1/72 S&P Beaufighter 30 RAAF

[georgerutherford1861]

Bruno,

I entirely understand the reasoning for designing in 1/100. One of the early attractions to me of paper modeling was knowing that I could easily resize models from one scale to another. Sometimes I move things around in Inkscape to get parts into the page sizes I need, but that is relatively easy.

I got a bit of work done this weekend, but not enough yet to warrant any new pictures.

Doug

[Rata]

Originally Posted by scissorsandplanes

I choose 1/100 for my designs for two reasons:

• I'm a continental European so decimal systems are standard for me
• and second, being a little smaller it fits easier on a (of course A4) page

I mostly build S&P for two reasons:
They're up there with the best.
They're up there with the best.

[wireandpaper]

And decimal scale is way easier than constant scale in 1/72, 1/48, etc. Also, at 1/100 you may display 93% more models for the same real state (no offence, only numbers). I also come from constant scale 1/144!

Very nice Beufighter, these RAAF planes are rarely depicted. Thank you for sharing!

[georgerutherford1861]

I can't argue with your logic (and I would not even want to). Keep on designing (and repainting) them at 1/100, and I'll keep on building them at 1/72 and enjoying every bit of it.

Doug

[wireandpaper]

Yes, this is a hobby for our enjoiment!!!!!

[Rata]

Originally Posted by wireandpaper

Yes, this is a hobby for our enjoiment!!!!!

.....with a little bit of dealing with frustration and patience testing to make us better people.

[georgerutherford1861]

A small update, a great deal of progress since the last pictures, but it took quite a while to make happen. Here we have two pictures. One shows the tailplanes. I somewhat dread attaching tailplanes, always worrying about whether or not I will get the angle right.

Well, with this one I found a decent three-view plan online, scaled it, then printed it out. I glued the frontal view of the tailplane area onto some cardstock, cut it out, then inserted it into the back of the fuselage through two holes I cut in the tailplane area. It actually worked pretty well for me, the picture shows one of the tailplanes in position and the other one exposed to maybe better display what I did.

The other picture shows the wings completed and the engine nacelles almost complete. At this point I still need to get the exhausts attached.

For the rest of the plane, it is getting the navigator/radio operator bubble in place as well as the small dome that covers what I believe to be an antenna. That and the propeller blades and we will call this one complete.

Doug

[Rata]

So far so good Doug.

The dihedral tailplanes on the later Beaus are even more challenging!

Garry

[Don Boose]

Nice work on this Pacific Warrior, Doug!

Good technique for dihedralized tail planes.

(Inside baseball note: Jim Di Crocco is reviving the Pacific War Strategy elective.)

Don

[georgerutherford1861]

Garry - Yes, those later Beaus do have a lot of tailplane dihedral, that is for sure.

Don - Awesome news about the return of the elective, still my favorite class, glad we were able to have that as the last class in school, ended on a high note for sure.

With this, the Beaufighter is complete. Sadly, all but one of these pictures is missing an antenna/antenna pole on top of the fuselage, I had to take one more picture to get it in there, and it ended up being a bit out of focus.

The final product is a bit of a Frankenstein, but all in a good way. Most of it is the original S&P Beaufighter, recolored to 30 RAAF A19-5. It also has the small antenna cover on the top of the fuselage from Gerry's Beaufighter. I would have used more of Gerry's Beaufighter, but I was fairly along in the process by the time I discovered I needed the antenna cover and found that Gerry's Beaufighter had it.

Anyway, here are the final pics. Two good histories of this aircraft are at the following websites:

http://www.beaufighter30squadronraaf.com.au/A19-5.html

Pacific Wrecks - Bristol Beaufighter Mark Ic Serial Number A19-12

This was one of the aircraft that took part in the Battle of the Bismarck Sea, and actually carried a cameraman, whose footage you can find pieces of out there on the internet. Don, anything you want to add, please feel free to do so!

Finally, I often like to build aircraft with an "adversary." Seeing how this aircraft often attacked barge traffic on the north coast of New Guinea, I went looking for a model of a Japanese landing craft. I noted that at one time there was a model of a Daihatsu landing craft out there, but the link now seems to be dead. If anyone knows where this one may be found, I would greatly appreciate it.

Doug