ANZAC GB Sept 2012 to Sept 2013

Brian Carbury was born in New Zealand in 1918.   Intending to join the Royal Navy, he traveled to England in 1937, but was rejected because he was deemed too old.  The Royal Air Force accepted him, however, on a short-service commission.

Eventually assigned to 603 Squadron, Brian’s greatest achievements came in the time between August and October, 1940.  According to Dr. Alfred Price in Osprey’s Spitfire Mark I/II Aces 1939-41, he became “ace in a day” by destroying five kills during three patrols on 31 August.  By 2 September, he had added an additional three victories.

Brian was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, apparently in September, 1940, and the next month, received a Bar to the DFC.  His eventual claim of 15 destroyed enemy aircraft and one shared placed him “among the five top-scoring pilots in RAF Fighter Command (http://www.century-of-flight.net/Aviation%20history/WW2/aces/Brian%20John%20George%20Carbury.htm).”

In early 1941, Brian became an instructor and did not fly operations again.  His career with the RAF ended later that year, under rather unfortunate circumstances.

It seems that Brian’s wife at the time was unable to control her spending and ran up substantial debts.  Brian found it difficult to pay these and was charged in late 1941 with issuing between 9 and 17 bad checks (cheques).  A court-martial followed, Brian was found guilty and dismissed from the RAF as of 1 October, 1941.  His rank at the time appears to have been Flying Officer.

Although Brian and this wife divorced during the war, his difficulties were hardly over.  He was charged in 1948/49 (sources vary as to the date) with illegally exporting Bristol Beaufighters to Palestine.  He and each of three other defendants were found guilty and fined GBP 100.  Brian also lost his British pilot’s license as a result of the sentencing.

Brian later remarried, and the couple had a child, also named Brian.  Unfortunately, Brian (senior) contracted leukemia, and died in 1961/62 (sources again vary, although most say July of the latter year).  A memorial was erected to Brian John George Carbury in Wellington, New Zealand.

Sources:

http://www.century-of-flight.net/Aviation%20history/WW2/aces/Brian%20John%20George%20Carbury.htm

http://disc.yourwebapps.com/discussion.cgi?disc=105008;article=16588

http://www.the-battle-of-britain.co.uk/pilots/Ca-pilots.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Carbury

Spitfire Mark I/II Aces 1939-41 (Osprey Aircraft of the Aces 12, p. 94)

Gollum is inspecting the paint job for the undersurfaces.  It might not appear so on the computer monitor, but there is a definite greenish cast to WEM's interpretation of Sky Type S.  It's a very leasing colo(u)r, I think.

I used MM's RAF Dark Earth for the base coat, and will finish up with MM's RAF Dark Green.  I masked with Duck brand paint masking tape.  It has a low tack, and doesn't leave sticky residue, as I have found some other brands doing.  I cut the mask using a pattern from the now-discontinued Eduard set.  Brian Carbury's Spitfire was done up in the "A" scheme, used by Fighter Command in 1940 along with a mirror-image "B" scheme.  

The new visitors are Pikachu and Pikatwo.

Gollum found his gold ring--lots of them!!  Maybe one of them will be the precious.

To reproduce Brian Carbury's Spitfire, which he flew with 603 Squadron in August and September, 1940, I used Xtradecal's RAF roundels for the fuselage and underwings.  For the squadron codes (XT-W), I used a Model Decal sheet.  All the rest of the deals came from the Airfix kit itself, and they include a complete set of stenciling.  Information for the camo pattern and markings came from Dr. Alfred Price's Spitfire Mark I/II Aces 1939-1941 (Osprey)

I will post the final photos of the finished model in the near future.

Thanks for looking.

Now we're at the stage for attaching the last little gems to the underwings.

I painted the exhaust stacks with MM's burnt metal, and the other parts with WEM's Sky.  These will benefit from a pin wash, I think.  I'll paint the tyres with acrylic craft paint, using a brush.  The clear sprue holds a lens for the light on the fuselage undersides.  Unfortunately, when cleaning it up, it popped away and disappeared faster than a hobbit with the one ring of power.  It will never be seen again.  I substituted a drop of white glue to simulate the missing lens.

