Heather Kavanagh

grinning My "studio" lighting needs work, I’m afraid. It’s a bit too directional and uses two lamps. It’s the best I can manage as I set it up temporarily on my workbench. Oh, for more space to set things up more permanently! The rolling French countryside is actually just outside Chatham. sunglasses

The text on the right of this page says: Discussion of non-Airfix brands is allowed, however, active promotion or advertising of these brands is not permitted. I have done it in the past, when I compared the Airfix Do17 with the Revell one.

This kit had been on the shelf for too long. The Spitfire, Hurricane and Bf109 also in the gift set had been put together ages ago, but I didn’t have room to fit the Heinkel in the cabinet. I did some shuffling about, moved some models into storage, and decided now was the time to build it. The kit went together very well, with no major vices to speak of. I used a P-mask vinyl masking set and used ColourCoats enamel paints for the main work, with Humbrol acrylics for details. The gift set transfers only really cover the national and unit markings, with no stencils aside from the demarcation lines on the upper wings. Oddly, Airfix decided to print them in yellow when I think they should be red. Having seen another build of the He111 from a standard box, the lack of stencils is now bugging me and I shall see if I might find some aftermarket ones. My 1940 Luftwaffe collection is now only missing the Junkers Ju88A-1, which is boxed by Revell. A couple of other stragglers will fill in the corners, but again not Airfix boxes. Thanks for looking!

Could be. It’s a big old forum, with lots of sub forums. It can take a while to get your head around what goes where. I just did a box count of the unbuilt 1940 stash. 40 kits, only 9 from Airfix. =o( The next one on the bench will probably be a Valom kit.

I must admit I don't post often. This is down to a couple of factors, really. First, I tend to spend much more time at Britmodeller. Second, I have a lot of kits in my 1940 collection, but not all of them are Airfix. I tend not to want to duplicate posts on two different forums, but when I manage a good build of an Airfix kit still in my stash, you will be the first to know! innocent

Not wishing to give the mods a headache, but here are a few more I built over the past few months. I know they really belong in the 2020 thread, but I don’t think it matters. The Frog Miles Magister. I jazzed it up a little, and posed it with instructor and student from the Revell figure set. Currently the biggest thing in my display cabinet, this is the Heller Junkers Ju52/3m. This one represents an aircraft flown by a Bf110 fighter squadron. The Belgian Air Force of 1940 got some love from me. Matchbox Gloster Gladiator with the Airfix transfers, Azur Renard R.30, AZ Model Hakwer Hurricane Mk1 with Airfix transfers, and a modified Airfix Fairey Battle. I reckon that’ll do. I’ve enjoyed seeing everyone's models, and now the forum is back up and nearly running I hope I can be a bit more active again.

Let’s see if this works. Hello everyone, by the way! grinning Ages ago I bought a Battle of Britain gift set, which was commemorating the 75th anniversary. The three fighters got built fairly quickly, but the poor old Heinkel languished on the shelf, just the polybag keeping the moths at bay. I finally decided to give it some bench time, and here it is. Heinkel He111P-2 G1+AN, France 1940. Aside from the tail marking, it’s built as Airfix intended. ColourCoats enamels for the main paintwork, with a mixture of Humbrol enamels and acrylics for the rest.

Ah well. I'll probably get the Wellington MkII for my 1940 collection, but otherwise I'll carefully extinguish my Fairey Battle candle to be relighted for next year. The other stuff is interesting, but not my bag. I've seen tons of folk eager to build the "Ice Cold In Alex" ambulance, so let's hope some aftermarket company will produce the four-wheel-drive conversion to make it properly accurate. 😉

I should take issue with Ratch here, a rare thing indeed! The RAF Regiment wasn't formally instituted until 1942. That means AA batteries in 1940 were manned by the Royal Artillery, but under the overall control of the RAF.

That's definitely a comprehensive list you've got there. Like you, I found i was slipping back into the Battle of France, and eventually it just made sense to me to cover the whole of 1940! German seaplanes. Mmm, well, the He59 is a biplane. There's a few kits out there from one of the Eastern European companies, but they don't currently have the right version for the rescue planes used during the Battle. I keep looking, but it remains one of the gaps in my collection. The He115 is much larger, think He111 on floats and you'll be about right. That was kitted by Matchbox, now Revell, and I think there's one from our friends in Eastern Europe again. Keep up the good work. I'm keen to see how this develops.

