Grumpy Old Modeller

Pick of the Moment

Cold War Shield

You may already have seen in the Bookshelf section my instant response to Roger Lindsay's new masterwork "Cold War Shield, Volume 1" (you'll gather that I like it very much). There are expected to be three more volumes to fufil the description on the cover, "RAF Fighter Squadrons, 1950 - 1960". If I'd set out a specification for a book on a subject closest to my heart this would surely have been it, and Roger Lindsay has been close to its material since early in the period; already having a strong interest in aircraft recognition, which for those of us like-minded was an absolutely essential part of being an enthusiast, he joined the Royal Observer Corps in the early 'fifties. The function of the ROC, and his time with it, is covered in one of several appendices; another is on the RAF Open Days of the time, with the restrictions on the recording and photography of the aircraft on show probably being unbelievable to those ten years or so younger than Roger or I. These little background extras are as historical now as the book's coverage of the hardware, and will I hope be as interesting to future historians.

The aircraft covered in Volume One are, with the addition of the Hornet, those types that were in service at the end of the war and still on or close to the front line at the beginning of the decade. Early chapters are on the organisation of Fighter Command, with its structure and bases, the threat it faced and its training and tactics, and the generic camouflage, finish and markings of the period. Starting with the Spitfire each type is treated in turn - with the Meteor having a chapter for each mark - and covered squadron by squadron in numerical order. Each chapter has many photos accompanying the text, and includes pilots' accounts, a selection of serial/code tie-ups for each unit with arrival and departure dates and subsequent fates, and details of the unit markings. OCUs and support units are included - I didn't expect to see quite so many Ansons, and Valettas are also there accompanying Brigands, Balliols and Harvards - and there is a very good selection of colour photos at the end of the book, some of which must have eluded the restrictions mentioned earlier. Some inevitable gaps which these caused are filled by original paintings by Alfie Alderson showing the types covered in this volume in their natural habitat. There are colour profiles, and a very good selection of Meteor tails by David Howley, with a couple of pages of unit markings in colour and another of the official unit badges, including Groups and such units as the Central Fighter Establishment and the Armament Practice Stations at Acklington and Sylt.

This is a book that could have been tailored to my interests, but I am sure that it will find a readership beyond those for whom the 'fifties are not just an opportunity for nostalgia but represent the high-point of the post-war Royal Air Force. The foreword by Air Chief Marshal Sir Patrick Hine, who started his career on Meteors with 1 Squadron at Tangmere in 1952, remarks on the way the book captures the spirit of the time for those of us who were fortunate enough to be there, without glossing over some of the failings of the service in the period; many aircraft, and their crews, were lost. Volume 2, I understand, will include Vampires and Venoms in their various forms, and the F-86 Sabre (the Hunter must be for Volume 3, then). This volume was being marketed directly by the author - there's a web link in the book section - but at the IPMS Milton Keynes show recently it was on the Aviation Book Centre stand, so it may be worth contacting your Usual Supplier if you want to look at it first. This is an essential book for aviation historians, enthusiasts - who were there when "spotter" wasn't a derogatory term! - and for modellers, especially those with Meteor kits in waiting; I shall just about contain my impatience for the succeding volumes but it will be very, very hard.

Further reading

The bibliography for "Cold War Shield" could - indeed should - form the template for a shelf devoted to the aviation history of the period, and I'm happy to say that many of them are in various places around my workroom (some of them I can even find quite easily). They include a couple of volumes, "Last Take-Off" (1950-'53) and "To Fly No More"('54-'58) from Colin Cummings' series on post-1945 RAF accdents and losses, and he's just produced another,"Category Five", subtitled "A Catalogue of RAF Aircraft Losses 1954 to 2009". I picked this up from the Aviation Book Centre at ModelKraft, and like Roger Lindsay's book it's also available directly from the author. It reinforces only too clearly Paddy Hine's point about the accident rate of the era - there are at least two names in there of young pilots with whom I trained - and it's a sobering reminder of what could have happened, especially to those of us who look back on the period with nostalgia, though at the time it was easy to believe that it would only happen to someone else.

