Airframes
Benevolens Magister
A "Re-conversion" from the Airfix 1/48th scale Mosquito FB.VI.
It's been six months since I did any modelling, the Swiss F-5E being my last project, and the down-time being mainly due to lack of medication for the stiffness and pain caused by my RA. This is due to lack of treatment, because of the risks involved due to the Covid emergency. However, I've now commenced a course of steroids, which should help until such time as proper treatment can be had, and I thought I'd ease myself back into things.
Over 30 years ago, I converted the Airfix 1/48th scale Mosquito FB.VI into something resembling a B.Mk.XVI, using the "bomber" nose section from the even older Monogram kit, found in the spares box.. This was long before the advent of aftermarket resin and other parts, and the extended "two-stage" engine nacelles, and the bulged bomb bay, were moulded from "Milliput". Exhausts were scratch-built, and the later style bomber canopy was home-moulded. The model was brush-painted in Humbrol enamels, and the code letters hand-painted, freehand. The final, matt clear coat was done using an enamel (or perhaps polyurethane) varnish, standard practice for that era, before decent acrylic clear coats were available, and which, over the years, has yellowed and darkened. For some strange reason, the home-moulded canopy has also turned yellowish-brown, I presume due to whatever material I used at the time which, from memory, was probably not the usual clear plastic sheet from the LHS. (other canopies made back then are still clear and not tinted).
The pics below show the model as it looked a couple of years ago - rather dusty, dirty and tarnished, and the first step in the "regeneration" is to remove the unwanted parts, such as the wing tanks (Monogram) and canopy, clean the model, and either sand-back or remove the existing paint.
I'm intending to use a spare main section of a canopy left over from the Airfix B/PR.XVI kit, for which I will have to fabricate side windows and adapt it to fit, and add machine guns from the spares box, along with a couple of other minor mods relevant to the movie aircraft.
Most here will be aware that the movie, filmed in 1963, employed a number of Mosquito TT35 aircraft, with around three or four able to taxi, and a further four airworthy, and, horror of horrors, two or three were deliberately destroyed during the filming of action scenes !
The TT35 was a conversion of the B.35, for target-towing duties, with the clear Perspex nose of the bomber version, and the later canopy with bulged, rather than blister, side windows, and a blister on the roof escape hatch. Unlike the earlier movie "The Purple Plain", where PR35 Mosquitoes were used, and the nose re-modelled to more closely represent that of the FB.VI. for the "633 Squadron" movie ( and the later "Mosquito Squadron"), this was not done, the clear nose simply being painted over, and dummy machine guns fitted in place. The colour scheme was also slightly spurious, for a FB.VI, being more akin to that of the "bomber" version, and the code letters were painted in a rather curious pale green shade, perhaps due to a common description, back then, that these were in "Duck Egg Green", which, in reality, was actually "Sky".
A number of the movie aircraft still survive today, and one example, in the RAF Museum Cosford, is shown below, painted to represent the aircraft used by W/Cdr Guy Gibson.
I'll post pics of the first stages of the "re-work" soon.
It's been six months since I did any modelling, the Swiss F-5E being my last project, and the down-time being mainly due to lack of medication for the stiffness and pain caused by my RA. This is due to lack of treatment, because of the risks involved due to the Covid emergency. However, I've now commenced a course of steroids, which should help until such time as proper treatment can be had, and I thought I'd ease myself back into things.
Over 30 years ago, I converted the Airfix 1/48th scale Mosquito FB.VI into something resembling a B.Mk.XVI, using the "bomber" nose section from the even older Monogram kit, found in the spares box.. This was long before the advent of aftermarket resin and other parts, and the extended "two-stage" engine nacelles, and the bulged bomb bay, were moulded from "Milliput". Exhausts were scratch-built, and the later style bomber canopy was home-moulded. The model was brush-painted in Humbrol enamels, and the code letters hand-painted, freehand. The final, matt clear coat was done using an enamel (or perhaps polyurethane) varnish, standard practice for that era, before decent acrylic clear coats were available, and which, over the years, has yellowed and darkened. For some strange reason, the home-moulded canopy has also turned yellowish-brown, I presume due to whatever material I used at the time which, from memory, was probably not the usual clear plastic sheet from the LHS. (other canopies made back then are still clear and not tinted).
The pics below show the model as it looked a couple of years ago - rather dusty, dirty and tarnished, and the first step in the "regeneration" is to remove the unwanted parts, such as the wing tanks (Monogram) and canopy, clean the model, and either sand-back or remove the existing paint.
I'm intending to use a spare main section of a canopy left over from the Airfix B/PR.XVI kit, for which I will have to fabricate side windows and adapt it to fit, and add machine guns from the spares box, along with a couple of other minor mods relevant to the movie aircraft.
Most here will be aware that the movie, filmed in 1963, employed a number of Mosquito TT35 aircraft, with around three or four able to taxi, and a further four airworthy, and, horror of horrors, two or three were deliberately destroyed during the filming of action scenes !
The TT35 was a conversion of the B.35, for target-towing duties, with the clear Perspex nose of the bomber version, and the later canopy with bulged, rather than blister, side windows, and a blister on the roof escape hatch. Unlike the earlier movie "The Purple Plain", where PR35 Mosquitoes were used, and the nose re-modelled to more closely represent that of the FB.VI. for the "633 Squadron" movie ( and the later "Mosquito Squadron"), this was not done, the clear nose simply being painted over, and dummy machine guns fitted in place. The colour scheme was also slightly spurious, for a FB.VI, being more akin to that of the "bomber" version, and the code letters were painted in a rather curious pale green shade, perhaps due to a common description, back then, that these were in "Duck Egg Green", which, in reality, was actually "Sky".
A number of the movie aircraft still survive today, and one example, in the RAF Museum Cosford, is shown below, painted to represent the aircraft used by W/Cdr Guy Gibson.
I'll post pics of the first stages of the "re-work" soon.
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