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"1:72 Airfix
Canberra B.(I).6"
by Gavin Parnaby
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1.
Components
·
Airfix 1:72
Canberra B.(I).8 kit
·
Heritage Aviation
Canberra B.2 conversion set
·
Pavla Models
Martin Baker 1:72 Mk.2CA ejection seat
·
Eduard 1:72
Canberra B.(I).8 flap detail set
·
Heritage Aviation
1:72 flap detail set
·
Resin Art gear
bay set
·
Spectre Resins
Mk.7 bomb
·
Aeroclub 1:72
nose glazing
·
Aeroclub 1:72
Canberra B.(I).6 wheels
·
Model Alliance
decal sheet MA-127 (Canberra squadron markings)
·
Model Alliance
decal sheet MAS-9018 (Canberra stencil data)
·
Model Alliance
decal sheet MAS-9025 (Canberra black squared codes and serials)
2.
Cockpit
Section
Being
something of a frustrated pilot, I always begin with the seats, where present.
On this occasion, I used the two white metal MB Mk.2 seats that came with the
conversion set for the bombardier and navigator, and the Pavla resin seat for
the pilot. The former seemed to be correspond well with photographs, although
they required a bit of cleaning. The latter might possibly have a headbox that
is too narrow, but there were no ridiculous inaccuracies. After assembly (using
up most of my remaining etch brass PP Aeroparts handles) they were painted in black overall, with
bright yellow seat survival packs and blue-gray back cushions, with grey-green
straps.
The
interior of the Heritage set is creditably well detailed, not just the
instrument panels for both the pilot and crew stations, but the sidewalls as
well. Nonetheless, some extra boxes had to be added, notably the LABS gear,
which was not fitted to the B.2. Although very little can be seen, I added some
detailing to the extreme nose. The kit bombsight was eventually persuaded to
fit into the bomb aiming station, which needed some considerable cleaning up.
The
overall interior is black, which is incredibly convenient, especially given
that much of the available reference material is monochrome. I picked out some
details, and glazed the instruments with Kristal Kleer.
Although
the set includes a very nicely moulded control column (with a spare included,
very thoughtful), there are no rudder pedals, so I had to make these up from
scrap plastic. The solid cockpit floor had to be trimmed somewhat in order to
align properly with the door aperture. The navigator’s window had to be opened
out, and I also scribed some panel lines in what turned out to be a premature
move.
Marrying
up the two forward fuselage halves turned out to be some effort, with the aft
bulkhead projecting several millimetres behind. A degree of butchery with
coarse wet’n’dry and razor saw ensued, until the bulkhead was flush with the
minimum damage to the nose gear reinforcing point. With this done, I bonded the
admirably well detailed fuselage plug to the cockpit/forward fuselage assembly.
Now some
real work began. The forward fuselage section appears to be simply too flat
underneath, with the Canberra’s virtually circular fuselage cross-section being
apparently flattened. The dreaded reprofiling has thus appeared. A large amount
of Milliput was applied and once cured, attacked with three grades of wet’n’dry
and the Flexifile. A substantial dusting in the local area later and the
ventral fuselage was filled out adequately, although I couldn’t even begin to
get all the debris in the wastepaper bin.
With this
complete, I returned my attention to the cockpit. The matt black interior had
been inadvertently highlighted by the dust, which made touchups a little
obvious. One feature introduced with the B.(I).6 is the pilot’s gunsight. I
represented this by an approximation of the SFOM gunsight fitted to Argentinian
B.62s, made from scrap plastic and clear acetate, carefully glued above the
pilot’s instrument panel with medium cyanoacrylate and Clearfix.
The
separate door supplied is white metal, and well detailed enough. However, the
edges on mine were somewhat irregular, and I succeeded in restoring them to a
certain extent with Milliput. Once finished, the door was primed in Humbrol
matt white and painted in Dark Sea Grey/Light Aircraft Grey (as it straddles
the camouflage demarcation line). Attaching it was a task left until last, once
the model was firmly fixed to the base. The fit into the slots cast into the
resin fuselage was good, and once the door had been firmly bonded into place
with epoxy, I attached a handle and extension arm from plastic rod, painting once
the low viscosity cyanoacrylate had set. Manoeuvring the arm into place took
some patience and judicious use of the L-shaped tweezers.