Broad arrows

I don't, as you know, make models with more than one wing; I tried rigging such devices when I was much younger, using stretched sprue, piano wire (Tony Woollett's preference) or rhe stretchy stuff from Aeroclub under the personal guidance of John Adams, but I failed successively and miserably to get my little fat fingers round the problem, helping thereby to place myself firmly in the "assembler of plastic kits" category rather than that of "modeller". However, as you may have seen from a recent "Workbench" entry, I have been drawn back in to the era, if not the practice of rigging, by some new decals from Pheon Models (Pheon is the Greek (?) for "broad arrow", in this case an allusion to the old War Department symbol) and in particular by the presence of The Ooslumbird, a Sopwith Triplane of the RNAS War Flight at Manston in July 1917. And the appearance from Anigrand of the five-winged Fokker V.8 led me also to order the decals for the Fokker Triplanes of JG.2. The models are still under way, but probably won't qualify for the "Pick" page, though I shall finish their tale on the "Workbench" section in due course. The decals, though, certainly deserve a place here. Those for the Sopwith have markings for twenty-eight aircraft, including the sole French and RFC examples, and come with wing roundels and rudder stripes for four models; the individual markings include where necessary coloured wheel hub covers. The very comprehensive booklet of instructions has, as well as details of each subject, the history of the "Tripehound", nots on available kits in both 1:48th and 1:72nd scales - the decals are available in both - and general colouring notes with comments on both PC10 and PC12. After ordering the decals from Rowan Broadbent at ScaleModelWorld I went on a hunt for the Revell 1:72nd kit, and added two to the one which I remembered seeing in the shades of the garage at home (and in this case the memory proved accurate), and I have plans to add "Maud" and at least one other from the amazing selection on the Pheon sheet. Fortunately the model's only little, but the temptation for the committed WW I modeller to build the whole set, or at least a very large proportion of the whole, will surely be considerable..

This could be even more marked for Fokker Triplane addicts; the variety of markings on offer for the Dr.1 is amazing!. This picture shows only one of the five A4 pages of colour profiles and plan views, with markings for thirty aircraft, and a bonus insert of a colour scheme for a thirty-first! Again, there is a very comprehensive booklet of instructions, with details of the individual aircraft and on the necessary colours, to which I'll come back when I've finished the V-8 to my satisfaction; but it's extremely helpful to those of us who may not be very familiar with the finishes of the period. Once again the choice is considerable, and I fear more than one reversion to Captain Indecisive mode on my part; but I will have to make two or three Fokker Triplanes to feature some more of the very colourful markings, and I'm even comsidering a second Fokker V-8 (which is more than the German authorities did!). Pheon's e-mail address is Pheon.models@hotmail.co.uk, and the best way I know of getting a full listing of availability and prices is via the britmodeller website. And having just looked at that to check that it's still up and running, I've found that on the SE.5a sheet there's one for Eliot White Spring's aircraft when he was with 85 Squadron, and carrying the unit's hexagon; if the name's unfamiliar, he was responsible for "War Birds; Diary of an Unknown Aviator", one of the aviation classics, of which I still have my father's copy and which I must have read first during the Second World War! That'll be another order, then, as I find that I have a Roden kit close to hand; isn't PayPal both useful and seductive? I haven't dared to take scissors to either of the decal sheets yet, but if I have any comments they'll appear when I finish the two models currently under way. Like all the best decals, even if you use only a small part of the sheet the instructions are so useful in their own right; just as well I'm no longer a student, or I might feel compelled to Blu-tack all those pretty A4 sheets to a handy wall.

The Sukhoi, the Carpet Monster and the Bad Modeller's Handbook

Unicraft often put illustrations of their projected kits on their website long before they get anywhere near production; to be fair, their captions often give a clue as to the status of each kit, though the interpretation as a timescale is the reader's. I think that was where I first saw the drawing of the Sukhoi Su-10, looking like an Il-28 that had been seriously compromised by a Short Sperrin, even before it appeared in the Tony Buttler/Yefim Gordon "Bombers" book in the Soviet secret project series. While I have regular, and usually well-founded, reservations about Unicraft's kits and my ability to bring them to a successful conclusion they do make it possible to tackle usually unlikely projects that would be otherwise unavailable in three dimensions, and I was very taken with the Su-10; as soon as it neared the top of the releases column on the website I contacted Adrian Hampson of Lonewulf and put in my heartfelt request. He was able to hand the kit over at Telford last November, and having had a good look at it I determined that it would be something round to which I would have to get in the New Year; it was February by the time I was started it, but this did give me time to go firm on my intended colour scheme, thanks to an Il-28 set from HiDecal Line. I avoid "silver" finishes if at all possible - unless it's a Lightning, of course - and as I'd had in mind a DDR aircraft all along anyway it was lucky that the one camouflaged example in the set was theirs.

