..super new Revell kit of the SR-71 just arrived. No I can't see myself building it to be honest but I'm collecting a few images for reference and such like and re-posting them here so that I can find them easily when required.
At the 1974 Farnborough air show after its record-breaking New York to London flight. Posted by Mike 'Michou'
Mildenhall, 11 September 1974 - the same aircraft being prepared for an attempt on a record east to west flight. The flight was aborted because of some problem and the record London to LA flight was made on 13 September.
"...Whenever we took an SR to an airshow (I went with a U-2 once, but we had an SR with us) they always told the local maintenance and fire dept people that if the aircraft is NOT leaking fuel, then we have a problem. Sometimes they would also throw lit matches into a puddle of fuel to show that JP-8 would just put the fire out. It is actually a chemical reaction that is used to light the fuel for engine start...Tri Eythel Bromide IIRC. Not sure on all of the spellings, but yeah, that is what got ignition going. They had a built-in starter system in the barns at Beale, but they were broke most of the time I was there, so it was mostly the Buicks to get the engines up to speed for ignition. Very distinctive sound when the Buicks started up.." Dave
Revell's 'Royal Navy' boxing of their 72nd F4U Corsair - 'difficulty level' 4 out of 5 for a 72nd scale fighter? Well, that would be the nine-part wing and the five-part cowl I guess. Difficult to get everything lined up neatly but with a bit of care it all goes together well enough. And at least the horrible white plastic of the first release has gone..
Love this machine and it looks great in 'Navy' roundels..and after all the Royal Navy was flying them off carriers first ..
The kit markings are an interesting choice on Revell’s part. They were presumably accurate at one point but despite the Zero falling away in flames on the box art, HMS Colossus never saw combat with the British Pacific Fleet.. Those standard European theatre markings were on the ships aircraft when she left Glasgow , bound for Ceylon and ultimately Australia. BPF markings were applied either en route or in Australia. By the time Colossus left Australia on her first war cruise, hostilities had ended.
Below; a few views of Corsair KD 431 in the Fleet Air Arm museum, Yeovilton in its original glossy midnight blue albeit very scratched finish..see " Corsair KD 431 - the time capsule fighter " by David Morris for the story of this machine's restoration.
The subject of the Revell kit is KD 344, one of the final batch of 857 Goodyear built Corsairs, called the FG-1 Corsair IV in Fleet Air Arm use. It was delivered to the Fleet Air Arm and was embarked on board HMS Colossus after she completed her sea trials and sailed for Ceylon (Sri Lanka) on 12 March 1945.
On 8th July 1945 KD 344 is reported as ending up in the barriers with Sub-Lt J.D. Garden RNVR flying when the hook jumped the arrestor wire.
The Corsairs and Barracudas were offloaded on 17th January 1946 to Royal Naval Air Station Wingfield near Capetown, they were re-embarked in April.
In July of the same year the Colossus was transferred on a 5 year loan to the French Navy as the Arromanches, which later became a permanent transfer.
Senior Pilot of 1846 Sqn. was Lt. Henry Adlam. His memoir is entitled 'On and Off the Flight Deck' and it is a fascinating insight into the life of a naval fighter pilot. Adlam takes part in many campaigns including Salerno, Escort carrier flying and the attacks on Palembang as a Hellcat pilot. Later he becomes a batsman and joins 1846 Sqn., based aboard HMS Colossus from 1945-1946. In June 1945 1846 Sqn joined the 14th Carrier Air Group to continue the fight against Japan. The Sqn. went to Australia but the war ended before the carrier and it's air group could take part in any operations. The Sqn. Corsairs were subsequently dumped at sea somewhere near Sydney. After ferrying many serviceman that had been POWs the carrier sailed for South Africa where the aircraft were temporarily based at Wingfield. It is here that many of 1846 Sqn's well known photos were taken.
