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Mr. Vengeance goes to Brazil - 1/72 SH A-35 in FAB markings


Giorgio N

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As proposer of the failed Yanks Abroad GB, I have to build something that I had planned for it ! And there could be a lot of subjects here as among the possible ones were things like a Tunisian F-5, an Indonesian F-16 and a couple of Latin American A-37s.

However when Enzo decided to name this special GB as "They Also Serve", I immediately decided that this would have been the perfect subject !

"They also served" is a definition often used for those types that were used but for a reason or the other never got much recognition. Most times this is because they were types that had limited impact and served for little time. My chosen subject fits this description perfectly !

The Vultee A-31/35, better known as Vengeance in the UK and Commonwealth, is sure way far down the list when it comes of thinking of WW2 combat types. The RAAF used them for a few months in New Guinea while the RAF used them in Burma. In combat the type proved to be quite unspectacular. Not necessarily bad, probably the best definition would be indifferent.. Later many were used for various tasks, particularly target towing and the USAAF only used them for secondary dities. It was a great example of those types that "also served", they did their job without impressing anyone and were quickly forgotten as soon as better options were made available.

It is not only the aircraft that fits this description, the user also does, as Brazil is not really a country that many think of when discussing WW2. Yet Brazil declared war on the Axis in August 1942 and Brazilian forces fought with distinction in the Italian theatre. In addition, the Brazilian air force and navy were quite successful in dealing with the U-Boat threat in the South Atlantic. Such role may sound not particularly important but we must keep in mind that a lot of resources came to Britain from South America in WW2 and keeping German forces off those shores was quite important for the Allies. Still, even so clearly Brazil isn't that high on the list of the countries that fought in WW2, so they would probably end in a "they also served" list at the end of a book discussing WW2 air forces...

So here we have a liittle known aircraft serving in a little known air force... perfect combination !

 

The kit I'll be using is the Special Hobby 1/72 offering. SH issued a number of different variants of the Vengeance and I got this one at the local flea market.. those who followed my previous builds may remember that I often mention this local flea market.. there was a time when a guy who had a stall there used to deal in model kits and often had some great unusual stuff. I was one of his best customers and I think I bought at least a hundred kits from him over the years. Then he joined the dark side and now only deals with die-casts...

Anyway, as often happened with kits I bought there, this one came with no box:

 

resized_3a50ba21-1f73-413a-9f98-baaaa7a7

 

Inside the bag are 2 sprues in soft grey plastic, with all the features of SH kits of the era:

 

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Panel lines are recessed and well executed. The details are not too sharp and there's a bit of flash here and there. Nothing major really. Sprue attachment points are small and easy to remove. I don't like soft plastic but this is no worse than the one used by Airfix. I will probably deepen some panel lines, just in case they may disappear with the sanding that may be required to get a good fit. Notice how the sprues include parts for other variants, for example the target towing gear.

The plastic parts don't include anything for the cockpit as this is offered in resin, together with other small parts. Canopy is in vacuform and fortunately SH supplies two copies, just in case...

 

resized_85a56c72-ea35-411e-b5d9-8d0d6b45

 

Decals are included for a USAAF aircraft and one from the Forca Aerea Brasileira. The instructions suggest to use a dark green and a light tan for the upper camo scheme, I'm not convinced however and I believe that these aircraft carried the standard RAF scheme in US substitute paints, so Dark Green, Dark Earth and Sky. The scheme proposed by the instruction sheet would have been more unusual but I'm sure that the Brazilian roundels will add enough colour to make this one stand out once completed

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Thanks folks, will try to build something decent out of this kit...  that judging from a couple of things may not be the easiest thing...

Let's start from the cockpit. This is mostly represented by a single large resin part. Not bad, there's some good detail, but also several inaccuracies. This time I decided to live with these and build the model OOB. I may regret it one day but who knows, I may decide to build another Vengence (maybe RAAF ?) in the future and add all the proper details.

Here's the big resin block painted and with the front seat and control stick glued in place

 

resized_7894e23c-b81a-4290-b15c-d4860739

 

f6356188-48fd-4a45-859c-21fc40a7a939.JPG

 

I only added seatbelts to the seat, made from lead foil. Not too accurate either but will work under a closed canopy.

In contrast to the resin part, SH did not supply anything for the sides of the fuselage and these are totally flat. Here's one fuselage half, with the rear wheel well glued in place. This is also a single resin part

 

resized_e73de47a-d4dd-4369-90f0-2208a2fa

 

Couple of things to notice: I painted the cockpit in a "yellow" shade of interior green. Not sure if this is totally accurate but from what I read it was the colour most often used by Vultee. Pictures of an aircraft in an Australian museum show a different colour, but who knows...

