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Handley Page Hampden - John Hannah VC


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Hi,

 

To make a change from the German planes I hope to build for this GB, I thought I would throw this in.

DSC03351-crop

I built my first Hampden in about 1968, just after it was released , though this is a 2010 re-boxing. The Hampden entered service in late 1938 and at the start of the war on September 3rd 1939 equipped 8 RAF Squadrons, and on the next day Hampdens of 83 Squadron made their first albeit abortive attack on German ships in the Schillig Roads. During the Battle of Britain they joined in with attacks on various targets as far afield as Germany, and I have decided to model P1355, also of 83 Squadron which took part in an attack on invasion barges at Antwerp on the night of September 15-16th. It was hit by flak on the way home and caught fire. Although two of the crew baled out, the wireless operator Sergeant John Hannah fought the fire and eventually put it out, the plane making it back to base. For this act of bravery he became the second Hampden crew member to receive the Victoria Cross, the first being Pilot R A B Learoyd of 49 Squadron in August – the kit comes with markings for Learoyd's machine. It will be a little while before I make a start as I have 3 kits to finish off in another GB which closes in 2 weeks.

 

Hannah was severely injured, and not long afterwards caught tuberculosis, probably brought on by his weakened condition. He left the RAF, but sadly died in 1947 aged 25. A sad end for a very brave man. This is the recommendation for his award.

Hannah-crop

Cheers

 

Pete

Edited by PeterB
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Hi Steve, 

 

A handful of Airfix kits on e-bay plus several other makes. Looks like they are going for £20+ but you might get lucky. It made up pretty well as I recall - still have the original but it was getting tatty so I picked a new one up when last Airfix re-released it. The only problem I remember is that the guns are not great and getting AM Vickers VGO aka K guns in 1/72 is not all that easy and pretty expensive I seem to recall - in fact just looked and they are no longer available at Hannants it seems.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

 

Later - actually the kit guns are not that bad - must have been clumsy with the good old tube cement when I was building it first time.

Edited by PeterB
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Concur on the shory. Fighting a fire in such conditions must have been absolutely dreadful.

 

I wanted to build the Hampden as a kid, but never saw it for sale despite looking in LHSs all over the country during vacations. Never seen it been built either.

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I'll watch this keenly Peter, my late brother was John Hannah & the 1st I knew of his name sake was after he told me probably about 15 years ago. Probably googling himself & came upon an entry for the VC winner. I recall him being quite moved by the story, it is a very sad one. My brother got killed while hiking nearly 9 years ago now, I've long thought to build my Airfix Hampden as this one as a sort of dual memorial.

Steve.

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2 hours ago, GREG DESTEC said:

Great story and choice of subject.

 

I wish Airfix or somebody would do a new tool of this classic 🙏

Hi Greg,

 

I know there were a few new Hampdens released in the last 15 or so years - Valom in I think 2008, and AZ models a few years back though I suspect that is the Valom one again. I have no idea how accurate they are. I have always thought the Airfix one was pretty good, though no doubt there will be some inaccuracies, but I have never seen a review until I had a dig around today, and found a couple including one by Heather in 2018! Usual problems of thick transparencies, heavy rivet/panel line detailing, lack of detail on engines and interior that you would expect from a kit of this age, but generally it seems to look about right. Some doubt about the exact profile of the wing tips I gather and the u/c is maybe a little simplified, but overall it is not bad I think, though a new tool should be even better.

 

Seeing "Bomber" Harris' signature at the bottom of the recommendation for the VC reminds me that as commander of 5 group, he was supposedly behind the move to add extra guns in the upper and lower rear positions, but more on that during the build. Hugh Walmsley was the CO of Scampton at the time, hence his involvement.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

Edited by PeterB
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8 hours ago, PeterB said:

I know there were a few new Hampdens released in the last 15 or so years - Valom in I think 2008, and AZ models a few years back though I suspect that is the Valom one again.

The AZ release indeed is Valom, but with AZ models' transparencies - the original Valom parts tended to turn yellow, hence the replacement parts.

There's a reboxing coming along soonish I've heard, so for those interested... keep an eye out.

 

Don't know if those AZ parts could be used as a replacement for the Airfix parts - I'd say not, but who knows?

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Hi,

 

My transparencies are thick but otherwise pretty good, though the underside gunners's glazing was missing, and by the time I noticed Airfix were no longer producing the kit. However they did send me a replacement, but it cost me £3 so I have mixed feelings about that - as I mentioned elsewhere times have changed - when I had a part missing on their original Series 2 Mossie they sent me a complete replacement kit free of charge by return of post!