That's ambitious, and I applaud you! No Gladiator? There was a flight down on the south coast at Roborough for a few weeks until they got Hurricanes. Not sure about the He115 with Red Cross markings. I will stand to be corrected there, of course. The type was used to drop mines during the Battle period, of course. I started out with a plan like you. It soon turned into a slippery slope. I am now trying to model everything that operated during the whole of 1940 on all sides. The last stock take gives me 51 kits in the stash, 33 built. Once the Western European theatre is done, I shall start working on the Mediterranean and North Africa. I must be obsessed!

This has been a fun project. I don't know whether you know this, but the Battle was designed from the first principles to be adaptable to any power plant that was available. Although chiefly designed for the Rolls-Royce Merlin, Fairey included their own inline engine as an alternative if the Merlin wasn't available. Several Battle airframes went on to be engine test beds. Two were used by Bristol to flight test the Hercules and Taurus engines, so your build with a radial isn't as far-fetched as you might think! Three planes were used by Rolls-Royce for testing various engines. Planes were also fitted with a Fairey P.24 which had twin counter-rotating props, the Napier Sabre and Dagger.

I think so, yes. I checked as many references as I could find, and couldn't see yellow tips anywhere.

Ouch! Three days, even over a weekend, isn't good. I honestly don't know why my pictures appear so quickly. I'm not a moderator or anything, so it's a mystery. Yes, it would be lovely to have a new Battle kit some day. Equally, you'd think a Manchester would be on the list, too. Arguably a Manc would be quite straightforward, as it's the same fuselage as the Lancaster. Still, we are expecting a Beaufort and we have had a Whitley and Wellington, so I'm not complaining.

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. /media/tinymce_upload/c2a15b88959f2219d07e14a419ff2762.jpg /media/tinymce_upload/99e986a3e11eccb0a98b9fee0a1bb386.jpg /media/tinymce_upload/cd1aee4be8e6feb2ded17d6292764b26.jpg /media/tinymce_upload/77db200a5165c2a904b198715a7e10fa.jpg Another aircraft ticked off my 1940 list, and the third so far in my Belgian air force collection. The old Battle kit does respond to some extra work, and though I could have done it a whole load better than I did I've learned a few new tricks and techniques that I hope to use when I do this conversion all over again for an RAF Battle from the same kit. I must be mad! Thanks for looking!

