<-- **** DONE: 1/48 Beaufighter TF X - Twin Engined Aircraft of WWII

Having now completed the port sill of the cockpit, this area is done. Everything was built up of card, solder, and wire and then painted. This was capped off with dabbing a spot of PVA into the 3 instrument faces, one of which is still not quite dry in the pic.

While most students of aviation history, and indeed North American history, are aware of the famed Tuskegee Airmen and their determined struggle just to be allowed to fly combat missions alongside white combat pilots of the United States Army Air Force, it is almost unknown that one black Canadian officer pilot flew on operations with the RCAF in Europe in an integrated front line squadron. That man was Flying Officer Allan S. Bundy and that squadron was 404 Squadron Royal Canadian Air Force, "The Buffaloes", flying the powerfully armed coastal strike fighter, the Bristol Beaufighter and later the de Havilland Mosquito.

Black Buffalo > Vintage Wings of Canada

Good stuff Andy!

Great detail on the cockpit sill Andy!

like it Andy, great job !

Thanks guys.

Looks great so far Andy!

Looks fantastic Andy! If I toss mine in (as an RAAF aircraft), I can't say I'll be going quite as wild on it.

Thanks guys.

So between the info I found on the net, the diagram posted by Wojtek, and the info sent to me by Terry, NOTHING matches for the observer's office so I decided to wing it. Also, given the fact that very little will be seen, I am not too fussed about this, as long as there are some vague details visible through the cupola.

The first thing that I was able to confirm is that the back rest on the seat is much to high and interferes with the small instrument panel that needs to go in front of the plate you can see below just above the top of the seat. I therefore cut the seat off to allow for modifications.



Here you can see that I filled in the hollowed out wing roots with Milliput and, while I was at it, I made a cushion for the observer's comfort. As you can see, I already cut the back rest down on the seat int thinned the side walls.

The Milliput I have is the one for fixing chips in clay pots and it's a tad courser than the white stuff most guys use. I bought this stuff before knowing there were even different kinds available and this was the only one on the shelf at the store. Yes, the application is quite rough but is far from the viewable area. Also seen is the ammo box for the rear gun which I built up form card.



Below is the observer's area with final details installed and awaiting paint. Before adding all this stuff, I weathered the interior skin and structure details and scratched in some yellow paint to resemble some labeling. On the port side, from left to right, are the emergency latch pointed out by Terry, the T-pull for the dinghy release just below it, ammo box (now painted), latch mechanism for the hatch, a spare trailing antenna reel, and a electrical box.

On the starboard side, from left to right, I created a sliding map table and possibly fictional support structure, some more electronic boxes (sawn off wooden paint stirrer), trailing antenna reel, a couple of boxes representing the A1134 amplifier and, next to it, a switch panel, some more miscellaneous junction boxes, and finally the T1154 transmitter, scratch built form card and rod.



Here's the starboard side with the seat back in and all the details painted. The seat belts are just masking tape.



Here's the port side with painting completed. I also added a PE ammo belt coming out of the box and going in behind a roller. The rest of the belt will do in once the gun is installed.



With that all done, the fuselage has been cemented together and will be set aside pending addition of engine and wheel well details..



Thanks for looking in gents.

Nicely done Andy.
It's one of those situations where, if internal detail is omitted, it will be noticeable by its abscence, whilst adding it, it's known that most will not be seen, apart form shapes and the fact that 'something is there'.

Very true Terry. One thing that definitely can be seen but is not present on the model is the exhaust collector system between the engines and the front of the cowls. I cringed a bit at how to achieve this but, in the end, it turned out easier than I though and was completed within a couple of hours.

First of all, with the engines trial-fit into the cowls (which BTW is a nice snug fit) I drilled out the small intakes on the exhaust manifold. The one on the right shows how it was supplied with the kit. A bit of an awkward point was the fact that one of the sprue attachment points for the cowls was right on the lower intake pipe and this required a bit of tricky trimming.



On the back of the engines, I thinned the cowl flaps (left). Unfortunately, the kit supplies only one option here with the flaps closed. I would have preferred an open option as almost all pics I've seen of Beaus on the ground have the flaps cracked open. Will I make my own? Hmmmmm....



Next we have the start of the collector system. I cut equal lengths of plastic rod and CA-glued these to the rear cylinder ports. Having studied the system a bit, I decided to pick up the pipes for only one side of each cylinder. The pipes for the other sides intersect the visible pipes from the back and will be difficult to see so I opted to leave them out.



Here we see one of the finished assemblies. Though the real thing had conical connector pipes, I think that what I've done here results in an adequate representation. Cones would have been a bit ridiculous to replicate.



Here are the finished engine assemblies with final paint applied.



Thanks again for looking in and for the comments.

Good work on those tricky exhausts Andy.
I remember how fiddly it was doing it on my 1/32nd scale Beau, so it must have been even more of e 'three-handed job' on your model.
Time consuming and tricky, but well worth the effort.

Excellent work so far Andy!

Thanks all. Moving right along....

The main tires have been glued together and, were painted with Alclad Dark Aluminum and Tamiya Rubber Black with a dusting of dark brown on the tread surface. This was followed by a wash to dirty up the hubs. Before painting them, I flattened the tires quite a bit with a large file. This is something I normally leave until the finished model is sitting on it's gear as I find it tricky to get the right angles beforehand. However, as these ones will easily rotate and are truly vertical, I decided to go ahead and do it before assembly.



The tail wheel was a but of a let down as supplied with the kit as it was a single molding with no features to suggest separation of the wheel and yoke. Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture before I launched into fixing this but, needless to say, I drilled, filed, sawed and scoured to make the think look a bit more convincing and here's how it ended up:



You know, I do like the fit and general quality of Tamiya kits but I find that their treatment of details could be a lot better, something that I think Eduard does much better. Case in point is the tail wheel described above and, below, the main gear which features some very thick and square structural truss members that support the undercarriage. In reality, these were round and much narrower. This could have been a major project to fix so I resigned myself to accepting the details as is and to adding just some moderate detail such as brake lines and various other bits to the wheel wells.



The wings went together well but some modifications are in order for my rocket-firing TF X.



The main thing is that the MG's would need to be plugged as these were not carried. Here you can see that I inserted some plastic rod into the openings. There's also some minor filling that was needed at the engine where the seam did not quite align. This was a simple matter of slathering on some Tamiya surface primer, sanding it smooth once it cured, and rescribing the fastener heads that were lost. I still need to address the seam on the oil cooler intake as this area should be smooth. I also need to look into what appears to be a little scoop right next to the oil cooler. Not sure if it should be there or if I need to open it up.



Here's a pic of the underside of the same wing. As you can see, the rocket mounting frame obliterates all of the ejection ports save for two which will receive blanking plates.



Here the gun openings have been blended in and the ejector port blanking plates added.



That's it for today guys. Thanks for checking in once again.

very nice work Andy

Nice work Andy, especially on that 'solid' tail wheel.
Don't know if you've found them yet, but there are a small number of small, raised,rectangular panels dotted around the wing upper surfaces, which should not be there.
These were practice Battle Damage Repair patches on the real aircraft used as a pattern by Tamiya, faithfully reproduced on their kit !

Thanks guys. Terry, good tip and something that I was not aware of. However, I had planned to confirm the panel lines against a 3 view drawing and rectify any discrepancies before joining the wings to the fuselage. Your input has saved me a bit of potential head scratching so thanks for that.