Last time I left off mentioning that I was having to redo my model of the Wellington, that I was going to change it from a Coastal Command aircraft. to one that served in North Africa.
Since then, I have stripped the original paint scheme using warm water and soap and repainted the model in its' three tone scheme of Tan, Desert Brown and Black.
Both the fuselage and wing assemblies were put together, and the wings, tail rudders and fuselage assemblies put together . The exhaust stacks were added and a touch up paint scheme was done to smooth over the rough edges.
The turret assemblies were completed and added, and all that remains is the applying of decals.
Here it is in a close up and with some of the Decals in place
Here are some photos of actual wellingtons from a Royal Canadian Air Force Squadron that operated in
North Africa in the final year of 1943
. Above a later model of the Vickers Wellington This one had modified engines.
A flight crew outside their Wellington bomber
Above two Wellingtons that made a forced landing in the desert
A great diorama shot for depicting life in the desert.
Resources
Photos of the Wellington in service in North Africa, as well as squadron history may be found at the following page http://www.aquatax.ca/NorthAfrica.html
All photos are part of the Bert Parker Collection.
I suddenly realized that I had never finished this blog, although I had finished the model some time ago.
Here are the photos of the final process of the model, all that is missing is the applying of decals, and I will post photos of the Lyslander with markings a bit later.
The model has been prepainted, and assembled with rear gunners station complete, forward pilots cockpit and radio assembly in place and engine assembly together, the wings have been painted and are ready to assemble here.
First wing assembly in place.
First wing assembly, wing brace, landing assembly and tail stabilizer in place.
Both wings with braces and landing gear resting as glue sets up.
Aft angle shot of the Lyslander, missing only its markings now.
Front photo showing the landing gear assembly, wing supports and bomb mounts on the landing gear.
Second shot showing Lyslander from rear angle.
Side profile shot.
The Lyslander model was completed in June of this year, and was an interesting model overall to build, it is a simple enough kit and a good one for a first time model builder to cut his or her teeth on. There is a variety of information available on line about this aircraft and its' service both in the China Burma and India conflict, as well as use in North Africa and as a spy courier from England to France.
Remember there are all kinds of interesting aircraft that served in World War 2, not every one was a fighter or a bomber, so keep your eyes pealed.
In Part One I mentioned I was working to build my Wellington, as a U-Boat hunter with Coastal Command, well that was the initial plan. Sometimes, you realize that what you intend, and what you end up doing are two different things.
The paint scheme was unique for a British bomber, the sides and lower surfaces are Gloss white, instead of the standard Gloss Black. But I was running into a problem, painting white over medium gray is difficult, in not impossible, oh it can be done with multiple coats of paint. The problem is each coat leads to a certain amount of streaks and in some cases bled through causing you to add additional layers, leading to streaks and a tacky appearance.
Since this will be part of a display at the Jefferson County Public Library at the beginning of January of next year, I had to make a decision, attempt to rectify this and push through with a lot of scrap building of radar masts and a leigh light, or find an alternate paint scheme that would still be interesting and not the standard Brown, Green and Black scheme of Bomber command.
Last week, I found the scheme, it is still a night bomber scheme, but for Wellingtons used in North Africa. Because these planes were used in the desert they have a two tone brown scheme on the upper surfaces, which is very different than how one sees this plane.
The nice thing about using acrylic paints over oil based, you can clean off the paint with a little warm water a wash cloth and some dish soap. In a few minutes you can strip your model down to the base color and start from scratch without any loss of detail or damaging any clear parts already in place.
Here are some pictures of the model as it was appearing, next time I will have some photos with the new paint scheme under way.
About a month ago, I began my most recent model, the Airifix 1/72nd Scale model of the Vickers Wellington bomber, from World War Two. The Wellington, was a medium range bomber, used at the beginning of the war to bomb NAZI targets in the lowlands, France, Poland and such.
The model above represents an early war version of the Wellington used by Coastal Command.
It was also used by coastal Command, Coastal Command, was responsible for protecting the merchant fleet from the German U-boats and they used a wide array of aircraft. The Wellington was adapted to this job by carrying radar and sonar, as well as Leigh light that it could shine down upon an enemy submarine, so it could drop bombs, depth charger or torpedoes, to sink the U-boat.
The model I am building was a standard model of the Wellington, it came with two sets of decals for aircraft of Bomber Command, and limited internal details.
However I decided to build the model as a plane from Coastal Command, because this would be unique in appearance and require more work.
What I did not expect was how much work there would be with just the kit itself. Remember, when I built this model originally, it was one of the Old MPC kits, which was an American reissue of the British kit, a lot of things were different. Such as that the engine assembly was one solid piece in the MPC kit. With the Airifix kit, you cement each exhaust stack on the engine cylinder, there are eight stacks that go around the cylinder and prop hub. Each is about the size of a toothpick cut off at about a half an inch from top to bottom and about a tenth as wide.
However once you get comfortable working with the small parts it is easy to assemble the engine assembly.
The gun turrets are also a challenge,. more small parts, including the gun mounts. Unlike the MPC kit, whee the guns could be raised and lowered, and which had flight crew figures; the Airifix kit has no flight crew figures and the guns are glued in place.
The cockpit assembly goes together easily, but again lacks the pilot and navigator figure.
Finding good information on color schemes can be challenging, even using Google or Yahoo to pull images, very few color photos exist of the Wellington's that flew with Coastal Command, and the few that do exist are from end war models, which had an entirely different layout in the forward fuselage.
Depending on what pictures you find, the camouflage for the Wellington was either.
Upper Surfaces and Wings Intermediate Gray and Flat Black patches,
Lower Fuselage and Wings Gloss White.
