Wellington Mk 1c GPM

[Isaac]

Just found out that GPM Poland released what appears to be a new or new repaint of a British WW2 Wellington bomber



Laser frames, canopy clear parts and wheels are also available

Normally I hate models that are mostly black because its hard to see the details, but the upper surfaces look nicely rendered.

I may order it a bit later when the pandemic is over .

Let us know if you build one.


https://sklep.gpm.pl/modele-kartonow...model-i-lasery


Isaac

[Butelczynski]

Marek did a couple of Wellingtons in 1:50 last year (or 2 years?).I bough white ,Coastal Command one.Excellent model if can recommend one.

I've seen older GPM Wellingtons build and I don't really know where one can improve on them aside from textures.

Btw- black is usually printed by GPM in very dark kinda greyish color.It shows details well.Old editions had black in dark greyscale with blue tone to it and I haven't seen those in a long time.

Other makers still use it.

[Isaac]

I would like the lighter colored Coastal command version in 33 scale. Maybe GPM will repaint one.

For this one, the geodesic structure rendering appears nice from the small view they provided. Hope it looks good up close.

Here is a production photo showing the structures before covering.




Anyhow, I do like the Wimpy.


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vickers_Wellington


Isaac

[Don Boose]

Looks like a very good model of this historic and classic airplane.

Don

[WVA]

Build it, Isaac! Great subject.



There is an article in the May issue of Air & Space about a group of (wooden) Mosquitos bombing Berlin during a speech by Hermann Goring. He, of course, was upset, to say the least. He is quoted as saying "The British, who can afford aluminum better than we can, knock together beautiful wooden aircraft that every piano factory is building. They have the geniuses and we have the nincompoops. When the war is over I am going to buy a British radio set - then at least I will own something that has always worked!


Jim

[Isaac]

To me his is an interesting structural design. It is more like a dirigible construction than an aeroplane. Kind of complicated to make all the little parts fit together. I am sure it took a lot of man hours to build one.

The main advantage though ( and I do not think it was by design ), is that if it gets hit by flak or direct hit, the damage is fully absorbed since little of the structure is damaged and it is supported by all of the remaining geodesic elements. Hawker Hurricane had similar fuselage ( although not geodesic ) and could absorb hits.

However, the crew is fully exposed behind the thin skin which is hardly protecting them.

In any case, the wimpy was shot down just as well as any other plane of the time.


Anyhow, look forward to building it in a few years.


Isaac

[Butelczynski]

I think Vickers Wellesley can be mentioned here since it was direct predecessor of Wellington.If I recall correctly one of the books on Wellesley bomber was offered to RAF to meet need for long range monoplane bomber.

It won in large part due to lower cost vs its competitors.I think lower cost comes from lesser use of aluminium,that leads to lower cost of producing subassemblies.Fabric is cheap,so is working with it particularly in UK with large textile industry.The same need some years later produced Mosquito bomber.

Sadly no paper model of V.Wellesley has ever been made afaik.

[Isaac]

Originally Posted by Butelczynski

I think Vickers Wellesley can be mentioned here since it was direct predecessor of Wellington.If I recall correctly one of the books on Wellesley bomber was offered to RAF to meet need for long range monoplane bomber.

It won in large part due to lower cost vs its competitors.I think lower cost comes from lesser use of aluminium,that leads to lower cost of producing subassemblies.Fabric is cheap,so is working with it particularly in UK with large textile industry.The same need some years later produced Mosquito bomber.

Sadly no paper model of V.Wellesley has ever been made afaik.

Labor was very cheap in the UK up to the 1950s. So less material made those planes less expensive. However, if labor rates were similar to today, those labor intensive airplanes would not be produced. In any case, each time period is different, and you do what you can.

Regarding the Wellesly, as interesting as it was with the high incidence wing, I don't think I would build it. But if a detailed kit would be available, I would certainly consider it.

Isaac

[rifleman]

they did build a whippy in 24 hrs there is a film about it some where

[SJPONeill]

I saw this release as well and was quite excited by it, just waiting until Polish Post opens up again. I have the original release but this is more indicative than realistic and I was hoping to fill a gap in the large scale RAF medium bomber fleet...

But now that I've had a closer look, GPM has grossly overcooked the geodesic pattern on the wings - they look like converted waffle-makers...

I've attached the GPM depiction from its website and two pix that show the fuselage and underwing surfaces of a real Wellington in a UK Museum. Totally different...

In Cold War days, perhaps good references were hard to come by but there's no excuse now when there are such resources online...