The
transparencies supplied with the set are commendably clear, significantly
thinner than the Aeroclub standards. Whereas the canopy is fine, however, the
nose glazing suffers from having the bomb aimer’s panel being too small,
extending only about three-quarters of the way to the base, instead of the
whole distance, as in actuality. This is a shame, especially as there is even a
dimple for mounting the pitot tube. I defaulted to the Aeroclub example here,
representing the pipe connecting the nose pitot with a length of fuse wire. The
inside of the canopies were painted black, with the radio aerials being in
Humbrol 97 and the heating elements in Humbrol 121.
Attaching
the transparencies involved a substantial amount of filler, particularly around
the nose glazing. The acetates were attached with Humbrol Clearfix, the nose
cone fitting over the extreme forward fuselage for strength. Unfortunately, my
skill with the Flexifile was insufficient to prevent extensive grazing. I had
significant problems with dust recirculating inside the cockpit via the doorway
when blending them in – I will probably cover such with tape in future.
3.
Fuselage
Once the
nose section was finally complete, I turned my attention to the rest of the
fuselage. I of course began by removing the B.(I).8 nose with a razor saw, and
proceeded by partially filling the deep panel lines that were to stay, whilst
totally filling the ones that seemed to be inaccurate from a consensus of the
three plan sets I had and photographic evidence (it should be well noted that
it is extremely difficult to obtain an accurate impression of the panel layout
from most extant Canberra photos). Some rescribing was carried out, principally
towards the aft end of the fuselage.
The fin
root extends a few millimetres too far forward, and I dealt with this by
marking the correct outline on the plastic with a photo marker pen, and
removing the excess. Otherwise, the outline seems good, and only notional
filler was needed to make good the joint between the two fuselage halves. The
bomb bay doors are so well detailed inside, with those densely-pitched
stiffeners, that it was a shame to have to model them closed, but I had no data
at all for the flare carrier – the triplet of 1000 pounders forward of the
installed gun pack was peculiar to the B.(I).8 – the B.(I).6 never received it.
They attached well and little filler was needed to achieve a good seam, and
this mostly aft, where the fuselage section narrows.
Once the
mid- and aft fuselage was complete, the nose section was married up to it. I
used epoxy for strength and the joint itself was perfectly straightforward.
However the resin fuselage section housing the nose gear bay was slightly but
noticeably narrower than the cockpit section and the fuselage at the leading
edge of the bomb bay. This had to be blended in with Milliput, which of course
meant extensive sanding and the replacement of all the panel lines in the area.
In order
to fit the large wheel bays from the Resin Art set, a cutout needs to be made
at the wing root. This was done with Airwaves microsaws, not without damage to
the surrounding area, which was to be made good later.
Returning
to the fuselage once the wings were attached, the remarkably clean profile of
the B.(I).6 required only a few items adding, two of which (the dorsal aerial
and the ventral fuel dump pipe) were included in the kit. The holes for the RWR
antennae in the fin were filled – this feature was not present on the B.(I).6.
A contemporary photo shows two small blade aerials beneath the fuselage shortly
aft of the weapons bay, so these were added from scrap plastic. Two pitot tubes
before and behind the tail bumper were added from thin plastic rod. Finally, a
formation light was obtained from clear plastic sprue, sanded to section and
and attached with Clearfix behind the dorsal aerial.
4.
Empennage
One new
and welcome feature of this kit is the separate control surfaces across all
five flying surfaces. Unfortunately, as has been well publicised, Airfix made a
preposterous error in moulding rib lines on the rudder. These are quite
inaccurate, of course, and were quickly filled. Otherwise little work needed to
be done, but one has to be careful of the mounting pin on the bottom face,
which I managed to knock off during trimming.
The
tailplaness seem accurate overall, although I believe that there is a generally
held inaccuracy in the span measurement for the tailplanes of all Canberras. I
couldn’t obtain detailed information about this, however, and so had to go with
what I had. The panel lines present seem accurate enough, but I found it
necessary to augment them with another at approximately 1/3 span. The dihedral
angle seems good, and they mate up to the tailcone with only notional filler.
The
elevators are very nicely sectioned, with a good sharp trailing edge. It is
uncertain, but it seemed to me that they were too square at the tip, so I
rounded them off a little with the Flexifile. Once complete, I set all three
control surfaces to one side.
