Handley Page Hampden 1/72 Airfix completed

Looks great, Lenny. A nice clean build. Yours is the only Hampden I've ever seen modeled, thanks for sharing it with us!

The Hampden has an interesting shape from some angles, almost like a twin-tailed, slimmed-down Mosquito. If I didn't know better, I'd say it looked fast!

Kevin 

Very, very good job on that.

What an interesting bomber! It's skinny here and a bit skinny there... a little skinny everywhere!

I've never seen a model of that airplane, ever. Thanks for sharing all those photos and comments.

Thanks for your comments and your interest fellas!

I'l be back with my P-47's soon

Lenny

Thanks Guy

My heart was in my mouth when I was applying the decals because the last time I did it with decals of that age was on my Wellington III and they fell apart in thousends of bits!!

Lenny

Excellent job Lenny. Looks absolutely Pucker my friend. If you had any problems or difficulties, it doesnt show.

...Guy

sfcmac

I'd consider it an honour!

Lenny

Hello to you all again!!! I've managed to finish off my Handley Page Hampden this afternoon and I feel very pleased with it. The only gripe I have with it, is because the kit was very old the decals on some of them had gone a bit yellow and after trying to get rid of silvering problem once and for all I was a bit gutted

Anyway as I've said before I had waited a long time to do this kit and I have many a night opened the box to take a look and plan ahead and now that time has come where I can look at the finished item with a bit of a smile.

I do hope you like them,. Please, comments, pointers anything will be very welcome

Stay safe everyone

Lenny

What an awesome build fella. Nice info on a wierdo of a plane. Hurry back. We need more pics.

...Guy

Super-neat-O!

 Great job on a gem of an old kit.

The main thing that made the Hampden a death trap was that the cockpit was isolated from the rest of the machine, there was no access to it from inside. If the pilot got killed, the other crew members couldn't get to the cockpit to try to fly the thing and the dead pilot couldn't keep it steady for the others to bail out. 

Don't waste time trying to get the Airfix Hampden kit on ebay.

Not that long ago the Czech company Bilek reissued a slog of old airfix kits and the Hampden was one of them.

Also, another Czech firm, Valom, has a completely new tooled Hampden in the works and its scheduled for the third quarter of this year.

http://www.valom.net/pripravujeme_en.html

Nice job man !

 I neve saw a Hampdem model, good work on them.

Just one tip: I use Optical Fiber to make the internal wires on my models, they are in large colors variations and is so scale to 72 or 48 models... is cheap and easy to use, and give good results..

best regards,

 Lucas

Hello again to you all,

This will be my last post for a couple of weeks so I just want to leave you on what I have done today. I'm happy with the cam to a certain point but may change it when I get back, all depends. There's still lots to do i.e mount the vickers, touch up jobs and the engines, no less. I'm going to find where they sell Future polish. Used to have loads of the stuff when I was in the Army, brings your boots up like mirrors.

Anyway here's a taster of the Hampden. Hope its to your taste.

Stay safe and stay lucky

Lenny

Just out of interest I've just gone onto ebay to see if they have got any Hampdens on for sale. Well at the moment don't bother. The person who is selling them is taking the £25 a pop  when I got mine for a £5 and thats packing and a stamp.

I'l keeping looking if you want fellas.

Keep safe

Lenny

Very nice!

claudez wrote:

Nice work so far on the model. From what I've read the plane was a deathtrap though..

Actually, unlike the U.S. made Boeings, etc., most WWII RAF bombers were, since they had little or no armor, no auto-pilot to stabilize the plane during a crew bail-out as well as lacking built in fire extenguishing systems.

If you can get the old book "The 1000 Plane Raid" it has a lot of insight to these typical problems which led them to night bombing.

The typical routine for bailing out was for the pilot to go last, since he had to hold the controls in lieu of an auto pilot, wait for the other crew members and then try to rope the control stable so he could jump out without getting trapped himself. One of the few who "beat the system" simply dropped himslef into a Dutch Dike by releasing his harness while flying upside down.

Likewise, the special-purpose Mosquito daylight raids were typical "Charge of the Light Brigade" affairs, since plywood did not do well against ack-ack guns.

Tom

My kind of kit, Lenny! It makes me want to get out and finish a Frog Whitley thats about the same vintage.

Very cool!

This one I got off ebay and this was boxed when I was 3 years old (1975) I don't think airfix or any other company has ever done it since. If you want I'l have a look out for you on ebay?

Its a shame really cause its an aircraft I think that was a start of an era when it came to service with Bomber Command and was used in overwelming odds to the crews that flew them.

I'm just about near now to start to paint it. I'm hoping to start on Saturday or Sunday before I go on holiday.

Stay safe

Lenny

Looking good Lenny.

Is this a new boxing of the kit, as I've been after one of these for years?

Karl

Hi fellas me once again on an update on my Hampden.

Today I've assembled the main gear and painted them with black and a slight silver for that wear and tear look, will look better when I've got me camera sorted out!! Also the wings are together and I've attached them to the fuselage.

I've put on Sqn filler between the wings and fuselage and I hope to sand those down tonight (if the misses goes out) or tomorrow.

The Bomb bay doors are looking pretty good and I will photograph them near the time of application. I don't want to tempt fate but all in all this has to be one of the best kits I've made and it's been my most long awaited as well.Fingers crossed.

I'm going to be away next week for a few days but I'm hoping to have the build finished so I can start on painting it. I'm not rushing this one.

Stay safe

Lenny

Very cool work so far! I always enjoy seeing the little widgety bits of scratchbuilding that people do. I've never seen a finished kit of a Hampden before... following with interest!

Kevin

Yes it's the ever faithful Tamiya tape that I'm using.   Very universal and good to work with. I'm almost done with the fuselage, all assumbled and sanded down. I must say for the age of this kit I have done next to no sanding down once assembled. Its only been the injection marks and a couple of joins that I've had to do.

I'l post more soon

Stay safe

Lenny