GB-47 1/48 Hawker Typhoon - WW2 D-Day and After – Western Front

[Crimea_River]

Username: Crimea River
First name: Andy
Category: Judge – Non competing
Scale: 1/48
Manufacturer: Hasegawa
Model Type: Typhoon Mk. Ib w/Tear Drop Canopy
Aftermarket Add-ons: Aviaeology decals, Barracuda wheels, others TBA

The subject of this build will be Typhoon MP149 "Pulverizer II" of 440 Squadron RCAF flown by Harry J. Hardy.

 

[Crimea_River]

The Man

Harry Hardy was born on May 30, 1920 in Timmins, Ontario and died just recently on May 21, 2020, just 9 days short of his 100th birthday.

After being checked out on Typhoons between June and July, 1944, Hardy joined 440 Squadron on August 10, 1944 and flew the first of 96 ops in Typhoons on August 12. During his tour, he was hit by flak 6 times, force landed once, and bailed out once.

Hardy was an active promoter of the role played by Typhoon pilots in WW2 and took an active part in establishing memorials and in the Typhoon Pilot's Association.

Hardy's autobiography of his wartime experience, including snippets from his log book, can be found here and is well worth reading:

http://www.nightlitepictures.com/photolab/H.J. Hardy-The War years.pdf

If you'd rather see a video presentation of the same, see here:



Hardy was awarded the DFC and the Legion of Honour for his service during the war.

The Airplane

Hardy's relationship with the "Pulverizer" name began with his 10th op when he flew Typhoon I8-P "Pulverizer". He didn't know the fate of the previous pilot but the first Pulverizer, coded I8-P became his regular mount after he "hit it off" with the rigger and fitter who were assigned to the airplane. Hardy was flying Pulverizer on September 6, 1944 when he force landed the airplane wheels up in a pasture. The squadron had been flying up with the moving front to relocate to Brussels when it ran into bad weather and got lost. The pilots were ordered to steer 270 and land where they could. Hardy ran out of fuel before he could find an airfield.

After returning to his squadron on Sept 9, Hardy flew his first op, his 14th overall, on September 11 in "Pulverizer II", s/n MP149, the subject of this build. Though he flew other aircraft on ops periodically, including a period in November when 6 flak holes in her were patched, "Pulverizer II" carried Hardy through to his 58th op on Christmas Day, 1944 when he was once again hit by flak. This time, the aircraft was uncontrollable at low speeds and Hardy had to bail out.

I know of 4 period pictures of "Pulverizer II" and all reveal some good details for the purpose of modelling. Other "Pulverizer" pictures are out there but they depict either I or IV.

The most commonly seen picture of II is this one and shows to good effect the camouflage pattern and a hint of the reworked paint to obscure the fuselage AEAF stripes. (Source The Modelling News: A new look for your big typhoon? Eaglcals 24th scale Hawker Typhoon Part I in Review )

These two close-ups (Sources THE GHOSTS OF THE TIFFY BOYS: Mrs. Muir Tells The Story Of Canada's Typhoon Pilots — espritdecorps and http://www.nightlitepictures.com/photolab/H.J. Hardy-The War years.pdf) confirm placement of the nose art including the operation tally, name, and "Vargas Girl" art. They are also great for weathering study.

This final picture, cut from Hardy's autobiography link above, is an excellent study of the fuselage stripe over-painting which shows some extreme wear near the bottom. I like my models to look battle hardened where appropriate so this is a feature that I'll try to replicate.

It's clear form the above pics that MP149's production block incorporated the 4 blade propeller and larger tail plane.

The replacement, Pulverizer III, was flown as of January 16, 1945 on Hardy's 67th op. It was with him until February 22 when it was removed from ops for an undisclosed reason, repaired, and transferred to 438 squadron. "Pulverizer IV" became Hardy's mount through to the end of his tour on March 24th.

The Model

The base kit is Hasegawa's Typhoon Mk Ib with Tear Drop Canopy. This particular kit does not include a 4 blade propeller, nor does it have the enlarged tail plane needed to represent my subject. For this reason, I will be raiding a second kit, Hasegawa's "Shark Teeth" version of the Typhoon kit, which has the 4 blade prop and the larger tail plane. This kit also has a resin "cuckoo door" style dust filter for the air intake but I'll need to verify if it will be necessary. None of the above pics are a help in this regard but a preliminary look at period photos of other 143 Wing Typhoons indicates that these may have been dispensed with by the time they operated out of Eindhoven, when my bird arrived on the scene.

