The Wooksta: Not a Spitfire Blog

[The Wooksta!]

"Uh, Neil? Neil, the lentils are dripping out all over the stairs!"

The Highball Sea Hornet is now masked, as is the Hornet NF10 from the Skybirds kit.  Having started masking the Magna one, I promptly realised it needs another coat of Dark Sea Grey.

As is usual, I'm thinking about other whiffed Hornets, which I really didn't want to do because there's so many real Mosquitoes I want to do and certainly finish because I have a lot at that stage.  Mind, having read through the various Hornet books I have, the number of real ones I'd like to do is growing, and none of the usual suspects.  When I do get round to a line up of real Hornets, there's quite a few prototypes that stand out, including the first NF21, which has the small fin and non-folding wings.  So I think that the F1 fin needs to take a bath in some rubber at some stage.

I might do the remaining Magna F3, using the wings from the Magna NF21, as a second 809 aircraft, but with the more usual rockets and bombs.  IIRC, underwing bombs as additional weapons for a follow up strike were proposed for the Highball Mosquitoes in 1945, so the beautifully cast white metal ones in the Skybirds kit may go underneath either that or the Highball one.  Although I'm leaning more towards the more usual underwing tanks.

The carriers made me think of changing the role of the Skybirds Hornet, giving it the colourful Type C1A roundels with the yellow surround on the wing uppers for service with 2TAF, for attacks on Luftwaffe airfields with napalm as part of Operation Firebash, although that may well happen with the second Magna NF21 that's actually part started.  I do have another, but I rather like the idea of one in overall EDSG as a COD aircraft in the late 50s.

Right.  Tea next and then off to the shed.


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[The Wooksta!]

"By the way, it was a complete lie about the oil."

The Sea Hornet is...paused.  I decalled a trio of Mosquitoes and just lost momentum.  I think it was because I knew that I'd try rushing them to get them finished for tomorrow and simply decided "Sod it, I've had enough of that bollards", avoiding both the cold in the shed and the stress in my head.

But still with Highball.  There's a Short Sturgeon coming my way and that was proposed for use as a Highball carrier, along with the Wyvern.  So I've been up into the loft to look for a Wyvern to play with and after looking at the assembled but unfinished TF1, I decided that Highball on Wyvern is simply a non-starter - it has to go aft of the main spar and the fairing is going to interfere with the flaps.  Yes, they could be strategically shortened to go around the fairing, but carrier aircraft need more, not less control on landing so it's really not a good idea.  Besides, 16 3in rockets are pretty lethal, along with torpedoes or bombs.  I did think that a Highball Spearfish might be a better option.  It's certainly got the clearance, plus it's mid wing, so any fairing isn't going to interfere with the u/c or the flaps.  The only snag is I didn't bring it down from the loft.  I'm not going back up.

I did bring down the assembled and painted Sturgeon TF.1 with a view to perhaps get some decals on it at some stage this year.  Perhaps 809 NAS on Eagle?  Maybe not.  But I did test fit a Highball fairing on it.  Like the Hornet, it's a bit portly for the fuselage, so it'll need a slice taking out, but I've proved it'll work.  I am not looking forward to grinding out the resin on the fuselage to get it to fit. 

Hornetwise, I did assemble a few wings last night for several Sea Hornet prototypes and the engines went on the wings of the F.1.  Its only taken 30 years...


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[The Wooksta!]

"Listen, Michael, there's no need to worry! I've got a plan with which to thwart them!"

The lack of momentum and enthusiasm is worrying.  I did get some varnish on the Highball Sea Hornet, plus the exhausts are fitted and I did a few other things with it, but I just seem to have lost interest in it and I really don't know why. Possibly because the props need spraying and it's really too cold, damp and grey to be sitting in the shed.  Any attempt to put any heating in there will blow the electrics.

I'm having a rethink on the Highball Spearfish.  Not because the idea could be pushing it - I mean, they did trial it on the Avenger (I have the serials somewhere) - but because it's a lot of work with some very thick resin.  There's the AEW version that was proposed, with the same radar that went into the Skyraider and we were still using into the 90s on the Shatipuss, and I have an Aeroclub radome in a bits box that would be ideal.  I think once I have the fuselage cleaned up, I'll have another think.  As I said earlier, a Highball Wyvern is a non starter, so that idea has bit the bullet, but I've done some clean up on the Sturgeon with a view to making a start on that at some point relatively soon.

