The Last Flight Before Christmas, DH.83 Fox Moth, Sywell 1935 diorama

[TEXANTOMCAT]

Happy new year folks.

 

Herewith my last for 2019, or first for 2020! Another one for Sywell Aviation Museum....

 

 In 1935 Charles Newton and Geoffrey Shaw established Midland Airways Ltd for charter and air taxi work at Sywell. In April DH.83 Fox Moth G-ABVJ (ex Skegness Aero Club/Eastern Air Transport) arrived and was put to work- she didn’t last long and was sold in July the following year and was then destroyed by fire at Brooklands that October. Midland Airways was the first commercial transport operation at Sywell Aerodrome. Colour wise only one B&W photo exists of their Fox and it’s not helpful so after consulting the experts I went with silver!

 

This is the rather nice AVI Models 1/72 kit with Oxford vehicles and Airfix figures. The Thompson I simply matt varnished and washed and weathered. The Taxi I matt varnished the tyres and top and gave it a wash. There's no other real option in 72nd as civvy vehicles are so scarce. I used some of John's old Aeroclub reg letters which I resized on a copier and printed onto decal paper and made my own Midland Airways titles. The fuel pumps were old white metal railway ones with decals added from the spares box.  I wanted to have it on a snowy base with a large reflective puddle (puddles in snow always seem to ‘shine’ more and have more depth - I guess its the amount of light reflected by the snow which causes the contrast) and it took me a while to work out how to do it- with OHP acetate- over a painted base lifted slightly with a smear of PVA to give depth- it sort of works!

 

One for the classic kit geeks- have you spotted the spy?  

 

TT 

 

 

81288398_10156855024235976_6320532627946209280_o by Ben Brown, on Flickr

 

 

81676955_10156855024090976_344142651253063680_o by Ben Brown, on Flickr

 

81620865_10156855024935976_3761183894255173632_o by Ben Brown, on Flickr

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Avereda]

Fascinating stuff, especially that base

[TEXANTOMCAT]

Thank you   No-one has spotted the spy yet!

 

TT

 

[Jpthedog]

Very nice wee mini diorama base and model TT. Quite evocative which I guess was the aim. I built the fox moth last year in Spanish cw scheme and rudimentary base and finishing a model for the Nordic GB just now with a 'snowy' base......

[TEXANTOMCAT]

Thank you👍 I thought it was a lovely little kit! Bring on their Puss Moth ! In fact I learnt today that the Germans used one D-EKYM as a glider tug c/w swastika - who knew! 
 

https://www.the-blueprints.com/blueprints/ww2planes/ww2-de-havilland/54293/view/de_havilland_dh80a_puss_moth/