/media/tinymce_upload/79e0edf2eefc9fb1b8d56ae39795f8e0.jpg With the cockpits painted, the fuselage was closed up and work began on filling and sanding the modifications. The wings were assembled after I sanded down the famous rivets and scribed some panel lines. Various sink marks were filled, and it looks like the overdone fabric effect on the ailerons will need to be dealt with. /media/tinymce_upload/954c9989b794426ee9c14d6c84d41ca0.jpg It took some extra strip styrene in the gaps, too, but flattened ailerons looked much better than the corrugated iron ones. The bomb cell doors were glued in and needed much sanding and filling to look right. /media/tinymce_upload/8427ef6a26ca59221db71a6d5cfc7a15.jpg Some more scrap styrene was deployed reshaping the rudder. You can see how small it was by the original grey plastic here. Serious thought was given to scratch building the tailplane, so much additional material was being used. It might actually have been quicker and neater in the long run. /media/tinymce_upload/e82d3c463fc98e227a805c98677df5e4.jpg I decided to paint a witness coat of Humbrol 29 acrylic, which would allow me to see if more filling and sanding was needed. The plane would be camouflaged in the standard RAF dark earth and dark green, so it seemed a good idea to use one as the primer and witness coat. You can see I’ve extended the ailerons out to the wing end plate, where they should be. The wings are the wrong shape and a bit short, the bomb cells and undercarriage wells are in the wrong places, but I wasn’t about to get involved with more surgery. My original idea had been to build from the box, warts and all, but I got a bit carried away! /media/tinymce_upload/4bcf0f681897b923d4f545898492715d.jpg After some reshaping, the Fulmar radiator was glued on. /media/tinymce_upload/9f7e4db11676bd22518813ca5fcf3426.jpg New elevators being laminated from sheet, the tail cone has been extended and a fillet stuck in under the rudder. /media/tinymce_upload/b97b7031237b2f27a1c1f68bcf25b588.jpg The new radiator seems to fit nicely. The extended radiator cowling was a feature of the Belgian aircraft. /media/tinymce_upload/74e69ac404bdab4537643b4b8e25e382.jpg More work needed on the fin and rudder. Out of the whole build, this area gave me the most grief. When I come to build the other Battle as a Bomber Command plane, I will seriously consider scratch building the horizontal tailplane parts instead of hacking the kit parts about. /media/tinymce_upload/20740a92b1c3276e0222366a969c0dbf.jpg Finally, the tailplane comes together. The wings went on next, and things began to move quite fast. /media/tinymce_upload/1acb7dbe275fbc54b5e72dca57923581.jpg A big problem with this kit has always been the shape of the nose. Not only was it too short, but the front end was all wrong. The shape should be more like an early Hurricane, rather than the slightly squared version seen on a Spitfire. There is also a characteristic open front through which can be seen a plate mounted to the Merlin engine. To simulate this, I carefully ground away a depression around the hole for the propeller. I also sanded the corners of the nose to make it a bit more pointy. /media/tinymce_upload/e4738d09904c05ada1745bf4d5e66243.jpg The kit prop is huge! It scales at 14ft diameter, a couple of feet larger than the Battle’s 12ft 6in diameter. The boss is also very basic. /media/tinymce_upload/d9ad845c5a0f055ed4cc733b9b6df26c.jpg After trimming down the blades, I added some Evergreen plastic rod to the centre to represent the boss, and small slices of rod to make the counterweights. /media/tinymce_upload/fe24efbe063af4ea4acfd54f71fd33bd.jpg The canopy parts were masked, even though I was brush painting this model. It saves a lot of cleaning up round the frames. /media/tinymce_upload/c1620635fe0039c347837d3da7da22c1.jpg The camouflage colours went on. I find the new range of Humbrol acrylics brush paint nicely. The green is from the Revell range of acrylics, and is a better match to the proper colour than poor old Humbrol 30. /media/tinymce_upload/9a0daa72690aca4e2728ae4a656a970d.jpg Belgian planes were always painted with aluminium dope on their undersides. This is Humbrol Metalcote Aluminium. It needs a couple of coats to remove the worst brush marks. /media/tinymce_upload/b9d37cd5f1b43f7bc5954ac561bfbf2a.jpg With the undercarriage installed, final details like the front-facing machine gun and the landing lights were fitted. Paint touch-ups and a gloss coat of varnish for the transfers. /media/tinymce_upload/4a842bf8bf4f47428810009927a660b0.jpg The early aircraft has a different exhaust cowling to the more familiar rearward ejector form we see on Spitfires and Hurricanes. I ended up modifying the kit parts with filler and carefully drilling holes. I think I got away with it. /media/tinymce_upload/11ebcd7b4223840835b7aecdc4ea22d2.jpg The decades old transfers worked without a hitch. I was expecting all sorts of disasters. I used Micro Sol setting solution to give them a bit of help settling into the panel lines. And there we are. A hacked about Battle. Not my best work, but I learned a few new techniques that will serve me well in future builds. The official portraits follow in the next post. Thanks for reading!

Yes, I understand that's pretty much what happened. Still, the old kit sold well enough over the years, and most people would have been happy with it as it was. Well, as it seems the Forum Gerbil has been fed and watered, time to continue.

And we’re back! I’d detailed up the cockpits when I left you. /media/tinymce_upload/8120b87d66e0da6d573a5e8a4f0fd03a.jpg A lick of paint and some masking tape for seat belts and I’m happy that will look fine under the rather thick transparencies. Hmm. It seems the forum server is being a bit recalcitrant. I'll try again later. Be patient!

