I am eternally grateful to learn of the ability to recover a blog from its history. Twice I have opened a blog, after adding a picture using my phone's mobile app, to discover all the words are gone. The first time I simply gritted my teeth and set about retyping. Today, I learned how to recover a blog using the web app's history function. What a relief not to have to retype a lengthy post.
This post, including this paragraph and all the Spitfire history, was mostly written in May 2024, before our relocation to Calgary. We have settled into the new house, and although the hobby room is still being set up, modeling activities have resumed!
Family Update
The house is beginning less foreign. In the last week, both Marie and I have referred to it as home. A good sign!
The new tool shed has been installed and all the appropriate stuff moved in. Marie seems to have settled on a kitchen configuration that I am starting to understand, making it possible to find things again. Next up will be to get a heater installed in the garage so I can set up a workshop, and Marie has started the process to convert the back closet into a pantry, and part of the mudroom into a broom closet.
Marie and I have started to take advantage of all a big city offers. We have tickets for the coming season of the Calgary Phil Pops series, as well as one of their Christmas concerts. We will also be attending Bach in the Park this Sunday, a free concert at Prince’s Island. Later this month, we will be attending The Play That Went Wrong at Theatre Calgary.
We are just back from Alex’s “Canadian Destination” wedding at a Polish Scout camp 2 hours west of Ottawa. The weather was fantastic and the weekend was a lot of fun. We then headed 3 hours east to spend a couple days with Doris Mae at her Quebec cabin. Chris and his clan were there when we arrived so we had a chance to visit with his family. Next trips are Austin at the end of October, to visit Daniel, and then a European river cruise in mid November.
Daniel is doing very well down in Austin. What little spare time he has is spent exploring the Austin region. He is in Edmonton this weekend to visit his Formula team. Then he will spend 2 weeks at the Tesla facility in Fresno to complete some research experiments. Back to Austin for a day, he then comes to Calgary at the end of the month to visit. We are looking forward to seeing him for the first time since his iron ring ceremony back in April!
Nicholas and Jill had a great time in Paris at the Olympics, followed by a couple days in Nice. They did all the touristy things in Paris, caught a Canada volleyball game and a Canada rugby match, as well as a soccer game and a table tennis series. ARKK was quiet over the summer but Nicholas is now getting busier, including at least one trip back to Fort McMurray later this month.
Christine finished up her r at the golf course, at the end of August, with a big concert and a spectacular northern lights show. She is now in Calgary, staying with us, and has started her 2nd year of Architecture. It doesn’t sound like much has changed at the downtown campus, other than the UofC is now providing extension cords to plug in their laptops, but she is much happier with the professors she will be studying with this semester.
The Hobby Room
A crucial upgrade for the new hobby room was the installation of a filter in the spray booth. The booth, nearly 30 years old, was constructed during our first years in Fort McMurray. It was crafted from a single sheet of plywood, cut with a circular saw—a wedding gift—on the floor of the spare bedroom in our first McMurray apartment. At the time, the concept of filtering the airflow had never crossed my mind. Dismantling the booth at our McMurray house, after years of use, revealed a startling accumulation of gunk, thickly layered on the blower impeller and within the exhaust pipe. It was an accumulation of paint fumes and dust, a fine grey powder that adhered to everything. Therefore, adding a filter was a critical modification for the new workshop. I also wanted to alter the front opening, informed by my past usage, by cutting back the top edge and angling the sides. This modification aims to provide a more efficient frontal area that aligns better with my spraying technique. Now, everything is complete, with only the installation of a new external vent by the HVAC technician next week remaining.
Photo 1 - The spray booth before modifications.
Photo 2 - The modified spray booth, with slanted front and new filter installed
Photo 3 - The 3D printing station. While unpacking, after the picture was taken, I found a silicon drop cloth that needs to be installed.
Here's the finished (for now) room. I am quite happy with the space. I expect there will be adjustments and changes as I use the space. I already need more storage space but have some ideas how to build something. Extra points if you can spot my furry companion.
