Seafire, Armada de Mexico

 The Spitfire was the best British fighter of the war, its performance was magnificent, fast, agile, well armed, it was every pilot's dream come true, at the same time, the Fleet Air Arm was equipped with the Sea Gladiator biplane and the slow and heavy Roc, it was urgent to have a more modern fighter, but the RAF was not willing to part with a single one of its Spitfires, they gave them in exchange some Hurricanes, which were quickly converted to naval functions, at least until there were enough Spitfires. to be transformed.

Within any large collection of models, I like to include one with fake Mexican insignia, so when I was putting together the Seafires, I included one, with the insignia that a Mexican aircraft would have worn in 1944. 

Model: Seafire Mk III.

Scale: 1/72

Painting: El Viejo Marino (Ye olde Seaman)

Unit: Armada de Mexico

Code: MC01

Modelistic notes:  Necomisa model, (old Lindberg) new cockpit interior of the scratch, thermoformed transparencie, rotating propeller, mold errors, such as ill-proportioned rudder, corrected them with epoxy plasticine, all with a brush, painting El Viejo Marino

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:

Ventura, Victoria Cross, Sq. Leader Trent

On May 3, 1943, 487 Squadron of the RNZAF Royal New Zealand Air Force, was destined to attack the Amsterdam Electric Power Station, it would be protected by at least six fighter squadrons, but as is normal in war, the Things did not follow the planned path, the fighters arrived too early, alerting the German defenses, when the bombers arrived, the RAF fighters had already returned due to lack of fuel and the Luftwaffe planes were in the sky waiting for them, it was a simple and pure massacre, of the 10 Ventura sent to combat, only one returned, and so shot that it no longer flew, the Squadron had been exterminated.

Squadron Leader Leonard Trent, managed to reach the target and attack it, also shot down a Bf-109, but his plane was destroyed and the captured one, for this action, was awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest English distinction.

This operation marked the end of the use of the Ventura as a Medium Bomber in the RAF in Europe, being assigned to missions in which it did not have to face enemy fighters, such as Maritime Patrol in remote areas of the empire (in South Africa it carried out actions of extraordinary value too), or serving in its original function in Secondary Theaters such as Sudan or Palestine.

The Model is the old mold of Frog, produced in the Soviet Union by ZDF, the painting is Old Marine, all the decoration by brush, this belongs to my new collection of RAF aircraft in which acts of such courage were carried out, which were celebrated with the Victoria Cross

Building Ventura, Victoria Cross, 2nd part

After having finished assembling the main parts of the Ventura, I start the painting part, since I don't like to use decals, and it is easier to paint the badges and codes if the model is not fully assembled yet, without antennas, weapons or propellers that get in the way or can break.

The RAF insignia of the time were Blue and Insignia White, and Post Office Red, the codes were usually White or Sky, but in this particular squadron, they appear to have gone Red.

With the appropriate references, the work is finished, to do it I used El Viejo Marino paint, brushes 0 and 1, in addition, for the small toothpick code.

The last thing is to do the thermoforming of the nose, I mold it based on the model's nose, modified with epoxy plasticine for the bomber's sight window

And the model is ready to be fully assembled.

Building the Ventura, Victoria Cross

For a long time I have wanted to build a complete series of models that represent great acts of valor, to the winners of the Victoria Cross, little by little I have been gathering the models, but I still lack many and in particular time to build them, the first is This one, Group Captain Leonard Trent's Ventura.

There is little information on that squadron's Venturas, and certainly none on Trent's plane, so I'm going to assume a few fundamental things, that it's a primitive glass-nosed Ventura, and that being a Lend-Lease aircraft, it was painted in the American version of the British colours.

Assembly was relatively easy, but I only have the Russland solid nose model, so I had to modify the nose, if you can get the Academy one, that one already comes with the correct nose. I also had to change the turret of the machine guns, which is a Bolton Paul, not the normal PV1.

The model has already reached the fun painting stage, and here are the photos, already with the white base and the first yellow and red marks.

Foreign Spitfire Mk IX, Dutch Air Force

The RAF had many Dutch pilots, enough to form a pair of squadrons 320 Bombardment equipped with B-25s and 322 Fighter equipped with Spitfires, after the war these units formed the core of the new Royal Force. Dutch Air (Koninklijke Luchtmacht)

The Spitfire was the standardized fighter in 1946 and for several years, in Europe, because the Dutch Air Force was divided into two sections, the Colonial, with P-40 and P-51 and which fought in the Pacific, and the European with Spitfires.

Unlike other European countries that no longer saw combat after 1945, the Dutch sent their units to fight in the East Indies, until the independence of Indonesia, so this unit of Spitfires was heavily involved in the fighting.

The model represents a Spitfire from Squadron 322 (322e Jachtvliegtuig Afdeling), the new unit that resumed the traditions of the Three White Mice Squadron, destroyed at the beginning of World War II, the model is by Necomisa, somewhat modified, the painting is El Viejo Marino (Ye Olde Seaman), all the decoration by brush.

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