1:32 HK Lancaster "G. Gibsons' Lancaster prior to takeoff on Op. Chastise - The Sortie is on again!

[Thom216]

She looks fantastic! The weathering looks great on it.

[Dansk]

wow it looks fabulous. great job, nearly there.

[Dave Wilko]

Good Lord Sir,one is certainly jangling the old research files from all those years ago.

One will most certainly check out the de H 5/40's for you(IIRC they were Ham-Stan under licence),but if they were JABLO,they could well be wood blades.

[CraigH]

3 minutes ago, Dave Wilko said:

Good Lord Sir,one is certainly jangling the old research files from all those years ago.

One will most certainly check out the de H 5/40's for you(IIRC they were Ham-Stan under licence),but if they were JABLO,they could well be wood blades.

 

3 minutes ago, Dave Wilko said:

Good Lord Sir,one is certainly jangling the old research files from all those years ago.

One will most certainly check out the de H 5/40's for you(IIRC they were Ham-Stan under licence),but if they were JABLO,they could well be wood blades.

Thank you . Much appreciated 

[Dave Wilko]

Sir,a quick rummage reveals that the Lanc needle was indeed a Ham-Stan copy,-455600-,i.e ,the four prefix meant a Hydromatic,

6353 Hydro/6105 Bracket,so one is either 50% correct or 50% wrong on guessing ED932's propellers.

 

As to weathering and exhaust stains,they were kept outdoors on their dispersals as much as possible and flown hard in the few weeks before they were used "in anger".

Remember that Flight Engineers were absolute "masters of the throttle quadrant".

One's wife has a distant relative who's Uncle was a 5 Group Engine Fitter,he used to reckon that the "expected achievable figure"

was 1 Air Mile per Gallon(so slightly thirstier than ones average Toyota Yaris or similar😉).

The Flight Engineer would "juggle" the throttles and pitch levers to maintain 150 ASI,the mixture levers would then be adjusted "lean" until

the engine began to "hunt"and the the mixture very carefully richened until the "hunting" smoothed out.

This in turn lead to very high exhaust stub temperatures("cherry red to white hot" classed as "about right"),resulting in stubs and even heat shields burnt completely off.

Remember,these boys were running 100-130 octane high lead content fuel,which when "leaned out",gave very light brown to pale grey exhaust stains due to the high lead and other additive content.

 

One hopes this helps one a little.

[CraigH]

2 hours ago, Dave Wilko said:

Sir,a quick rummage reveals that the Lanc needle was indeed a Ham-Stan copy,-455600-,i.e ,the four prefix meant a Hydromatic,

6353 Hydro/6105 Bracket,so one is either 50% correct or 50% wrong on guessing ED932's propellers.

 

As to weathering and exhaust stains,they were kept outdoors on their dispersals as much as possible and flown hard in the few weeks before they were used "in anger".

Remember that Flight Engineers were absolute "masters of the throttle quadrant".

One's wife has a distant relative who's Uncle was a 5 Group Engine Fitter,he used to reckon that the "expected achievable figure"

was 1 Air Mile per Gallon(so slightly thirstier than ones average Toyota Yaris or similar😉).

The Flight Engineer would "juggle" the throttles and pitch levers to maintain 150 ASI,the mixture levers would then be adjusted "lean" until

the engine began to "hunt"and the the mixture very carefully richened until the "hunting" smoothed out.

This in turn lead to very high exhaust stub temperatures("cherry red to white hot" classed as "about right"),resulting in stubs and even heat shields burnt completely off.

Remember,these boys were running 100-130 octane high lead content fuel,which when "leaned out",gave very light brown to pale grey exhaust stains due to the high lead and other additive content.

 

One hopes this helps one a little.

Marvelous. Many thanks for your help. The exhaust stubs, which I usually enjoy going to town on, are all under shrouds😰 so not much scope there. However, I'm sure the current Flight Eng of PA474 will gobble this up with gusto when I send it to him. Not necessary now of course with short trips and modern fuels. Probably nowhere near as interesting though!

[Dave Wilko]

11 hours ago, CraigH said:

Marvelous. Many thanks for your help. The exhaust stubs, which I usually enjoy going to town on, are all under shrouds😰 so not much scope there. However, I'm sure the current Flight Eng of PA474 will gobble this up with gusto when I send it to him. Not necessary now of course with short trips and modern fuels. Probably nowhere near as interesting though!

One is always glad to help with research Sir,though 40+ years ago it was still possible to find gentlemen who did the flying"in anger" plus those whom worked on them "for real".

The current F/E of '474(the lucky beggar)will probably laugh his socks off more like😀,not sure what grade of  petrol they run their engines

on these days,but one would imagine that power outputs will be down compared to the more "exotic" wartime blends.

 

[CraigH]

Well, it's been a while! The gentleman who commissioned this beast has had his extension built and his model room is ready to be furnished so I can take the Lancaster out from its wings off storage in my cupboard and finally get to making the diorama it's going to sit on.

 

First up, accuracy. Open the can of worms and shoot me down in flames but I've done a bit of digging and as I'm sure many of you know, Scampton was a grass airfield until Autumn 1943. The question is were there any frying pan type hard standings around before then?

I've found a couple of diagrams from local authority documents which show the airfield in 1939 with a grass runway and all the buildings down the bottom corner.

 

The only hardstanding appears to be around the C hangers and offices with no hard perimeter track either so I've decided to do a concrete/ grass split diorama for a bit of variety

Using a black 20mm thick foam insulation board with a perfect texture for concrete, the first stage was to split what will be grass form the concrete. It didn't need to be circular as there's no frying pan hard standing. The concrete blocks were, apparently 10' x 20' which equates to 190 x 95 mm so this was marked out using a rounded end pencil to give the expansion gaps in the concrete.

Also at this point, I marked in some random cracks.

 

Next It was spray a lighter shade of grey than the base polystyrene in a swirly pattern to begin to get some variance. The same again with a lighter shade of grey and less swirliness and finally a blend coat of white with a drop of black in there to bring it all together.

After that, the expansion gaps were carefully filled in along with the cracks. Any over paint can be blended into the exterior to create a stained look which often happens with concrete wherever water collects.

I need to add a few flecks of black and white paint by flicking and then some oil stains and it'll be on with the grass.

The spitfire is totally out of scale, I just wanted to see how it looked. It's going on an all grass base.

As ever thanks for looking and see you for the grass shortly

[CraigH]

On with the grass. Straightforward enough really. As I stated on my recently completed Spitfire build, I use WWS grasses and their layering system which means the whole lot can be done in about 10 mins. Apply the basing glue then sprinkle 2mm basing grass through the static applicator. Spray the layering glue over this then add the grasses of your choice, remembering to respray with layering glue when you switch grasses. Results are good with a few clumps of spring/summer flowers here and there.

 

And so here she is. I've knocked up some chocks and included the 12"(30cm) rule to give some idea of how big the damn thing is.

 

The rest of the photos will be going onto a RFS post shortly and I've just realised I haven't painted the prop tips yet. Soon rectified.

Thanks for looking as ever

[Thom216]

Expansive spread of shade from that Lanc! Great job on it and the base!