The control surfaces were attached once the model
had been firmly bonded to the base. The two elevators were set at a droop angle
commonly seen in the absence of locks. The rudder, too, was set at an oblique
angle to take advantage of the unusual separate control surfaces and add
interest to the model.
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As
mentioned above, the ailerons are moulded as separate parts here, as are the
flaps, although there are too few ribs underneath the panel above the flap and these
will need to be sanded off to accommodate the Eduard set, which mandates other
sanding in the area. The rather hefty gates are thoughtfully moulded away from
the edges of the aerofoils, at the root and within the aileron runs. Be careful
to remove all the material from the latter, and be more careful than I was,
puncturing my fingertip to the depth of half an inch with a scalpel blade as I
was doing so.
With the
wing halves thus prepared, and bloody, the familiar struggle to determine what
were the actual panel lines began, with the filling of some wrong ones and the
scribing of right ones. I of course do not claim to have got this 100% right,
merely a best guess. One absence that needs to be rectified is the landing
light under the port wing.
I fitted
the Resin Art main gear bays (nominally for a PR.9, but should be valid as I
don’t believe the wing structure changed significantly in that chord region. I
could be wrong, but could find no allusion to changes in the undercarriage
structure). These require a chopping out of the centre of the root face of the
wing, including the forward face of the tab, in order to fit. The locating lugs
for the kit wheel bays must be removed. The kit wheel bays are good, and resin
replacements are really the icing on the cake. The Resin Art items need a fair
bit of plug removing, and I carelessly sawed through the roof of one, which
complicated the assembly somewhat. The fit is tight and careful sanding of the
inner faces of the wing halves was necessary. Once this was done, however, they
went together reasonably well, the resin being bonded with medium viscosity
cyanoacrylate and the injection plastic with liquid cement. Only cursory
filling away from the root face was necessary.
The
engines provided the most work in the general wing assembly. The jetpipes are
moulded separately from the aft end of the nacelle, and slot within them. Both
needed to be extensively reamed out, both to fit and to obtain the correct wall
thickness. The jet pipe fits into a circular aperture in the aft face of the
body of the nacelle, and this needed a little reaming out too. Easily the worst
fit anywhere on the model, but not irresolvable. Extensive sanding was
required, especially on the ventral nacelle, to restore the contour.
As with
the jetpipes, the forward nacelles are moulded with a piece of aerofoil section
on either side, slotting into the wing. The forward nacelles consist of a well
moulded turbine disc, with vanes, although I am uncertain whether or not the
installations were handed. These slot into solidly moulded rims in the upper
and lower forward nacelle halves, which went together with only perfunctory
filling. The turbine bullets appear to be of the correct, extended (for three
starter cartridges), length for the Mk.6 on. The later B.6s and B.(I).6s had an
starter cartridge fairing of ogival cross-section, whereas the early aircraft
had one which was a hemispherically blunted cylinder. Two slots perpendicular
to the free stream need to be cut into the upper and lower halves of the
nacelles somewhat forward of the leading edge.
Once
completed the engine fronts married up to the wings without too much trouble,
although a little work was necessary to make good the section on either side.
The layout is well suited to changing for earlier versions if necessary. The
nicely moulded louvre appears to be too forward, and too high, unfortunately. I
added several gas ejector holes and the oil ejector ports downstream. Also
missing was the small intake that appears in photographs a third of the way
along the upper part of the nacelle.
The
wingtip lights are separately moulded in clear plastic, and all that really
needs doing is the painting of the interior of the fitting before gluing them
in place with Clearfix. A little sanding was necessary once these were fitted,
to make the contour just so.
The
ailerons and trim tabs are separately moulded and are good, except for the
external tabs, which are twice as long in span as they should be. I trimmed
them back with a scalpel.
Installing
the wings was relatively straightforward with the fit good overall, although
considerable filling was necessary where I had made the rough cutouts for the
replacement gear bays. I bonded the projecting gear bays with gap-filling
cyanoacrylate for strength with the plastic contacting faces with liquid
cement, which caused the joints to lock after only a few seconds.