 

Cheers

 

Pete

Edited by PeterB
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16 minutes ago, PeterB said:

but it cost me £3 so I have mixed feelings about that

This week I got charged the same Pete, for a damaged upper wing, 1/48 Spitfire 22/24, which was still sealed in the bag. But not worth arguing about it, glad I could get a replacement for a part/kit OOP. Though I must say that Eduard don't charge anything for replacing damaged parts.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Great choice Pete

 

I built an old Airfix redstripe one of these in the classic Airfix GB, they turn out really well.

 

IMG_4079

 

My Work In Progress below, might be handy

 

 

Good luck with this one

 

Cheers Pat

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With my trio of Emils close to completion I have made a start on the Hampden.

DSC03449-crop

By modern standards the interior is crude but I guess it was actually quite detailed for its time. Besides the floor cum bomb bay roof you get a seat which is not too bad, a control column and an IP which originally had the old paper instruments cut from the instruction sheet but that has been upgraded to a decal. There are "seats" for the rear gunners, though the upper ones "stool" must be a scale 3ft high so he might have needed steps! There is another stool for the bomb aimer which I will fit later. 

 

I don't have much in the way of pics of the interior but there did seem to be a bulkhead behind the cockpit complete with what looks like the internal door from a house! I have accordingly cut a bit of card for that. As to the area behind the cockpit where John Hannah worked as wireless operator I have no idea. I am somewhat restricted by the wing mountings anyway and it will not be visible so I am not going to bother. The bomb bay is quite detailed with two frames to hang bombs on and 4 bombs of indeterminate size - probably  500lb, which the artwork now correctly shows as yellow (or actually a buff colour is more likely) with decs for red rings round the nose to show they are filled - should probably be a green ring as well to identify the filling. There are also a couple more to mount externally under the wings on racks if you wish but I will not bother and am modelling a closed bomb bay - spares box is doing well from this. The undercarriage is another of the Airfix moveable variety, though as ever it is a bit pointless as the doors are fixed! That means it has to fitted before closing up the wings which is a bit of a pain in terms of priming, but not too bad as the legs should swing up into the nacelles so I can put tape on. I have painted up the wheels, legs, inside of the bay, and the cowling/engine so things should progress fairly rapidly from now on.

 

Bye for now.

 

Pete

Edited by PeterB
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Considering its age, the fit has not been bad so far. There is a little flash, and the soft grey plastic is easily damaged - one fuselage half "fell off" the sprue on its own, leaving a scar I had to fill.

DSC03457-crop

Anyway. the fuselage is closed up and filled and I have made a start on the tail unit. The good old Airfix moveable control surfaces are as ever a poor fit so I will have to reduce the gaps a little with filler. The undercarriage is on and painted and can be swung partially up out of the way but the legs are actually too wide to go all the way into the nacelles without a bit of work. I remember reading years ago that the wing tips were not quite the right shape so I will square them off once dry.

 

There are a few small problems I need to resolve - Airfix offer optional plain short exhaust pipes and also  long "hedgehog" muffled exhausts, spinners and also both a plain D/F loop and a streamlined "rugby ball" one, but give no explanation as to which to use. In this boxing you get a choice of 3 builds - an early one of 106 Squadron in April 1940 which seems to have no D/F loop at all, no spinners, and short exhausts, Learoyd's slightly later machine of 49 Squadron with spinners and an open D/F loop, but still short exhausts, and a Swedish P5 with D/F loop, no spinners and again short exhausts. Pictures and profiles show that the plain D/F loop was fitted to some aircraft and the "football" type seems to have arrived much later than the period I am modelling. The same seems to be the case with the longer muffled exhausts (though not according to my ancient "Profile Publications" book), whereas spinners seem to have been introduced fairly early. The profile of Hannah's plane in Warpaint suggests spinners, short exhausts and no D/F loop so I will go with that unless anybody can prove differently. I notice that the one I built from the original release has spinners and long exhausts, but the D/F loop has broken off so I cannot be sure which type I fitted - it certainly had one, and I would suspect I used the streamlined one as I would have had no idea what exactly it was back then!

 

So a bit of fiddling and it should be ready for a spray of rattle can primer by the end of the week, weather permitting.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

 

. Later,

 

I have just looked at the instructions issued with the original release on Scalemates. They tell you to use the streamlined D/F loop,  the spinners and long exhausts for the "Popeye" version but not for "the earlier one" whatever that was - they only show the Popeye version in the paint scheme unless the other never got copied to Scalemates, and that is coded EA*P in the fairly early camo scheme. Seems I would have known it was a D/F loop after all as in those days Airfix told you what the parts were!