Here's the fix for the prop.  I found some retaining rings in the parts box, slipped them over the shaft, then glued on the kit's prop retainer.  This assembly should now fit through the enlarged hole on the aircraft nose from the outside, and atone for my baffling lapse in memory.  The rings directly behind the back plate will glue to the fuselage, hold the assembly in place, and stlll let the prop move--truly rings of power.

Again, thanks for looking.

Ms. OWL:  I didn't mean to startle you.  Sorry.

Mikey:  I think the Spitfire is a precious plane, but I suppose looking for a missing ring is distracting.  And the attention wanders when waiting for second breakfast.

Blitzwing:  I think there's a similar "look" to several of the new Airfix toolings.  

LOL! Now that's something you don't see every day in a build log. I love it. And yes the Harrier is a new tooling, and by the looks of it has panel lines the same size as the ones you have on your Spitfire.

lol the precious is coming along.

Yet another visitor!  I hope they don't bring twelve dwarfs along.  I'm all out of seed cake.

Fuselage and wings finally got married, but Bilbo arrived just in time to show me that I forgot all about the propeller.  Usually, I would install the back plate through the fuselage before attaching the wings.  This time, I forgot all about it.  

So I drilled out the hole in the nose to accommodate a fix, which will appear later in the construction log.

There was a fairly large gap where the front of the wings joins the fuselage (and that's what Bilbo Baggins hates).  I filled it with superglue, sanded it smooth and rescribed.

Gollum was astonished to discover another large not-so-precious gap at the rear of the wings, which I dealt with as aforesaid.  He seems surprised that it worked.  Often, so am I.

The canopy was masked with narrow strips of Duck brand tape from Wally's mart, then filled in with MicroMask.  "What's it got in its cockpitses?"  I didn't put a gold ring inside before attaching it, so Gollum is out of luck there again.  

Thanks for looking.  

wat?

LOL

A visitor showed up to check out the progress at this stage, which is construction step four.  Cockpit is installed, horizontal stabilizers were attached  and adjusted with a protractor prior to closing up the fuselage.  The seams are sanded and panel lines rescribed, but  even so, Gollum doesn't seem happy about it.  Wonder if he thinks a Spitfire is precious?

Maybe he's looking for a gold ring in there.  I used WEM Colourcoats Sky Type S paint on the wheel wells, lightened some more and applied it to the raised detail.  Next I applied a darker green acrylic wash with craft paint.

Airfix's instructions commanded me to paint the topside of the lower wing, below the cockpit, so I obeyed.  Probably won't be visible anyway when it's attached to the fuselage.  But at least the wing is done.

Thanks for looking.

Thanks, Blitzwing.  Is the Sea Harrier a new tooling?  The recent offerings from Airfix are pretty good.  

As to the Spitfire, construction step 2 is the propeller, spinner and backing place.

Construction step 3 brings us to the fuselage interior.  I used MM Interior Green on the front part and behind the bulkhead used Floquil RR Old Silver.  It seems the rear portions of the fuselage were left unpainted.  I lightened up the Green and applied some to the raised surfaces, then a pin wash of Apple Barrel black craft paint.  The instruments were also painted with the black craft paint.

Not much progress shown below.  The silver canisters are compressed air containers--on the real thing; not on this model!  Once the fuselage is closed up and the canopy installed, it will take Robert Ballard to find them again.

Thanks for looking.

Nice start so far. I'm building the Airfix Sea Harrier FA2 right now and have been really impressed by how well it goes together. I hope yours goes together just as well. Keep the updates coming.

Got this kit in the stash. Looking forward to seeing how it comes out.

The cockpit as completed.

I lightened up some Interior Green and applied it to the prominent portions, then ran a pin wash of thinned acrylic craft paint from Apple Barrel into the the recesses.

I made the harness from painted masking tape.  It extends back into the fuselage, since the prototype system used pulleys and wire to allow the pilot to tighten up the straps.

