GB-49 1/144 Lancaster Mk III - Favorite A/C of WWII

[PlasticHero]

Username: PlasticHero
First Name: Alan
Category: Intermediate
Scale: 1/144
Model: Lancaster B.I/B.III
Manufacturer: Amodel 1411

Here is a photoshopped image of Squadron 166 Lancaster AS-M serial NE112. It was shot down the night of August 30-31 1944. The crew was F/O. E.B. Tutty RAAF evaded; Sgt. R.D. Butcher evaded; F/L. D. A. Wallis POW; F/Sgt. G. J. Kirby POW; F/O. D. Pleasence POW; Sgt. L. Letten KIA; and Sgt. W. C. Alderson KIA. That is Donald Pleasence the actor. The nose marking is what I would have wanted if I were the pilot.

There are 2 of the bomb sprues and the photo etch is for the bomb bay and came with the kit. That is the most frightening thing about this, and I will give it may best shot to put together. Although all the clear parts have more and smaller windows then my Zero. The parts have good detail for the scale, and the decals look very good. I am hoping to mount this on a base with the bomb bay open.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Airframes]

Nice one !
Looks like a nice kit in this small scale, and I look forward to seeing it come together.

 

[Crimea_River]

1/144 PE....

 

[fubar57]

Cool. P.E attaches to fingers and thumbs?

 

[Airframes]

Forget the PE - in 1/144th scale, the Lanc is tiny enough as it is !
I recently used a die-cast 1/144th scale Lanc model, in order to "plan out" a diorama base for a future build of a 1/48th scale example ( the plan to be scaled up when needed ), and the model, and the envisaged "dispersal area" display base, all fitted neatly onto a sheet of A4 paper !!

 

[rochie]

Great choice of subject.

I recently refurbished a 1/144 C-130 and dont want to do that scale again !

 

[PlasticHero]

Jumping right into the cockpit area, and there is already somewhat of a problem. The first few pictures I found of the Lanc office did not clearly reveal to me that the pilot is on a raised section. As the parts came, all the seats are mounted on the same level. I had already glued the pilot seat, nav seat, and instrument panel in place. I could cut the pilot seat floor apart and drop the rest. There is room to do this; I would have to cut some notches in the lower section to fit around the pegs. There is even a tiny window that is now under the desk instead of above it. This is the clearest way to show what this area should look like. I think the boxes behind the pilot (A) are radar and I would not include them. The box (B) at the nav station is gee thanks Airframes equipment. The last station is radio operator and not included in the kit.

This is what I have so far. This is a short run kit and is not the crisp fit of the previous Eduard and Airfix builds. It has a little flash and the instructions are not really clear about what goes where, so there was a lot of fitting to make sure I won't glue something where it shouldn't go. There are a lot more parts to build up the nose and bomb bay. The plastic is very nice; hard without being brittle and it glues very well. The black line is where the deck would go and the red is the bomb bay deck. There is space to cut and drop the rear and right side. The yellow part is I think the fold up chair for the flight engineer. It has structure and I think it is the bottom and represents the supports. Even the nav desk has the drafting arm.

Annnnnnnnd in a moment of clarity, I realised that I'm going to put it together just the way it is. This whole cockpit section is smaller than the first joint of your pinky and will never been seen once everything is together. There is also a lot of conflicting pictures of what is interior green, and what is black. I will add some tiny squares of plastic sheet to represent some panels on the side walls.

 

[Wurger]

 

[fubar57]

Son of a...........when the first photo popped up I thought, at first it was your 1:144. I think its a good call on your part to leave as is

 

[Airframes]

Good stuff.
The "boxes" behind the pilot's seat are the H2s indicator and receiver, on their swinging stanchion mount, and were not fitted to your subject aircraft.
Those aircraft with H2s had a large blister beneath the rear fuselage, an the viewing blister on the port side of the cockpit windows would be deleted.
The "box" at the navigator's table is the "Gee" indicator, a navigation aid, and most likely would be present. The radios are aft of this, in the radio operator's position.
Even in larger scales, not much aft of the main cockpit can be seen through the glazing, so don't worry too much about detail in these areas.

 

[Crimea_River]

I had the same reaction as George at first and I think you are wise to not worry too much about fixing the seat.

 

[Totalize]

Never seen a 1/144 lancaster built before. Good choice Alan.

 

[Wayne Little]

Haven't seen one in this scale either, an interesting project...!

 

[T Bolt]

 

[Gnomey]

Good work so far!

 

[PlasticHero]

Getting to the end of PE. This is cockpit and bombay detail; each vertical cut is a place to put a curved brace. I am undecided yet as to proceed with all that.

Lanc's would carry about 10 to 15,000 lbs on a mission. The 3 unpainted "cookies" are 2 types of 4000 version. I think the cluster bombs are also 1000 lbs so I can pick 3 of the 4 types and be within load limits. A 6 ft man is only .5 inches in the scale; dropping these in sequence would have to be carefully timed so Center of Gravity would not be upset. The cookies were cast as hollow tubes so there was no nasty seam to deal with and they have good detail on the end bits. The inset pic is the bay door retraction mechanism and they expect those literal whiskers to survive all the subsequent painting and assembly steps. Ha, they are already cut off; I might try to replace that with some sprue at the end. Instead of CA, I used plastic cement to glue this brass to the plastic. I knew there was no way I wouldn't glue the tweezers to the model and the dissolved plastic holds the PE with no problem.

I painted the bombs as dirty, and tried to have "different" dirt on each one. I've seen photos of dumps with stacks of bombs just sitting in the grass.

 

[Crimea_River]

Incredible.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Gnomey]

Nice work so far!