Things have settled down in the house after Nicholas failed a rapid test last weekend. No one else appears to have gotten Covid, or we were asymptomatic. Fortunately, Nicholas' symptoms were equivalent to a cold and he recovered quickly. Fingers crossed we are done with the virus and there is no long covid issues.
Nicholas has now headed back to Ottawa for school, while Marie has gone to Calgary to help her mom with a couple medical appointments. Riley is barking at every noise he hears, thinking it must be Nicholas or Marie coming home.
Last weekend brought more snow, and I am running out of places to put it. Even the snowblower can no longer throw snow over the windrows. The snow was immediately followed by another brutal cold snap, so no outdoor activities. Unfortunately, the snow doesn't know it is too cold to snow, and has kept falling. The forecast has even more snow thru the weekend, so there will be some challenges shoveling the driveway.
The cold weather has provided opportunity for some quality modelling time, and the Dakota and the CL-52 have been completed. Two new kits have now entered the rotation - A 1/48 Tamiya Beaufighter and a 1/48 Kinetic Alpha Jet
Dakota
With the bulk of the build and paint done, it was time for the small details. Canadian Dakotas carried an amazing number of antenna, with about half included in the kit. Stretched sprue and some ingenuity created the rest. The wire antenna were strung using EZ Line, a stretchy nylon string that is remarkedly resistant to my clumsy handling.
I have had a difficult time photographing the finished model. The combination of the dark colour and the large wingspan made it difficult to get sharp pictures. I tried using natural light but wasn't able to get any better pictures. I also see that I need to do a better job removing dust particles, as they are really apparent on the pictures.
Overall I am happy with the results. Painting the markings allowed me to model a specific plane that didn't have any traditional decals available.
CL-52
Finishing this model became an exercise in finding dropped parts. I lost three different bits as I was attaching the final pieces, culminating in the lose of one of the front gear doors. You would think something the size of a dime would be easy to find on a bare concrete floor, but it eluded me. It wasn't hard to fabricate a replacement and attach it. This naturally resulted in the original part magically reappearing on the floor several days later.
I am very happy with how this one turned out. This is my best natural metal paint finish so far, and repaid the amount of time preparing and masking.
Time for two new kits on the bench. Continuing the trend of building kits that were received as presents brings out a Tamiya 1/48 Bristol Beaufighter TF.Mk.X and a Kinetic 1/48 Alpha Jet.
Tamiya 1/48 Bristol Beaufighter TF.Mk.X
RCAF Beaufighters
With war appearing imminent, the Royal Air Force saw a need for a heavy fighter. To expedite delivery, Bristol proposed a development of its Beaufort medium bomber, reusing the engines and wings, mated to a smaller, more streamlined fuselage. The design was accepted and was available for service by late 1939. It had initial success as a nightfighter, being one of the few aircraft large enough to hold the first primitive airbourne radars. It later gained considerable success as a cannon and rocket armed anti shipping aircraft. Its robust structure, speed and heavy firepower made it well suited for low level anti ship attacks, and it was used extensively in the North Sea, the Mediterranean and the Pacific.
The RCAF eventually had 5 squadrons equipped with Beaufighters, with 406, 409, 410 and 125 squadrons assigned as nightfighters and 404 squadron assigned to Coastal Command. 404 Squadron was arguably the most famous of these due to their use of rocket projectiles and coordinated multi aircraft attacks.
The kit.
I actually have two Tamiya Beaufighter kits. The first was a Christmas present from Marie in 2004. The second was bought used at the Rocky Mountain Model Show in Nanton in 2019. The seller included a wealth of aftermarket details in the kit, including decals, masks, and resin replacements for the seats, exhaust and rockets. This build will be a combination of the original kit, a mix of decals and some of the resin pieces.
Here's what in the box.
Here are the lovely "extras".
The Build
The first and immediate impression is size. The Beaufighter is derived from the Beaufort, a twin engine medium bomber. It used the wings and engines directly, mating them to a purpose designed fuselage. The result is a very large, twin engined heavy fighter that really looks the part.
I have found an amazing amount of RCAF Beaufighters reference materials. The write up included in the Avaieology decals alone is more than I am generally able to find. In addition to the included decal write up, Availeology provides additional downloadable materials in pdf form, including full colour art for five different aircraft. I have also found three different detailed build articles at IPMS Canada, as well as several history and build magazine articles. After sorting thru all that, I have selected 404 Squadron aircraft LZ451, coded as EEoH, as it appeared in August 1944.
If a decent pilot is included in the kit, I have a preference to try and include him. The Tamiya kit provides two well rendered crew member that look the part. Figure painting is always my challenge but these two came pretty good, and were selected for duty. As it turns out, very little beyond the figures is actually visible once the fuselage is closed up.
Being a Tamiya kit, it came together quickly with little fuss. Careful dry fitting meant little filler was needed. I did some rescribing on the wings and rear fuselage area to better match the drawings I am working from. You can see it on the wing gun hatches, in the last picture, if you look closely.
Kinetic 1/48 Alpha Jet
The Alpha Jet was a successful collaboration between the Dussault and Dornier aircraft companies, for a light attack and advanced trainer, for use by the French and German airforces. The jets had a relatively short service life, entering service in 1978, and being retired in the early 90's.
The Alpha Jet would seem like an unusual subject for someone who tries to stick to aircraft that were Canadian designed, built or served with a Canadian user. The early retirement is the key, as Discovery Air Defense Services of Montreal acquired a number of the now surplus jets in 2000. Discovery is better known as Top Aces, with the jets used for adversary training by the RCAF, and more recently by the USAF and the RAAF. The jets, painted to mimic foreign aircraft, are familiar sites at CFB Bagotville and Cold Lake, and totally appropriate for the collection.
The Kit
The Alpha Jet was one of Kinetic's earlier designs, and has a reputation as a difficult kit to build. Various build articles note the modular kit design, intended to allow kitting of different version using the same molds, increases kit complexity and results in fit issues. In particular, the intakes and multipart fuselage are well documented sources of grief.
From the box, the main components look very nice. Crisp panel lines and good details are evident. Closer examination shows a fair bit of flash on the smaller parts. The smaller parts as exhibit some mould misalignment that has created offsets and steps on some of the parts.
Here are pictures of what's in the box.
The Build
Work started with the cockpit. The instructions called for all the cockpit components to be black. A reference check would have been appropriate, as a check after painting clearly showed that most of the cockpit was grey, with only the instrument placards and seats being black. Rather than repaint everything, a decision was made to mask the black parts and then spray grey.
Photo 1 - tiny pieces of masking in place
Photo 2 - masking removed and an acceptable result achieved.
And that's it for this week's build. Stay safe everyone.
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