realworkingsailor

Incidentally, John Dell has a great treatise on the origins and purpose of the black and white underwing colour scheme: https://dingeraviation.net/articles/blackandwhite.htm Andy

Ahem…. Resistance is futile! 😂 Now…. About that Beaufort….. 🤔

Count me in! Have you got an Anson to go with it?

Close, but the word is “Casemate”. Casement refers to the operating (opening) part of a window in your house. Casemate is the armoured enclosure through which the guns can fire. Andy

Very nice! You just need a figure of the gunner trying to clamber in the turret wearing that… um… contraption of a parachute/suit they needed! Andy

Thanks! I must admit, I’ve been “casually” looking at the Airfix Beaufort. I know at some point I’m going to “have to” add one to the stash. The issue I have is, because the Bolingbroke is kinda the lesser known fourth member of the Bristol twins, I’m going to have to look at a Blenheim too…. and right now that makes my brain hurt…. 🤪😅 Andy

Good morning everyone! Things have gone reasonably well over the last little while. After the lettering was finished I began to add all the extraneous little details, Propellors, landing gear, bomb bay doors, aerial masts and whatnot. A not too involved process. The landing gear went better than I expected, for once the parts actually fit as designed! After a final touch up, I sealed everything with a layer of Testors' Dullcote. And then the fun of removing all the masking from the glazing. The turret glass required a little studious work with a tooth pick to get rid of a couple of spots where the paint bled, but the nose and canopy area came out clean and crisp. From a lower angle it kinda looks like some of the photos I've seen of Bollys stuffed and mounted in museums: Overall, I think I managed alight. Not the best result, but given the fitment challenges with this kit, it will do. The bright yellow paint definitely highlights things we'd rather not see. (Yeah some of those seams could have been better, but from a distance, and in natural light they don't show so badly). I would say that this is not the best kit offering from Airfix, this is perhaps one that deserves a bit of a revisit in terms of their design work and tooling, as they are reissuing the Blenheim Mk I this year, it obviously must be a somewhat popular kit. Anyway, a quick final shot of my Bristol collection so far: I may do a little weathering yet, but I'm happy to call this one done. Thanks to all who have been following along, leaving kind comments and "likes", your support and feedback is always greatly appreciated! Andy

Hopping around the internet this afternoon I found a bit of the record card for Bolingbroke 10103: https://caspir.warplane.com/historycards_pdf/Bolingbroke-10103-RCAF-HC.pdf Some parts are slightly illegible, but from what I can decipher the plane entered service with the RCAF on the 22nd of February 1943, and was placed in reserve at that time. On the 20th of October 1943, it was assigned to 3rd Training Command. 3TC was headquartered in Montreal as part of RCAF Eastern Air Command, and oversaw training facilities in the province of Quebec and in the Maritimes. The record mentions the plane being a Bombing and Gunnery trainer. Two B&G schools were assigned to 3TC, No. 9 at Mt. Jolie, PQ, and No. 10 at Mt. Pleasant, PEI. The next entry has 10103 back in reserve on the 20th of June 1945. There are a couple of other entries I’m having trouble deciphering, before it was listed as “War Assets” on the 6th of January, 1947, and then subsequently sold. Andy

Good morning everyone! Work on the lettering is largely complete. I used elements of the kit supplied decals as well as markings from an Xtradecal set. The roundels really stand out on the yellow background! The bright red propellor warning stripes were excised from a large French fin flash in the Xtradecal set. On the overwhelming majority of prototype photos I found online, the trainer Bollys had at least one, and more frequently two red warning stripes. The small registration numbers on the nose took a lot of digging. It seems to have been more common on the later production Bollys (above serial # 10000), and only on trainers. The large serial numbers on the underside were the most challenging to place, simply due to their size, but the generous use of Micro Set and a lot of patience ensured a successful outcome. Next up is seeing to the landing gear and all the other sticky outy bits that would have been at risk while handling during the lettering process. Thanks, as always, for all the kind comments and "likes"! Andy

Thanks Ken! About the closest I could find online, image-wise, was this picture from the Australian War Memorial (image catalogued as being in public domain): It depicts some practice bombs as loaded in an Avro Anson. I’m guessing a similar kind of set up was used in the Bolingbroke. Judging by some of the photos taken of some salvaged Bollys at the Warplane Heritage Museum (if you scroll the the photo gallery), there doesn’t seem to be any kind of noticeable special modifications to handle any kind of practice ordinance. The only thing I can figure is they must have used off the shelf standard fittings. Andy