Once the
wings were fitted I began to detail the flaps. I initially used the Eduard set,
which is nicely engineered, but seems to have the fundamental drawback of being
too long in chord! No provision for the piece of upper trailing edge clearly
visible in photographs is made, which could be the result of Eduard following
the kit rather than doing their own research. Another baffling error. The Eduard
set is also very difficult to assemble when following the instructions given in
the leaflet. I would instead fit the plastic rod and the bracket parts before
folding the ribs onto the base plate. Easy to be wise after the event. After
having made an appalling mess of things, I went for the Heritage Aviation set
(a third of the price) which looks much better in terms of chord length – and
which includes the hinges, although none of the bay parts other than the ribs.
I made the bar up from scrap plastic, and the cables from very thin plastic
rod, whilst using the Eduard brackets where I could. Filling the edges of this
set and blending it into the trailing edge of the wing took an amount of time
and effort which it is neither feasible nor desirable to give an account of
here. Since then, I have contacted Eduard to complain about the inaccuracies of
their set. Once I had succeeded in making it clear to them that it was wrong,
they were quite apologetic and pledged to correct it. Full marks to them for
paying respect and attention to their customers.
Once the
flaps were complete, the gear bays and flap housings were painted in semigloss
white, shaded in a similar manner to the undercarriage. The fire extinguishers
in the main gear bays were painted blue and the cables picked out in black,
apart from those where the few colour photos I had access to show other hues.
At the same time as the final details were being added to the fuselage, the
underwing pylons were added. Negligible filler was needed to make the joint
good, but care with the pylon location was needed, to ensure that the joint
angle was correct.
The
undercarriage doors were all from the Resin Art set and are finely detailed
inside and out. These were painted in the same way as the gear bays. I employed
the Eduard flaps, suitably modified with scrap plastic strips to represent the
upper trailing edge The hinges were made from the parts of both sets, although
some were inevitably lost during construction (the Eduard set includes spares
for some small parts, very sensibly, but the Heritage Aviation set does not).
The Eduard set includes the stiffener plate for the hinge, but strangely
enough, not the hinge itself. The Heritage Aviation set is the opposite.
The flaps
were attached once the gear legs and bay doors were fully cured. The upper
edges had previously been touched up slightly to match the camouflage
demarcations on the upper wing surface. The ailerons, slightly drooped, were
attached once the model had been married up with the base, with epoxy.
6.
Stores
For the
loadout, I settled upon the gun pack, with a pair of 1000lb bombs on the wing
pylons. By virtue of its significance, I also included a Mk.7 tactical nuclear
bomb, to be displayed next to the aircraft. For the delivery of this weapon,
which, although intended for tactical aircraft, was nonetheless sizeable, special
bomb doors were fitted, although I have no details of this beyond the general
layout, which contained a recess for the weapon, with cutouts for the two upper
fins. A deflector plate was fitted inside to avoid negative cavity flow
effects.
The
gunpack has attracted a lot of criticism, and rightly so. I regret not having a
more conventional loadout, as the detailing inside the bomb bay is the best I
have yet seen. The corrugations within the doors are particularly appreciated.
However, as this weapon was a distinguishing feature of the B.(I).6, and I had
several drawings, I elected to include it.
This
meant a lot of work. The kit item comes in two parts, the body of the pack and
the muzzle area. The body is reasonable, although it needs to be thinned down
at the back to obtain the flush joint at the aft end of the bomb bay, and the
sides need to be sanded to have the right inclination (they are not parallel to
the fuselage symmetry plane, as in the kit). With this done, a few door lines
scribed, and the four ejector chutes added from scrap plastic, the body was
finished.
The
muzzle area, however, is wildly inaccurate. At least half a length too short,
it has quite the wrong cross section. I began by sawing it in half
perpendicular to the direction of flight, and then extending it with scrap
plastic, fairing this into a single parabolic cross-section with Milliput and
copious sanding. Once I was reasonably happy with the shape, I drilled the four
cannon troughs out again, as they had become ccompletely obscured during the
rebuilding. I superglued lengths of Evergreen 1/8”rod to make the barrels,
drilling the muzzles out for the sake of realism. I am not clear how far they
protrude into the troughs, but they do not appear entirely buried in the
photographs. With all this work complete, the body of the pack was painted in
Humbrol 85 and the gun barrels in 201. I opted for a black pod, as the evidence
appears to show that, after having appeared during the time that the aircraft
undersides were painted black overall, the gunpacks were not repainted with the
aircraft, being only occasionally fitted.
