[Don Boose]

All -- Thanks for the kind comments. I'm embarrassed to put my work out there in front of the likes of you all (youens in Central Pennsylvania speak). It isn't even in the ball park with Ted's Yak-3, Dan's GeeBee and BF-109, and Carl's incredible cuirassés français. But having jumped into the deep end of the pool, I am determined to struggle through to the end. My Hampden may turn out warped and lumpy, but it will be a learning experience.

Dan -- One of my favorites, too. Are you going to do the Beaufort? I hope so!

Carl -- The paper is .0105"/.26mm thick, with a matt surface. It's durable and rolls okay, but it has a kind of granular texture that makes it impossible to cut thin strips. I was going to use surplus paper from the kit to make the thin strips to enlarge the under-size former in the nose section, but while the first cut went okay, the second cut ~1mm away just caused the paper to curl and break up, even though I was using a brand new Excel #11 blade. I cut the strips from good old Wausau Exact Bristol with no problem at all.

I did not spray the paper with fixative before starting work, although after reading the discussion of same, I plan to start trying that out in the future.

The next step is the long tail boom -- I have difficulty getting such structures to come out straight, true, and square at the best of times, and plan to wait until this evening to take several deep breaths and give it a go.

Incidentally, if Charlie is on the line, I found a reference to a Coastal Command Hampden with white code letters in William Green's Famous Bombers of the Second World War, Vol. 2 (Garden City, NY: Hanover House, 1960). It is aircraft XA Y, a T.B.1 (AN127) of 489 (New Zealand) Squadron in 1942. The caption to the painting says it was in temperate sea: dark slate grey and sea grey over "sky grey" with white code letters and black serial. Type B roundels on the upper surfaces, none on the lower, and type C roundels without the yellow surround on the fuselage. As I recall, however, some of Green's camouflage color descriptions have since been called into question.

More later. Now I'm off to the Military History Institute reading room to submerge myself in Army amphibious developments in the 1930s.

Don