The wheel wells were painted in chromate yellow. Again, not sure if this is correct. Vultee sure used this colour as primer, and pictures of the main wheel wells show chromate yellow for the structure and the same colour of the lower surfaces for the bottom, so I'm assuming that the rear well was in chromate yellow.

Last but not least, I added some silicone sealant to keep the resin wheel well in place. I first applied CA glue to fix it, then added silicone to make for a more robust assembly.

 

The engine is also a single resin part. It is not IMHO that great and I considered replacing this with something else, then decided that as this will be a (mostly) OOB model, I'll use the kit part. Here it is painted in various shades of metal, grey and black. Beside is the cowling, that is made of 3 parts. Fit was not great and I had to deepen all panel lines and fasteners before gluing all parts in place to try and retain the surface detail after sanding. I still have to apply a number of PE parts to the cowling, these will be among the last parts glued in place. Interior of the cowling was again painted in chromate yellow

 

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On 1/2/2020 at 1:24 PM, Giorgio N said:

The Vultee A-31/35, better known as Vengeance in the UK and Commonwealth, is sure way far down the list when it comes of thinking of WW2 combat types. The RAAF used them for a few months in New Guinea while the RAF used them in Burma. In combat the type proved to be quite unspectacular. Not necessarily bad, probably the best definition would be indifferent.. Later many were used for various tasks, particularly target towing and the USAAF only used them for secondary dities.

Giorgio, but there is another opinion that I read here:

 

http://retromodels.ru/f199/

 

"The first V-72 intended for Great Britain (AN838) took off in July 1941, but the first planes began to arrive in Great Britain only in the middle of 1942. The Air Force leadership, which had an open hatred of dive-bombers, with a light hand sent all arriving “Vengeance” to the secondary sectors of the front, leaving the European theater without a plane of this class.

 

In the fall of 1942, “Vengeance” was mastered in the 45th squadron, which in November joined the battle against the Japanese in India. At the same time, the 82nd Squadron used its bombers to patrol the Bay of Bengal, and somewhat later, the “Vengeance” received the 110th Squadron. These three squadrons alternately flew on Mk.I, Mk.IA, Mk.II and Mk.III (arrived in the summer of 1943). The success of using the aircraft as a dive bomber was obvious. On November 27, a group of dive bombers from the 84th squadron made five sorties in a short period of time, hitting enemy ground targets with impunity. Immediately a report was handed to the headquarters of the Air Force, stating that the “Vengeance” had proved to be the best and that if dive bombers were used instead of conventional bombers on the Indian front, the success of the British forces would be much more tangible.
 

And things have acquired a truly political character over time. The scandal surrounding the contract for the supply of “the best dive player in the world” Brewster “Bermuda” left its mark on the fate of “Vengeance”. The Ministry of Aviation recommended not to engage in amateur performances and to reconsider their views on the use of “Vengeance” as a dive bomber. In the end, it came to the conclusion that “Vengeance” would be nice to use as an ordinary horizontal bomber, which negated all its advantages and made it an absolutely unnecessary airplane.
 

The disagreement between the staff and the front-line commanders led to repeated trials of “Vengeance”. In June 1943, the second round of test flights was launched at the Feltwell training ground. It turned out that only one pilot was familiar with the dive bombing technique, and even he arrived at the test center recently and did not have enough experience. The rest of the pilots were just starting to get familiar with the aircraft and the features of its use. In addition, the team of technicians had little knowledge of the car and therefore there were constant difficulties in maintenance, which led to the fact that the raid on the dive was only 7 hours 36 minutes.
New tests were carried out necessary to evaluate the time required to train an inexperienced pilot in the use of the aiming technique. They were attended by a pilot who had never seen “Vengeance” and did not know what dive bombing was. But from here a conclusion was made, directly opposite to the opinion of Air Marshal Dowding, who pointed out that a dive pilot can be a formidable weapon only in the hands of an experienced pilot.
In August 1943, the tests were continued, after which new conclusions were drawn, later formulated in the recommendation. At the same time, bomb sights on aircraft were not installed and were generally considered unnecessary, and the wide white strip applied along the top of the fuselage from the windshield to the engine hood or the edge of the hood itself was considered the best assistants in aiming.
The shutter doors and air brakes acted quickly, so there was no need to open the hatch in advance before entering the peak. The brakes were released at the time of sunset at the peak. The Ministry of Aviation independently summed up the test results, having issued a harsh sentence to a dive-pilot - this aircraft could be used exclusively in India and the Pacific Ocean. And ideally, “Vengeance” was worth abandoning, redoing planes that did not have time to get to the front-line units into target towers ...
 

