1/48 Academy Lightning F-5B-1-LO

Gallery Article by Pablo Calcaterra on Dec 21 2009

 

Converting Academy’s 1/48th F-5 into Saint Exupéry’s last Lightning F-5B-1-LO

Historical context: 

Antoine de Saint Exupéry was arguably the most famous French writer of the XX Century. Books like The Little Prince, Citadel, Flight to Arras along with two books that earned the award of Best French Novel of the Year () gained him immortal fame. For more details about his life check my previous article in ARC.

After being demobilized in North Africa in 1940 after the French defeat, he lived in the US and Canada. When the Allies disembarked in Argel in November 1942, Saint Ex decided that it was time to fight again for his beloved France, thus leaving behind his peaceful life that had been “corrupted” by political intrigue between both French sides of the time (Vichy vs. De Gaulle). He was for France and not for any of the two sides, so they always saw him with suspicion.

After much struggle to overcome the protection from people who did not want to have him lost in the war, and the political distrust from the victorious Gaullist side, he was granted a spot in his old reconnaissance Group II/33, still based in North Africa. They were in the process of converting from their 3 year old Bloch 174 to the Recco version of the Lightning (F-4).

He was now 43 years old, several years older than what the regulations allowed a pilot to fly the fast Lockheed plane. He undertook the training along with his fellow French flyers in war weary F-4 planes. 

July 27th 1943:

He was able to carry out his first mission, taking off from French North Africa and taking pictures of the coast area from Marseille to Toulon. Upon his return, he was extremely happy to be able to see France again. As he put it he felt as if he was looking at her through a microscope.  From 30,000 ft France looked dead and that saddened him, until black puffs of ack-ack made him happy. France was alive!

August 1st

His second mission almost ended in a catastrophe. He had forgotten to pump up by hand the breaks system and he was not able to stop the plane on time upon returning with a mal functioning engine that developed trouble immediately after take off. The landing gear and one wing were damaged in a vineyard beyond the airport limits. The American staff (to which II/33 was attached) was so angered that he was not permitted to fly again. As you can imagine, this was a big blow to Saint Ex, who considered flying for France the only effective way to fight for his country (he dismissed postings to Propaganda, Air Staff and other jobs). He was stranded again in Algier, in the middle of all the internal frictions between the two French fractions (Giraud vs. Free French) he hated so much because only hurt France even more.

It took him several months of failure, contacts, dinners, letters, pleading and speeches to get 5 more missions granted. This only happened when the previous American leaders of the wing were posted to other places and Ira Eaker became the Chief of Staff for the Mediterranean. On April 1944 he joined his beloved Gruppe who was by now operating from Naples, in Italy.

June 6th, 1944:

 His third mission in Lightnings . II/33 was based in Sardinia. Fire on one of his engines forced him back before reaching the area he had to photograph. Heat had been so intense that the cowling was holed.

June 23rd:

Fourth mission, his second successful one. Avignon - Southern France

June 24th:

He took one Lightning to test it but did not realize that one of the engines was not working. It might as well have finished in disaster. His distraction was making his friends shake their heads and believe that probably it was not a good idea to allow him flying missions.

June 29th:

Fifth mission, third of the granted ones. A lucky day. His mission was to take him to Grenoble and the Alps. Upon reaching the area of lakes, his left engine started to act and he was forced to turn it off. He returned to the Alps, knowing that there were less German airfields in the area, and thus the risk of being intercepted was reduced. Apparently he over flew the Arc valley, Saint-Jean-du-Maurienne, Modane and Mont-Cinis. The mountains became plains and when he thought he was out of peril, he discovered a great city dead ahead, with several airfields around it. With only one engine, 8,000 ft high, he realized it was the highly defended Genoa. Looking back in his rear mirror he found there was a fighter chasing him. But the enemy did not attack him, probably because as Saint Ex said, a plane flying so low and slow in the area could only be friendly…

Finally he made it to the Mediterranean, where he forgot to turn on his IFF and was almost intercepted by some friendly fighters! With his extremely bad English, he was able to understand that he had to land in Borgo (Corsica), a different airfield from the one he had taken off (Alghero, Sardinia).

The Americans, who could not think that flying over Genoa in broad daylight without being shot at was possible, met him with disbelief. But in another of his mistakes, he had forgotten to turn off his cameras, so he had kept on taking pictures of his whole trip and there they were, pictures of Genoa from 8,000 ft!

He went to Tunisia visit some friends and take part in some social activities during July. He started to tell his friends that he thought that he was not going to make it and that he would end head first in the Mediterranean. In fact, he told some of them that he knew it was the last time he was going to see them.

July 11th:

Six mission in an F-5. Not a successful one again as the objective (Lyon) was covered in clouds.

July 14th

Seventh mission, Annency area. He had problems with his oxygen regulator and almost did not make it back.

