1/72nd Special Hobby Blackburn Skua, 803 NAS, HMS Ark Royal, Silver Pre War Scheme (EDITED- Model Updated!)

[tonyot]

Hiya Folks,

                I do like the Skua and I had always promised myself a model in the pre war silver scheme,..... it was very hard to choose between the aircraft wearing fuselage roundels or the carrier bands of HMS Ark Royal,.... but I finally chose the latter,...... a colourful flight leaders aircraft of 802 NAS, L2887/A7F, as featured on the excellent box art,... although what were the tail colours,.... the box art shows blue with a white stripe while the decals show red white and blue?

 

I do have a photo of the subject aircraft, L2887/A7F in a book,.. but I could not find one on line,.... here are some squadron mates during the same photo shoot, without the coloured fin and wing tips;

 

The subject aircraft can be seen in the attached image;

https://www.gettyimages.fi/detail/news-photo/blackburn-skua-mk-iis-of-803-squadron-in-formation-over-news-photo/159137075?adppopup=true

 

The Model;

First of all,..... yes the kit is missing the two `bumps' in front of the windscreen and yes,.... I forgot about them until after I had painted the model,,,,, I had intended to craft some from sprue,..... but when I sat down to build the model I simply forgot, and didn`t want to ruin the paintwork afterwards, plus I just needed a plain relatively simple build from the box for a change!!!  I also went along with the decals and chose the red white and blue fin colours,.... out of ease more than anything else,..... the model was sprayed using Tamiya Bare Metal Silve from a rattle can and the matt varnish was applied by brush;

 

EDITED,..... I have since upated the model,.... added the air outlets above the nose using 1/48th Spitfire wing air vents, sanded to a better shape and I have painted the rudder blue and white over the red white and blue decals!;

 

Cheers

           Tony

 

Edited February 2, 2021 by tonyot

[Wulfman]

A truly excellent build, first class work !

 

Wulfman

[tonyot]

12 minutes ago, Wulfman said:

A truly excellent build, first class work !

 

Wulfman

Thanks mate,.... much appreciated. 

[cngaero]

Great looking Skua. It's beautifully finished to your usual high standards. 

The little flash of colour on the tail fin sets this one off. 

Yet another one in my to do pile that you've moved up to the top. 

Inspirational as ever Tony. Thank you for sharing it here. 

 

Chris. 

[tonyot]

1 hour ago, cngaero said:

Great looking Skua. It's beautifully finished to your usual high standards. 

The little flash of colour on the tail fin sets this one off. 

Yet another one in my to do pile that you've moved up to the top. 

Inspirational as ever Tony. Thank you for sharing it here. 

 

Chris. 

Cheers Chris,..... much appreciated,.... I now wish I`d done more,..... and apart from those missing vents it is a lovely little kit. 

[Dunny]

That's lovely Tony! I've got one of these in the stash but will probably do a scheme from Norway 1940, 

 

Cheers,

 

Roger

[tonyot]

52 minutes ago, Dunny said:

That's lovely Tony! I've got one of these in the stash but will probably do a scheme from Norway 1940, 

 

Cheers,

 

Roger

Cheers Roger,...... good idea. I did a 1/48th one in a Norway scheme plus a target tug, and a couple of Roc`s in 1940 colours,..... so it was something a bit different mate.

1/48th Skua`s;

 

1/48th Rocs;

 

And an old 1/72nd Pavla Skua too in the colours worn at the end of the Norwegian campaign;

 

All the best mate,

                           Tony

Edited January 31, 2021 by tonyot

[Grey Beema]

Great job on the Skua Tony.  Lovely finish.  For all of its faults the Skua filled an important gap in the early war years..

 

Strangely there seem to be a number of Skua builds going on at the moment, I have a Mediterranean Skua on the bench currently and a Norway Skua in the display case. 

[malpaso]

Very nice build.  The Skua looks quite attractive in the silver.

