involved, to go with the wing fold, undercarriage doors etc.  I’m going to see how feasible is it to use canopy glue / that clear stuff whose name I can never remember (!) to act as “glazing” for the PE frame.  Detailing...?!  Strictly what can be seen!

 

Fairly obviously, this is part of an eventual Ark 3 build - the Merit 1/350 kit, supplemented by the (pretty awesome) Tetra detail up set.   I have 4 Fulmars, & I only need one, so I can play around.  [Plan is to build her turning into wind to launch the fatal Bismarck strike, so I need 15 Swordfish.  Reading again about that action, Ark was actually attacked by German bombers very shortly after Bismarck sank (albeit the day after I will model her) - so I think it’s plausible that they might have had a Fulmar on deck alert even when preparing the Swordfish launch.

 

Mind you, the weather was appalling, so maybe not.]

 

Anyway, that’s all in the future.  Amazing how large a 1/350 Fulmar feels after a couple of hours working on a 1/700 crane!

[Terry1954]

26 minutes ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

that clear stuff whose name I can never remember

Clearfix perhaps or something similar. T'was a tongue in cheek comment, but I reckon that canopy idea might well work.

 

Watching with interest.

 

Terry

[cngaero]

On 5/28/2019 at 1:09 PM, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

She was built in Blyth, and commissioned on 10 December 1914 (almost exactly 45 years before I was born, which rather makes you think; psychologically, WW1 feels as though it should be much more distant than that!).

A great background history and a mention of my home town when I was a kid a mere 41 years later. Our house was at one end of the road and the shipyard at the other.