Thanks, as always, for all the "likes", everyone! My main hurdle over the last couple of days has been figuring out the loading for practice bombs used in Bolingbrokes. I was able to establish that they were painted white, so that's a start, but I was unable to determine how exactly they were loaded in the bomb bay, and how many. I was able to find some pictures of the loadings used on Fairey Battles and other airplanes used for training, so I used a bit of modellers license to come up with something that sort of looks plausible. The Airfix kit includes some small bomblets as well as a bracket that is meant to be attached to the fuselage behind the bomb bay (as on the model there is a gun pack in that space). I first cut the brackets in half, so that each would hold two bomblets in the bomb bay cells. I initially trialed just gluing these to the bomb bay, but the bombs seemed to be too far recessed. Looking at as many Bolingbroke prototype photos as I could find (especially photos of post war scrap piles of partially disassembled Bollys), it didn't look like there were any special modifications made to the roof of the bomb bay. Taking this as a hint, I then used the bomb rack that was included in the kit as part of the bomber variant, and mounted the half racks on those, before trial fitting in the bomb bay. I was much more pleased with this look. The bomblets are not too recessed into the bomb bay, and I think it makes for a plausible load out. Now glued in place, I think it will work well enough for me. Once everything has had a chance to cure and dry, a coat of gloss and then on to lettering this yellow bird. Thanks again for the support! Andy

Good morning everyone! Time for another little update! I've spent the last few days working on the engines and cowlings. For the most part the engines are ok, detail wise. I painted the air intake ducts (behind the engines) silver, as opposed to the black called for in the instructions. I dulled this down with some dry brushed Humbrol gunmetal. The engines were painted black and the cylinder heads picked out in silver. I then dry brushed again with gunmetal to highlight the details and dull down the heads a bit. More fit issues cropped up with the cowlings 🙄 Unlike for my Beaufighter build, I couldn't hide the gap under an exhaust pipe. I had to carefully fit a bit of 0.020" square styrene stock to fill the gaps and paint accordingly. It's far from perfect but it will do. The exhaust collector rings and pipes were first painted silver, then dry brushed black, followed by a dry brushing of Floquil rust. I'm planing on drilling out the ends of the oil cooler intakes to make them look a little better. In the mean time, the engines have been mounted on the airplane. Before prepping the plane for decals, I am aiming to also do some work on the bomb bay. As of now I have the central bomb beam in place. I am planing on using the small bomblets included in the kit to represent a load of practice bombs. I'm currently hunting for any photos that may show how these were mounted. I'm thinking of just using the kit supplied exterior mounts and modifying them to fit. We shall see. Thanks again for the kind comments and likes! Andy

Thanks Andrew! I think there's a very good reason I can't seem to find many models of trainers, yellow is definitely not for the faint hearted! Well, two coats seems to have done it reasonably well enough! Some little tiny bits of touch up here and there, but nothing major! She's a yellow bird! (Can you tell me how to get......) The second coat went a long way to smoothing out the variations in the first coat. I will be modelling this bird with the flaps down and bomb bay open, if only to add a little variety to the overall yellow paint scheme. Thanks, as always, to all the kind comments and likes! Andy

First coat of yellow: Not bad. A little blotchy, but the white seems to have done its job. I was prepared for far worse than this. A second coat should go a long ways to evening things out, otherwise I'm happy with progress so far. Thanks for all the support and kind comments and "likes"! Andy

Thanks for the kind comments, guys, and all the "likes"! After fettling the nose section on to the fuselage, I managed to get the gaps down to an agreeable (to me) minimum separation. I followed this up by adding the greenhouse thus fully enclosing the cockpit. The fit was....ok. Not the greatest. It required some very careful use of styrene cement, and pressure applied just the right way to get it to sit. After setting, I began masking the windows, in preparation for paint and priming. I used the Eduard masking set for this job. There were a couple of small gaps (what more gaps?!) where the angled step of the nose rises to the level of the bottom of the windscreen that I filled with a little canopy glue. Afterwards I gave all the now masked glass a coat of interior green. This was followed by a full coating of primer. Finally I applied a thin layer of white. Hopefully this will help with the yellow top coat. I'm using Vallejo acrylics, and I've noticed that the yellow doesn't cover very well. I'm hoping that this player of white will help with that. So that's where things are at the moment. Thanks again for all the kind comments and likes! Andy