 

A7G must be virtually brand new in that photo you posted, the exhaust cowling has barely discoloured at all!

 

Cheers

Will

[F-32]

Awesome work

[stevehnz]

Nice that Tony, I could be won over to a prewar silver scheme after seeing that. I like the look of your Pavla one too, it almost looks better around the nose than the SH one from your photos but maybe the difference is in the cooling gills. It could tempt ne to hang onto mine. The whole jolly lot of them look great. 

Steve.

[swralph]

Lovely build and painting Tony.😀

[mick b]

Very nice Tony, you can never have too many Skuas in my opinion 😊 which paint did you use on the collector ring?

 

Mike

[Red Dog]

Stunning job once again Tony. Well done.

Blackburn and their weird bottom birds, got to love them.

 

bottom (weird bottom?) should be small donkey

Edited January 31, 2021 by Red Dog

[Vulcanicity]

That's a beauty Tony! The silver is excellent and I am as usual in awe of your brushed varnish finishes. For what it's worth I built this kit in this scheme a few years back and seem to remember reading that the box art colours for the tail flash (i.e. blue-white-blue) is correct but I can't recall where I read it. 

[Robert Armstrong]

Love it 👍😁😁

Crackin' job, as always 

[Homer]

Congratulations on some fine work,look great 👍 

[tonyot]

3 hours ago, Grey Beema said:

Great job on the Skua Tony.  Lovely finish.  For all of its faults the Skua filled an important gap in the early war years..

 

Strangely there seem to be a number of Skua builds going on at the moment, I have a Mediterranean Skua on the bench currently and a Norway Skua in the display case. 

Thanks mate,.... yeah the Skua was a very important aircraft for the Fleet Air Arm and despite its mediocre performance the crews did wonders with them. 

I have another kit which I intend to build as a Med Skua too,.... are you adding the Light Blue undersides with the sides left in grey(or had the grey been covered by Sky?)? 

3 hours ago, malpaso said:

Very nice build.  The Skua looks quite attractive in the silver.

 

A7G must be virtually brand new in that photo you posted, the exhaust cowling has barely discoloured at all!

 

Cheers

Will

Thanks Will,.... I would say they were quite new out of the box when the pic was taken. 

 

2 hours ago, F-32 said:

Awesome work

Thanks mate. 

 

2 hours ago, stevehnz said:

Nice that Tony, I could be won over to a prewar silver scheme after seeing that. I like the look of your Pavla one too, it almost looks better around the nose than the SH one from your photos but maybe the difference is in the cooling gills. It could tempt ne to hang onto mine. The whole jolly lot of them look great. 

Steve.

Cheers Steve,..... the silver is quite pretty,.... I do like those with the fuselage roundel too and one of these had a black and white striped fin with the Sqn badge superimposed. The Pavla one was a pig to build and the cockpit is all wrong with the inclined sill.  

 

3 hours ago, swralph said:

Lovely build and painting Tony.😀

Cheers mate. 

 

3 hours ago, mick b said:

Very nice Tony, you can never have too many Skuas in my opinion 😊 which paint did you use on the collector ring?

 

Mike

Thanks Mike,..... I totally agree mate!! The paint used was Humbrol Metalcote Polished Steel, buffed up with a rag.

 

3 hours ago, Red Dog said:

Stunning job once again Tony. Well done.

Blackburn and their weird bottom birds, got to love them.

 

bottom (weird bottom?) should be small donkey

Thanks mate.

 

3 hours ago, Vulcanicity said:

That's a beauty Tony! The silver is excellent and I am as usual in awe of your brushed varnish finishes. For what it's worth I built this kit in this scheme a few years back and seem to remember reading that the box art colours for the tail flash (i.e. blue-white-blue) is correct but I can't recall where I read it. 

Cheers Phil,.... yeah I am toying with the idea of repainting the fin, adding those outlet `lumps' in the nose and adding a pair of intake trumpets for the engine,... strange omissions  from the kit?

