1/48 RCAF Fairey Battle Mk I STF Build

[Crimea_River]

****This build was originally started as part of Group Build 37 but was withdrawn when the subject of the aircraft was changed**********


Username: Crimea River
First name: Andy
Category: Judge – Non competing
Scale: 1/48
Manufacturer: Classic Airframes (aka Terry in his younger days)
Model Type: Fairey Battle
Aftermarket addons: None planned. Some scratchbuilding no doubt

I will chuck this kit into this GB milieu and plan to complete it as an aircraft from No. 301 Squadron. From Wiki:

......No. 301 (Polish) Squadron was formed on 24 July [in 1940]. The unit was given the name Ziemi Pomorskiej (Land of Pomerania) in accordance with Polish naming traditions.

301 (Polish) Squadron was initially commanded by Lt.Col. Roman Rudkowski, and was equipped with the Fairey Battle bomber. The unit had 24 all Polish aircrews. Maintenance and servicing of the aircraft was performed by some 180 British ground crewmen. The squadron was based at RAF Bramcote. On 23 August 1940 the squadron relocated to RAF Swinderby, along with 300 (Polish) Squadron. The squadron flew its first combat mission on 14 September 1940. Three aircraft took part in a bombing raid against German invasion barges intended for Operation Sea Lion, which had been collected at Boulogne. The date of the raid was later declared the date of the squadron's feast. The squadron suffered its first losses on 25 September 1940 when one of their Fairey Battles was damaged by German anti-aircraft fire over northern France and crashed before reaching Swinderby.

301 Squadron's experience with the Fairey Battle was brief, perhaps as a relief to them given the aircraft's vulnerability, as they pulled out of operations on 20 October 1940 to begin conversion to the Vickers Wellington. The few operations flown in September against the barges and other targets allows this subject to squeak into the bounds of this Group Build.

The model I will depict is of Battle L5597 marked as GRoF. I have seen only one pic of this aircraft and it's in the background below:

If anyone has more, please post or send!

 

[Crimea_River]

Here I'll take a walk through the kit parts. Lazy as I am, I include verbatim some words from the CyberModeller site:

The Classic Airframes Battle is the usual mix of injected plastic parts, resin details, vacuformed canopies, and nice decals. As the instructions state up-front, this is a limited production kit, so it lacks many of the conveniences that less-experienced modelers are accustomed to like locating pins, perfect fit out of the box, etc. For the more experienced modeler, this kit provides the basis for some serious detailing, or just the fun of building it straight from the box.

The main airframe parts are injected plastic. The type of plastic that Classic Airframes uses is a little softer than the 'mainstream' kits, so it responds very well to Tenax cement. In fact, with a little trimming, dry fitting and patience, the kit fits together very nicely.

If you want to build a 1/48 Battle (and why would you?) this is the only kit out there AFAIK. It's a fairly large airplane so the finished product in 1/48 builds out to a sizable model about 11 inches long with a 14 inch wingspan. The decals look nicely printed with separate enter dots for fuselage roundels. Three different birds can be done, including a Greek version. There are no stencils provided though I'm sure the real aircraft would have had plenty. Two vac-formed canopies are provided (they assume you will only screw up one I guess) and these are decently clear,

A colour sheet is included for decal placement reference. The Greek version is on a separate black and white sheet (not pictured here).

The instructions are minimal and I anticipate some ambiguities on how to fit some of the parts as I experienced on the Anson.

A saving grace form the rather basic styrene moulds is the inclusion of these rather nice resin parts. Cockpit floors, walls and various other bits are replicated which should make fro a decent display through the large greenhouse. For some reason, two prop hubs are included. Maybe one is a Hamilton Standard and the other a ....? Not sure why the Battle didn't have a spinner and will read up on it some more.

The rest of the box contains just two sprues of the main styrene parts.

The lower center section has some fairly deep surface imperfections that will need to be filled in with primer and smoothed out.

The landing gear legs look atrocious and will benefit from some detailing.

There's some flash on many parts and the prop blades are very thick. Unfortunately no resin blades are provided so these are going to see some real scrubbing.

The second sprue contains the wings which have all of the control surfaces moulded in.

Panle lines are nice and crisp, though I can't vouch for accuracy. I will need to see if I can find some good plans so that I can maybe run my rivetin wheel over these surfaces to add some interest.

So that's it for the parts breakdown. As always I will look to as many available references as I can to add any necessary detail and have bookmarked a couple of walkaround picture sites.

 

[Wurger]

Here you are a better shot of the kite..

 

[Donivanp]

Nice subject Andy looks like fun, fun, fun now that daddy took the Tbird away, Oh sorry, Beach Boy.

How are the Classic Airframes kits, a bit rudamaterry I've heard?

 

[Wurger]

Here is a profile of the GR_F I found via the net and another shot of two other kits of the 301 Squadron. However I would say the serial wasn't overpainted ( what would be the reasone for that... ) and there is a lack of the roundel at the bottom of the wing.