Edited by PeterB
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The open loop DF aerial was retractable into the upper fuselage, with the loop cross-wise the fuselage. You can see the thicker bit at the top of the kit part. The " football " shape came later. 

 

You can see the slot for the retractable loop here, circled in red.

 

50240968363_d71a00299f_b.jpg

 

 

More Hampden photos here. Just click on the picture to open it up larger and see the caption on the lower left: 

https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/search?query=Handley-Page Hampden&pageSize=30&media-records=all-records&style=image&page=0

 

 

 

 

Chris

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Thanks Chris,

 

Now you mention it I seem to recall reading that about the loop somewhere once upon a time. Also, I am beginning to suspect that the longer flame damping exhausts were probably introduced soon after the Hamp switched to night bombing which would make sense. I will keep looking, but I guess that the loop would normally be retracted when on the ground. I am also thinking of having the upper gunner's sliding canopy in the closed position with the guns poking out through the slots to rest on top of the fuselage as in some pics I have seen.  I might even have a go at making the little rail that stopped them shooting the tail off.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

Edited by PeterB
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I mentioned earlier that the wingtip shape was a bit wrong.

DSC03459-crop

The old unmodifed kit is in black! I suppose I could have fiddled around with filler and card to preserve the span, but took the lazy option and just sawed a couple of mil off. The span is now around 8" short, so I suspect the kit span is a few inches over. I had to do a fair bit of work with a file to sort out the wing joints but they are on and drying - they will need a little filler but could be worse. So I may be able to prime on Thursday if the weather forecast is correct. There is not really a lot more to go on now - engines, props, intakes and exhausts together with guns and transparencies. This generation of Airfix kits go together fairly quickly once you have sorted out the fuselage interior!

 

Pete

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18 hours ago, PeterB said:

Considering its age, the fit has not been bad so far. There is a little flash, and the soft grey plastic is easily damaged - one fuselage half "fell off" the sprue on its own, leaving a scar I had to fill.

DSC03457-crop

Anyway. the fuselage is closed up and filled and I have made a start on the tail unit. The good old Airfix moveable control surfaces are as ever a poor fit so I will have to reduce the gaps a little with filler. The undercarriage is on and painted and can be swung partially up out of the way but the legs are actually too wide to go all the way into the nacelles without a bit of work. I remember reading years ago that the wing tips were not quite the right shape so I will square them off once dry.

 

There are a few small problems I need to resolve - Airfix offer optional plain short exhaust pipes and also  long "hedgehog" muffled exhausts, spinners and also both a plain D/F loop and a streamlined "rugby ball" one, but give no explanation as to which to use. In this boxing you get a choice of 3 builds - an early one of 106 Squadron in April 1940 which seems to have no D/F loop at all, no spinners, and short exhausts, Learoyd's slightly later machine of 49 Squadron with spinners and an open D/F loop, but still short exhausts, and a Swedish P5 with D/F loop, no spinners and again short exhausts. Pictures and profiles show that the plain D/F loop was fitted to some aircraft and the "football" type seems to have arrived much later than the period I am modelling. The same seems to be the case with the longer muffled exhausts (though not according to my ancient "Profile Publications" book), whereas spinners seem to have been introduced fairly early. The profile of Hannah's plane in Warpaint suggests spinners, short exhausts and no D/F loop so I will go with that unless anybody can prove differently. I notice that the one I built from the original release has spinners and long exhausts, but the D/F loop has broken off so I cannot be sure which type I fitted - it certainly had one, and I would suspect I used the streamlined one as I would have had no idea what exactly it was back then!

 

So a bit of fiddling and it should be ready for a spray of rattle can primer by the end of the week, weather permitting.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

 

. Later,

 

I have just looked at the instructions issued with the original release on Scalemates. They tell you to use the streamlined D/F loop,  the spinners and long exhausts for the "Popeye" version but not for "the earlier one" whatever that was - they only show the Popeye version in the paint scheme unless the other never got copied to Scalemates, and that is coded EA*P in the fairly early camo scheme. Seems I would have known it was a D/F loop after all as in those days Airfix told you what the parts were!

The earlier one is the same aeroplane prior to the application of the Popeye artwork.  I was lucky enough to bag a red stripe Hampden from a specialist kits auction site recently, with proper "locate and cement" instructions.  Bliss!

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