A trip into the decidedly cold loft for some stuff saw me bringing down the assembled but damaged Blackburn Firecrest.  I'd assembled it during lockdown and it got as far as some primer.  It got reassembled, I've scribed in some gun hatches, some gun barrels and the spare bomb racks from the Highball Sea Hornet (that will eventually get the drop tanks) will go on at some point.  I've also thought about a contra prop for it, so there'll be some test fitting of various spinners to see what will fit.  As for a scheme, it's going in the later Firebrand scheme with a high demarcation.  I'll need to dig out my Firebrand references to determine a squadron, but it's definitely going on HMS Eagle, which has long been my carrier of choice. 

The Wyvern TF1 brought down a while back is going to get the kit bomb racks, rather than the torpedo.  Again, it's going in the high demarcation and possibly with that yellow/red exercise marking that was in Trumpeter's Sea Fury kit.  A look through the decal box for other Wyvern markings is on the cards.

Whilst I'm still burbling about my naval plans for the year and having looked in the loft, I can't find the Firebrand F.1 I thought I had spare.  Plenty of TF.IV/5s (AKI, CMR, Valom, Magna, Rareplanes), a single TF.II but not the spare F.1 I thought I had.  I was thinking about one in the markings of one of the Seafire or perhaps Sea Hurricane units. I did dig out another Sea Hornet F.20, but this is likely to become one of the real but few PR.22s.  There's a photo of one at RNAS Ford (possibly, as it does have the FD tail code) with the 007 fuselage code which I thought could be rather fun.  I don't think any of them actually went to sea.

I've also thought about doing another Highball Sea Mosquito, but properly, with the folded wing (I'll just scribe the lines and add the actuator blisters) and the Lockheed u/c.  I did buy a second Paragon Sea Mosquito conversion for this very projects, way back in 2008 (it was a Saturday), but I'll have to look at the moulds for some of the other bits.  This will definitely be going in the high demarcation scheme.  I know I did it with an Airfix one some years back, but that was gear up and I'd used the Paragon tropical filters, which are decidedly wrong, being too boxy, square and flat, not following the curve of the cowling like the Paul Lucas mastered Freightdog ones.  IIRC, I used the original Paragon Highball conversion on it too, so it really should be replaced with a better one.

The last of the potential naval projects is likely to be a Firebrand TF.V, in the postwar high demarcation but with British Pacific Fleet markings.  That's subject to change as it's the original Magna one, which is very rough and cast in possibly the worst resin I've ever had to deal with.  A darker three colour scheme could be better to hide the flaws.

I've looked again at the MB3.  The wings are now back on at a more correct angle, rather than looking like a poor man's Stuka, and once the filler is sanded off, I'll look at adding some cannon barrels. Not the kit ones that look like 75mm howitzers, so I looked for something more suitable. I've found that Tamiya Mosquito rockets once cut down look like rather good short barrel Hispano cannons to some of those have been put to one side.  I have a mahoosive stash of those kicking about, but having thought about it's particular role - I'm thinking about a 2TAF fighter-recce unit that flew Typhoon FRs - I've decided to just give it two 20mm cannons, a pair of .50cals and some underwing blisters for the cameras, with a centreline drop tank.  Whilst I'm at it, because it's late MB3 with the bubble hood, I'll be replacing the kit prop with a four blade one, using a copy of a Hornet spinner that I know I have a mould for.  I had one to hand, test fitted it to the fuselage and it's a good fit.  Slam dunk there, I think.  I did consider a contra prop for a few minutes, before deciding against it. Oh, I'll need to replace the kit wheels too and go for Tempest style 4 spoke hubs.  Once I have that and some of the other 2TAF stuff I have planned, I may take a look at the Aerocraft MB4 that I bought and part cleaned up at Telford.

Other things that were dragged down from the loft were several (four) assembled and part painted Tempests as I'd like to get some finished this year. One had got as far as being decalled and varnished before being forgotten, so that could be quickly finished, plus two others that needs their undersides done.  I'd thinking 249 Sqn in Kenya for one as I have some decals and it's in that peculiar post war desert scheme.  249 did have Tempests, but got the F6, whereas this is a F.2.  Another of my subtle ones.  The varnished one is also an F.2, a Canadian sqn with 2TAF, so really should be finished.  It was done to go with a captured Blohm und Voss thing, but I'm not sure where that is. The other two are one in overall Aluminium, and I have some ideas for that, plus another in Ocean Grey/Dark Green and soon Med Sea Grey which again is likely to go 2TAF, possibly with a New Zealand squadron.  I'll need to check with the Chris Thomas book on 2TAF first. 

