1/72 Whirlwind

[Peter s]

The final He-111 pics have just been uploaded and are awaiting the mods. Before I started that one I rattled through a lot of relatively simple RAF builds. My goal was to build at least one of every type of aircraft that fought in the battle of Britain in 1/72 before lockdown ended. Fortunately for the UK lockdown has ended before I achieved this and I'm back at work full time so building has slowed. Still got a few to do not helped by the fact I had a few lucky finds on eBay so have added to my pile of potential BoB kits. The British definition of the BoB is late July to late Sept 1940. The German one is August to May 1941 (when the Blitz paused and the Luftwaffe went East). I've generally gone with the German times with a hard start of the Dunkirk evacuation to the Blitz as it lets me do a few more interesting types that weren't around at the height of the battle.

One of these is the Westland Whirlwind. Often described as a failure I think it was allowed to fail because the powers that be knew the Typhoon (hardly an initial success) and the Mosquito were in the pipeline and it simply wouldn't be needed. Given the delay in getting the Typhoon into service this may have been a mistake. A twin engine fighter with good performance, bubble canopy & not much larger than a Spitfire and with 4x 20mm cannon was an impressive warbird in 1940. Unfortunately it used weird unreliable Peregrine engines (although I have heard it was theoretically possible to fit Alisons from a P40 although not merlins) and used 4x the alloy of a Spitfire. The metal requirement probably doomed it more than anything.

I picked up the Airfix kit dated 1977 on eBay (for quite a bit.... ). Although as old as me its in arguably better shape and built up really nicely. Pluses were a very positive undercarriage, no flash and good part fit. The 40 year old decals were past it but I have many, many spares and an Xtradecal set of letters let me replicate one of the more famous brown/green versions. The cannon barrels in the kit were useless but easily replaced with 1mm plastic rod. As usual this was primarily done in Vallejo paints. Dark earth, my favoured 50/50 mix of BS dark green and US dk olive drab, Sky-S underneath and 1 wing in black. For some reason best known to the air ministry the order went out that from Nov 1940 until late Spring '41 (when the RAF started doing sweeps across N France) UK fighters resumed the early war practice of one black wing. The existing underside colour remained whatever it was so in this case Sky-S not White.

I'll load all the pics as one post now.

[Peter s]

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As you can see simple but very clean

And painted....

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And the real thing....

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I'm not sure what state the moulds are now (or if they even exist) but if they can stamp out the kit in this condition it would be a great Vintage classic. I built the special hobby a few years ago and far prefered this one. Simpler but much more fun.

BTW One BIG plus the Whirlwind had was those big engine pods under the wings. It was one of the best aircraft in WW2 to make a wheels up landing in.

[peebeep]

The kit last saw the light of day in 2009 as a starter set, I would guess the tooling is still good enough for further runs, although to be honest I've not actually seen any of the most recent editions. A new tooling would be a nice thing.

[Peter s]

I think I saw one in Maplins (the now defunct electronics store) a few years back. I wasn't modelling aircraft at the time but it was an absolute bargain. It would be great if everything was new tooled but this one is pretty sound as it is. I'd save the limited number of likely new tools for something more popular/harder to source. The new tool Beaufort was a perfect example. 

[peebeep]

The Whirlwind (fighter) has feature prominently in the catalogue since the original tool was introduced in 1958, then re-tooled in 1978. So depending whether or not the 1978 tooling is still good to go a re-release or new tool kit seems quite likely. I bought a blister pack edition of the 1958 kit a few years ago to celebrate the fact that the same kit got me started off in the hobby in 1961. I started it, but got distracted and it was relegated to the Shelf of Doom. I must retrieve it.

[Peter s]

I was surprised the Gladiator was the most issued kit so you may have a point. Airfix's usual criteria is that it favours British and favours models not represented well by other firms so the Whirlwind ticks both of those boxes. For a limited production run of aircraft it fought hard so there's a fair few decal options. If it had been half the price and I could have picked up two I had the crazy idea of a "what if" and paint it in D-day stripes with 60lb rockets. 

[peebeep]

Dieppe raiders carried white wing stripes and nose, it's an option with one of the Special Hobby kits. They look rather good in the box, although they are full-on multimedia.

[Peter s]

Dieppe raiders carried white wing stripes and nose, it's an option with one of the Special Hobby kits. They look rather good in the box, although they are full-on multimedia.