To keep him away from flying some of the leaders tried to tell him about the impending invasion of Southern France but he would run away exclaiming: ”Leave me alone! I don’t want to know!” He wanted to keep on flying with all his might.

July 18th:

Impeccable mission. His 8th and his 6th after he had been grounded (so this one was beyond the 5 granted ones)

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July 31st:

His last mission. It is not known where he spent the night before. Apparently he returned extremely late and very early, at 8:45, he took off in his Lightning F-5 “223”.  The American radar saw the plane leaving the area towards the target, but never returned. There have been 3 or 4 versions about the disappearance of Saint Ex:

  • a)    That he had an accident due to lack of oxygen as it had almost happened some short time before

  • b)    Suicide (based on some comments he made some 8 days before his death)

  • c)    Shot down:

  • a.     Luftwaffe’s Captain Kant records, which show a Lightning shot down in Southern France on this date, but it now looks like he was referring to the loss of Gene Meredith on the 30th, which was also captured on the radio by the Allies

  • b.    Robert Heichele, who claimed that with a preserie Fw190 D manage to catch a Lightning that had dove on them, shooting it down in flames on the Mediterranean shortly after crossing the French coast. The plane crashed at noon 10 km South of Saint Rapahael.

  • c.     Horst Rippel, on March 2008, claimed that it was him who shot Saint Exupery. His version of the events cast doubts and it’s been found not to be too credible.

  • d.    One of his fellow pilots, in a documentary of the French television, said his fellow pilots were shocked after they realized that something bad had happened to him as there had no contact on radar or radio and his gas had run out. Thirty minutes after the plane should had run out of fuel, one jeep with a pilot returned to their quarters telling them that the radio listening services had detected a message of a German pilot claiming that he had shot down a Lightning in the Mediterranean. They new and were now sure that Saint Ex had been shot down.

It was not until 1998 that clues about where his plane could be started to appear. A fisherman caught in his net a bracelet, which was identified as Saint Ex’s. Two years later, in the same area, a part of the wheel of a Lightning was found, among with some other parts. In 2004 it was confirmed that these rests, located close to the Ile de Riou, belonged to Saint Exupery’s F-5. No signs of gun damage are present, but also the remains found are very few and scattered with no significant part visible. This island is approximately 20 km south of Marseille, and 5 km away from Southern France. Interestingly, it’s between 50 and 100 km (depending on the version) to the West of the place where the two German first versions remember this incident taking place but close to where Rippel claims the Lightning crashed…but he now knows where the plane was found so…

Regardless of who shot Saint Exupery down, fact is that the arguably most famous French writer of the last Century was lost on that day. 

 

Building the Academy F-5 Lightning:

Though I had bought the decals from Carpena many years ago in Hannants in Lowestoft, only now that the remains of the plane have been found and with those, a precise description of it has been made (by the researchers at AERO R.E.Lic) I was able to buy the kit that would allow me to make a accurate representation of this F-5. I had seen many paintings of his “last plane” but most of them are now known to be inaccurate (type of cameras, engines or color of the plane). 

The Academy model is really nice, with rubber tires and many parts that can be used in other American planes (bombs, rockers, etc).

Build is quite straightforward; some etched seat belts were added. 

The cameras were removed to be scratch built to represent the correct type used in “223”. 

Using plasticard, putty and pieces of clear plastic, I redid the nose and created some of the cameras. The largest one, on the left side of the nose, was drawn and marked with an Exacto knife. Note the amount of putty in the border of attack and in the union of the nose and fuselage. 

A considerable amount of bolts had to be added to the nose to avoid a tail sitter.

I painted all the black areas and these were then masked. Then a coat of acrylic light gray was applied to check for imperfections and as a base for the metallic color. This was Alcald II Duraluminum, which gave the plane a very nice finish (from my point of view!) 

Talking about the Carpena sheet of decals for the Lightings that includes “223”, these numbers were wrong in color (yellow, assuming it had been painted in Blue) so I used another set from Carpena (American black numbers) and completed the serial number in the tail and nose. I was able to use the French roundels and the stencils (please note that after I finished building the plane I discovered the testimony of a then French teenager who claims to have seen a “strange” Lightning slowly flying low over his town on the way to the Mediterranean on July 31st 1944. He called it strange because the plane had the American stars under the wings but French roundels on the fuselage. If this was in fact Saint Ex’s last plane, then my kit is not correct in this respect). The decals for the propeller (not the best quality as you can appreciate in some of the pictures) and some minor details came from Academy sheet. 

I glued most of the other details with no problem. Quite an easy kit to assemble, save for the areas that required putty around the nose.

For my other plane built to remember Saint Exupery, his Bloch 174 of May 1940, please visit

http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com/Gal6/5901-6000/gal5932_Bloch174_Calcaterra/00.shtm

(Note the way that the Alcald II paint turns blue with the color of the sky)  

Pablo Calcaterra

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Photos and text © by Pablo Calcaterra