One of the latest “Vengeance” was used in the Pacific Ocean, where dive-bombers were “exiled” thanks to the efforts of leaders from the Ministry of Aviation. As early as mid-1942, when this plane had just entered the ranks of the RAF on the Asian Theater, the Australians began to intensively prepare for its arrival. In November, they created a special training group that trained dive pilots and in early 1943, the RAAF (Australian Air Force) first tested a new type of aircraft. Since at that time as dive bombers used machines completely not intended for this, the question immediately arose about specialized training aircraft. However, out of 108 ordered dive pilots, only a tenth was used for training, since the rest of the aircraft, for various reasons, were unsuitable for flying.A-37 and in the summer of 1943 they began to advance to the front edge of the front. The targets were the Japanese troops that landed in New Guinea, where the 24th Squadron, the first to master the dive, fought. The attacks of the dive bombers were so effective that even the Americans who participated in joint operations with the Australians thanked them more than once. In addition, “Vengeance” proved to be excellent as support aircraft. Despite the fact that the dive bombers operated under conditions of a sufficiently strong air defense of the front, combat losses among them were quite small.
 

And yet, since the winter of 1944, “Vengeance” began to be removed from combat work, transferring to various auxiliary units. RAAF aircraft were assigned the role of patrol aircraft flying in this capacity until 1947, but dive warriors who fought in India were much less fortunate. Squadrons of "Vengeance" began to disband from April 1944, and only the 84th squadron fought on them until the summer. The last combat flight of the Vengeance dive took place on July 16th. A group of 12 aircraft with heavy cloud cover successfully bombed at the ammunition depots in Le-U (Burma) and safely returned to the base. They were kept on the Burmese front until October, finally withdrawing from combat squadrons by the end of 1944. Even on “Vengeance” the French did not have much time to fly. At the end of the war, several dive bombers were transferred to the updated French Air Force and became part of GB 1 \ 32. 

 

So the story of the best Royal Air Force dive bomber ended in a dysfunctional way."

 

B.R.

Serge

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Aardvark
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15 hours ago, JOCKNEY said:

Great choice Giorgio 

I made the old Frog one in the Pacific GB recently.  Its much bigger than you think. 

 

 

 

I look forward to following your build, good luck. 

 

Cheers Pat

 

Nice model, well done !

Yes, it's a much larger aircraft than expected. The fuselage is big but the wings are huge ! Such a large aircraft with a single engine...

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15 hours ago, Aardvark said:

Giorgio, but there is another opinion that I read here:

 

http://retromodels.ru/f199/

 

"The first V-72 intended for Great Britain (AN838) took off in July 1941, but the first planes began to arrive in Great Britain only in the middle of 1942. The Air Force leadership, which had an open hatred of dive-bombers, with a light hand sent all arriving “Vengeance” to the secondary sectors of the front, leaving the European theater without a plane of this class.

 

In the fall of 1942, “Vengeance” was mastered in the 45th squadron, which in November joined the battle against the Japanese in India. At the same time, the 82nd Squadron used its bombers to patrol the Bay of Bengal, and somewhat later, the “Vengeance” received the 110th Squadron. These three squadrons alternately flew on Mk.I, Mk.IA, Mk.II and Mk.III (arrived in the summer of 1943). The success of using the aircraft as a dive bomber was obvious. On November 27, a group of dive bombers from the 84th squadron made five sorties in a short period of time, hitting enemy ground targets with impunity. Immediately a report was handed to the headquarters of the Air Force, stating that the “Vengeance” had proved to be the best and that if dive bombers were used instead of conventional bombers on the Indian front, the success of the British forces would be much more tangible.
 

And things have acquired a truly political character over time. The scandal surrounding the contract for the supply of “the best dive player in the world” Brewster “Bermuda” left its mark on the fate of “Vengeance”. The Ministry of Aviation recommended not to engage in amateur performances and to reconsider their views on the use of “Vengeance” as a dive bomber. In the end, it came to the conclusion that “Vengeance” would be nice to use as an ordinary horizontal bomber, which negated all its advantages and made it an absolutely unnecessary airplane.
 