Upper Surfaces Dark Blue Gray and Dark Olive Drab
Upper surfaces side panels tail Off White
Lower Surfaces Flat Black
Also some versions of the Wellington, that served in 1944 had a radar dome under the nose and the tail assembly was white as well.
Next time I shall have photos of the model.
Till then Happy Model Building.
Photos
Two versions of the Wellington shown here. the outer model shows the Wellington, in standard Bomber Command Camouflage, the inner model shows the Wellington with a radar mount under the nose assembly and in camouflage and markings for Coastal Command from 1944.
Late War Wellington with the Radar blister under the nose and displaying they Leigh Light used to spot enemy submarines on the surface at night.
Early War Wellington, before being equipped with all the flying Sonar and Radar equipment.
What I hope my model looks like when I have finished her.
It has been several weeks, since last I wrote on my progress on the Airifix kit of the Lyslander, since then I have made some progress in adding details and also modifying the paint scheme.
I had said that the kit was lacking details, such as a floorboard, radio equipment and ammunition boxes to name a few; but I am an old time modeler. What does this mean? I hold onto scrap plastic , spare parts and decals from just about every kit I build.
I found in my spare box, some sheet plastic that I was able to cut to size for both the floor boards for the pilot and gunner, as well as the radio rack,
You can see some of the scratch built details here. The seat assembly nearest the forward fuselage is the rear gunners area. Sheet plastic was used for the floorboard and plastic from old tree assemblies was cut using scissors then glued in place and pained acrylic black. The floorboard was painted using medium gray. The larger assembly near the aft fuselage is the pilots area and radio bay. Again sheet plastic was used for the floor board and the radio mount. The radio equipment was again made using parts of plastic from old model trees, cut and trimmed and then painted. The instrument panel was again sheet plastic painted brown with pewter gray trim.
You will have to trim the plastic used for the floor board and the radio bay. to fit precisely, remember take your time, you don't have to rush.
You will note a change in the paint scheme since last time. The reason is simple, research showed that the Lysanders in The China, Burma and India theatre in Mid 1942 were still using the Green and Brown camouflage.
Two weeks ago, on Sunday my wife and I went to Mastodon State park, this is latter path leading out of the lower trail that leads to the bone bed, and back to the museum above,
As some of you may know, I am a history buff and also enjoy building scale models, especially the aircraft from World War Two. Recently I began to build the Airifix model kit of the Westland Lysander, an aircraft that many in the U.S. are not familiar with .
The Lysander was a unique aircraft used by the Royal Air Force (RAF) during WW2, it started out as a reconnaissance aircraft and a light bomber, It was later used to drop off spies and pick them up from occupied France. What made the Lysander unique though was that it was a short take off and landing aircraft that was also able to hover briefly, then resume full speed flight; this was quite advanced technology for a plane built at the end of the 1930's.
The kit was a re-released by Airifix with the spy figure, a pilot and rear gunner. There is a piece of plastic that is supposed to be an instrument panel, there is no decal for this, except for a paper one, that you have to cut from the instruction sheet, and because of the scale there is no detail. There is no joy stick or floor board assembly.
In the rear gunners compartment there is no floorboard, the barrell on the machine gun is shorter than on the actual plane.
There are winglets that attach to the landing gear spars, on the actual aircraft these could carry bombs, supplies, or a life raft to aid in air sea rescue. There are no hard points on the winglets nor weapons or attachments.
Now if you have a spare parts box, you can add bombs from the old Hasegawa 1/72 A6M-5 zero, this kit had 4 small bombs included that will work perfectly for the Lysander.
The hardest part is the wing mount, since this attaches the upper canopy aft the pilot and before the rear gunners compartment, You will need to let this part of the canopy set a good day before attaching the wings, to be sure that this has set properly.
Also note that you will need to pre paint the canopy frame before attaching to the fuselage or attaching the wing assembly, because of the small size and difficulty in getting to the cockpit frames once the wing is on. It is always easier to prepaint clear parts before assembling to the kit, especially in 1/72nd scale.
If you decide to arm the Lysander with bombs, you have two main theatres of conflict you can choose after the fall of France. *
You can paint the aircraft a sand tan with raw Seana on the upper and side surfaces and the standard cloudless blue under surfaces, for use in North Africa. Or you can paint it the raw Seana and old ivy upper and side surfaces along with cloudless blue lower surfaces for aircraft used in the China, Burma and India theatre This was also the color scheme used by the RAF in France and with some of Lysanders assigned to the air sea rescue wing.
Side bar... Some of the Lysander's in the China Burma and India campaign carried the Old Ivy, Pewter Gray and Cloudless Blue scheme. This was the standard RAF colors for Fall and winter aircraft.
The last alternate is included in the kit, the special operations squadron, which was assigned to getting spies into and out of occupied France. This version the side and under surfaces are 20404 Black and the upper surfaces are Old Ivy Green and 2020 Pewter Gray.
If you decide on the last version leave out the machine gun assembly and rear gunner. Since the plane could only carry two people.
With a little work, this can be an excellent addition to any collection of scale models.
All colors are acrylic and are either Apple Barrel or Folk Art brand.
Here are some photos of the aircraft, including a video presentation of combined RAF footage both pre and during the war.
Instrument panel and forward cockpit detail.
Pre war paint scheme 1938.
Paint scheme France 1940, China Burma India 1941-1944
North Africa Paint Scheme 1941-1943
Special Operations Squadron 1943-1944
Lysander's practicing dive bombing.
Armed to the teeth
Part of the Royal Indian Air Force 1941-4
Also you will see my model under construction.
* The Lysander was used in the battle for France as a light/dive bomber and quickly pulled from front line service, because it was too easy a target for the German fighters. In China, Burma and India it was more successful because it was teamed with fighters like the Hawker Hurricane, and was on one occasion part of a joint strike mission with the Flying Tigers in early 1942.