The Tempests have largely been inspired by the annular Sabre one that Dominic had at Telford, and I did drag down the Kora conversions to play with too, so it's his fault entirely.




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[The Wooksta!]

"No, that's no good. My cassette's bust."

Having made a start on cleaning up one of the Kora Tempest fuselages - the ducted spinner one - it would appear that, contrary to the claims on the packaging that it's for the Academy Tempest, it is actually geared to go with the Heller one.  Now that's good and bad; good as I have at least half a dozen of those salted away but bad because the Heller u/c is virtually scale thickness and collapses with the weight over time.  Although some of the ones I gave the Eagle engine, combined with an Aeroclub white metal Wyvern prop, have withstood, so we shall see.

I'll get some primer on the interior so I can start painting the cockpit tomorrow.

The Firecrest is not going well, as the cannon barrels keep snapping off whilst I am trying to fair them in.  It's nearly went of the wall twice.



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[The Wooksta!]

"Where were we?"

Not updated for a while as pretty much everything I've done has been largely in it's own thread elsewhere.

Having decided to take a day off from the P.1030 build, I went into the loft searching for the remains of an Airfix Val that I bought a good few years back for a Supermarine Type 324 scratch build.  Not only could I not find the remains where I thought they were (I did find a Val wing half), I cannot find the box with the Type 324 bits either.  I did find the box for some other potential scratch bodges, but the parts weren't in there either. I did find a Fulmar box though, which was part built and had the mods done to the wings to try and convert it back to the P.... I cannot remember the spec number, but it was the light bomber contract that the Henley won only to be axed later.  That might end up getting somewhat further. 

In the same box was a part started Pegasus Defiant target tug, admittedly not by me.  How many more of these am I going to find?  I was gifted one largely complete and I have another two still sealed, so that's four.  I mean, I want to do another single seat Defiant at some point and I did think about another as a navalised one (given the kit breakdown, folded wings is possible) but four?  That's just excessive.  There's a couple of Defiant airframe projects that look possible too, the P.88 in either Hercules or Vulture guise but the latter is probably the easiest.  It's likely that had a prototype been built, it may have got a Sabre, so there's another possibility.

And whilst I'm on about Boulton Paul stuff, I was sent some information years back by Les Whitehouse, part of it relating to the jet engined Balliol.  I have a Pegasus one - oddly, in the same box where the Val wing was located - and the conversion is fairly simple, I think.  Replace the Merlin with a Meteor engine cowling, fair in with P.38 and add a jet pipe underneath.  Maybe later, but it does use up that Pegasus Balliol, which was one of his nicer kits.  I did it back in 1991 as a Sea Balliol and it was a quite enjoyable build.

But what I was really happy to find yesterday was the blown up drawing for the early Wyvern, with the engine still amidships and the pilot in the nose.  This also had the round radiator on the front.  Maintrack did it as a conversion in the early 1990s - I think Martin Blundell did the master - but got the nose shape wrong, with him going for the round shape rather than the wide oval that the production TF.1s received.  That however works in my favour for this.  But there's a lot oc cut and shut on the fuselage and the one casting I have is in that horrible Halfords resin that looks like boiled sweets and is vile to work with.  I don't think I have enough resin to cast a new fuselage either, not when I have several P.1030 Eagle and Sabre VII cowls to do first. 
I've a hankering to do a Clyde engined Wyvern as I've yet to see one done and I think I need the earlier fuselage, although Dave is of the opinion that it was closer to the production S4 than the earlier shape.  Hmmmn. A Clyde on a stock Wyvern could upset a few people.

And with that Wyvern drawing was the last copy I have of the Bristol Buccaneer plans. Which mean I can locate the tailplanes properly and get further along with that.  Although part of me still wants to rebuild the wings with the extended nacelles.

Final point with regards to drawings.  Having searched for my original copy of BSP Vol 3 to look for the Boulton Paul Defiant based things, I found my jet Mosquito drawing.  That's something else I'll need another copy of.  It's not a straight Mosquito conversion, it looks to be based on the larger DH.102 development.  But finding the drawing was a plus point.


I doubt it's worth it, given the lack of replies and all that, but comments for those still remotely and vaguely interested, and who can actually be arsed to reply, go here:
https://www.whatifmodellers.com/index.php?topic=35118

For more information, please reread.