I will be using Aviaeology's excellent decal set AOD48008 "143 Wing Typhoons" which, as always, has excellent reference information included. However, this set specifies that the tropical air filter needs to be carried on this aircraft and they point to a picture which other references identify as a completely different aircraft. More research will be needed for that.

 

[fubar57]

Beauty. No shortage of photos for that one

 

[Crimea_River]

yep, there are a few. I will post some in #2.

 

[rochie]

Looking forward to this one Andy

 

[fubar57]

Does yours have the fuselage cockpit inserts? Even though I got them lined up I still need to add some plastic fill gaps in front and behind the cockpit. I just checked the windscreen and it's too narrow even though the plastic I added didn't increase the width. Seven days now to ponder how to correct this. There might need to be some spreaders needed to correct the gaps at the wing/fuselage join or it might need the wings to be lifted a bit and then glued. It's not a big gap

 

[Wurger]

 

[dneid]

Ooooo, a Tiffy. Lovely choice, Andy.

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks guys. Post # 2 filled in. If anyone has more pics of this particular bird, I'd love to see them.

Does yours have the fuselage cockpit inserts? Even though I got them lined up I still need to add some plastic fill gaps in front and behind the cockpit. I just checked the windscreen and it's too narrow even though the plastic I added didn't increase the width. Seven days now to ponder how to correct this. There might need to be some spreaders needed to correct the gaps at the wing/fuselage join or it might need the wings to be lifted a bit and then glued. It's not a big gap

Yeah both kits have the side wall inserts. Thanks for the heads up on the fit issues. Not sure what the solution will be until I get there.

It will be quite a while before I launch into this build as I need to try to get my IL-2 off the bench first. I need a modified mindset and a few rainy days for that to happen.

 

[Wayne Little]

Great choice Andy.

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks Wayne. After reading a lot about my subject I decided to order some Ultracast exhausts as the Hasegawa ones look far too skinny . Got a pair of resin seats with harnesses and a bunch of unrelated goodies as well to take advantage of the flat rate shipping.

Hope to make a start soon.

 

[A4K]

With Wayne!

 

[Crimea_River]

OK, time to post some progress on this build. I had been doing little bits of work over the last month or so but never enough to bother you with.

The fuselage inserts were completed and the interior walls painted grey/green on the lower surfaces and black on the uppers. I bit of silver dry-brushing brought out the details a bit.

The starboard insert went in beautifully but the port one gave me some trouble. I think that there was a slight warp in the part that resulted in a small step at the front and back seams. I spent a lot of time aligning everything with the glue in place and I thought I had succeeded but I think that there was enough spring in the part to force the glue joint to move after I set the thing aside to cure. Some surface primer was applied and the area sanded smooth. I may need to do this once or twice more.

Next came the cockpit framing. I painted the frames silver, the heel rests, lower armour plate, and control column grey/green, and the armour plate black above the frame. The Ultracast resin seat was painted silver and the padding was done with Tamiya Khaki. The straps were brushed with Tamiya Deck Tan. Now, I think that Ultracast may have erred in providing the moulded secondary shoulder straps but I went ahead and painted them anyway.

The one area that I did fix was to add a scratch-build bar on the head armour and I then extended the resin straps with tape to drape over the bar and behind the seat.

The instrument panel and side consoles were painted on the sprue. I decided to paint the instruments rather than use the kit-supplied decal. Sorry for the poor pic which shows the point where the glass instrument faces, made with PVA glue, were just about dry but not quite.

The instrument panel and consoles were then glued in, the latter being quite tricky to place.

There are a lot more details that I could have added to the pit, such as the missing compass, but I decided that I'd rather get on with this build. Thanks for looking in.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Gnomey]

Lovely work so far Andy!

 

[rochie]

Looks good

 

[Wayne Little]

Nicely done Andy.

 

[Snautzer01]

nicely done

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks guys.

 

[dneid]

Lovely work, Andy! Just what brushes do you use for that time detailed painting?