Guideline Publishing DHC-1 Chipmunk Warpaint No.123

[Mike]

DHC-1 Chipmunk Warpaint No.123

Guideline Publications

 

 

Designed at the end of WWII by De Havilland Canada, it became the intial pilot training aircraft for the Canadian Air Force, the RAF and a number of others, with many airframes being made in the UK (some close to where I live in Hawarden) and in Portugal.  It stayed in service training many pilots for many years, leaving RAF service in the 90s after the introduction of the Bulldog from Scottish Aviation.  Because of its mild handling characteristics, it was much loved by the novice pilots, and when it was withdrawn many were purchased by the private sector and a lot remain in service some 70 years later.

 

The early aircraft had a framed canopy with bulged rear panels so the instructor could see his student's efforts better, but later Canadian produced airframes had the somewhat incongruous-looking bubble canopy that afforded a better view all round, as well as looking a bit out of place on the old bird.

 

 

 

 

This book by author Adrian M Balch covers the birth and development of the airframe in detail, as well as providing tons of excellent pictures of many airframes of many nations both in military and civilian service, most of which are in colour due to their being contemporary shots, plus 1:48 plans in the centre, penned by Jan Polc and colour profiles spread throughout.  There are even scrap drawings showing the bubble-canopy version.  There are also pictures of some of the conversions including the re-engineered Thai Chandthra with Lycoming engine, new cockpit and tail area, a single seat crop-dusting variant, and other Lycoming engine airframes.  The book is in the usual Warpaint format of portrait A4(ish) with a soft card cover and 44 pages plus content printed on the four glossy pages of the covers.   A short introduction details the birth of the type and its subsequent upgrades.

 

• Design and Development
• Production
• Colour Profiles
• In Canadian Service
• Canadian Colours and Markings
• In Royal Air Force Service
• RAF Colours & Markings
• Unit Markings
• Overhead Profiles
• Aerobatic Display Teams
• In Army Air Corps Service
• The “Grey Owls” Team 1975-97
• In Royal Navy Service
• 1:48 Plans
• In Worldwide Service With
  • Belgium
  • Burma
  • Ceylon/Sri Lanka
  • Colombia
  • Denmark
  • Egypt
  • Eire/Ireland
  • Ghana
  • India
  • Iraq
  • Israel
  • Jordan
  • Kenya
  • Lebanon
  • Malaysia
  • Portugal
  • Saudi Arabia
  • Syria
• Colour Profiles
  • Uruguay
  • Zambia
• In Civilian Use
• Conversions
• Chipmunk In Detail
• Colour Profiles

 

 

 

The pages include a lot of useful pictures with informative captions of aircraft on the apron, on the field and even after crashes, with appropriate photos and drawings dotted around.  In the short "In Detail" section there are many close-up photos with some items numbered that will be a boon to modellers as well as people that like to know what everything does.

 

 

 

Conclusion

The Warpaint series always gets a thumbs-up due to their inability to produce a bad one.  This is an excellent book that will see plenty of use by anyone interest in, or building on of these early fighters.

 

Very highly recommended.

 

 

Review sample courtesy of

 

 

[rayprit]

Adrian, the author of this Warpaint did mention on this very site back in October that he would be releasing this at SMW Telford last year - 2019.

 

Here are some reviews of it from that post:-

 

 

[Rod Blievers]

I'm sorry, but I must disagree with your rather gushing comments about the publisher's "inability to produce a bad one". If you know anything about Chipmunks, then the shortcomings with this publication are sadly all too obvious.

 

Even the front cover disappoints; an appallingly inaccurate drawing of a Canadian-built T.30 in the corner and a photo of two UBAS Chipmunks which really begs for a more informative caption. This one photo rewards careful study; yet there's not a word here about the two different styles of application of the 3M fuselage strips, two different styles of anti-dazzle panels, the not that uncommon appearance of white canopy frames combined with the overall Light Aircraft Grey scheme and finally the spinners marked in the university scarf colours. Not a word!