Unicraft's resin is generally a pale biscuit colour, and can look a little coarse; my good intention for the Su-10 was to cover it in a Mr.Surfacer as a trial, but either I couldn't find the bottle at the time or, more likely, I got carried by the Need to Get On with the model. either through a sudden time pressure or sheer enthusiasm for wanting to see the aircraft take shape. Unicraft's interiors are basic at best; the Su-10 comes with three seats, an instrument panet for the driver and another for the navigator/radio operator, though its intended position wasn't clear to me. There was no cockpit floor, which would also have to carry the nosewheel, so I cut a plastic card rectangle and trimmed it to an approximate fit (when did I aim for any other kind?). The interior of the cockpit area is somewhat uneven, and even with a certain amount of trimming, fitting and trimming again I don't think the floor was absolutely level, but it seved the function of carrying the three seats and accomodating a mounting hole for the nosewheel leg. As a parallel operation I had trimmed and fitted the two over-and-under nacelles to the wing halves, and filled and sanded the joins before attaching them to the fuselage. It wasn't till I looked at the model with the wings firmly attached that I realised that neither nacelle was quite vertical, but it's all right if you don't look at it from head-on.

With the two halves of the body joined I set about fitting the transparencies, and through my own fault - or in this case, even faults - gave myself a run of grief. The transparencies are thin and vacformed, which in itself is not normally a problem; but having decided to fit the tail gunner's first, I had the bright idea of preparing it at the end of the day, and getting back to it when I could; at this stage I dropped it on the carpet, and as it was late decided to find it the next morning. It has not reappeared since. Never mind, I was sure I could replace it from my drawer full of "glass" bits; well, no, but finding another apparently suitable clear vacform as part of the kit I started to adapt it to fit between the rudder and the tailcone. Only when I had cut awat a sizeable part of this to make it fit - well, almost - did I realise that what I had just cut up was the crew canopy! That was solved, after a fashion, by a visit to my old friends at the Aviation Hobby Shop and their small wall of Aeroclub canopies; I picked one which seemed reasonable and had the benefit of being intended for a Sukhoi Su-7, which not only kept it in the family but had the additional benefit of having a fairing for a rear-view mirror; you'll see the benefit shortly. And then another quick session of late night modelling saw the nosewheel disappear; I was standing up, probably because my chair was occupied by something I didn't want either to move or to sit on, when the wheel snapped off its leg while I was doing a little remedial sanding and vanished in to the undergrowth; it hasn't been seen since, either. I was rescued one more by Aeroclub, in this case with a Buccaneer nosewheel which looks about right; next time I see the Soviet SIG I must ask them for the Russian for "close enough for Government work".

As far as I know no one does "official" DDR colours for models, but the HiDecal instructions did give the Humbrol numbers (117 and 185) for the green and brown topsides, which I duly followed, and which to me look sufficiently "non-NATO" to be convincing. The underside light blue-grey is given as a mix, to which I am ususlly averse, and I was passing a gaming workshop emporium in the City of Milton Keynes when I went in on a whim and emerged with a Citadel acrylic foundation in "Astronomican Grey" (me neither) that looks the part exactly. The port nacelle's lower intake had a fairly substantial chip in the rim, so I decided to use it as a FOD scar, and emphasise it by putting coloured rims on each intake; red and yellow seemed appropriate, and they emphasise the nacelle layout. The Il-28 whose scheme I stole belonged to Target Towing Wing 33, which not only gave a reason for the rear-view mirror to monitor any over-enthusiastic students breaking off rather late from their high quarter attacks, but also meant that I didn't need to find the cannon for the tail and mid-upper positions that weren't supplied with the kit, and sadly don't appear in an Aeroclub listing. The unit's badge is on the nose, and I changed the aircraft number from 208 to 820 - subtle, eh? - hoping that the altered identity didn't belong to another.

The finished model will never win a prize, particularly for the "exercise of modelling skills", but I'm reasonably happy with the result; in spite of the various mishaps along its way, it does look much as I thought it would when I first had the mental picture. It may or may not ever find its way to a What If? SIG table at some future show, though it could possibly be used as a prompt for "how could this have been done better?" questions. There is a wavering memory that comes back from time to time of a slim volume called "The Bad Cook's Cookbook", which as I recall was largely a way to rescue culinary disasters, and when I was wring Tailpiece in SAM I floated the idea of a Bad Modeller's Handbook, which would have a similar purpose. While it might not work as a stand-alone publication, I still think that a series of articles on this theme would be useful, if enough "experts" could be persuaded to go in to the confessional. If there's Someone Out There that would like to offer a contribution from time to time, I'd be happy to launch their thoughts in to cyberspace.

Two last thoughts; as I understand it, Soviet aircraft tended to change designations when they changed from prototype to production status, but that's in the "too difficult " tray, so I've stuck with Su-10. And of course it would have needed a "Nato reporting name" of two syllables beginng with B, but those that occurred to me quickly were somewhat unsuitable, especially over the r/t; however, anyone for Blowtorch?