The bomb
doors were cut out in order to fit around the pack and this fortunately needs
no extra work. The B.(I).6 did not carry any internal bombload when carrying
the gunpack, instead being able to carry a flare pack in the unused portion of
the bomb bay. A later modification allowed the B.(I).8 to carry three 1000lb
bombs here, but this was not applied to the B.(I).6. I had no details at all of
the flare pack, as mentioned above, so I left the doors closed. When I
eventually came to fit the gunpack to the fuselage, I found that the two pegs
needed extensive trimming in order to fit the slots that are moulded within the
bomb doors. A bit of epoxy was used to fit it in place and fill the slight gap
between the fairing and the doors.
I did fit
bombs to the underwing pylons, however. The kit examples are reasonably,
although they do appear a little too rounded at the nose. I built a more
pointed region up with Milliput, sanding to shape. It’s quite a difficult call,
however, and not everybody might consider it necessary. The bombs were painted
in Humbrol 75 which appears a reasonable match for Deep Bronze Green, with the
identification bands in 24.
The
B.(I).6 did not carry rockets, so my original intention of displaying a SNEB
rocket pod next to the aircraft didn’t work out. Nor did it carry the AS.30
also included in the kit, although the B.15 did, so one could take a similar
approach in building a NEAF Canberra.
I was
determined to include the Mk.7 tactical nuclear bomb, once I discovered the
Spectre Resins model. This is a good piece of work, with nice, crisp separate
fins, and an interesting approach taken to the retracting third fin issue, with
the fin cast as retracted, but with a third fin included to model it extended
if desired. I assembled mine with the fin retracted as it was to be placed on a
trolley. The body of the weapon comes in two parts – main body and nose cap. These
went together with little filler around the joint and only a little sanding.
Once assembled, the weapon was painted in Humbrol Matt Aluminium Metalcote,
with the nosecap in a mix of 73 and 10, the screws attaching it being picked
out in 56.
In order
to display it parked next to the aircraft, I had to mount the weapon on its
cart. With nothing other than a few photos of preserved US weapons to go by, I
embarked on a full scratchbuild from plastic scrap of various thicknesses
(40,20 and 5thou) and two gauges of plastic rod. I made the springs from light
fuse wire wound around a length of plastic rod which was then pushed out. The
wheels were sundry small nose gear wheels from the spares box, such as it is.
Once the model was completed, I painted in overall 75, with the two lights at
the side and rear picked out in Humbrol 69 and the tyres in 33. Once the paint
was dry, I glued the completed bomb to the sidemounts with epoxy and put it to
one side.
I
assembled the tip tanks at this stage. WT311 appeared to be still operating
with the tip tanks in bare metal, even after retirement, and I am reliably
informed that metallic tip tanks were still to be seen long after the aircraft
had received full camouflage. So I assembled and painted them separately. The
mouldings are excellent, with as sharp trailing edges as one could wish for.
However, the navigation lights and their associated cable runs were missing, so
I added these from plastic scrap. I also scribed a few panel lines for the nose
fairing and the filler cap. The tanks were finished in Polished Aluminium
Metalcote, with stencil panels picked out in Humbrol 85, in default of any
appropriate decals.
The
stores were attached after the flaps and undercarriage had cured in place. The
fit of the bombs was good, and the peculiar neatness of the Canberra’s pylon
installation precluded the requirement to detail the attachments. The tanks
went on just fine, and a little extra ProModeller wash was applied to
accentuate the join.
7.
Undercarriage
Although
there isn’t a great deal in it, I elected to replace the kit wheels with
Aeroclub items. The nosewheels are cast in white metal, with the mudguards,
whilst the mainwheels are cast in resin. Unfortunately they are not weighted,
although they do have the tread detail. I had to file the bases and fill out
the distorted region with Milliput. Once this was done, they were undercoated
in flat white, then painted, using Humbrol 56 for the wheels and Xtracolour
Tyre Black for the tyres. The mudguards were painted in semigloss white, while
the nose leg was painted in Humbrol 127, according to the Aeroguide
information. Details on undercarriage bays are hard to come by on any aircraft,
particularly on the Canberra with its low ground clearance. The main gear legs
were painted in semigloss white.
A mixture
of Citadel washes was used to represent wear, mud and oil staining on the
wheels and legs. Dervlan Mud, a dark brown, was used in conjunction with an old
armour wash of theirs, and thinned to suit.