The disagreement between the staff and the front-line commanders led to repeated trials of “Vengeance”. In June 1943, the second round of test flights was launched at the Feltwell training ground. It turned out that only one pilot was familiar with the dive bombing technique, and even he arrived at the test center recently and did not have enough experience. The rest of the pilots were just starting to get familiar with the aircraft and the features of its use. In addition, the team of technicians had little knowledge of the car and therefore there were constant difficulties in maintenance, which led to the fact that the raid on the dive was only 7 hours 36 minutes.
New tests were carried out necessary to evaluate the time required to train an inexperienced pilot in the use of the aiming technique. They were attended by a pilot who had never seen “Vengeance” and did not know what dive bombing was. But from here a conclusion was made, directly opposite to the opinion of Air Marshal Dowding, who pointed out that a dive pilot can be a formidable weapon only in the hands of an experienced pilot.
In August 1943, the tests were continued, after which new conclusions were drawn, later formulated in the recommendation. At the same time, bomb sights on aircraft were not installed and were generally considered unnecessary, and the wide white strip applied along the top of the fuselage from the windshield to the engine hood or the edge of the hood itself was considered the best assistants in aiming.
The shutter doors and air brakes acted quickly, so there was no need to open the hatch in advance before entering the peak. The brakes were released at the time of sunset at the peak. The Ministry of Aviation independently summed up the test results, having issued a harsh sentence to a dive-pilot - this aircraft could be used exclusively in India and the Pacific Ocean. And ideally, “Vengeance” was worth abandoning, redoing planes that did not have time to get to the front-line units into target towers ...
 

One of the latest “Vengeance” was used in the Pacific Ocean, where dive-bombers were “exiled” thanks to the efforts of leaders from the Ministry of Aviation. As early as mid-1942, when this plane had just entered the ranks of the RAF on the Asian Theater, the Australians began to intensively prepare for its arrival. In November, they created a special training group that trained dive pilots and in early 1943, the RAAF (Australian Air Force) first tested a new type of aircraft. Since at that time as dive bombers used machines completely not intended for this, the question immediately arose about specialized training aircraft. However, out of 108 ordered dive pilots, only a tenth was used for training, since the rest of the aircraft, for various reasons, were unsuitable for flying.A-37 and in the summer of 1943 they began to advance to the front edge of the front. The targets were the Japanese troops that landed in New Guinea, where the 24th Squadron, the first to master the dive, fought. The attacks of the dive bombers were so effective that even the Americans who participated in joint operations with the Australians thanked them more than once. In addition, “Vengeance” proved to be excellent as support aircraft. Despite the fact that the dive bombers operated under conditions of a sufficiently strong air defense of the front, combat losses among them were quite small.
 

And yet, since the winter of 1944, “Vengeance” began to be removed from combat work, transferring to various auxiliary units. RAAF aircraft were assigned the role of patrol aircraft flying in this capacity until 1947, but dive warriors who fought in India were much less fortunate. Squadrons of "Vengeance" began to disband from April 1944, and only the 84th squadron fought on them until the summer. The last combat flight of the Vengeance dive took place on July 16th. A group of 12 aircraft with heavy cloud cover successfully bombed at the ammunition depots in Le-U (Burma) and safely returned to the base. They were kept on the Burmese front until October, finally withdrawing from combat squadrons by the end of 1944. Even on “Vengeance” the French did not have much time to fly. At the end of the war, several dive bombers were transferred to the updated French Air Force and became part of GB 1 \ 32. 

 

So the story of the best Royal Air Force dive bomber ended in a dysfunctional way."

 

B.R.

Serge

 

 

 

 

 

 

14 hours ago, Seahawk said:

ISTR Eric Brown reckoned that, as a pure divebomber, the Vengeance was second only to the Ju 87.  That was before the later variants where the wing incidence was changed.

 

I guess that the career of the Vengeance can be looked at from different angles. From what I know of the type and Serge's post, the Vengeance afterall did what it was supposed to do.. the problem, as with many other types, is to understand if the specifications it was supposed to meet were really the right ones.

Dive bombers in WW2 seem to be a polarising subject. Some swore by them, especially after the quite good results obtained by the Stuka early in the war and the success of the US carrierborne types in the Pacific. Others considered them a waste of resources, especially after the huge losses of the same Stuka later in the war.

My view here, and the view of many others, is that dive bombing had a role but it was a relatively specialised role and it was probably not worth fielding specialised dive bombers, particularly after the increase in available power allowed single seat fighters to be used effectively as fighter-bombers.

