Scale aviation modeller international

BUILD

Since the Editor had asked for an

out-of-the-box build, I decided to

include all the internals offered by

Airfix, and set about pre-painting

all those components that would

make up the interior. Much of the

structure is painted aluminium, for

which I used a few shades of Vallejo

acrylics. I added some splashes of

yellow for the flare/signal tubes;

streaky brown to represent the

wood used for a couple of bulkheads

and the navigator’s table; olive

for the rest bunk; and dark green

(Tamiya XF-61) to represent the

RAF Bronze Green used for interior

components like the seat frames.

Typically, despite the

detail elsewhere, there is no

representation of the crew’s seat

belts, so I added some generic RAF

belts from an Eduard set (so not

quite out-of-the-box...) I gave most

of the components a very dilute

wash of black oil paint, more to add

some shadows than to weather the

interior, although I did scrub some

of the corners and the floor with a

very dry dry-brush of aluminium.

The instruments are

represented by some rather

colourful multi-part decals over a

lightly textured panel. Assembly of

the internal structure is centred on

the main floor, to which are added

bulkheads, seats, the radios, and

the floor of the pilot’s cockpit. The

fit of all these parts is excellent

and frequent dry-fitting in the

fuselage halves showed that final

assembly should be trouble-free.

Before this, however, it’s

necessary to decide on the final

configuration of the bomb bay.

The kit is produced with the outer

set of bomb bay doors moulded

to the lower fuselage halves, and

the bay longitudinal members

moulded with the inner door sets;

this is quite a clever arrangement,

being quite robust, and ensures

uniformity in the way the doors

are hung. If a closed bay

option is preferred,

the moulded

doors need to be

removed, and an

alternative closed

section fitted when the

fuselage is closed up.

The interior sub-

assembly, together

with a few other

loose parts and the

mountings for nose

and tail turrets,

are fitted to the

port fuselage side. I

scraped the paint off

the mating faces to

ensure a good joint and

pleasingly, the precision

of the assembly is such that

the fit is flawless. The fuselage

halves close up without any issues,

despite the complexity of the

internals, and there’s a substantial

through-spar used to locate the

wings (which I simply dry-fitted).

Location across the longitudinal

joints is by means of interlocking

flat tabs rather than pins and

sockets. This arrangement proved

to be very positive and ensures an

alignment which needs virtually no

filler, just a few dabs of superglue.

With the fuselage complete,

attention moves to the wings

and engine nacelles, the latter

made up of two main shells held

together with a representation of

the continuation of the main wing

spar, to which the undercarriage

is mounted. The spar section

has substantial square locating

pegs which pass right through

the nacelle shells, - it took me a

moment to realise that this joint

would be hidden inside the wing!

The assembled nacelles attach

to the lower wing on two beefy

flanges. The engineering is pretty

tight here, so some dry-fitting of

both upper and lower wings pays

off in making sure the final fit is

as good as possible. I ended up

having to relieve the lower wing

in a couple of places, and slightly

thinned the locating ridges on

which the upper wing halves sit.

With the nacelle bodies

properly located, the upper wing

halves can be fitted and the

leading and trailing edges tidied

up. Some juggling is needed to

optimise the fit of the upper

It’s necessary to remove a small part of the nose to accommodate

the turret (possibly to allow an early Vickers turret or solid nose

variant).

The internal diagonal geodetic structure is well-represented,

albeit a little heavily.

The internal sub structures and components are well

represented, but Airfix’s instructions offer the option of leaving

them out for a simpler build.

The external representation of the fabric covering is pretty

convincing.

There’s some clever moulding in evidence, like the hollow

exhausts.

There are tidy representations of the Pegasus engines, and the

cowling components will hide any further shortage of detail.

Here are the main fuselage sub-assemblies, painted, prior to final assembly.

There’s nice representation of the pilot

and navigator stations. I added generic

seat belts.

8 • OCTOBER 2018 • SCALE AVIATION MODELLER INTERNATIONAL

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