Hawker Hurricane Mk II, 6 Squadron, Desert Air Force

This is the Airfix model, with the vokes filter from the Heller one, in 1942, several Hurricanes was armed with 2 x 40 mm antitank guns, to hunt the Rommel's Panzers, the model was inspired in the Monogram's 1/48 model, from the 70s, the colours are Middlestone and Dark Earth with Azure blue underside, all handpainted, the paint is Humbrol enamels.

 

P-40E Warhawk, RNZAF, 488 squadron.

 The Royal New Zealand Air Force had only one squadron, the 488, in the Pacific when the war on that front began, its pilots also formed the core of the RAF units based in Malaya and Singapore, when the Japanese attacked, the slow and poorly armed Buffalos dropped like flies, the surviving pilots managed to be evacuated on the last transport that left the port, but when they arrived back to Auclkand, they found that there were no planes, temporarily they received a few Harvards, little by little P-40Es were received to form the squadron, which remained in New Zealand to provide air defense to the territory, the raid on Darwin had just passed and an attack on New Zealand was feared, the days passed and the situation improved, by October 1942, the 15 Squadron took charge of the defense of Tonga, receiving the planes left there by the 68 PS of the USAAF.

By March 1943 it was considered that New Zealand pilots were fit for the heavy fighting over Guadalcanal and 15 Sqn was sent to reinforce American units in the area, fighting until June when 14 Sqn, released from air defence duties in New Zealand and rotated to the front, took part in some of the heaviest air combat of the campaign, covered the landings at New Georgia and frequent patrols over Rendova, was replaced by 16 Sqn and returned home to resume defence duties.

Airacobra Mk I, 601 Squadron

One of the fighters sent to the RAF through the Lend-Lease program was the P-39 Airacobra, which in the United Kingdom was known as the Airacobra Mk I, and although it was to begin being delivered in early 1941, Their reception was delayed when the first units of the batch were requisitioned by the USAAF for use in the desperate fight in the Pacific, so it was not until the end of that year that they began to arrive, already painted in the new Gray and Green scheme. .

The first unit to be equipped was the 601 Squadron "County of London", of the Royal Auxiliary Air Force, an old unit of young Reserves with a taste for flying, and who were enrolled in some of the most expensive universities, so which was known as the "Millionary's mob".

The Airacobra proved not to be up to the needs of the RAF and was practically immediately declared unfit for service and handed over to the Russians, so these aircraft were shipped in a convoy to Murmansk and painted with the red star, sometimes only with its English codes obliterated with a single layer of paint.

The model is from Airfix, what better than a British model to represent an English plane? The paint is El Viejo Marino, all the decoration is by brush.

Tiger Moth, The Mummy

This small training plane was produced since the 1930s and is considered one of the best training planes ever, simple to build, simple to fly and very stable, it was purchased by the RAF by the hundreds, used for primary training, It was the first mount for virtually every RAF pilot during World War II.

In the desperate months of the Battle of Britain, with the German invasion looming at any moment, every RAF aircraft was prepared to fight the invasion, and the Tiger Moth was no exception, there were over 300 in schools and prepared its use as a light bomber, to attack the German beachheads if the moment presented itself, the planes were going to be piloted by the teachers and the most advanced students, in what was called Banquet Light, thinking about the idea of ​​going Combat in a slow plane, without defensive weapons and with untrained pilots is chilling. luckily it was never carried out, but that influenced the fact that the RAF Tiger Moths were camouflaged.

Later the Aviation Schools were distributed throughout the Empire, so Tiger Moths can be found all over the world, in some parts like Iraq or Singapore they did see real combat, but in general they led peaceful lives, many of them existing to date. them in civilian hands.

This model is from Airfix Lodela, I painted it with Testors yellow, which is wrong, the RAF Trainer Yellow is more orange, but that didn't matter, in the end I decorated it to represent the Tiger Moth, from the movie of the Mummy (1999) with Rachel Weisz and Brendan Fraser, which is painted in this exact yellow, the decals are from the model, except for the code that is by brush.

Grand Slam Bomb 1/72

It is becoming customary that models do not include drop weapons, which forces modelers to find different solutions. In particular, I like to build my models in a clean aerodynamic condition, that is, without all the drop weapons. I very rarely add this to them, (except to Torpedoes and Dive Bombers), there are aftermarket parts for whoever needs them.

But not always, for example, the huge RAF Grand Slam or Tallboy bombs are not included in almost any model and there are absolutely no aftermarket ones.

So the easiest solution is to make them from scratch, and that's how I did my Grand Slam, using the auxiliary fuel tank of an Airfix Tornado, which has the exact ellipsoidal shape, I guess they took advantage of the aerodynamic studies of the pump to make the tank.

First you have to remove the rudder from the tank:

Then you have to add the four fins, note that they are not aligned, but deviated, the object was that they rotate when falling and thus acquire greater speed and stability. I made mine of thin plastic, from the lid of a glass of cream

They are glued on with white glue, (or cyanohydrochloride if you like to use it)

The bomb is painted, the colors are RAF Dark Green and RAF Ocean Grey, although I have also seen photos in which the pump is completely painted in green.

The painting details are:

Steel Nose

Two lines in front of the bomb, one red and one green

In several photos I have seen that many of the current ones do not follow that band code, but I assume it is by mistake.

And finally my Grand Slam looks like this:

Hurricane Mk IV, 73 Squadron, Desert Air Force

 The first Hurricane Squadron to reach the western desert, was 73 Squadron, arriving at Heliopolis in December 1940, they were immediately assigned to combat, replacing the slow Gladiators and prevailing over the Italian Cr.42 fighters, but there were never enough of them. fighters, they fought the entire campaign, often taking off from improvised airfields in the middle of the desert, they usually participated in strafing ground troops when they could get rid of their air duties, in June 1943 they transitioned to Spitfires.

MODEL: Hawker Hurricane Mk IV

BRAND: Airfix

UNIT: 73 Squadron

CODES: R

SCALE: 1/72

PAINTING: El Viejo Marino

TECHNIQUE: Brush

NOTES: My collection of desert hurricanes took a long time to complete, because it was done before the Internet, when information about airplanes could only be found in books or magazines, which did not always reach my country, so it was not uncommon for a model will be based on a single photo