The Vengeance was large (see Pat's post)  and with "only" 1,600 Hp could not have particularly impressive performance. As a result they needed to be escorted and in operation they carried light bomb loads. Level bombers were less accurate and also required escorts, but usually carried heavier loads. Single seat fighters carried only slightly lighter loads at worst but needed no escorts and could achieve similar accuracy. So why bother with a dive bomber ? What could a Vengeance do that a Typhoon or even a Hurribomber could not do ? And when longer ranges were required, a Mosquito could achieve the same accuracy of a dive bomber at longer ranges, needed no escorts and could even be dangerous for enemy fighters in their own territory.

Things were different when it came to naval aircraft as here the idea was to drop single heavy bombs very accurately but for land based aircraft supporting the ground war IMHO the case for the dive bomber was pretty thin by the time the Vengeance entered service. The aircraft may have been good at completing the mission it was designed for, but it was that mission that was wrongly formulated.

 

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Whatever the qualities of the A-35 as a dive bomber, it is clear that a short run kit is never going to fit without issue, particularly if it's a short run from a few years ago.

I had another proof of this when I joined the fuselage halves of my model... not that fit was atrocious, it wasn't too bad really, but some serious sanding was needed to get the joints as smooth as required. I'm now happy enough, although priming will certainly show a whole series of small and not so small blemishes....

 

resized_7dfc1c5e-2c52-44f4-8721-5826046b

 

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As you can see I deepened all panel lines, this prevented them from disappearing while sanding. I also glued all parts into the cockpit apart from te machine gun and the glass for the sight. These will follow just before gluing the canopy in place. The seatbelts on the rear seat were also made from foil. I ma not sure if this style of belts was used and I wondered if the gunner may have only had lap belts... in the end I went for a standard set as pictures of the seat seemed to show attachment points for the standard style.

 

The hole near the leading edge on the wing root is there to help with fixing the wings. As they are only butt-joined to the fuselage, I decided to insert a brass tube to help keeping them in place. The tube will have to be bent as the leading edge is not straight, I already did some test-fit and the solution should work fine.

 

Speaking of wings, these needed some thinning on the interior to avoid excessively thick trailing edges. There's no detail for the wheel wells so I decided to add something, as shown below:

 

resized_6931c84e-6c75-43fc-b7e5-a77de7cf

 

The various "walls" I added should have lightening holes, but as they will not be much visible I'll do without. However I may add some on the part toward the fuselage, missing above. The wheel wells on the real aircraft were pretty bare fortunately

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There's a very good book about the Vengeance by Peter C. Smith. It was considered a very accurate bombing platform and mostly flew combat without escort. Most of its shortcomings were however not its own fault. It was prone to engine driven fuel pump failures due to seal failures in the pump and crews often came home on the cockpit hand pump. It was also prone to engine failure as they were shipped as deck cargo and the engines weren't properly sealed prior to shipping. This resulted in corrosion which brought on the failures. There were also delays in production down to a sub contractor who made hydraulic parts. Vengeances were test flown at the factory, the hydraulic parts were then removed and fitted to the next plane for its test flight. Rows of completed aircraft were held up waiting for these parts.

I liked the unusual wing shape, brought about for the need to get the C of G in the correct place, have a strong wing for dive bombing, but without the spar compromising the cockpit space. I ended up building a 1/6 scale R/C version, so always like seeing other Vengeance models.

 

a35_033.jpg

 

a35_020.jpg

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1 hour ago, Giorgio N said:

What could a Vengeance do that a Typhoon or even a Hurribomber could not do ?

Typhoon or even a Hurribomber

can do the same as Vengeance, the only problem is how much

Typhoon or even a Hurribomber is needed and how much Vengeance  is needed?

Accordingly, the question of possible losses and reputation risks arises, because it is one thing to lose a lot of Typhoon or Hurribomber

when attacking one well-defended bridge or command center, and it is a completely different thing to lose one Vengeance.

But here another problem arises, where to get well-trained pilots for a diving bomber, because this is a single and expensive product! In addition, there is a problem with the higher leadership of the Army and the Air Force recognizing the tactics of using a diving bomber.

 

The history of Pe-2 confirms this!  Read Wikipedia:

https://ru.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Пе-2

"The aircraft was conceived precisely as a high-speed diving bomber, with a large margin of safety and therefore a low bomb load.  It was intended to hit point targets from a deep dive.  But in the USSR, by the beginning of the war, no one had simply dealt with issues of such combat employment.  Therefore, the Pe-2 at the initial stage of the war (and in the future, too) were used for bombing from horizontal flight or from a gentle dive.  Full-scale deep-dive bombing studies began on the Pe-2 after the war ended."