Airfix thoughtfully included a nice decal for the IP, so those of us with unsteady hands and lamentable painting skills can achieve a reasonable appearance

When I tested the assembly for fitting into the fuselage, it seems the IP was too wide at the shoulders, so I sanded it down until it co-operated.  Once it was installed, I touched it up with black paint.

This finishes up the first step of building (according to the instruction sheet).  Thanks for looking.

I haven't gotten around to posting any progress for weeks, so I've got a backlog of photos of the build progress.  To recap, I am contributing a Spitfire from 603 Squadron, RAF, piloted by Brian Carbury of New Zealand during the Battle of Britain.

I planned on building one of the elderly Airfix 1/72 kits, but with the advent of the newer tooling, the old ones seem unavailable now--which is all right, since the original kit dated back to the 1980's, when people still wore mullets and listened to Blondie.

Here is the obligatory view of the newer box.  I think the new kit was issued in 2010, around the 70th anniversary of the BoB.

The first construction step is for the assembly of the cockpit.  Here are all the pieces.  The main assembly consists of three piece--IP, flooring and bulkhead.  

I used MM RAF Interior Green.  The seat is WEM's anti-fouling red, a ship color, but it looks close to the color used for the "plastic" seats installed after about May, 1940.  Previous to this, it appears the seats were metal, and would have been in Interior Green also.

I'll put the finished cockpit in a separate posting, since I've run into problems in the past trying to put too many pictures in one posting.

Its the same here. Im wondering if its to do with what shipping companies will transport into the southern hemisphere.

Ive seen a very very limited range of MM paints here. Like 3 pots on special order kind of thing.

I wonder how hobby stores pick which paints they want to stock? The ones here I go to almost all universally have Tamiya paints being the most well stocked, followed by Humbrol paints. Then there is the dusty third paint understocked paint rack usually Gunze or Model Master.

I havent seen polyscale in NZ either.

I've never seen PollyScale in Australia before and Model Master is rare but I might have a look online and see if I find anything. Thanks Greg.

Blitzwing

.........unfortunately it is still the best matt varnish I have used so far because I prefer spraying with acrylics.

lol yup.

Is that an A380?

Just found this.

grab a dog kit and experiment till you get a nice mix. and practice how to fix mistakes.

While the idea of seeing how far I can throw that little jar has crossed my mind, unfortunately it is still the best matt varnish I have used so far because I prefer spraying with acrylics. I have a bottle of Micro Flat but that still gives me a semi gloss finish which I don't get. I may have to keep experimenting with the flat base until I find something to replace it.

Very nice. Lemme guess, tamiya flat base going in the tool box never to be released again?

nice P40! Ill get the front page updated for ya!

Well after a few heart in the mouth moments it is finally done and I'm fairly happy with the end results, so here are the pics. 

The stretched sprue took a while to stick on with superglue but it finally did. I wasn't quite sure on what colour to do them though. I originally thought about black but I thought that would be too stark. I thought it looked alright unpainted so I went with it but I'm curious about what people usually do. 

I'm also quite happy with how the kit exhausts turned out and used the Tamiya make up compacts for the exhaust stains. The Aires gunsight is definitely a marked improvement over the original Trumpeter one. The Trumpeter one looks like a really ham fisted effort for some reason. 

This is the offending side that undoubtedly led to even more deforestation on the top of my head, but it scrubbed up ok after having to repaint over some of the decals. 

And lastly the underside. Maybe a bit on the clean side but with the plane having been in the desert for that long I didn't weather it too heavily. I hope you guys like it. 

Blitzwing

Owl that is a nice Hornet, and an INCREDIBLE cockpit from the box. How did you do it?

Thanks blitz! The kit included decals for the cockpit, but with the raised detail I didnt use them. I drybrushed white and picket out a few buttons with yellow or red. For teh IP, I cut out the green decal screens and placed them, instead of using the whole IP decal.

Nice job on the hornet OWL 

Thanks for the tips guys. I have a dropper but the flat base is pretty gooey so I didn't think it would go through but I'll give it a try next time. The syringe sounds like a pretty good idea too.