The nose
gear bay in the Heritage Aviation nose section is pretty comprehensively
detailed – I merely added a couple of struts and a little framing on the
forward wall from the Pavla Models set. Once all was set and the edges had been
made good where sanding had eaten away at them some, I painted it in semigloss
white, with the leads picked out in flat black. A similar mix of inks were used
to weather the interior.
With the
main gear bays having been installed as described in §3 above, little extra work was needed to complete
them. As directed, I added the interior cabling from fuse wire, painting most
of it black. The separate fire extinguishers were added to the ledge in the
forward end of the wheel bay, and the door struts to the inboard edge. The bays
themselves were painted and weathered in the same manner as the nose gear bay,
while the extinguishers were picked out in Humbrol 25 Blue.
Mounting the undercarriage began with the nose
gear leg, the retraction struts of which had to be significantly cut back in
order to fit in the bay. Once the test fit was successful it was bonded in
place with epoxy. The main gear legs needed quite a bit of epoxy to bond them
in place, but the result was solid enough. The main gear legs were first glued
to the main outer door, the resin parts matching the kit ones just fine. The
extra cabling was added using fuse wire and the retraction struts added. Then
the completed assemblies were washed with a black/Dervlan
Mud mix and a few touchups added. Once the legs were
firmly in place the doors were attached and the nose gear door extension struts
(only one as I had managed to lose the other) attached using cyanoacrylate. The main wheels were attached to the
already-installed legs in order to be as sure as possible of getting the
correct alignment.
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8.
Painting
The overall scheme was typical of late 1960s RAF
Canberras, being Dark Sea Grey and Green topsides, with Light Aircraft Grey
undersides. I began with a coat of Hycote grey primer overall, which I have
previously found to perform much better than the Halfords version. I plugged
the engine intakes and exhausts, cabin access doorway and gear bays with
Blutack and masked off the flap areas with masking tape, with the
transparencies covered with Humbrol Maskol prior to painting.
Once the primer was complete, I sprayed the
undersides with Humbrol 166, followed by a topcoat of Xtracolour RAF Light
Aircraft Grey to get the finish. I didn’t mask off the topsides, wanting the
paint to extend beyond the demarcation line, to avoid any uncertainty there. I
did have some trouble with the consistency of the Humbrol LAG, even that fresh
from a brand-new tinlet. Once that was dry, I remasked the model and prepared
the demarcation lines with masking tape, The wraparound on the leading edges is
fairly constant, but I should make it clear how the demarcation lines around
the engine nacelles, wing, and tailplane roots varied between units, aircraft
and periods – check photographic references.
Again, I began the layup with Humbrol 164, before
topping it with Xtracolour RAF Dark Sea Grey. Once this was dry, I applied
further masking tape to cover the DSG areas of the upper surface camouflage,
applying them roughly with tape strips and then marking out the precise
boundaries on them with a drawing pen and trimming them to shape with a
scalpel. When this was ready I applied Humbrol 163, topping it off with
Xtracolour RAF Dark Green.
Once the sprayed paintwork was dry, I removed the
masking and tidied up the areas requiring attention with brushwork. The masking
tape had performed well overall, with only a few ‘lips’ at colour boundaries,
the worst of which were cut back with a scalpel. Some blemishes due to paint
consistency issues had cropped up, particularly on the underside, which was unfortunate,
as I couldn’t get quite the same shade when brush painting as I could when
spraying the LAG. The intake lips were somewhat troublesome, due to the
slightly uneven Blutack coverage. The Canberra’s layout made it somewhat tricky
to avoid excessive paint buildup, due to the number of junctions between flying
surfaces, fuselage, nacelles, and pylons.
With the decals finished, I applied two extra glossy
coats with Johnson’s Pledge, as directed by Phil Flory of ProModeller. This had
the disadvantage of flowing around the curves to collect below, forming rubbery
lumps in places that had to be trimmed away with a scalpel, sometimes taking
paint away. Care should be taken when applying to avoid this. With the
successive layers of paint, the panel lines did tend to get a bit obscured – no
need to be so assiduous in part-filling them with such a finish.
