Simon Posted March 16, 2023 Share Posted March 16, 2023 Hello everyone It's been a while since I've posted on here, for various reasons, but here's my Pavla 1/72 Martinet all done and dusted. It's been a long, frustrating build, but it's finally ready. I started this some 14 or so years ago(!), and got so fed up with it (I think mainly due to my lack of experience back then ) that it very quickly got consigned back to the stash in the loft. After a very unsuccessful build of another kit (no names, no pack drill...), I girded my loins and decided to rescue the Martinet from obscurity and ignominy. I've done it as HP131 '21' of No. 4 Air Gunners School at R.A.F. Morpeth in 1942. It was written off on December 24th 1943 when it lost its prop and crash-landed at what was then Stannington Mental Hospital, a mile or so south east of the airfield. The pilot, 1346912 Sgt. David Anderson and the T.T.O. (Target Towing Operator) 1477294 Aircraftman Thomas Welsh escaped with a few cuts and bruises. I've amended and added a few things to the kit, which makes a good basis for a Martinet, but I think needs some updates. 1. The kit cockpit is pretty much all wrong. I used the kit's instrument panel, joystick and throttle boxes, but made a new seat for the pilot, and a new fold-up seat for the T.T.O. In between them is a sort of shelf, on which sits the Type B Winch, which needed scratch-building. Behind the pilot is a roll bar, with a plate with a headrest, which I also scratch-built. 2. The kit engine is good, but I took off the cooling gills from the kit's cowling and replaced them with open ones taken from a spare set from the recent Airfix Blenheim. 3. The kit's prop rotates the wrong way? Looking at it from the front I'm sure it should rotate clockwise, not anti-clockwise, so I cut down and reprofiled some blades from a spare prop from an Airfix Mitchell, and made a new hub from plastic rod. 4. Cut out the wingtip lights and replaced them with clear sprue. 5. The vac-form canopy (my first go at one ever...) needed quite a bit of blending in to the fuselage, so I thought I'd add a thin panel of plastic card to cover up the unsightly joint. The real aircraft has a cockpit 'pod' that looks a bit like that anyway. 6. The propeller arm for the winch is too short, and the resin prop too spindly with wrongly-shaped blades, so I made a new arm from sprue, and a new prop from plastic strip with better shaped blades. 7. The kit's cable guide under the fuselage isn't right - should have two arms, so that was scratch-built. 8. The kit undercarriage, both main and tail, aren't quite correct. The rear arms of the main gear should be longer, the main legs don't have the scissor links and the rear one has a distinctive kink. 9. I added towing cable anti-fouling wires to the horizontal tail, as well as an anti-foul guard to the tailwheel. The aerial wire, like the tail wires, is 0.1mm Albion Alloys Nickel Silver rod. That's about it, so here are the pics: There are a few 'Work in Prgress' photos on the Martinet album on Flickr showing the cockpit and few other bits, if anyone's interested: https://www.flickr.com/photos/wwrsimon/albums/72177720306773989/with/52750795557/ It's not perfect by any means, but it looks a lot like a Martinet, which will do for me. Cheers Simon 62 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichieW Posted March 16, 2023 Share Posted March 16, 2023 1 hour ago, Simon said: It's not perfect by any means, but it looks a lot like a Martinet, which will do for me. Looks fantastic to me! Richie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TEXANTOMCAT Posted March 16, 2023 Share Posted March 16, 2023 Outstanding 👍 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angus Tura Posted March 16, 2023 Share Posted March 16, 2023 That sounds like a lot of effort! I think it was well worth it. Great finish and weathering. Alan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdrianMF Posted March 16, 2023 Share Posted March 16, 2023 Very nice! Beautifully finished too on top of all the mods. May I ask what you references were? I have a Novo Master waiting to be converted somewhere in the stash. Regards, Adrian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JWM Posted March 16, 2023 Share Posted March 16, 2023 very, very nice indeed! BTW 17 minutes ago, AdrianMF said: Novo Master waiting to be converted somewhere in the stash. - I did my Martinet out of Frog Master, with a massive scratch work and right I have finished work the Pavla kit appeared in shops.... Ughhh,,, Adrian - perhaps you've noticed it but in any case - nice drawings from "Miles Bible" are here Regards J-W Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cngaero Posted March 16, 2023 Share Posted March 16, 2023 Well done Simon, that's an outstanding Martinet. I can claim a rather tenuous connection with the airfield at RAF Morpeth. I used to explore Tranwell woods when I was a young whipper snapper, way back in nineteen hundred and frozen stiff, on what was the old and abandoned remains of RAF Morpeth (happy, happy days). Also, in my last job before I retired, I was based in a pharmaceutical factory that occupied the field opposite. I said it was tenuous didn't I. It's great to see a locally based aircraft. Well done, Chris. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdrianMF Posted March 16, 2023 Share Posted March 16, 2023 2 hours ago, JWM said: nice drawings from "Miles Bible" are here Thanks J-W, I actually have the Harborough book. I was wondering about the internals, since Simon did such a lovely job on them! I'll just have to bookmark this build and the in-progress pics on Flikr Regards, Adrian 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bell209 Posted March 17, 2023 Share Posted March 17, 2023 Great work on an unusual subject. Congratulations! