Bristol Beaufighter cowling braces

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swampfox16

Airman
22
1
Dec 30, 2018
Louisville, Kentucky USA
I'm building one of the Tamiya Bristol Beaufighter kits. Photos here and elsewhere show some braces from the front of the engine to the cowling. Looks to be only three based on photos but at what angle. The 6 o'clock position is a given. What about the others? 10 and 2 o'clock maybe?
Thanks for the assistance.
 
Ah, I see. You mean this:



These antennae were installed on SOME Beaus. If you are modelling a particular subject, you'll need to try and find reference pics to see if these are visible. According to documents supplied with Aviaeology decals, these antennae (one on the underside of each tailplane), were installed incrementally beginning in July/August 1944.
 
That's the one! The MB T marked Beaufighter in the Tamiya kit sports these antenna. I've found some inflight photos of the aircraft showing these antenna.
Thanks for the help!
 
These were radio altimeter antenna, fitted to aircraft that would be employed in a low-level role, where the pressure altimeter would not be accurate enough.
Beaus from the Banff Wing, for example, and 'Intruder' Beaus, along with Mosquitos, were equipped with this system, the 'Mossies' having the antennae beneath each main plane, just outboard of the engine nacelles.
 
Thanks for all the assistance. Now, I'm moving on to another area of the Beaufighter and its the armament of the rockets, more specifically the rails. I have a Eduard "Brassin" of RP-3 60lb rockets for their Tempest Mk. V kit. I would like to use it as it has more detail than the Tamiya kit. In using my "Mark One Eyeball", the Eduard rails seem a bit longer.
Is the rail system on the Beaufighter the same as the Tempest?
 
I would say it depends on the mark of the rocket launchers. Also the difference can be the way these rail launchers were attached under wings. Additionally , as memo serves the Tempest Mk.Vs of the first series couldn't carry the RPs.

Here are the rails for the Typhoon , Tempest V ,Tempest II and Beau. Although these seem to be of the same mark ( Mk. III ?) but their attaching looks differently. Other sub-type of the RP-3 launcher ( MK.I/ II ) seen at the Beau undersides mostly look more like those used for Typhoon rather than for the Tempest. Unfortunately I couldn't find images of Tempest with the Mk.I/ II installed. So if you have the one seen in the pic below you may use that. But I would check on other pics of the squadron Beaus firstly if these were used with the aircraft at that time or what sub-type these were of .










the pic source: the Internet.
 
My reference for the Beaufighter rocket rails comes from the Aviaeology decal set which has a huge amount of information collected by Terry Higgins. I don't know what model of Beaufighter you are depicting but would recommend that you get a set of these decals if only for the information included. If you go to the link I included you can see copies of the pages included and the last two have details on the rockets used by the Coastal Command Beaus. You may be able to get enough info by mousing over the pages there. Terry shows Beaufighters to carry two typs of rails, the Mk Ib and Mk III. The later looks a lot like the ones on the Tempest pics above but the Mk Ib types are thicker and are tapered. The other thing that you will need to provide is a blast plate that includes the sockets for the rocket motors. This is seen in the last pic posted by Wojtek above but this does not appear to be present on the Tempest.

Here is my rocket installation. I have used the Mk III rails left over from my Revell Mosquito but modified them a lot. The rockets are also the A/P type so not the same as what you want to do.

 
I agree with Andy. Here pics showing the Mk.I used both for the Typhoon and Beaufighter seen in pics mostly.






the pic source: the Internet.
 
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