Picking out the details was quickly done, with only
a few places on the remarkably clean airframe needing attention. The aft
fuselage pitots were picked out in Xtracolour Duralumin, the foot of the tail
bumper in black, and the nose probe in 201 with a Duralumin root. The clearly
visible line of putty around the canopy was painted in a mixture of 97 and flat
white. The solitary dorsal aerial was left in DSG with a single black band applied,
which seems to be appropriate for this mark and era – others, notably later
B.2s, seem to have it painted in light cream or yellow. Some aircraft appear to
have the leading edge of the fin painted black, but WT311 did not, so I left
it. The trailing edge of the rudder, above the trim tab, is generally black,
however. The dorsal navigation light (a ventral one was not fitted, it seems)
was painted in Tamiya Clear Red. The distinctive rectangular aerial panels on
the lower wing surfaces aft of the main gear bays were painted in Humbrol 29
Dark Earth.
Once the gloss coat had dried for a day or two, I
proceeded to apply the Pro Modeller weathering wash. I used the general Dark
Dirt as I’d never used such a thing before, and thought I should start with the
recommended beginner’s approach. The application was straightforward, although
I found it hard to get rid of the bubbles, even with extensive stirring. The
lower surface seemed to be rather more uneven in finish than I’d intended, and
the resulting weathering was quite extensive. This is in keeping with some
photos of RAFG Canberras that I’ve seen, although very much more grubby than
some of the Wyton-era machines. It proved impossible to get the wash into all
the panel lines, even with repeat application. Nevertheless, it was a valuable
enhancement.
Once the wash was completed, I added the oil streaks
below the aft engine nacelles. I first brushed on a mix of brown and black ink,
then brushed on a small amount of dark grey Carr’s Weathering Powder. Finally,
after fitting the gun pack, I applied
two coats of Xtracolour acrylic matt varnish, which was remarkably trouble-free
in application.
Finally, I picked out
the tail and tank lights, using silver for the former and Tamiya
clear red and green for the latter. Once the paint had dried Humbrol Glasscote was used to
differentiate the finish.
9.
Markings
With the overall scheme finished, it was time to
apply the decals. These came from three sources: the kit, three Model Alliance
Canberra sheets (stencilling, serials and insignia) and the 1960s/70s vintage
Airfix B.(I).6 kit. The latter supplied the fuselage roundels which I used in
preference to the kit ones, which were printed integrally with the 88 Sqn
fuselage band. Despite their age, they went on readily, with no tearing and
only a little debris from the ancient cellophane, which was gently scrubbed
off. I began with the upper surface markings. The wing roundels are printed
with separate centres, to avoid any register issues, and went on well enough,
although the opacity of the white areas compares unfavourably with those of the
decades-old fuselage roundels. The kit also supplied the fin flashes and the
wing fuel tank markings – I wasn’t sure about the latter on the upper surface,
and could find no evidence for their presence beneath the wing, so I only used
the top ones. These appeared to be a little short, and were later augmented
with Humbrol 197 Lufthansa Yellow. Both fin flashes and wing roundels were
rather fragile, the starboard ones tearing repeatedly, which required some
correction. The familiar Superset/Supersol combination was used to bed them in,
and most of the silvering, particularly noticeable on the tank markings, was
thus cured. I used the Model Alliance squadron insignia, although the hornet
seems to be rather less accurate, at least for the late 1960s than the Airfix
one. The latter, however, seemed to be slightly too large, and as the rudder
was separate, I erred on the side of caution and did not use it.
The stencilling came entirely from the Model
Alliance sheet. Although no insignia seems to be present for the tip tanks, the
sheet contains plenty of markings in black, red and yellow, as appropriate to
the various colour schemes. The instructions, although comprehensive, give of
necessity only one configuration, and it is difficult indeed to determine what
the appropriate one was without extensive detailed photographic coverage. I
suspect that I may have used too many ejection seat warning triangles, although
I cannot be sure, as the photograph I have of WT311 has a tarpaulin pulled over
the upper forward fuselage area. So the stencils as applied represent an
educated guess.
The serials came from
the Model Alliance black and straight (rather than curved) serial sheet and
went on just fine, with only minimal silvering. Once these were dry, the upper
surfaces were finished, and I turned my attention to the lower surfaces. Given the
issues I’d had with the upper wings, I was thankful for the absence of
roundels. The serials here took a little more work, however. Fortunately, they
didn’t have to be cut in order to fit around the pylons (which were of course
removable, fitting on top of the painted serial), but a section had to be
removed from one ‘T’ in order to accommodate the landing light. The remaining
stencils, significantly fewer in number, were straightforward in their
application, although the marking on the strike camera door had to be cut in
two to accommodate the small blade aerial.