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Acklington Posted March 17, 2023 Share Posted March 17, 2023 As another Geordie lad who used to explore Tranwell and the former RAF Morpeth, I am delighted to see your excellent rendition of a Morpeth Martinet. I'm particularly impressed with your well masked straight lines - respect! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Posted March 17, 2023 Author Share Posted March 17, 2023 (edited) Thank you everyone for the kind words. As I mentioned in my post, this one got relegated back to the stash very quickly. I'd not done a 'short run' kit before and it was bit daunting, but now I've got some experience under my belt it seemed a good time to come back to it. I've been collecting references for it over the years, mostly to do with the towing gear and the cockpit. The Museum of Berkshire Aviation has some useful (if small) photos of their Martinet restoration on their website. One consequence was that it took some finding tucked away in the stash. I kept opening boxes full of unbuilt kits, and thinking "am I actually ever going to build these?" to which the answer was usually "no." So the stash underwent a serious and pretty ruthless cull, and some 140 kits went off to Kingkit, who were very helpful and gave me what I considered a good price. So the stash is now about 20% of what it was, and the loft is considerably emptier, much to the pleasure of my other half! Cheers Simon Edited March 17, 2023 by Simon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hopesdaddy Posted March 17, 2023 Share Posted March 17, 2023 Beautifully done, nice to see a kit saved from the shelf of doom (or exiled to the back depths of the stash as I'm guessing this one was). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keith in the uk Posted March 17, 2023 Share Posted March 17, 2023 Oh i say , that s rather lovely i have a Sanger 1.48th kit in the stash and your model has got me thinking . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Herb Posted March 17, 2023 Share Posted March 17, 2023 Outstanding! Pavla kits do not "fall together"... Thanks for sharing! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Posted March 17, 2023 Author Share Posted March 17, 2023 7 minutes ago, Herb said: Outstanding! Pavla kits do not "fall together"... Thanks for sharing! A bit of an understatement! Worth all the hard work in the end though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pantherhawk27263 Posted March 17, 2023 Share Posted March 17, 2023 What lovely build!!! Great job!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Posted March 17, 2023 Author Share Posted March 17, 2023 For some reason the photos in my first post look a bit dark (I used my rather ancient 2007 Panasonic FZ8), so here are a few more, taken with my more up-to-date Sony DSC-H400: 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spitfire31 Posted March 17, 2023 Share Posted March 17, 2023 A fantastic representation of a less glorious type, that nevertheless played an important part in the vital effort to teach the pilots to shoot! Great modelling! Kind regards, Joachim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Posted March 17, 2023 Author Share Posted March 17, 2023 (edited) Thanks Joachim. The Martinet isn't a glamorous aircraft by any stretch of the imagination, but it does have a certain charm about it. As you say, it played an important part in the training of Air Gunners. I've been doing some research into 4 A.G.S. at Morpeth, and so far I've found 51 Air Gunners who trained there who received either the D.F.C. or the D.F.M., or indeed both. One of the more well-known is Wallace McIntosh, who was awarded the D.F.C. twice as well as the D.F.M. Over 4,000 trainee Air Gunners went through 4 A.G.S. at Morpeth during the war. Sadly a fair number of them didn't survive to see V.E. Day. Regards Simon Edited March 20, 2023 by Simon typo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roberto Posted March 17, 2023 Share Posted March 17, 2023 Interesting and well done 👍 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sky Keg Posted March 18, 2023 Share Posted March 18, 2023 Upon first sight, I was thinking what a nice looking type. Well weathered and nicely constructed. When the pictures of the lower side appeared, then it hit me just how lovely this turned out. Absolutely gorgeous. Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
François Escudé Posted March 18, 2023 Share Posted March 18, 2023 so nicely done!! and very rare subject !! thanks for sharing !! cheers !! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete in a shed Posted March 20, 2023 Share Posted March 20, 2023 Pavla kits are not the easiest of things to put together in my experience, but you have managed to produce a superb little replica from the kit. Fabulous work. Pete 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
georgeusa Posted March 20, 2023 Share Posted March 20, 2023 I really didn't know much about this aircraft until I found your build on it. Wonderfully done build and finish on the unsung aircraft that worked behind the scenes are were so vital to success. You persevered through this build and I am glad you did. The newer photos make the kit look even better than your original photos. Thanks for sharing the kit and the history behind it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MACALAIN Posted March 20, 2023 Share Posted March 20, 2023 Well done. Alain Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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