Dambusters raid - 60 years ago today

Triple P is packing for an extended overseas trip so does not have the time to give the brave men who took part in this daring raid a proper tribute but here is a photograph we took of the Battle of Britain flight Avro Lancaster a couple of years ago.  We saw it again last week doing a flypast at Cowes.  A stirring sight (and sound!) as ever.

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Calendar Plane of the Month December: Aichi D3A1 Val

We have actually caught up with Calendar Plane of the Month from the splendid Airfix Model World calendar.  We already have the 2013 edition.

This is certainly a model we never made as we had no interest in Japanese aircraft when we were small.  It is a Stuka-like dive bomber but was actually inspired by the Heinkel He 70 mail plane.  The winner of a 1936 competition to design a dive bomber for the Imperial Japanese Navy, it beat off competition from Mitsubishi and Nakajima.  Its official name was Navy Type 99 Carrier Bomber Model 11.  The designation "Val" being the allied reporting name.  The Japanese naming system for aircraft was so confusing that Captain Frank T McCoy a US naval intelligence officer working in Australia at the time came up with a series of easier to remember designations based, largely on men and women's names.  The Val took its name from an Australian Army Sergeant he knew.  

Val by Roy Cross

Like the Stuka it did not have a retractable undercarriage, as its top speed was so low, so needed wheel fairings to improve aerodynamics.  First seeing action in China her first carrier borne action was the attack on Pearl Harbour in December 1941 becoming the first Japanese aircraft to drop bombs on America targets.  It sank more allied ships than any other Axis plane, notably the British heavy cruisers HMS Dorsetshire and HMS Cornwall.  In addition, it sank the America Seaplane tender USS Langley which, before its conversion, was the United States' first aircraft carrier.  It also sank the British Aircraft carrier HMS Hermes, the world's first purpose built aircraft carrier.   It's not the Hermes on the 1964 box art by Roy Cross, however, as that had a very distinctive tower.

More planes in 2013!

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Calendar Plane of the Month November: Fairey Swordfish Mk I

November's Plane of the Month is the Fairey Swordfish, famous for crippling the German battleship Bismarck in May 1941; which is the incident illustrated on the gift set box (which includes paints) of the new Airfix 1/72 scale model.

This is a great image and is far superior to the conventional kit box art which is rather dull in comparison.  The model itself came out about a year ago, replacing the 1960's original and has had superlative reviews.  In fact it has been said that it is one of the five best model kits Airfix has released.  The model makers measured up a real one to get the proportions exactly right.

The new picture is also better than the one that Triple P remembers from his childhood which was not considered a very accurate model.

The Fairey Swordfish was originally developed at the request of the Greek Naval Air Service.  When the Greeks changed their minds the plane was offered to the Air Ministry as a  spotter plane.  It was decided to add the ability to launch a torpedo and the first model flew in 1934.

Although already obsolete by the outbreak of World War 2 the Swordfish contributed to two major British victories early in the war.  In November 1940 Swordfish from HMS Illustrious sank or disabled three Italian battleships and a cruiser during the Battle of Taranto.  Flying low to avoid Italian radar some of the Swordfish's wheels actually touched the waves during the attack.

Swordfish overfly the Ark Royal

In May 1941 a torpedo fired from Swordfish flying from HMS Ark Royal damaged the rudders of the battleship Bismarck to such an extent that surface forces were able to hunt down and sink the elusive vessel.

The Swordfish also sank 14 U-boats but was replaced by the monoplane Fairey Barracuda in front line service in 1943.  There are currently three in airworthy condition, two of which are part of the Royal Navy Historic Flight based at RNAS Yeovilton.  A third is currently being restored to a flying condition there.

Nice though it is we don't think we will be contemplating building one of these because of all the wires you need to fit on the biplane!

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Calendar Plane of the Month October: Tornado F3

The Panavia Tornado originated in the 1960s, when the UK was exploring the use of variable geometry aircraft.  Britain got together with West Germany (as it then was), Italy and the Netherlands in 1969 to work jointly on developing an aircraft. The Netherlands soon dropped out when it became apparent that the aircraft being designed was too complex for their needs. 

Before its final name was chosen it was known as the Multi Role Combat Aircraft and it was under this name that Airfix issued their first 1/72 kit of it in 1975, the year after the first prototype took to the air.  The first aircraft were delivered to the RAF and the German air force in 1979.

The current Airfix kit has markings for 111 Squadron

The F3 is the interceptor variant of the Tornado, although it wasn't designed for dogfighting but for dealing with long range Soviet bomber attacks.  This was not of interest to the Italian (although the Italian air force did later buy some) and German partners in the project at the time so it was developed for the RAF alone. The first flight of the F2 version was in 1979 with the upgraded F3 version first flying in 1985.  By the time of the Gulf War in 1991 the F3s were outdated and were confined to patrols back from the front line.  Replaced by the Eurofighter Typhoon they were retired from the RAF in March 2011 and all scrapped.