I think it's fair to say we modellers, particularly if we have an interest in the RAF of the 1930s and 1940s, miss a quality Fairey Battle kit. We keep hoping that Airfix might eventually smile on us and give us the much-needed new tool we crave. Until then, unless lucky enough to track down an MPM kit, we must make to do with the elderly and rather ill-proportioned Airfix kit. I felt a Battle-shaped hole in my 1940 obsession, a pair of holes actually, so I managed to track down a couple of boxes from the second-hand sales sites. The kit dates from 1968. The box I'm working from has 1978 as the date on the side. I recall building the RAF Bomber Command version back in the day, and being very happy with it. Now I know better. The kit has errors in wing, tailplane and nose shapes. The canopy is not quite right, and while it generally looks sort of Battle-ish built straight from the box, it's never going to win prizes for accuracy. Over on another forum I frequent, someone is giving the old girl the full works, and doing a splendid job of it. I felt I might be able to achieve something similar, if not with the same finesse and utter attention to detail. Oh, and I wanted a Belgian Battle, too. Not just with a fancy paint job, but with the correct extended chin radiator cowling. Happily, I had a pair of Fairey Fulmar kits in my stash, one in an Airfix box which will get built as nature intended. The other was a Smer rebox sent to me by a friend. I wondered if I could use the Fulmar's extended chin radiator to graft onto the Battle... A plan was hatched. /media/tinymce_upload/f84e080a8df0396ebbe9d13ef44de6aa.jpg First, boxes and books. The Warpaint volume has a centre spread of line drawing plans to 1/72nd scale. I think they're fairly accurate, but they've been very useful either way. I hoped the elderly transfer sheet would still work, too. I don't think I'd be very happy after being stuck in a box for 40 years! /media/tinymce_upload/b801ee34f67c1424723ba8a9a5b878cd.jpg Comparing the Fulmar with the Battle and the scrap view of the Belgian plane showed some promise. /media/tinymce_upload/08e1c8a6ddd107dfdda8bf41466affd5.jpg Before attempting to graft the radiator on, the issues around the Battle's nose needed addressing. The error shows as the nose being a bit too short from just behind the exhausts. Out with the razor saw, and off with the front part. No going back now! /media/tinymce_upload/9890c303d2e31d14bee9a11aec2b8595.jpg According to the drawings, grafting 2.5mm of styrene material in place would correct the nose length. While that set, attention turned to other things that needed remedial work. /media/tinymce_upload/09c9e99ef18d4aed56c0a3cffbca2ee6.jpg The tail. The fin is the wrong shape, and the rudder is rather weedy. After cutting the rudder off, I traced the correct shape from the drawings, and then stuck some sheet styrene on to extend things. At this stage I didn't realise the tail cone was too short, but that was fixed later on. /media/tinymce_upload/163d563a4116af28ff947be71323585d.jpg I essentially destroyed the Fulmar's nose to get the radiator off it. A quick dry fit on the Battle and it doesn't look too bad. /media/tinymce_upload/06f58021d8eb55f69ff28580e76b7c99.jpg The Fulmar also provided some extra parts for the cockpit. I made a representation of the tubular framework and other parts with plastic strip and rod. A short break so you can take a breather! More in the next post.

That's a tidy build of an ancient kit. The interior looks great, too. Well done! I have a Special Hobby Anson in my stash. It's currently tempting me to tackle it as my next build.

Here's my first entry here. I don't want to post it in the main aircraft section, even though it contains at least 50% Airfix kit... /media/tinymce_upload/cabb800c6ec7cc38980e04d3ddd4b7a1.jpg Using an Airfix Dornier Do17E/F kit for the fuselage, and a Revell Do17Z for the wings and tailplane, I made a Do17P. I nicknamed it FrankenDornier, because it's a proper cross-kitted lashup! /media/tinymce_upload/0407d0a2536b4200bcfac41e2872e632.jpg Extras added were a PE set for the cockpit and some exterior details, resin main wheels, and vacuum formed transparencies. The model represents one of the long range photo reconnaissance planes still based in Germany early in 1940, and flying out over France and Belgium before the invasion. /media/tinymce_upload/39e4df7a8c9b884c51153145df694941.jpg It's not totally accurate, but it pleases me. There are kits for the 17P and M available from RS Models, but I don't think I'll bother to get one. Thanks for looking. If I find time, I'll post a couple of other images soon.

Like others, I've been having a spot of lockdown retail therapy. These are feeding my 1940 obsession, with a focus on the countries that ended up being over-run by the German forces. /media/tinymce_upload/28acd03a0da7964b49379a8b7cfb9b13.jpg /media/tinymce_upload/6ef80974220c8b45aab7adeffdf70c6c.jpg /media/tinymce_upload/8ed60fbc696397a1b5c3c7f8cc5010fa.jpg /media/tinymce_upload/1d115be1d0586f24c65158448f5536ba.jpg The Fairey Fox is a resin kit. So, that's one vac-fiorm and one full resin kit in my stash. So much for trying to keep to only injection moulded kits! 😆

I am currently doing basic research into the form and layout of a typical Bofors AA battery for defending an airfield. My impression is it took time for the permanent style of emplacement to be built, so I might head for a sandbagged revetment and a slit trench for crew protection under fire.

That's a nice busy diorama, Ratch! I also just noticed my error in the thread title. I hope the smaller calibre shells don't jam in the barrel!