Heather Kavanagh

As most of you know I have a very specific theme - operational aircraft in the North West European theatre from 1 January to 31 December 1940. Quite often, this apparently narrow theme means I can’t use whatever markings or schemes come in the box. I spend a fair amount of time digging around to find a specific aircraft in my references and online, and then build that, or something close. Sometimes, I get lucky and the kit is correct for the period, but I am really not averse to ploughing my own furrow if needs be.

This beastie just landed. I’ve already got one I built ages ago and recently refurbished. I don’t really need another MkV for my 1940 obsession, but there’s a conversion kit by Flightpath to make a Tiger radial engined MkII or III. They were still lumbering about in the training role into 1940. Decision, decisions…

I think I used that as my inspiration for the vignette.

Bristol Blenheim MkIV, R3744 BL-K, No 40 Squadron, RAF Bomber Command, Wyton, Cambridgeshire, July 1940 Originally formed in February 1916, No 40 Squadron RFC was disbanded in 1919. In April 1931 it was reformed as a bomber squadron flying Fairey Gordons. At the outbreak of the Second Word War, the squadron was equipped with Fairey Battles and was sent to France as part of the BEF's Advanced Air Striking Force. In December 1939, the squadron was returned to the UK, at RAF Wyton, where it was converted to the Blenheim MkIV. The unit continued daylight operations over France, flying from its UK base, through the Phoney War, the Battle of France, and during the Battle of Britain to attack the invasion barges being assembled by the German forces. The squadron converted to Vickers Wellingtons in November 1940, flying night bombing missions. In late 1941 a detachment was sent to Malta, the whole squadron following in early 1942. No 40 Squadron was disbanded in February 1957. Interestingly, it was slated for reformation as the first operational BAC TSR2 squadron, or to fly the General Dynamics F-111. As both types were cancelled, the unit remained out of service. The kit was built more or less out of the box, as has been seen many times before, to give me a Blenheim MkIV in day bomber form for my 1940 collection. Markings were cobbled together from the kit sheet and generic aftermarket sheets. The squadron codes are not quite correct in size, but I couldn’t find any suitable letters. I think it's good enough for my display cabinet. No 40 Squadron liked to outline each aircraft letter in white, which I did with a bow pen and white paint. The model was brush painted with Xtracrylix, Humbrol and Revell acrylics, with some enamels used for detailing. Perhaps it’s time I considered making my own decals! The vehicles used are from Airfix and Flightpath. This is a modified and updated reposting after older posts lost all their images during a forum update some time ago.

I’m hoping this is a detail Ffrom pick up on. Once they’ve finally released their new tool kit (this month, I hope) I will "retire" my Airfix Battle.

Fairey Battle MkI T70, 5/III/3Aé, Belgische Luchtmacht/Force aérienne belge, stationed at Evere, Belgium. Shot down on 11 May 1940 at Vlijtingen while attacking Vroenhoven bridge. Rather than give a history of the type's genesis and service record here, the Wikipedia entry on the Fairey Battle is pretty comprehensive, and has some good archive photos. The Airfix kit for the Fairey Battle light bomber appeared in 1968, and it was soon noted by many to be horribly inaccurate on several counts. The story goes Airfix asked for drawings, and were sent copies of what were probably early proposals for the design and not those used for production machines. Nose, tail, wings, all were way off in many directions. Anyway, until MPM produced a kit, now sadly out of production and like the proverbial rocking horse muck, the Airfix kit was the only injection moulded show in town. I am still waiting patiently for Azur-Ffrom's new Battle kit... My original intention was to build the kit warts and all from the box, but you know how it goes. A tweak here, a change there, and before you know it you're doing a full-blown conversion! A summary of the work I did would be as follows: Extend the nose by 2.5mm Reshape the nose to better suit the real aircraft Adjust the propellor to a smaller radius and add some details Add an extended radiator donated from a Fairey Fulmar kit Add some cockpit details, with donations from the Fulmar here and there Rework the tail completely Scribe and sand the wings, but otherwise accept they're the wrong shape So much for out of the box! The finished model looks more like a Battle now than when I started, so that's something. The model was brush painted using Humbrol and Revell acrylics. The original 1970s boxing transfers for T70 worked without a hitch. This is a modified and updated reposting after older posts lost all their images during a forum update some time ago.

These two are coming along nicely. Civilian types aren’t really my thing, but I do like the way airliners look. They have a definite presence to them.

With the sum of human knowledge right at your fingertips, it’s a matter of seconds to find out. 😉 I mean, the World Wide Web isn’t yet 40 years old, but Flickr is celebrating its 20th birthday this year. That’s a lot longer than other social media sites. Flickr is a photo sharing site. It’s used by thousands of professional and hobby photographers to share their work. Quite why the original creators chose the name isn’t clear, but it is memorable.

I’m not sure why some find it so hard to share from Flickr. It’s literally copy and paste, in one of at least two ways. *shrug* That one is the "share" version, which has the advantage that I can see it before I press the reply button.

I believe there’s at least a couple of free photo hosts. Perhaps others may be able to suggest suitable places. Linking to your images, rather than uploading through the forum software, doesn’t add anything to your existing server load, as it were. I think it’s the best way forward. There’s a lengthy thread on Britmodeller (yes, I know, sorry) about photo uploading and linking. The forum owner there made it policy that linking images is the only way to save costs of hosting thousands of images on their server. If you’re not a member over there, perhaps you could DM me and I’ll compile some information you might find helpful.

I’m okay with the editing limit. Other forums have unlimited time for edits, which I occasionally use to correct a typo I missed on first proof reading, but I can see some might abuse the ability. I shall just accept I will make silly mistakes. 😉 If the general feeling is it’s okay to create new threads to replace broken ones, then I will spend a bit of time updating things. I won’t rush at it, probably aiming for one or two a week as my time permits. Unless I think it’s important, or someone suggests I should, I don’t think I’ll bother with work-in-progress threads. Finished model threads will be my first order of business. @Ratch - just out of interest, do the mods have the ability to delete threads? Of course, that would lose comments and discussions, so it’s probably not an avenue to head down.

Many of us older members may recall a few years back there was a bit of technical hiccup hereabouts. The result was a load of uploaded photos were lost, never to be seen again. The affected threads are still there, missing their images. Luckily, I don't delete my images. Unfortunately, despite the new snazzy forum, I can’t (currently) go back and edit those posts to replace the lost pictures. So, would there be any objection to members, should they wish to, recreating older broken posts under this new forum? Thoughts?

Neither of my RAF sets came with figures. The old sets from the 1970s had crew figures, but the recent bomber resupply set didn’t. 😞

The new forum allows linking to photo sharing sites. I use Flickr (paid for, as I use it for other photo sharing as well as photos I post on Britmodeller), and others can no doubt suggest alternatives. 🙂

An early attempt I did used this material. It was all a bit too uniform, more like a cricket pitch than a grassy field, and too bright a green. But, as you say, experiment until you find what works for you. I’m after a specific look to my photos, others have different ideas.