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Halt and Catch Fire (1/72 Brengun Typhoon Ib)


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"I ask you to look at the map of Europe today and see if you can suggest any way in which we could win this war if we entered it. Suppose we had a large army in America, trained and equipped. Where would we send it to fight? The campaigns of the war show only too clearly how difficult it is to force a landing, or to maintain an army, on a hostile coast.

 

"Suppose we took our Navy from the Pacific and used it to convoy British shipping. That would not win the war for England. It would, at best, permit her to exist under the constant bombing of the German air fleet. Suppose we had an air force that we could send to Europe. Where could it operate? Some of our squadrons might be based in the British Isles, but it is physically impossible to base enough aircraft in the British Isles alone to equal in strength the aircraft that can be based on the continent of Europe.

 

"I have asked these questions on the supposition that we had in existence an army and an air force large enough and well enough equipped to send to Europe; and that we would dare to remove our Navy from the Pacific. Even on this basis, I do not see how we could invade the continent of Europe successfully as long as all of that continent and most of Asia is under Axis domination."

 

-- Charles Lindbergh, "America First", 23 April 1941

 

 

"[N]othing is more certain that every trace of Hitler's footsteps, every stain of his infected, corroding fingers will be sponged and purged and, if need be, blasted from the surface of the earth."

 

-- Winston Churchill, "Speech to the Allied Delegates", 12 June 1941

 

 

"You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you." 

 

-- General Dwight Eisenhower, 6 June 1944

 

 

 

 

 

On 9 June 1944, Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel ordered General der Panzertruppe Leo Geyr von Schweppenburg, commander of Panzergruppe West, the main armoured reserve and primary striking force of the Heer in Normandy, to plan a counterattack that would sweep the Allied landing back into the sea. One of Germany's leading prewar armoured theorists, Geyr von Schweppenburg had commanded a panzer division in the invasion of Poland, and panzer corps in both the fighting in France and in Russia. Though a very experienced and successful officer, he had notably never fought a battle against the Western Allies after 1940. 

 

The massive volume of radio traffic required to coordinate a corps-level attack did not escape British notice. ULTRA decrypts, translated very nearly in real time, reached the 2nd Tactical Air Force by early the next morning. 124 Typhoon Wing, 139 Mitchell Wing, and four squadrons of Spitfires drawn from both ADGB and 84 Group were ordered to put on a maximum effort strike on the Chateau de la Caine, not far from Caen.

 

Shortly after 2100, as the staff officers of Panzergruppe West were sitting down to eat dinner in the chateau, they heard air raid sirens and rushed out to see what was happening. As they stood spellbound, seventeen Typhoons from 247 and 181 Squadrons each salvoed off eight rockets apiece. As the Typhoons veered away, the Mitchells arrived. 

 

Bombing from 12,000 feet in cells of six aircraft, the Mitchells dropped over five hundred 500lb bombs in the target area.

 

Then the second wave of Typhoons swooped in, blasting anything left standing. 

 

The raid was a total success. Geyr von Schweppenburg was seriously wounded. His chief of staff and every other staff officer save one were killed. Plans for a counteroffensive had to be totally shelved, and the units assigned to Geyr von Schweppenburg were transferred to the control of the ardent Nazi "Sepp" Dietrich, one of the Party's "alter kampfer" who had risen to high rank in the Waffen-SS owing to his ties to Hitler and was promoted far beyond his competence. The Heer never succeeded in launching a corps-level counterattack in the Anglo-Canadian sector during the summer of 1944. 

 

I will be building Hawker Typhoon MN317/ZY-B "China British", of 247 (China British) Squadron. On this op, it was flown by F/Sgt John Alan Dyce "Jack" Meechan DFC AFM from Edinburgh, who survived the war (and at least one Typhoon crash). As late as 1953, he was still a Flight Sergeant, though rather chunkier, by then delivering new Canadair Sabres to the RAF. He died in 2001. 

 

Happily, we have a photo of MN317 taken shortly before the op, so we know pretty much what she looked like:

 

Typhoon_MN317_ZY-B_247_Bazenville

 

She had the three-bladed prop, and apparently the earlier tailplanes so prone to just plumb falling off the aircraft, a perennial and never-fully-resolved problem with the Tiffie, poor old dear.

 

I'm using the Brengun kit for this, both because it's suited perfectly for building a mid-production Typhoon, and because dimensionally, I think it's a bit better than the Airfix kit, being appropriately beefier and so forth. Also, I have about a jillion of them, thanks to mon frere d'autre mere @Stew Dapple, who sent me approximately five hundred of the Brengun kits as a birthday present a while back. You see Stew, I do sometimes build them!

 

The Brengun is in fact my preferred Typhoon kit (Stew's so thoughtful!), but it's not without issues. In fact, it's kind of a bitch to put together. For instance, on the cardoor versions, which this one is mercifully not, the canopy simply doesn't fit, and you really need to go and buy the vacform one Brengun sells if you want a hope in hell of getting it on without it looking absurd. And that's just rewarding bad behaviour! Additionally, the instructions are crude, the cockpit assembly is too wide and needs sanding, the landing gear bays are too tall and need so much sanding that I thought I was going to die from ingesting about a pound of styrene shavings, there's flash everywhere, etc etc etc. 

