[Paper Kosmonaut]

Firstly, a prosperous new year to all of you. Secondly, here is my build of Gerard Methorst's Westland Whirlwind. It had, as we Dutchies say, quite some feet in the earth, meaning, it didn't slide off of a slate roof. Or to put it in proper English, is was a bit troublesome. But nothing that could not be solved.

Especially because Gerard himself was involved and helped me a lot.
I am no designer. I can tinker and fiddle with parts but I cannot really redesign stuff. The engine nacelles were quite the wrong shape in the beginning. I mailed Gerard about it and he provided me with a newly designed nacelle and also a new, much better nose. While I started out in 1/48 (the kit is in 1/50) I decided to continue in 1/72, to fit this model in with the rest of my WW2 era models.

So Gerard sent me his new design, I gave it some coulour and started my build. Still there were some hurdles to take, the front side of the cowling in front of the leading edge was still too small, it didn't protrude above the wing's top surface to connect with the engine part that would go over the wing. I enlarged the parts and then after some other frustrating trial and error moments, it finally fitted. Very well, actually. The rest of the build went smoothly. The engine cowlings were fitted with the ususal beads and pins to create a spinning propeller.

There are no other hard parts in this model, it is an overall very good design, I think. The fuselage is a no-brainer and goes together very smoothly and has a good fit. The 'acorn' in the tail section, a kind of bulbous structure around the meeting of the vertical tail and the stabilo, is perhaps a little tricky. The landing gear is simple, almost simplistic and I decided to do another build with actual landing gear bays. More on that later (See last picture - yes, that is a fictitious winter camo. I love me a little winter camo.).

Thanks to Gerard for his help, it really was appreciated. He gave me permission to share the remodeled version with the forum so expect this one to be uploaded somewhere in the coming weeks.

For now, here's some picture material.
Thanks for your interest!