 

 The drawings are, frankly, rubbish! The colour profiles feature some suspect shapes while completely missing some details, nowhere is the narrow-chord rudder shown, while some of the captions are debatable. The centrepiece line drawings again have dubious shapes, and either omit some details or just get them plain wrong. Just as one example, not all UK-built Chipmunks had the rectangular battery access panels on the upper rear fuselage as drawn. But worse, much worse, are the depiction of the Canadian "T.30". Apart from the canopy the draftsman has simply recreated a T.10 without u/c fairings. Despite what some, including Airfix, believe a DHC-1B-2-S3 or -S5 was NOT just a T.10 with a bubble canopy. There are a myriad of external differences - this is a gross miss-representation of what the later Canadian-built Chipmunks looked like.

 

The author has produced a comprehensive (if for obvious reasons compressed) history of the type. Sadly though, my initial disappointments with the drawings are confirmed here as there are  errors and omissions.

 

The Canadian-built variants are poorly served; there's no clear description of the differences (indeed the DHC-1A gets scant mention) and the author implies that all DHC-1B's sported the bubble canopy and were all "T.30's" - this is not so. There is no description of what very different aircraft they were externally, for instance of the six panels that form the engine cowlings, four of them are different on Canadian-built Chipmunks. The sub-type that was referred to as a "T.30" was actually the DHC-1B-2-S5 (the final Chipmunk variant produced anywhere), and this isn't even mentioned.

 

 For a book purporting to be intended for modellers, I thought the description of the various RAF schemes poor. As examples; not all Chipmunks left the factory with the yellow bands (i.e. those intended for the RAFC Cranwell did not), there's no discussion of why the Light Aircraft Grey colour came about, while there's only a vague and incomplete description of the differences between the two Red/White/Light Aircraft Grey schemes. The latter is I believe important as most modellers aren't even aware of the two different schemes in the same colours.  

 

 Understandably perhaps, the text seems very UK-centric. The agricultural Mk.23 gets six photos and 36 lines of text whereas the conceptually similar but structurally very different Australian-built SA29 Spraymaster, which had an equally "interesting" gestation, gets a mere 2 lines! And there's no mention at all of what constituted the Mk.21 nor how the Mk.22 or 22A designations came about!

 

Offsetting all this, the author has provided some wonderful period photos from his own collection. I particularly liked the colour photos of various UAS badges which are linked to specific aircraft and dated too.

From experience I'm aware of the effort that went into this. When I first heard of this book's imminent issue I had hoped that it could/should have filled the void of reasonably priced Chipmunk references, but to me it represents a missed opportunity.

[Paul J]

One of the errors I spotted deal with the windscreen between the Canadian and UK and other productions. The Canadian ones have a longer more horizontal base to the lower frame ( not shown or depicted in drawings /sideview profiles) whereas the UK ones have a continuous curve,  Evne the kits to 1/72 have this wrong and AZ in their kits missed this.

But the photos in the publication are worth studying and enjoy.

[Patrick Martin]

1 hour ago, Rod Blievers said:

I'm sorry, but I must disagree with your rather gushing comments about the publisher's "inability to produce a bad one". If you know anything about Chipmunks, then the shortcomings with this publication are sadly all too obvious.

 

Even the front cover disappoints; an appallingly inaccurate drawing of a Canadian-built T.30 in the corner and a photo of two UBAS Chipmunks which really begs for a more informative caption. This one photo rewards careful study; yet there's not a word here about the two different styles of application of the 3M fuselage strips, two different styles of anti-dazzle panels, the not that uncommon appearance of white canopy frames combined with the overall Light Aircraft Grey scheme and finally the spinners marked in the university scarf colours. Not a word!

 

 The drawings are, frankly, rubbish! The colour profiles feature some suspect shapes while completely missing some details, nowhere is the narrow-chord rudder shown, while some of the captions are debatable. The centrepiece line drawings again have dubious shapes, and either omit some details or just get them plain wrong. Just as one example, not all UK-built Chipmunks had the rectangular battery access panels on the upper rear fuselage as drawn. But worse, much worse, are the depiction of the Canadian "T.30". Apart from the canopy the draftsman has simply recreated a T.10 without u/c fairings. Despite what some, including Airfix, believe a DHC-1B-2-S3 or -S5 was NOT just a T.10 with a bubble canopy. There are a myriad of external differences - this is a gross miss-representation of what the later Canadian-built Chipmunks looked like.

 

The author has produced a comprehensive (if for obvious reasons compressed) history of the type. Sadly though, my initial disappointments with the drawings are confirmed here as there are  errors and omissions.