I did a Spit V from a Norwegian squadron with those markings. It was unclear whether they were raid markings or a "training thing" from the immediate run up. The Norwegian Spit Vs may have been playing the "bad guys" in the training. Either way it made a cool model. I tend to wince at Special Hobby. They CAN build up into good kits but they're fiddly as anything at times and I tend to enjoy painting far more than building so this little one did me nicely. Its rare I don't finish a kit at all (they may not survive for long on the shelf but I generally finish them). One aborted early on was a special hobby barracuda. I just made a mess fixing tiny bits onto the wings & knew the paint job wouldn't hide it. I keep mentioning Clostermann (maybe because the Big Show is cheap on Kindle at the moment so I downloaded it.... I've got the paperback too). Whirlwinds dive bombed the Munsterland but I don't think they got mentioned in the book.

[Dark Earth]

Lovely Job Peter.

I can see a nice bit of fine panel line detailing in photos 3 & 5.   Subtle . . .  Nice !

And what a fun kit.  I picked that one up a few years ago at a local show.  Despite being an older kit, it fit well and built up very nicely.   It's right up there on my list of best looking aircraft.

 

Chris

[Bert1707820915]

I've recently built the 2009 starter kit edition (one of a few 'lockdown' builds!) and the moulding seems to have held up quite well.  I didn't have any major issues with flash or short shot parts (both of which were major issues with the venerable Comet kit I also built).

 

The Whirlwind is a kit I remember making years ago so thought it'd nice to build another.  Mine's not up to the standard of builds on here but I'm happy with it so that's enough for me - I could spend years on a kit and still not get close to the quality of the builds you see on this forum (and others), however, I also suspect I'd lose my mind in the process!

[Dominic Thomas]

Peter,

I have to ask : great finish and very good discussion, but the fin flash - was that a mistake or was it based on actual evidence?

I ask because we all have access to evidence that may well be unique. So if there is a photo out there that a  build has been based on that shows a set of markings that are not standard, it would be good to see.

As i said, just asking ......

[Peter s]

Do you mean why is the white narrower than the other 2 colours? TBH I can't remember! I may have struggled to find a suitable surplus decal or it may have been one of the kit decals I reused. Probably the former but I did use the serial number.

[Ratch]

Fin stripes were painted in a variety of styles depending upon the relevant AMO for the time or the Erk's interpretation of the AMO

[Peter s]

Fin stripes were painted in a variety of styles depending upon the relevant AMO for the time or the Erk's interpretation of the AMO

Thanks for that. It clearly didn't register as weird when I applied it but looking at the "real" photo the bands look more uniform than the decal I used. If thats the worst crime I model this year I've done OK! 

[peebeep]

Fin stripes were painted in a variety of styles depending upon the relevant AMO for the time or the Erk's interpretation of the AMO

Well, yes and no. It's possible, but given the way the marking style was changed (thin white circles to roundels and thin white stripes to fin flashes) somewhat unlikely. Plus PeterS posted a picture of the airframe with equal thickness stripes to the fin flash (scroll back a few posts).  😉

[Dominic Thomas]

 

Thanks for that. It clearly didn't register as weird when I applied it but looking at the "real" photo the bands look more uniform than the decal I used. If thats the worst crime I model this year I've done OK! 

 

 

No suggestion of a crime at all.

The fin flash with the narrow white stripe is consistent with markings applied from 1942 onwards [i don’t have the date to hand, but think it was around July], whereas the roundel is from the period 1939-42 [type A1].

As I tried to mention earlier, we all have references we have obtained which provide the start points for our models. Some of these may be unique in that they show markings no-one else has seen or been aware of. I wondered if that was the case here, but as you have confirmed, it was not.

Its all about sharing information to help each other out. Perhaps I have been able to point something out to you that you might not have been aware of.

[peebeep]

 The fin flash with the narrow white stripe is consistent with markings applied from 1942 onwards [i don’t have the date to hand, but think it was around July]

 

The changes came about mid-May 1942, with the introduction of the 'square' fin flash with narrow white stripe and what became to be known as Type C and Type C1 roundels.

[Peter s]

Given the kit was a grey/green and I did earth/green it was probably the original decal if correct for 42 onwards. I didn't notice. Most of my spares are from Spitfires so aren't square.