Hi Guys, Following my last post on ‘First Post - Latest Model’ quite by chance I found a disc today with some images of the first model I made back in 2003. At that time, having not made a plastic model for the previous thirty years or so, the catalyst to do so was an impending eightieth birthday - my cousin’s husband to be precise and one time air-frame fitter/rigger on this well known and loved WWll classic aircraft.
Bob has a treasured photo - very small format, it shows him kneeling on the fuselage in front of the cockpit someone below obviously taking the picture. I have a copy of it on my workshop wall …
The photograph above it is he and I having been given special passes to visit the airframe ‘up close’ - on his last visit to it in the RAF museum at Hendon.
I made this model based on his photo and presented it to him. “Do you look at it often/” I asked him a while back - “Every day” came the reply. Here are some pics then - hope you like them
The model is the original 1/72 Airfix kit and for me represented several firsts. It was the first time I had ‘cut into’ a kit lowering the flaps and opening the access door etc. The re-fueller was a first vehicle (a truly lovely little kit BTW - extremely good fits and ‘build-ability’). Though I’d used an old Badger single action for basic coverage before it was the first time I’d used an airbrush (Paasche) in this manner.
The base work is household Poly-Filla (another first) and various paints were used - at this stage I had yet to discover Tamiya acrylics
Some may question the heavily leaded areas behind the exhausts - Bob once told me that as a young ‘erk’ he had thought he was doing the right thing by using petrol to wash it all off. He was all too soon shown the error of his ways by his Flight sergeant who pointed out in no uncertain manner that he’d now turned this grubby non reflective aircraft into quite a shiny one!.
The aircraft served with 467 squadron Royal Australian Air Force as S-Sugar having previously been designated Q-Queenie with another squadron. Bob served on it for near two years after his ‘kite’ 467’s Q-Queenie was destroyed by falling bombs.
Bob, now ninety and quite deaf due no doubt to four Merlins on song an a regular basis is as alert as ever with tales of his time with S-Sugar - a special Lanc indeed for him and for me
Hope this was of interest to some of you.
Regards - Tug