1942 year:

"Despite the fact that the Pe-2 was already a well-mastered vehicle by that time, and the crews of many regiments had accumulated solid experience in its combat use, it had not yet become a real dive-pilot - bombing from a dive was extremely rare."

And only in 1943, only in one regiment the correct tactics were found:

"The crews of the 1st BAC at the end of September 1943 for the first time used bombing from a dive from a vicious circle - the so-called.  "Turntable", which significantly increased the protection of dive bombers from attacks by enemy fighters.  The combat use of Pe-2 from a dive was quite successfully mastered by pilots under the guidance of I. S. Polbin [8]."

"By the beginning of 1944, the 4th BAC was formed.  In the summer, he, together with the 2nd Guards.  BAC (formerly 1st BAC) took part in the Lviv-Sandomierz operation.  Both corps by the beginning of the offensive (on July 13, 1944) totaled a total of 382 Pe-2s (of which 354 were operational).  Pe-2 bombed resistance nodes, command posts, artillery batteries, and reserves.  The density of attacks reached 50-60 tons of bombs per 1 square.  km  During an operation in 2/3 sorties, Pe-2s were bombed from a dive.  Moreover, more experienced crews of the 2nd Guards.  The BAC almost did not attack targets from horizontal flight, while the 4th BAC used diving strikes much less often."

 

So, as was written earlier, a diving bomber works only with a high-class pilot and the correct tactics of its application.

 

About fighter v.s. dive-bomber we read on an example of application FW-190:

https://ru.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Пикирующий_бомбардировщик

"In 1944, the Germans made an attempt to use the Focke-Wulf Fw190F fighter as a dive bomber, which significantly exceeded both the Pe-2 and Ju 87 in flight performance. The main advantage was that, having freed itself from the bomb load, this dive could easily give  fight back to any fighter.  However, practice has shown that the accuracy of the Fw190F hit was significantly lower than that of the "old man" Ju 87. This was primarily due to the increased dive speed: the heavy and also overloaded "Focke-Wulf" during the dive is rapidly  it accelerated and became awkward and poorly controlled, and even a high-class pilot simply did not have time to simultaneously control the aircraft and aim.  As time has shown, only the development of specialized autopilots made dive bombing quite convenient for a single-seat pilot."

 

 

 

B.R.

Serge

 

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Good choice Giorgio. The Vengeance is an absolute beast and is massive for a single engined aircraft. I built one of Special Hobbies Target Tug options for the Trainers GB and found it a fairly straightforward build. Mind you I didn't finish it in time but that was partly my slowness, my reticence at dealing with the resin and etch parts, not to mention my aversion to vac form canopies. Makes you wonder why I started it. And then there was the nightmare of the TTstripes (and yellow paint) and the interminable time taken to mask the said vac form canopy. But it turned out fine in the end. 

 

resized_e8a450e4-4791-466c-b84d-97850673

 

Its good to see your build as what it was intended to be, a dive bomber, rather than my more sedate target tug. I love the Brazilian markings too. All the best with it, you've made great progress already. And to your usual high standard. 

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18 hours ago, JOCKNEY said:

Hi @Giorgio N

Have you made any more progress  ?

cheers Pat 

 

Pat, I have progressed a bit but have not done much worth new pictures.. I've completed both wheel wells now and I've painted them in overall yellow chromate. Part of the wells will now have to receive the same colour of the lower surfaces and here's where I have to make a decision: I believe that this aircraft left the factory in US substitute colours for the usual RAF scheme. I already have my ideas about the dark green and dark earth but finding a good option for sky may not be as easy...

There are several colour pictures of A-35s, generally taken in the US. From these the sky seems to be quite a lot greyer than the British colour. The best way to address this is probably by mixing sky and light grey and as I'll probably use Vallejo Air acrylics I'm leaning towards a mix of their version of Sky with their version of the light grey used on postwar US Navy types. I've tried a 50/50 mix and still looks a bit too dark and too "green" compared to pictures, I'll have to try other mixes til I get something I'm happy with

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On 1/8/2020 at 4:37 PM, Army_Air_Force said:

There's a very good book about the Vengeance by Peter C. Smith. It was considered a very accurate bombing platform and mostly flew combat without escort. Most of its shortcomings were however not its own fault. It was prone to engine driven fuel pump failures due to seal failures in the pump and crews often came home on the cockpit hand pump. It was also prone to engine failure as they were shipped as deck cargo and the engines weren't properly sealed prior to shipping. This resulted in corrosion which brought on the failures. There were also delays in production down to a sub contractor who made hydraulic parts. Vengeances were test flown at the factory, the hydraulic parts were then removed and fitted to the next plane for its test flight. Rows of completed aircraft were held up waiting for these parts.