Over the last month I have spent several days sorting the model airplane and railroad kits. Most of the airplane kits are now visible, placed at the bottom of the new shelves, but there are still 4 boxes of kits stored in the garage loft, and 2 boxes of kits that will be sold. After 2 passes thru the boxes, it seems that I am missing about a dozen kits, including 2 larger kits that weren’t packed inside moving boxes. I have to assume these are in the house somewhere but several hours frustrated searching hasn’t found them.
The Layout Room
Some limited progress has happened in the future layout area. The carefully transported sections were found in the furnace room, stacked behind the furnace. They are now laid out on the floor in what will become the new layout room. I have spent several hours thinking, and even more hours dreaming, about possible layout configurations. Several pleasurable hours perusing my Northern Alberta Railways book, which contains track plans for every town on the NAR, discovered that most towns had a standardized two or three track yard layout. The town’s station would be on the main line, while the grain elevators were on the farthest opposite tracks. (Interestingly, Barrhead appears to be an exception, with elevators on both the main and the far opposite yard track) My little switching layout has three tracks, but used the center track as the main. The station was therefore located on a yard track. This always bothered me as somehow “wrong”, and the NAR book review confirms it. This will be corrected on the new layout.
The new layout's theme will be based on a small Alberta prairie town, sometime between the late 1980's and the early 2000's. The town will be the central feature, with a three track yard, station, commercial and residential buildings along Railway Avenue, and a row of grain elevators lining the far yard track. A fuel distributor, a feed mill and a single large industry, based on the Walther's commercial bakery kit, will complete the town.
I enjoy building kits and the various layout components, then seeing a train run thru the resulting scene, far more than I enjoy “operating” the layout. Since I like running trains vs “operating”, I think a simpler track plan will suffice, but will need sufficient staging to hold all my rolling stock models. I need to take measurements of the new layout room, and some CAD planning will be important, but the current intent is to use a rectangular shape, with the town along the basement wall, a large elevator complex on the opposite of the rectangle, and a three track staging yard extending into the theatre room.
RCAF C-130-30J Hercules
Decalling has begun on the Hercules. One side is complete, and work has begun on the opposite side.
Fokker Super Universal
The Aeroporto kit has been unpacked and the components have been cleaned in warm, soapy water to eliminate any remaining mold release agent. The kit includes various resin pieces, such as a solid wing, and a two-part fuselage with a complete interior and engine. The initial evaluation yielded positive results. Subsequent evaluation remained largely positive. The casting blocks are generally small, and the flash is typically thin, making it easy to remove. Unfortunately, both the fuselage and wing surfaces exhibit a pebbled texture, requiring sanding and priming to achieve a smooth surface suitable for painting. The floats also display the same bumpy texture, as well as somewhat soft detail. Some effort will be needed to enhance their quality.
RCAF 403 Squadron Spitfire MkI
403 Squadron history
The squadron was stood up in England on March 1, 1941, and was the first RCAF squadron overseas. The squadron was stood down after the war, and subequently went thru a series of stand ups/downs, with corresponding changes in roles and aircraft. The squadron is currently active, based at CFB Gagetown as a helicopter operational training unit, flying the CH-146 Griffin.
Strangely, the official National Defense history website links are broken. The best online history can be found here at Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/403_Helicopter_Operational_Training_Squadron
403 Squadron aircraft
Squadron aircraft changed from fighters, to transports, to helicopters, as the squadron’s roles have changed. Here is a list of aircraft used, as best as I can piece together.
Tomahawk
Spitfire MkI, II, Vb, Vc, IX, XVI high and low back,
Harvard MkIV, P-51D Mustang, CT-133 Silver Star - based in Calgary!
Otter, Expeditor
CH-118 Iroquois, CH-136 Kiowa, CH-135 Twin Huey, CH-146 Griffin
MkI Aircraft Colours
Despite much internet searching, I have not found any photos of 403 Squadron MkI Spitfires. Some educated guesses can be made as to what colours would have been used. The squadron received their MkIs as hand me downs from active force RAF units and would almost certainly would been received in standard RAF colours. But what colours?
