Eduard new-tool 48th Bf-109 G-6 - build review (3)

..hard to believe that it is over a year since I started the Eduard new-tool Gustav (yes, that one!) - see here for a previous installment back in August 2014, putting the etch in the cockpit. Having picked the kit up again in June 2015 I've almost finished putting it together and have started painting. Fitted the wrong pilot head armour for the version I actually wanted to build, so I've had to do a heavily mottled example...
Below; showing off the radiator etch in the lower wing insert.

Here I've used the canopy mask from the Profipack edition - a little on the small size in fact, perhaps not surprising given that the kit is slightly - and famously now no doubt - overscale!

finished with my favourite Luftwaffe colours, Hannants Xtracolor enamels. The white tail is a clue to the example I'm building ...and a nice scoreboard for the rudder..

new tool Airfix Spitfire Mk I 48th ( part 5) - finished

.I don't do many 48th builds or even Spitfires ..but my new Airfix Mk I is finished. Neat kit, lots of options, possibly a little 'over-engineered' in places, while the design of the gear legs is frankly a bit of an aberration; two parts that butt-join on the pintle in the well. In the markings of 602 Sqn's PO Osgood Villiers Hanbury who shot down his first Dornier on 15 September 1940. Osgood Villiers Hanbury was a local Kent boy, attending boarding school in Broadstairs before Eton and study periods in France and Germany pre-war, prior to getting a job in the City with Shell, where he made the acquaintance of one Douglas Bader as detailed in Roderick-Jones nice Grub St. bio entitled " Pedro.."... of course I've just seen Andy L's pic of this machine on britmodeller.com with its 'non-standard' leading edge, might change that later...Airfix don't provide a decal for the personal emblem under the cockpit presumably because its impossible to see any detail on the only photo that shows it..

1:48th Airfix Spitfire Mk I new-tool (part 4)

As I'm in danger of not actually posting anything at all during July, here's a few shots to show where I am with the Airfix new-tool Spitfire Mk I. Paint on and 'Klear-ed'  -a slightly over-engineered kit and thus a little tricky to build 'neatly', it's starting to look the part with some paint. Still not quite sure about the 'sit' - this is due to the very poor location of the gear legs..which require drilling and pinning.

Airfix Spitfire Mk I new-tool (part 3) and more on the Eduard Bf 109 G-6 - both 48th scale

More new-tool Airfix Spitfire Mk I. But whoever designed the gear legs on the new Airfix Spitfire I (48th) was not a modeller - two pieces that butt-join in the well ?! You'll need drills and patience to pin them together I'm afraid, otherwise they will just snap off every time you pick the model up and put it down I shouldn't wonder. When Airfix were doing their test-build and had to sit and and hold the parts together for fifteen minutes with superglue did they really not think, hmm there must be an easier way of doing this? To be fair to Airfix they have tried to represent the pintles in the wheel wells and the gear legs very accurately...just a little too accurately. I really wouldn't want to fit the legs at this stage of the build, but here I have drilled and pinned them. Note the machine gun bay hatches cut out as is the cockpit entry door - these are supplied as separate parts in the box.

Eduard G-6 going together. I've made this build really tricky for myself by cutting down the wingtips - and then deciding I could live with the kit's defects and attempting to glue them back on again ! I've chopped down the gear legs as they are far too long and then I've modified the locating hole in the well so that I can at least try and achieve the correct sort of Bf 109 'sit' which is all but impossible if you don't do anything to the kit. Surface detail is so fine on this kit, quite amazing....

new-tool Airfix Boulton Paul Defiant Mk I, 264 Squadron, Martlesham Heath, Suffolk, July 1940

Finished my second Defiant of the year, this time in the day fighter scheme of 264 Squadron, Martlesham Heath, Suffolk, at the start of the Battle of Britain

 Below; Images from the IWM's collection of 264 Sqd Defiants are free to re-use on non commercial sites with the IWM's embed code

ROYAL AIR FORCE FIGHTER COMMAND, 1939-1945.© IWM (CH 874)
a href="http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205208434?cat=photographs" target="_blank"> ROYAL AIR FORCE FIGHTER COMMAND, 1939-1945.© IWM (CH 196)

Airfix new-tool Hurricane Mk 1 72nd scale VY*G, 85 Sqd

Putting the finishing touches to another small scale Airfix Hurricane Mk I, this time the 85 Sqd boxing. What a nice kit and great decals. Recommended references for these early Hurricanes are the two monographs recently produced by Lela Presse in their 'Air Battles' series entitled 'Hurricanes on the Continent'..

Note the use of the use of the Squadron "hexagon" marking on the fin, even though the fin flash is now in use and the gas patch ouboard of the wing roundel usually applied closer to the cockpit. Of interest as well is the light-toned spinner..

Albert Lewis's Hurricane, also 85 Sqdn, showing the outboard gas patch on both wings, but no sign of a hexagon on this or other pics from the series. The fin had the broad red stripe

More on 85 Sqd Hurricanes here

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234907653-hurricane-i-vy-cg-of-85-sqn-lille-seclin-around-apr-1940/page-2

Dunkirk Spitfires- Al Deere's 'Kiwi' Airfix Spitfire Mk 1 54 Sqd Hornchurch, May 1940

Up from Hornchurch on 28 May 1940, 54 Sqd's Al Deere attacked a Dornier over Dunkirk and had to belly land at Dunkirk/De Panne. His 'Kiwi' N3180 KL-B was his first of three Kiwi's. KL-B was crash-landed on the beaches after taking hits from return fire. The aircraft subsequently burnt out after Deere made his emergency landing..

This particular airframe is covered by the Southern Expo decal sheet (see below). Note they go with black and white undersides, no roundels. No rear fuselage serial on the aircraft I modelled..

Image below shows crash-landed Spitfire flown by PO Davies, 222 Sqn, N3295, ZD-?, 31 May 1940 - a great detail shot of the undersurfaces

Ducimus Spitfire undersurfaces colour chart

a description via Edgar Brooks of the evolution of early Spitfire camo and markings..

 "..The May 1st., 1940 order was for yellow circles to be added to the fuselage roundels, not underneath. On May 11th., repeated on the 15th., an order was issued for underwing roundels to be painted (without any yellow.) On June 2nd., an order was issued to paint the undersides all Sky, with underwing roundels being thereby completely painted out. On June 12th., a signal stated that, due to a shortage of Sky, the black/white scheme might still be seen, and the roundel under the black port wing was to have a yellow ring added, which must not encroach onto the ailerons or hinges. On June 14th., units (including the Civilian Repair Organisation) were told that the black/white scheme could be overpainted by a maximum of two coats of Sky, but (due to balance considerations, which units were not equipped to deal with) that did not include ailerons, which should have the original paint washed off before application of Sky. On August 11th., apparently due to some units having painted them anyway, an order gave tacit approval for underwing roundels to reappear.."

Thanks to Troy Smith. Much more on his britmodeller thread here