 

The Canadian-built variants are poorly served; there's no clear description of the differences (indeed the DHC-1A gets scant mention) and the author implies that all DHC-1B's sported the bubble canopy and were all "T.30's" - this is not so. There is no description of what very different aircraft they were externally, for instance of the six panels that form the engine cowlings, four of them are different on Canadian-built Chipmunks. The sub-type that was referred to as a "T.30" was actually the DHC-1B-2-S5 (the final Chipmunk variant produced anywhere), and this isn't even mentioned.

 

 For a book purporting to be intended for modellers, I thought the description of the various RAF schemes poor. As examples; not all Chipmunks left the factory with the yellow bands (i.e. those intended for the RAFC Cranwell did not), there's no discussion of why the Light Aircraft Grey colour came about, while there's only a vague and incomplete description of the differences between the two Red/White/Light Aircraft Grey schemes. The latter is I believe important as most modellers aren't even aware of the two different schemes in the same colours.  

 

 Understandably perhaps, the text seems very UK-centric. The agricultural Mk.23 gets six photos and 36 lines of text whereas the conceptually similar but structurally very different Australian-built SA29 Spraymaster, which had an equally "interesting" gestation, gets a mere 2 lines! And there's no mention at all of what constituted the Mk.21 nor how the Mk.22 or 22A designations came about!

 

Offsetting all this, the author has provided some wonderful period photos from his own collection. I particularly liked the colour photos of various UAS badges which are linked to specific aircraft and dated too.

From experience I'm aware of the effort that went into this. When I first heard of this book's imminent issue I had hoped that it could/should have filled the void of reasonably priced Chipmunk references, but to me it represents a missed opportunity.

Not the writers fault, but the Canadian drawing have the wrong roundel, fin-flash and fonts (compare with photos in book).  It a pity the producers don't seems to get the idea of letting the writer see some PDFs before printing.  Is not the gear of the UK production in a different location under the wing as well?

Patrick Martin

[Mike]

2 hours ago, Rod Blievers said:

I'm sorry, but I must disagree with your rather gushing comments about the publisher's "inability to produce a bad one".

I'll stick to my differing opinion if it's OK with you, as I think the book is good from the point of view of a normal modeller, although you might consider that they have limited space within a softback title of 44 pages, so there may not have been enough space to discuss the different types of 3M tape at length, or devoting pages to a very unusual conversion that was of little overall importance of the type with no model available of it that I've heard of.

 

Didn't you say something very like this some time ago on another thread? You should write your own book if you think there's more to add. They say everyone's got a book in them. I haven't looked for mine yet though.

[Rod Blievers]

Of course you're entitled to your opinion, I hope I didn't imply otherwise? If so I apologies, certainly not my intent.

 

I HAVE written my own book Mike, well part of one anyway! Check out "Chipmunk - the Poor Man's Spitfire", arguably the definitive work on the mighty Chipmunk, now hard to get hold of and expensive to boot, which is why I had high hopes for this publication.

 

This is a book intended for "normal modellers", not known as "rivet counters" without reason, and surely they would all definitely be interested in colour schemes, markings and airframe details? I never discussed the lengths of the 3M tapes, merely their differing presentation - again surely any modeller would be interested in this.

 

My point about the UK-centric text and using your argument - why devote 6 lines to the Mk.23 when it's a variant "with no model available of it that I've ever heard of"? And yet at the same time there's a wonderful opportunity missed to lay out (again for modellers) the many differences - apart from the obvious canopy - between the UK-built T.10/T.20/Mk.21/Mk.22 series and the bubble canopied DHC-1B's.

 

I'm not sure about the ethics about this Mike, but I did write an extensive illustrated article on the Chipmunk differences on the HyperScale website - is it kosher to post a link to this?

Edited February 6, 2020 by Rod Blievers
text

[Rod Blievers]

Patrick:

 

The difference with the Canadian gear mounting/rake is generally not appreciated. The point of tire contact for a Canadian-built Chipmunk is 3 or 4 inches (depending on your reference source) further aft when compared with a UK-built specimen. The Canadian legs are subtly more vertical and the mount position is an inch further aft; very hard to appreciate unless you see the two together.