Agent Triple P never built a model of a Tornado as the plane didn't enter service until after we had stopped making model kits,  By 1979 we were far more interested in redheads!

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Calendar Plane of the Month September: Avro Lancaster

Tooby version

September's plane is the iconic Avro Lancaster.  This digital box art illustration by Adam Tooby is unique in that it is an exact recreation of Roy Cross' original and equally iconic painting which used to adorn the Airfix box when Triple P was young.

Cross original

The Lancaster was one of Airfix's first two large kits (with the Wellington) which came out in 1958 after the company had bought bigger injection moulding machines to allow much larger sized models for the first time.

The 1958 box art (above) by Charlie Oates, Airfix's original resident illustrator, demonstrates exactly what Roy Cross would later bring to Airfix during the decade he worked for them from 1964 until 1974.

The actual aircraft which is the subject of the current kit (Airfix produced a new, more detailed, version of the kit in the late seventies to replace the 1958 original) is a Mark 1 Lancaster serial number W4783 and known as G for George after the last letter of its identification letters.

The real G for George

G for George, which was part of 460 squadron, flew 96 combat missions (the second most of any Lancaster) over Europe during the war between December 1942 and April 1944.  This was a major achievement considering most Lancasters only reached twenty missions before they were shot down.  In late 1944 it was flown via Iceland, Canada, the US and a succession of Pacific islands to arrive in Amberley, near Brisbane, Australia to promote War bonds.  

It sat outside abandoned for ten years before being installed in the Australian War Museum in Canberra in 1955.  Completely restored between 1999 and 2003 it now sits resplendent in the Anzac Hall, one of only 17 out of 7,377 Lancasters built still in existence.

There is a slight family connection to this too, for Triple P, as his grandfather worked for Avro after World War 1. We have never built a model of the Lancaster, oddly, but this may change in the future!  Triple P took this picture of the Battle of Britain memorial flight example (one of only two still flying - the other is in Canada) flying over Windsor in 2008. 

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Calendar Plane of the Month August: Hawker Hurricane Mk 1

August's plane of the month is the Hawker Hurricane Mk1, the real victor (with all due respect to the Supermarine Spitfire) of the Battle of Britain.  Its ability to take damage and keep flying was legendary but even at the time the public preferred the more glamorous Spitfire

This art is for Airfix's massive 1/24th scale kit which Triple P is in the process of building or, rather, has been in the process of building for the last five years.  

In fact the box for Agent Triple P's model is this one which has considerably less effective box art.  So far all we have done is the propeller and part of the engine so progress is somewhat slow!

Agent Triple P's great uncle flew a Hurricane during the Second World War, in the night fighter role it was given having been outclassed as a front line fighter.  Until recently, less valued than the Spitfire only six remain airworthy out of a total of 14, 231 built compared with around 50 airworthy Spitfires.

We took these pictures of a Mark 2B at Dunsfold Aerodrome (home of Top Gear), which is only about fifteen miles from where we live, about three years ago.  This is the bomber version which was developed, again, as it became too slow, comparatively, to serve as a fighter.

Very much our favourite WW2 fighter, because of the family connection.

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Calendar Plane of the Month July: Curtiss Hawk 81-A-2

Agent Triple P has not been keeping up with our regular posts due to the Olympics and our new job but we will attempt to catch up in the next two weeks or so.

July's Airfix plane is the iconic 1st American Volunteer group (Flying Tigers) version of the P 40 Curtiss Hawk, known as the model 81 for the export market. The ones used by the Flying Tigers in China in 1942 were originally destined for the RAF so were painted as such.

Flying Tigers in 1942

The distinctive shark mouth on these planes, which went on to have a long life amongst US aircraft until low visibility colour schemes put paid to them, were actually copied by US pilots who had seen them on RAF 112 Squadron P40 Tomahawks in North Africa.  The RAF pilots had, in turn, copied these from Messerschmitt 110s of  Zerstörer Geschwader 76 flying out of Crete.

The shark mouth design was used for the underrated film Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, although the plane used was a model 87 Kittyhawk as used by the RAF in North Africa in 1943.  

This is a new (2011) kit and like most produced since Airfix were taken over by Hornby, has had good reviews.  1:72 is too small for Triple P these days.  If it had been 1:48 we might have been tempted!

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Calendar Plane of the Month June: Messerschmit BF109F-4 and Spitfire Mk Vb

Another dogfight double this month.  This North African themed set didn't exist when Triple P was younger but the desert camouflage looks very effective.  The RAF had been suffering in the air against the BF 109Fs of the Luftwaffe but the arrival in theatre of the Mk V Spitfire not only regained the balance in the air war but tipped it in favour of the RAF.

When Triple P was younger he was always a bit disappointed of the size of the models of these two planes in 1/72 scale; which is whey he tended to build bombers.  This would be an impressive package in 1/48 scale, however.

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