 

2 hours ago, Robert Armstrong said:

Love it 👍😁😁

Crackin' job, as always 

Cheers Bob,.... glad you like it bud!  

 

2 hours ago, Homer said:

Congratulations on some fine work,look great 👍 

Thanks mate. 

 

Thank you everybody for your very kind comments,

Cheers

          Tony

[CedB]

Very nice Tony, very nice indeed!  

[Grey Beema]

1 hour ago, tonyot said:

 

I have another kit which I intend to build as a Med Skua too,.... are you adding the Light Blue undersides with the sides left in grey(or had the grey been covered by Sky?)? 

Thank you everybody for your very kind comments,

Cheers

          Tony

 

Hey Tony,

 

After studying @iang‘s book and some email interchange I have gone for pale blue undersides over the S1E.  I just need to get some decals made up to complete it..

 

This is is my build, as part of a long finished GB.  I have a Fulmar in the stash for my next Bruen’s Aircraft and a Hurricane IIb promised for his Operation Torch cab.

 

 

[woody37]

A strange looking aeroplane but lovely finish mate, do enjoy seeing these lesser favoured and known aircraft getting the treatment

[tonyot]

1 hour ago, CedB said:

Very nice Tony, very nice indeed!  

Cheers Ced mate.

52 minutes ago, woody37 said:

A strange looking aeroplane but lovely finish mate, do enjoy seeing these lesser favoured and known aircraft getting the treatment

Thanks Neil,..... yeah Special Hobby have spoiled us with some much needed models of lesser known aircraft over the years.

59 minutes ago, Grey Beema said:

 

Hey Tony,

 

After studying @iang‘s book and some email interchange I have gone for pale blue undersides over the S1E.  I just need to get some decals made up to complete it..

 

This is is my build, as part of a long finished GB.  I have a Fulmar in the stash for my next Bruen’s Aircraft and a Hurricane IIb promised for his Operation Torch cab.

 

 

Looks excellent mate and the light blue looks just right,.... I agree with SIE too. I look forwardto the others too.

[Navy Bird]

It looks great, Tony! Another one of your modelling masterpieces.   

 

When I built my copy of the Special Hobby kit, I was also dumbfounded about the difference between the box art and the decal sheet. At the time, back in 2013, I made this comment on my WIP thread:

 

As I've learned on a separate thread, with some esteemed Britmodellers who know their Skuas, is that the tail fin stripes were most likely blue/white/blue (even though the specifications called for red/white/red for 2nd Flight Leader) and the wingtips would not have been painted at all on an 803 Squadron bird, only on those from 800 Squadron. But this plane, L2887, was transferred from 800 into 803, so it MAY have retained its painted wingtips. But looking at photos it would seem that the painted area of the 800 Squadron wingtips would not have been the entire dihedral area, but just the tips.

 

In other words, the plane should look like the box art - and not what the instructions would have you do! And to think my wife is always accusing me of NOT following the directions when I put something together...

 

And, of course, I can't find that separate thread. It wouldn't be the first time Special Hobby goofed up the decals. I ended up leaving off the painted wingtips and painting the tail fin stripes blue/white/blue. But I'm still not sure which way is right! Maybe both, but at different times...

 

Cheers,

Bill

[iang]

Lovely looking Skua Tony, but obviously a small lapse in concentration with that fin?! Those are section leader markings not national markings - so blue over silver .

Nevertheless beautiful finish.

 

Edit:

 

I should of added that I think that the wing tip markings are also blue on this aircraft. I have another photo somewhere of it in flight, and the wingtips on the camera aircraft are definitely blue. Later, 803 F, G and H were Blue Section, so I think it likely that the wingtips were blue, rather than red.

Edited January 31, 2021 by iang

[ColinChipmunkfan]

Yet another quality build posted in January- your production rate would make Henry Ford jealous- well done sir!