Wing Commander Roland 'Bee' Beamont's Tempest V, R-B JN 751, on the airfield at Newchurch village, Kent, June 1944....
Here is my completed new-tool 1/72 nd Airfix Tempest V and a few more pics from a recent visit to the RAF Museum. Not much to say about the kit, goes together easily enough. The undercarriage is a little complex but no issues. Pictures from Hendon show the 'tricky' door arrangement well replicated on the model. I painted the gear bay and the inside of the gear doors green, as seen on the Hendon example. Airfix seem to have omitted paint details for this area of the kit. However Airfix don't appear to have got the wheels correct as mentioned in the previous post - the five spoke wheels have the smaller hub. I have to say as well that the stripe decals don't work - there are too many 'bulges' and shapes to lay them over that they won't settle down - even if cut in strategic locations. I ended up painting the white areas and cutting the black stripes from the decal. "R-B" is of course the machine assigned to Roland Beamont. Note how the exhaust staining on the 'real' machine goes all the way back to the tailplane. I had no intention of replicating that exactly since in model form it would look 'wrong'!
Newchurch - three miles west of Dymchurch on the south Kent coast - was opened as an 'advanced landing ground' to the first squadrons of Spitfires in July 1943 to escort US bombers based in East Anglia. In April 1944 squadrons of Spitfires, Typhoons and Tempests arrived, providing air cover during the ‘D-Day’ landings. Later in June 1944 the Tempests were ordered to deal with the new threat of the V1 flying bombs (Doodlebugs). The first Doodlebug shot down by the Newchurch Wing was on 16th June and the final tally shot down by the Newchurch Wing was 638. After months of intense activity, when the threat posed by the V1s had subsided, the Wing were moved on to other duties. In September 1944 the site was returned to agriculture.
Below a silent film shot in 1944 showing operations and daily life at Newchurch ALG featuring Beamont and his R-B. It was almost certainly shot to provide material for the RAF film about the defence against the V1. A single click to view here...
