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Typhoon Armed Recce 1945


bobsyouruncle

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Hi Gents, hope you're all doing ok so far in this very strange year?

 

I did this one in back in February, March and April when the lockdown was full on in bits of spare time in between shifts to donate to the Hawker Typhoon Preservation Group to help raise some funds and get

Hawker Typhoon 1B RB396 fully restored back to flying condition (see website or details of this).

 

www.hawkertyphoon.com

 

I was thinking about what she would have been doing 75 years earlier, whilst painting this one, so was referring to the Squadron diaries quite a lot.

Back then, 174 Squadron were doing quite a lot of longer range 'Armed Recce' missions into Germany, from their base at Volkel.

For these, they were normally fitted with a pair of 44 gallon long range fuel tanks and the rocket load was reduced to a pair beneath each wing, attached to the later lightweight aluminium rocket rails.

I thought that it might be interesting to show this slightly different look to how the Typhoon's normally shown (with the full complement of 8 rockets), to represent this part of the aircrafts history.

The Squadron diaries often describe them as 'looking for gaps in the cloud layer' over the target area, before jettisoning tanks and going into the attack and this is the situation I was attempting to show here.

Frank Johnson flew several times as the rear in a section and would have had a lot of empty sky behind him.

This one is 36 by 24 inches, oils on stretched canvas. First shot is a snapshot of the whole painting and the second is a Black and White closer crop.

Cheers Bob.

 

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God god that beautiful!

 

It never ceases to amaze me the talents that some modellers have. Are you a professional artist? 

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That is amazing Bob,....... what a brilliant painting and your research is spot on, I do like the weapons fit of tanks with rockets.

 

All the best

                 Tony

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Thanks very much for all the kind comments.

Troy, I'd have to confess that I've probably asked more questions of Chris about Typhoons than anyone ever should really, especially over recent years, mainly regarding

the Airfix 24th scale model build, but also regarding the probable tanks set up here and other small details and I'm forever grateful for and value his expert opinion and advice.

 

Gorby, it was my job for a few years up to 2006, but since then I paint as a hobby, with the day/night job being on Ambulances (getting too old for that now, I reckon, as I'm thinking about tonights shift).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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That work truely shows your skills, great work man. I am really impressed! 
How do you set up your work? 
just out of your head or do you use some kind of pose? Platic model, photo or 3d model?

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Hi Nils, thanks for the generous comments.

I usually start with a general idea of what sort of picture concept I'd like it to be (background, lighting, angle, etc) and sketch this out.

I do use plastic models as a great aid to see how the light falls on the airframe at certain angles and times of day, but will be double checking the model compared to period photos, if used in a pose, for accuracy and shape issues and will

make amendments as necessary. For just one small example, doing this I noticed that the Airfix 24th scale Typhoon had a different number of fasteners on the top cowling to the real thing and that the small outlet pipes (there are two

on the starboard side, unlike the port), are in a different location in reality to that on the model and that they're in a more forward position on the real thing.

I've done some bizarre looking experiments in the past, in my dining room and in the garden, crawling around using models and trying to replicate a light situation for a specific time, place and orientation, with steps, sticks, maps and cardboard buildings, etc., (all good fun though).

Cheers Bob.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Thanks for your explaination 😊 I fully understand the crawling around bit, hehe 

Sometimes I think «normal» people must believe modellers are some real lunatics 😂

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