 

The point is, if you want your Typhoon to look big and butch, as it should, you'll suffer and build the Brengun. It doesn't mean you can't complain, lord knows I'm going to. But it's the best of what's out there in the only scale that matters.

 

PXL_20210804_061519617

 

 

Here's where we are now. I've started on the wheel bays and the guts of the intake, as well as the seat and IP. You know you're in for a good time when you need to use filler on the seat. Everything so far has involved a certain amount of sanding, fettling, micro-chiseling, and judicious and injudicious swearing, especially when for a few hot minutes it looked like I'd lost the windscreen and vile imprecations flowed freely from my lips. 

 

 

 

 

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  • Procopius changed the title to Halt and Catch Fire (1/72 Brengun Typhoon Ib)
38 minutes ago, Stew Dapple said:

Great intro, as usual mate B) 


Yes, it does feel like things are returning to normal round here. I felt I was losing my way a bit without Ed’s threads.

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3 hours ago, Procopius said:

You know you're in for a good time when you need to use filler on the seat.

This made me laugh a lot! 

 

Good luck with your build, I'll be watching with interest. I've just ordered a set of Arthur Bentley's Typhoon plans in 1/48 as I would like to improve the 20 year old Hasegawa kit. you can almost guarantee that if that gets finished, Airfix will announce a new-tool one in 1/48th!

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Good god, first page! I normally spot your threads about 25 pages in! Following with interest (I have only built the old and new Airfix and the Hobbyboss, which is best avoided)

Those staff officers must have wondered what hit them...

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10 hours ago, Procopius said:

I will be building Hawker Typhoon MN317/ZY-B "China British", of 247 (China British) Squadron. On this op, it was flown by F/Sgt John Alan Dyce "Jack" Meechan DFC AFM from Edinburgh, who survived the war (and at least one Typhoon crash). As late as 1953, he was still a Flight Sergeant, though rather chunkier, by then delivering new Canadair Sabres to the RAF. He died in 2001. 

 

And as if by magic, here is Meechan circa 1953:

 

aaa

 

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4 minutes ago, Sabrejet said:

 

And as if by magic, here is Meechan circa 1953:

 

aaa

 

 

Outstanding! Thank you very much. He must have really loved flying to stay in the RAF as a Sergeant pilot for at least eight years after the war. The pay couldn't have been great.

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45 minutes ago, Galligraphics said:

Following.

This is actually from a blog about gin but it is written by Jack Meechan’s son and has a bit of information and a couple of photos of him... 

https://ginblogger.com/aviation-gin-review/

 

This is wonderful! Thank you for turning up more information on our pilot.

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Hi PC

 

Great to see you back in the fold, hope this all goes well for you, I'm watching as usual to learn tips from one of the Masters on this site

Mine is the Airfix one but hey ho, transferable skillsand techniques etc

All the best

Geoff

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3 hours ago, Kitsticker said:

Great to see you back in the fold, hope this all goes well for you, I'm watching as usual to learn tips from one of the Masters on this site

 

I, uh, wouldn't go that far...

 

Short update tonight: Mrs P and our hellions came home tonight, so I spent today cleaning up the house and fetching them from O'Hare. 

 

I'm in the process right now of painting all the small parts that need to go together before the slightly larger parts go together so I can put all the parts together then desperately pull them apart and start filing things down.

 

PXL_20210806_030949369

 

As I understand it, Typhoons had black upper interior cockpits, grey-green lower interior cockpits, and metal-coloured tubing, because Hawker had zero regard for modellers, as can be seen by the placement of Hawker Hunter underwing serials in the 1950s and the roundel positioning on Harrier intakes. Speaking of zero regard for modellers, there are quite a few annoying small parts for the interior of the landing gear bays and I don't much like it. I think I just left them off the last time I built one of these

 

I ordered some of the new Tamiya LP-11 Silver lacquer, debating waiting until it arrives to test it. 

 

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Good progress there Edward B) 

 

I prefer the three-blade Typhoon to the four-blade type for some reason. I do share your concern at the failure of past aircraft designers, manufacturers and the various ministries that decided what colours they should be to take into account the needs and desires - and convenience - of future modellers. So short-sighted :lol: 

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

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4 hours ago, Procopius said:

Hawker had zero regard for modellers, as can be seen by the placement of Hawker Hunter underwing serials in the 1950s and the roundel positioning on Harrier intakes

 

4 hours ago, Stew Dapple said:

I do share your concern at the failure of past aircraft designers, manufacturers and the various ministries that decided what colours they should be to take into account the needs and desires - and convenience - of future modellers. So short-sighted :lol: 

 

Seconded (thirded?).  

 

Of course it’s also been said that, given the ergonomic slums that were many British fighter cockpits of times past, they had scant regard for the needs and convenience of contemporary pilots either.

 

 

Edited by Fritag
typos
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'I, uh, wouldn't go that far...' said PC in response to some praise

 

Well here's another example of our talented BM modellers being so modest and self deprecating

 

It's a very British trait I think (hope? Am I deluded??) 

 

PC are you getting more British as time passes?

 

You do have impressive modelling skills ( and a fine way with the wordage I have to say) and I think you should be proud of your achievements

 

(And you have two young lads to steer along lifes highways...... good luck with that too!)

 

All the best

 

G

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