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks my friend, appreciate it. I agree the codes should be visible but I don't think there would have been roundels on the bottom, given the night paint. The profile is also missing the very large fin flash as seen on the aircraft in the foreground of the picture.

Don, I am updating the second post to run through the parts. Yes, a bit rudimentary but leaves lots of room for improvement. It would not surprise me if I lose mojo on this build as I did with my other Classic Airframe kit - the Avro Anson. Bit of an ugly crate with few redeeming feature but, hey, I'll whittle down the stash.

 

[Donivanp]

They do give a selection us off subjects. So some work may need be done. It's an interesting subject.

 

[fubar57]

Email sent Andy​

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks Geo! The RCAF trainer actually look tasty but it's probably 1941ish. Need to check.

 

[Airframes]

Nice one Andy, and not something that's seen very often.

 

[Wurger]

... but I don't think there would have been roundels on the bottom, given the night paint. The profile is also missing the very large fin flash as seen on the aircraft in the foreground of the picture..

Agreed on the large fin flash. Both the L5392 and the GR_J had them and there is no reason for not having that for the GR_F.
Regarding the roundels at the undersides.. Please make a focus on both the L5392 and the possible GR_B that have the roundels there. I have enlarged the pic with the GR_F seen in and if you get a close up look at the wing bottom you may find the two lighter spots there where the roundel should be. Also, the bottom roundels of the A type without the yellow outline were introduced on undersides in September 1939 together with giving up painting of the serials there. The black colours of the undersides doesn't matter in the case.

 

[mikewint]

I still say that THIS is a Fairy Battle:

 

[Donivanp]

 

[Crimea_River]

Our coat rack is getting a bit small.

Wojtek, you're right. Seen better here on GRo? in the foreground.

The kit's decal placement instructions (see post#2) doesn't have them so I just jumped to that conclusion without looking closer.

Guys, this may all be moot as I came across a much more attractive scheme that I may want to do. It's this aircraft from the #8 Bombing and Gunnery School based at Lethbridge, Alberta in August 1941 and so therefore not within the theme of this GB.

Lethbridge is a 1.5 hour drive south off me and was also a base for the 133 Squadron RCAF Hurricane we are restoring so this scheme has a certain attraction to me. It's also quite colourful with yellow undersides, yellow patches on top and a red band.

I will start the build and decide part way through if I go this route, in which case I'll withdraw this build from the GB and do something else that I have planned.

 

[mikewint]

Sorry Andy, never been real good at avoiding temptation

 

[Wurger]

... Wojtek, you're right. Seen better here on GRo? in the foreground.

View attachment 481183

The kit's decal placement instructions (see post#2) doesn't have them so I just jumped to that conclusion without looking closer. ....

Yep . The pic is a good example. What is more I checked on a couple of other ones. Unfortunately, not too many images that are accessed via the net can be found.. To be honest , the reason for that could be ( as you said ) both the no. 300 and 301 squadron were equipped with the plane type for a very short time. Looking at these pics posted by you and me I would say that these are a part of newsreeels taken during WW2. As a result these shots aren't of the best quality. Therefore I checked on these films on the Youtube. Unfortunately no one for the no. 301 squadron was found but I came up with the ones for the no. 300 unit. I paid my attention to the way these were taken and I found that all of them show taking off of two or three planes , exactly looking like taken at the same moment the pics above were . For instance , like that one....

In one film I noticed a Fairey Battle Mk.I coded BH_E. Being the plane of the background she looked exactly the same like the GR_F and the GR_J. So I centred on the plane and digged a little bit more. Finally I found a short part of a WW2 newsreeel with the plane as a foreground kite. Here what I found ..

The first shot is of quite nice quality... however no serial can be seen..

Here are screen shots of the movie I found.. if the serial was there, is still questionable.

Being not sure I was keeping searching and found a pic showing her starboard ... a little bit too dark but of a good quality..

some work with the Gamma correction and voila... there is the serial on the starboard .. L5427. If it's on the starboard it means it was on the port side as well. However , looking at other images of other Fairey Battle bombers I noticed the lack of the serial on the port sides. So perhaps the serial could be on the starboard side only. But also found that the serial could be seen barely.

Now the underwing roundel... I waited untill the plane started moving and took the screen shots... although not of the greatest quality but the roundel can be noticed on the wing underside.

To sum up... no daubt that all bombers of these Polish squadrons wore all of the markings following the RAF regualtions. The one in your pic without the squadron code letters was eternized in the pic because the maintence crew didn't manage to do that on time or just the kite just was delivered. IMHO the code was added later too.

 

[Crimea_River]

Good sleuthing Wojtek, thanks. I too found very few pics in my search.

 

[Wurger]

My pleasure , Andy.

 

[Wayne Little]

Nice subject Andy, I'm surprised Airfix haven't tackled this bird....

 

[Crimea_River]

Yeah, me too. Wouldn't be hard to make a better one.