While many would undoubtedly have liked to see a new tooled B model Revell's latest release is an early (no tail filet) P-51 D. Since building their 32nd scale Spitfire IX earlier this year I've been rather taken with this series of kits from Revell -unbeatable value and nicely detailed too. And while I have the Trumpeter 32nd scale 'B' in the stash there are a lot of issues with it. Anyway that's for another time. Meanwhile this latest Revell kit looks the biz! For a start from what I have seen of the test shots and builds for the release of this kit it does have the wheel wells going back to the rear spar which most manufacturers get wrong on the P-51. The wheel wells are correctly depicted with the straight rear "wall" (i.e., the front of the forward wing spar) as well as separate parts for the ribs and structural details. NICE! For around £30 instead of £130 for Tamiya's P-51 in this scale, this should be a huge hit for Revell. I got mine from Model Hobbies inc of postage for under £30 although I believe RRP is around £36. First thing that struck me is that there are an awful lot of build stages to complete before you get anywhere near to putting the fuselage halves together - lots of detail! Revell really appear to be pulling out the stops on this 32nd range - good luck to 'em!
Below; note upper and lower wings in just two parts - no issues with dihedral or 'droop'. Separate rear fuselage/tail for the later versions. Loads of cockpit detail parts and a huge decal sheet for 'Desert Rat' of the 357th FG or 'Lou IV' of the 361st.
First 32nd build for this blog and probably not my last - there's no denying the 'impact' and 'presence' of a large scale model. My 72nd scale Fujimi F-4 being built alongside this one seems a little pathetic now. Of course I can see where I have gone awry - Humbrol 30 for the dark green was not a good choice to start with! Camo scheme airbrushed free-hand which in this scale gives a reasonable impression of a hard-edged finish and avoids a heap of masking. Belts from Eduard, codes painted, pilot's seat armour from sheet, flap indicators scratched/ cut out of the wings. As for the kit, well it seems churlish to say anything too bad about it when you get this much plastic for £20. Most of the sprues of course are from the Mk II kit but Revell don't tell you which parts (pilot's head rest etc) to usefully leave out. I kept the head-rest in the end. If you know PV 270 (subject of this build) you will know that it was restored with this in place. The Revell box build pic showing an antenna wire (!) is not the fault of the kit though. I also deployed the flaps down, hence the upper surface indicators (scratched). Yes, yes I know. Not done. Or as Mal on aeroscale put it, " ..It was very rare to see lowered flaps on Spitfires on the ground. They were only used for landing and should be raised as soon as possible, to prevent any damage (apparently pilots would be fined if they didn't!) If the flaps are not lowered then these doors should not be open.." The Spit in my local museum (Manston) is on display in this configuration. Back to the kit - I will say though that I'm not terribly convinced by the dihedral in the wing. Far too 'flat' for me. But I have bought another one along with some Flevo Dutch decals. First three pics taken with my Ipad in fading light. I might try and take some more. My small tribute to a great Kiwi.
Seafire at Duxford, flaps deployed. More elsewhere on this blog here
Decide to deploy the flaps down (only two positions on the Spitfire, 'up' and 'down') and then realised after the upper surfaces scheme was finished that I'd need to show the 'flap indicators' out. Which involved some drilling and cutting of my nice and freshly painted wing. And unable to find any suitable decals for the sky-coloured codes of my chosen scheme, I thought I'd have a go at masking and painting my own, after all 'A' and 'L' aren't going to be too difficult to mask up and paint, are they ?. My third attempt gave me something I'm more or less happy with ..at least you can do this sort of stuff in 32nd scale..by the way the kit decal codes are hopelessly 'green'..
and, below, gear on. Stance looks OK-ish to me - but I'm not liking the size/shape of those gear doors. Stuck now.
below; my model to be finished as the Brendon Deere's NZ Spitfire IX restoration 'PV 270' in the markings of his uncle WC 'Al' Deere, Biggin Hill Wing, 1943. Avery Little photo here
practically two whole days in the paint shop (ie garage..). In the end I didn't bother masking the camo scheme and managed to achieve a reasonably 'hard' edge freehand. Note the blue "Washi" tape used for masking. Covers the big areas and is almost Tamiya tape quality ..but much cheaper. Search for it on amazon. Paints are Humbrol enamels suitably 'faded'. FWIW there are a number of bulges on the upper wing surfaces that need filing off and sanding down too for a war-time machine. Good progress today with the fuselage band and yellow ID markings sprayed on. Plenty of scope for things to go wrong yet - the gear legs come in two parts for starters and then I'm planning to do my own decals !