There are several possibilities as to what the actual colours. During the Battle of Britain, standard RAF upper camouflage colours were Dark Earth and Dark Green. This worked well over England, but stood out as the RAF expanded its operations over the English Channel and back into Europe. Starting August 1941, the upper colours transitioned to Medium Sea Grey and Dark Green. Underside colours transitioned in late 1940, from a split port black/starboard white to overall Sky. This was found to be too light and so transitioned to Sky Grey in August 1941.
The squadron was stood up and began initial operations in March 1941 using Kittyhawk aircraft, but began transitioning to MkI Spitfires at the end of May 1941. It is probable that the Spitfires received had their undersides repainted to Sky, given it was 6+ months after the change from black/white was ordered. Uppers would have been in dark earth/dark green uppers when received. Being wartime, it is likely the squadron code letters were simply over painted in green/brown and the new letters repainted in sky, creating a patchwork of old and new paint.
A coloured drawing from RAFweb.org aligns with this thinking, showing a 403 Squadron Mk.1 in brown and green. There is no reference given or means to confirm the accuracy. It is worth noting that the same website shows 403 Squadron Tomahawks in the later grey/green scheme, which is incorrect.
Randomly picking a serial number from the RCAFassociation.ca website, and cross referencing to the CASPIR website gives the following:
Spitfire N3066
Delivered to No. 9 MU on 11 October 1939. Served with No. 611, 616, and 308 Squadrons in 1940 and 1941. Used by No. 403 (F) Squadron, RCAF, 27 May to 26 July 1941, coded "KH*N". To No. 57 OTU, crashed 2 November 1941 while there.
FF 09-10-1939 9MU 11-10-1939 611S 16-03-1940 616S 29-08-1940 out of fuel force-landed Broughton C2 Flight Sergeant Ivey safe 18-10-1940 616S 26-02-1941 65S 26-02-1941 308S 13-04-1941 403S 'KH-N' 27-05-1941 57OTU 26-07-1941 Air collision with P9559 FACE 02-11-1941 SOC 15-11-1941
From the info, this plane had its first flight October 11 1939. It served with RAF squadrons 611, 616 and 308, seeing service in the battle of Brititan, before being transferred to 403 Squadron on May 27 1941, making it one of 403’s first Spitfires. It would have been 19 months old, with multi months of combat service, and would likely be showing considerable wear and tear. It remained with 403 until July 26 1941 when it was transferred to RAF 57 OTU.
Based on that, the model will be painted in Dark Earth/Dark Green uppers and sky underside. Spinner and fuselage stripe will be Sky. Code letters, in Sky, will be KH-N, applied over top the painted out previous codes. Serial number, in black, will be N3066.
A coincidental twist to the story. We left McMurray on June 25th. At least, I did. Marie forgot some things at the house, made arrangements for someone to fetch then, and an hour south of McMurray, turned around to get them. Getting back into McMurray, she was convinced by a friend to stay the day and leave Wednesday. That left me alone in Calgary on Wednesday with nothing to do. Our AirBnB was three blocks from Model Land, and so I spent a pleasant morning there, browsing their shelves. I decided to head over to the Military Museum for the afternoon, and spent an enjoyable couple hours wandering the static airplanes on display, and then wandering thru the RCAF section. The aviation displays include a collection of 1/72 models representing all the different types of aircraft used by the RCAF in WWII. Low and behold, the Spitfire Mk.I in the case was KH-M, a 403 Squadron plane! This was the closest I have come to seeing a picture of a 403 Mk.I. I have no idea what references, if any, were used to paint the model. But it was gratifying to see that it was painted exactly as I laid out above.
And that’s it for another blog. Hopefully, with the hobby room set up and the house settling down, I will be able to do more modelling. Time will tell. Until next time, stay safe.
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