10.
Base
I adopted
a similar approach to basing the model that I had with the Airfix Vulcan, by
dint of having a similar chunk of plywood to hand. Face sheets of 20 thou
plasticard were bonded to the plywood core with PVA and the edges filled in
with Milliput. Rather than have the facesheets project significantly over the
edges of the core as previously, which involved extended iterations of filling
and sanding, I trimmed them back so as to apply the minimum filler. This
allowed the base to be finished more quickly, although I managed to scratch the
facesheets in so doing.
Once assembled, the base was sprayed matt black
overall, and then a Verlinden card print of a
standard NATO pan was bonded to the top with PVA. Given the scratches, I
considered that a brush-finished varnish was the way to proceed and the base
was finished with Humbrol clear polyurethane. Once
the model had been completed, bar the control surfaces and entry door, which
would have just got in the way otherwise, the wire stubs protruding from the
wheels were dipped with bright red paint to ‘spot’ the model and holes drilled
in the base to suit. These were drilled with an outsize (1.5mm) bit in order to
give the best possible margin. Epoxy was used to bed the wire stubs into the
holes and form as solid a bond as possible between the model and the base. Finally,
once all outstanding parts had been fitted, the last task was to bond the
cart/bomb assembly to the base. I put it ahead of the aircraft on the port
side, so as not to obscure the cabin door area. And that was that.
11.
Acknowledgements
I would like to acknowledge the varied and considerable
assistance given me in this project by: Brian West of the 213Sqn website, Brian
Goodwin and Ron Jenkins of 213Sqn, Royal Air Force, Damian Guest of the
principal UK Canberra website, John Sheehan, Mark Bilas of Spectre Resins and
Ian of Heritage Aviation. This build has been much the easier and more
successful to their varied and enthusiastic assistance.
12.
References
1.
English Electric Canberra Part 1: Bomber Canopy
Variants in British Service, J. Freeman, On Target Profiles 7, The Aviation
Workshop, 2005.
2.
Pilots Notes: Canberra B.2, 2nd edition,
AP4326-P.N., HMSO.
3.
English Electric Canberra & Martin B-57, B.
Jones, Crowood Aviation Series, The Crowood Press, 1999.
4.
EE Canberra B Mk 2 and T Mk 4, Aeroguide 7, R.
Chesneau & R. Rimell, Linewrights Ltd., 1984.
5.
Bomber Squadrons of the R.A.F. & their Aircraft,
P. J. R. Moyes, Macdonald, 1964.
6.
Building the
English Electric Canberra, B. Green, Hyperscale Resource Guide, www.hyperscale.com, 2008.
7.
40 Jahre und Recht Weise I, FlugRevue 6, p285-7.
8.
The English Electric Canberra Mk.I & IV, K.
Munson, Profile Publications 54, Profile Publications.
9.
English Electric Canberra, R. Beaumont & A.
Reed, Ian Allan, 1984.
10.
Canberra: The Operational Record, R. Jackson,
Airlife, 1988.
11.
BAC Canberra: Queen of the Skies, Airplane, Vol.8
No.88, p2442-2454, 1990.
12.
English Electric Canberra, K. Delve, P. Green &
J. Clemons, Midland Counties Publications, 1992.
13.
Canberra B.(I).8 scale drawings, G. A. G. Cox,
Aircraft Archive: Postwar Jets Volume 1, p24-8, Argus Books, 1988.
14.
English Electric Canberra, C. Stafrace, Warpaint
Series No.60, 2007.
Internet
resources:
1.
A Tribute to the English Electric Canberra: http://www.bywat.co.uk/canframes.html
2.
Canberras at Aircraft Resource Archives: http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com/Gal-Fea%20Archives/jet/Canberra/Canberra.htm
3.
Canberra Crazy:
http://www.canberracrazy.co.uk/
4.
Air Britain’s Canberra images: http://www.abpic.co.uk/results.php?q=canberra&fields=type&sort=latest&page=250&limit=10
5.
Discussions on
6.
Discussions on:
7.
213 Squadron unofficial website:
http://213squadronassociation.homestead.com
Sundry images
obtained from Google searches
Gavin
Parnaby
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