we have had a bit of a torrid time here in the UK with a week of +30 C temps in Kent - far too hot for modelling. Fortunately we are close to the sea so the breeze has helped a little, but even that got hot! Not much progress on the Spitfire, but at least it has some paint on it. The first 32nd build on this blog ..and to be honest it is hard work - every flaw, whether mine or the kit's - magnified. Picked up a cheap copy of Brendon Deere's beautiful book 'Spitfire - return to flight' at the Kent Battle of Britain museum in Hawkinge, so now thinking of finishing the model in the colours of Al Deere's PV 270 and doing my own painted-on markings, especially as the kit decals are so poor. (the codes are green!). We'll see..
Another sunny day in the garden on the south coast of England. Starting to look like a Spitfire. Getting the wings on was a real pain though - much fettling and filing and then a bit of filling - taking care not to 'flatten' out the dihedral which to be honest isn't great in the first place. Note that the post-war wheel bulges molded into the kit upper wings have been filed smooth as they were not present on wartime Spits.
The wheels on this Mk.IX are much better than those on the earlier Revell MK II on which this kit is obviously based. Note that this new Mk.IX kit has a new fuselage, propeller, wing and rudder parts included as well as an extra radiator. The windscreen is new and fits well, see previous post. The horizontal tail planes are the originals and need to be cut down to fit the later style elevators. There is a 'pointy' rudder in the box and a clipped wing option too. The view of the lower surfaces below shows that the radiator baths are just 'scabbed' onto the underside of the wing with no attempt to make the proper intake and outlet. Consequently the radiator matrix is around half depth and is not subdivided to include the oil cooler part. But then this is almost a quarter of the price of the Tamiya kit or in this case - a fifth!
Decided to give Revell's new and re-vamped 1:32 Spitfire a go. Here is the box and some sprue shots of the new IXc. Bought two - the first one just £19 at the RAF Manston history museum shop. Got the second kit when I saw the nice decal options including the overall silver UF-Q of 601 Sqd. Pre-ordered via my local 'not-quite-a-model-shop' his eventual RRP was £29. So much for supporting the LHS. See photos below.
And some progress on the cockpit after a few hours work in the garden. I've read some pretty scathing reviews of this kit - but there's no pleasing some people is there? For the RRP you do get a lot of plastic for your money, even if the cockpit is missing a few items (eg the seat back armour) and there are no seat-belts, not even as decals. But there are rivets. Lots of them. Below; picture from Der Lingener's build review on britmodeller.
To answer a query I had on the IX seat colour (the Revell instructions suggest interior green) I found this on the Spitfire site forum , ".. in Paul Monforton's Spitfire Mk IX/XVI Engineered, photos of all Spitfires IX/XVI presented in the book - restored as well as preserved in original condition - show that the same red-brown plastic seat as was used as on the earlier Spitfire models. It was produced from an early composite plastic called SRBP - Synthetic Resin-Bonded Paper and was left unpainted. The seat backing though had a leather cushion, colored dark brown on the only shown preserved seat which had this feature left in (worn but) original condition..".
Below; the other kit decal option, UF-Q MJ250 in natural metal finish,
UF-Q MJ250 in natural metal finish, only the fabric areas were painted silver. The armour cover over the fuselage fuel tank is darker in colour. In the foreground is MJ 532 in Day Fighter finish with the Sky band over painted apart from behind the serial number.
It appears that 601 Squadron were the only operators of MJ 250.
During the summer of 1944 MJ 250 was flown by two Polish pilots attached to 610 Squadron from 318 (Polish) Squadron. F/Lt Zdzisław Uchwat bombed a road junction at Cagli on 15 July and tanks and other vehicles in the Cagli area on 17 July. F/Lt Jerzy Hamankiewicz on 3rd August bombed gun emplacements near Florence and escorted 12 Marauders bombing a bridge north of Ferrara on 14 August.
".....First instinct on seeing that picture and it's never changed despite claims that its a camo upper cowling. It's stripped bare metal and the engine exhaust, weathering has caused the look of the slightly darker cowling. Compare the cowling to the one on the machine in the foreground with the camouflaged finish.. There is no comparison ...."