I liked the unusual wing shape, brought about for the need to get the C of G in the correct place, have a strong wing for dive bombing, but without the spar compromising the cockpit space. I ended up building a 1/6 scale R/C version, so always like seeing other Vengeance models.

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for the information, I may have to look for that book. And that model is really nice, well done !

On 1/10/2020 at 12:33 AM, 825 said:

Good choice Giorgio. The Vengeance is an absolute beast and is massive for a single engined aircraft. I built one of Special Hobbies Target Tug options for the Trainers GB and found it a fairly straightforward build. Mind you I didn't finish it in time but that was partly my slowness, my reticence at dealing with the resin and etch parts, not to mention my aversion to vac form canopies. Makes you wonder why I started it. And then there was the nightmare of the TTstripes (and yellow paint) and the interminable time taken to mask the said vac form canopy. But it turned out fine in the end. 

 

Its good to see your build as what it was intended to be, a dive bomber, rather than my more sedate target tug. I love the Brazilian markings too. All the best with it, you've made great progress already. And to your usual high standard. 

 

Great build, hope my models ends being half as nice,. My chosen scheme will fortunately for me be easier to paint on, but I'm not really looking forward to masking that canopy, Have to say that I've seen masks for this kit for sale, I may invest in a set to avoid a nervous breakdown...

 

 

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On 1/17/2020 at 11:57 PM, RidgeRunner said:

Ah ha, Giorgio @Giorgio N, I found it! You mentioned it yesterday but I had no idea :). A great choice and, as @825 says, its a Brute! )

 

Martin

 

Yes, it's a brute and it's large ! I now realise that finding room for this on the shelves will not be easy...

Yes, wings are now on the model but let's go back a couple of days... with both wheel wells boxed in, I sprayed some paint, as said before zinc chromate yellow with the areas visible from below in the camo scheme. I'm not too happy with this, I think I have to add more grey to the mix to better represent the colour I see in pictures

 

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Closing the wings was a bit difficult, a not uncommon problem in these earlier Special Hobby kits. Anyway I managed to get a decent result, atlhough I managed to get glue on the surfaces... my mistake here, and a beginner's mistake too ! The wings are supposed to be butt-joined but I wasn't sure if such arrangement would have been robust enough so I inserted a brass tube in the fuselage, bent to follow the wing leading edges.

 

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In the end I found that the tube was a bit too long so I had to cut it shorter to prevent it from protruding in the wing where the sweep angle changes. At that point it was time to glue thw wings in place...

The method I followed was to fill with silicone sealant the area ahead of the wheel weels, where the rod would have ended. Then I applied some good old Humbrol glue on the mating surfaces. In the end I had a decent fit of both wings, one of them will need some filler on the undersurfaces but nothing too serious.

 

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I should add that the wings are not complete yet. They need the fairings for the landing gear legs to be glued between the wheel wells and the leading edges. These parts are reproduced in resin in the kit and I decided to leave them off as long as possible to avoid damaging them.

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18 minutes ago, RidgeRunner said:

She is looking great, Giorgio! I can only imagine the size. What does it compare with for size?

 

Martin

 

There you go ! Put the cowling in place with tape and compared to a P-51, itself not the smallerst WW2 fighter (and a model I should keep working on...)

 

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On 1/20/2020 at 9:50 AM, Giorgio N said:

 

 Part of the wells will now have to receive the same colour of the lower surfaces and here's where I have to make a decision: I believe that this aircraft left the factory in US substitute colours for the usual RAF scheme. I already have my ideas about the dark green and dark earth but finding a good option for sky may not be as easy...

