Airfix 1/48 Curtiss Tomahawk IIb 112 Sqn, Fort Madellena, Libya, December 1941

[Stew Dapple]

Hello gents, here's my 6th completion of the year, the Airfix 1/48 Curtiss Tomahawk IIb, representing AK457 'GA-O' of 112 Squadron RAF, 262 Wing, based at LG122 Fort Madellena in Libya in December 1941. This aircraft was lost on 12 December 1941 along with its pilot, 19 year old William Earl Houston of Hastings, New Zealand, who was on his third flight of the day and the victory was claimed by Oblt. Erbo Graf von Kageneck of 9/JG.27.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gotta love a sharkmouth  

 

 

As mentioned above, it's the Airfix kit which was rather nice and I should really have done a bit better with it, but I didn't so we are where we are. I added the Eduard exhaust stacks and Barracuda main wheels and used a Peewit inside/outside mask set and an AML camouflage mask set.

 

The colours used were Colourcoats, probably the last of my Azure Blue (might just have enough for one more single-seater but then that'll be it for sure) Mid Stone and the DuPont equivalent of Dark Earth as I guessed they wouldn't have bothered repainting that, being so close to RAF Dark Earth, just a bit darker and a little more intensely brown. I got the interior colour a bit wrong, I was aiming for something close to RAF Interior Grey-green but not exactly the same as it was supposed to be the DuPont equivalent colour - however I somehow picked up the tin next to the one I intended to use and it''s a bit brighter than I meant to use - I did notice this when I was spraying it but I put it down to the effects of the LCDs in my fancy new spray booth  

 

I used the kit's transfers for the markings and they worked well, though I had a near-disaster with the port side serial when I put it into water that was a bit too warm and it crumpled a bit, but I managed to straighten it out so that it doesn't really show. Final coat was AK Interactive ultra-flat varnish which is indeed ultra-flat. 

 

The background is from Coastal Kits and you may remember it from my Beaufighter build and will no doubt see it again at some point.

 

Anyway thanks for your attention,

 

Cheers, 

 

Stew

[georgeusa]

Really nice P-40 with the British shark mouth.  Very well done.  Thanks for sharing.