Catalina Mk I, 209 Sq. RAF , May 1941, Airfix conv.

[JWM]

Hi,

As a kind of "by product" of my latest build of PBN-1 Nomad I took out from my shelves very old model of Catalina Mk I, which I did some 45 years ago (!) as one of my very early scratch conversion using Airfix PBY-5A model...This was done as machine from 209 Squadron, WQ-Z, the one which spotted Bismarck on 26 May 1941.

 

So I restored it. I was not able to correct all flaws of my old build and of Airfix Catalina itself, but I have modified main canopy adding glasses, made smaller side windows, replaced blisters by those provided by Squadron (vacu), I added self made resin copies of beach wheels by Academy, add details of retractable side floats mechanism, sanded down a bit rivets etc ...

Now she looks this way:

 

And together with Nomad (Broplan conversion of Academy kit)

 

For comparison a photo of my original build (unfortunatelly when I already started to work on) 

 

The 45 years ago I followed the profile presented in book "Bombers 1939-1945" issued by Blandford  ( https://www.abebooks.co.uk/book-search/title/bombers-1939-45-patrol-and-transport-aircraft/author/kenneth-munson/ ). The serial presented there was W8406 and now it is known that should be AH 545 

 

 

Comments welcome

Regards

Jerzy-Wojtek

 

 

 

 

 

[JWM]

I apologize, I asked Administrator already to shift this to RFI section, sorry for mistake...

Regards

J-W

P.S. from 22. June

Thanks to Administrator to move it to RFI. My non-proper positioning of this thread was to Work in Progress section

Edited June 22, 2019 by JWM

[HOUSTON]

BEAUTIFUL model..

Superb.

Lovely work...

 

[mahavelona]

Great job on the old Airfix Catalina. She really is a beast of a kit.

[bryanm]

Great stuff - a real nostalgia blast......as a small boy, I remember being intrigued by the opening blisters on the Arifix kit.  It has scrubbed up very well!

 

Thanks for the serial info.  I've re-checked the decals on my Revell 1/48 PBY-5 and the RAF option is for WO-Z, W8406!  The serial will have to be changed if I do eventually build it as WO-Z, but the new Aviaeology sheet is very tempting.

 

 

[JWM]

2 hours ago, bryanm said:

Great stuff - a real nostalgia blast......as a small boy, I remember being intrigued by the opening blisters on the Arifix kit.  It has scrubbed up very well!

 

Thanks for the serial info.  I've re-checked the decals on my Revell 1/48 PBY-5 and the RAF option is for WO-Z, W8406!  The serial will have to be changed if I do eventually build it as WO-Z, but the new Aviaeology sheet is very tempting.

 

 

Thank you. Me, as a low-number-teenager building Catalina for the first time was also fascinated with all movable parts including blisters and side floats. Now I was trying to unify a bit look of that Catalina with Nomad converted from Academy kit and therefore I decided for use Squadron blisters. But I think that in fact the Airfix shape of blisters is maybe more proper then almost hemispherical ones by Academy and Squadron. Few days ago I've seen above my house in Krakow the Catalina from Duxford (which came for an airshow) and her blisters are much slimmer than that of Academy kit...

 

BTW - not WO-Z but WQ-Z

Cheers

J-W

[bryanm]

Thanks - another thing on the Revell decals that needs to be changed!