 

There are several colour pictures of A-35s, generally taken in the US. From these the sky seems to be quite a lot greyer than the British colour. The best way to address this is probably by mixing sky and light grey and as I'll probably use Vallejo Air acrylics I'm leaning towards a mix of their version of Sky with their version of the light grey used on postwar US Navy types. I've tried a 50/50 mix and still looks a bit too dark and too "green" compared to pictures, I'll have to try other mixes til I get something I'm happy with

Giorgio, here's my penny's worth. For the Dark Green I would suggest Olive Drab which does OK for both Dark Green and Dark Slate Grey. For the US version of Sky, I once read that adding a few drops of Olive Drab to Sky dulls and greys it and retains the basic green hue. I think it was on one of the Xtradecal sheets for 'Yanks with Roundels'   I've made a tub of it from a tub of Xtracrylix Sky with about 0.5 ml of Olive Drab added. I've used on all non Grumman (as reports suggest Grumman's MAP equivalents were pretty close) and it's appreciably different alongside standard Sky.  I must admit I've no idea what a Dark Earth equivalent would be. I think US use of browns in camouflage didn't occur until the Vietnam SE Asia three colour schemes (although I may be wrong, there are others who know more and better than me). Good luck with your research and I hope this helps. 

 

The build is coming alng well. I added wing strengthening wires at the rear as I was worried anything forward would intrude into the wheel wells. 

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9 hours ago, 825 said:

Giorgio, here's my penny's worth. For the Dark Green I would suggest Olive Drab which does OK for both Dark Green and Dark Slate Grey. For the US version of Sky, I once read that adding a few drops of Olive Drab to Sky dulls and greys it and retains the basic green hue. I think it was on one of the Xtradecal sheets for 'Yanks with Roundels'   I've made a tub of it from a tub of Xtracrylix Sky with about 0.5 ml of Olive Drab added. I've used on all non Grumman (as reports suggest Grumman's MAP equivalents were pretty close) and it's appreciably different alongside standard Sky.  I must admit I've no idea what a Dark Earth equivalent would be. I think US use of browns in camouflage didn't occur until the Vietnam SE Asia three colour schemes (although I may be wrong, there are others who know more and better than me). Good luck with your research and I hope this helps. 

 

The build is coming alng well. I added wing strengthening wires at the rear as I was worried anything forward would intrude into the wheel wells. 

 

Thanks a lot for the suggestions ! I will keep them in mind when choosing the paints for this model.

I may have to modify the recipe for the Sky though, as the Vallejo paint I'm using is already a bit on the dark side compared to Xtracrylics and I fear that adding Olive Drab will make it even darker. There are several color pictures of US marked A-35s around and all seem to show quite light undersurfaces.

Regarding the Dark Earth, I think I'll use a slightly lighter and redder variant of this colour, maybe simply starting from dark earth or alternatively using Lifecolor's FS 30140.

The instructions mention the used of a light brown, but personally I think it's an error as all these aircraft were painted to British specifications.

 

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2 hours ago, Giorgio N said:

 

Thanks a lot for the suggestions ! I will keep them in mind when choosing the paints for this model.

I may have to modify the recipe for the Sky though, as the Vallejo paint I'm using is already a bit on the dark side compared to Xtracrylics and I fear that adding Olive Drab will make it even darker. There are several color pictures of US marked A-35s around and all seem to show quite light undersurfaces.

Regarding the Dark Earth, I think I'll use a slightly lighter and redder variant of this colour, maybe simply starting from dark earth or alternatively using Lifecolor's FS 30140.

The instructions mention the used of a light brown, but personally I think it's an error as all these aircraft were painted to British specifications.

 

Looking at colour pictures on the net of Vengeances the Dark Earth certainly looks relatively light with more of a khaki hue rather than a brownish hue. I'd definitely go for Olive Drab for the Dark Green and a lighter slightly greyer version for the Sky although some photos definitely have the characteristic green hue. Possible options for the Dark Earth could be 

 

ANA617 which was as far as I can see a US version of Dark Earth and was used on US aircraft in the Western Desert. A number of paint manufacturers make it but it looks like a classic 'brown' Dark Earth. 

 

FS30140  doesn't look too bad but looking at the bottle swatches it seems a little dark. It may be different on the plane though  

 

FS30118 which seems to have two names, Field Drab and Dark Earth, looks a bit closer to that faded DE/khaki look. Lifecolour market it as RAF Dark Earth but it seems less brown than ANA617 and Xtracrylix Dark Earth. AK and Vallejo also do versions. It would be my choice. 

 

However some conversation from a few years back suggested ANA617 as being a better equivalent due to the fact it was more red. http://cs.finescale.com/fsm/tools_techniques_and_reference_materials/f/18/t/147176.aspx  If you got some FS30118 in your paint collection it would be worth checking it out against FS30140. 

 

Sorry, no definitive answer and possible further confusion but I hope the informat Is helpful. 

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