Grumpy Old Modeller

Mike's Pick

Valiant, forsooth...

Sometime in the summer of 1957 - I'm not sure now whether it was before or after the squadron's August detachment to Luqa when I learned that the Air Force considers sunburn to be a Self-Inflicted Wound - I walked smartly as befitted a Young Adjutant across the corridor to the Boss's Office, and pointed out politely that while 207 and 214 wore their squadron emblems on the fins of their Valiants 148 carried nothing, apart from a small Squadron Badge next to the cockpit entrance. Surely, I suggested, the pair of crossed battleaxes from that badge would fit neatly just above the fin flash; but the Wing Commander took the view that this was a pernicious fighter practice, and had no place in the serious world of Bomber Command - so it's taken me fifty-four years.

I remember vividly the appearance of the first pictures of the Vickers 660 while I was still at school, and admiring its immaculately streamlined lines with the "letter-box" intakes (a resin possibility?). By the time of the '57 Defence White Paper - not even a Strategic Review in those days - and its culling of manned interceptors (ie. Hunters and their drivers), the Valiant was not only in squadron service but had dropped its first bombs; it was XD814 that had put that significant tick in its box, even if the co-pilot thought that they'd actually fallen outside the Almaza airfield boundary. While looking round for temporary employment for currently unemployed fighter pilots in the summer of '57 Their Airships parked quite a few of us in this somewhat different environment of Bomber Command while we waited a decision on the next steps in our career, both the other Marham squadrons also being issued with adjutants from that pool. It was something of a learning curve, coming from a unit where more than half of the squadron aircrew were single first-tourists and lived in the Mess to one where the greater proportion of a much larger number had families, and many were WW II Bomber Command survivors. My memories of the Marham pans are still clear, if occasionally wrong; in particular the Valiants in my mind were mostly a very dull silver and the radome for the Orange Putter tail-warning radar was a light khaki (later). I did get at least one ride in a Valiant, as a passenger on one of three from 148 on the rehearsal run for the Queen's Birthday flypast, lying prone for the stretch up the Thames at least in the bomb-aimer's position.

It's taken a very long time for the Valiant to be produced for 1:72nd modellers. Frog brought out all three V-Bombers - the Vulcan and Victor both Mark 1s - in 1:96th scale, a logical mathematical extension as far as British modellers were concerned of the familiar 48th and 72nd, but which didn't catch on for popular use. I made all three as they came out - around 1960, I think - and I have a possibly inaccurate memory of the Valiant's undercarriage at least being retractable. Later years produced vacforms in both 72nd from Contrail and 144th from Welsh Models, examples of both resting for a while on my shelves before being adopted elsewhere, but my next built model, relatively recently, was Anigrand's resin B.1 in the small scale. As you see, this was finished in "anti-flash" white, with the serial XD814 but without my attempting to apply the crossed axes to the fin, not least because I was sure that I could no longer hand-paint anything that delicate (if indeed I ever could). Still it represented the Boss's aircraft on the only action in which V-bombers were involved before the Falklands missions; the trouble is, I've recently discovered that I made a major error.

It must have been about the time of the imminent Airfix TSR.2 and strong rumors of a Nimrod that I found myself offering advice on Valiant references, and one of these - the Aerofax book by Eric B Morgan - has never been far away while I've been making the (eventually) resultant 1:72nd kit. Originally announced at the beginning of 2010 it arrived at the time of the Waddington Air Show - alright, Waddo was a Vulcan base, but links have to be taken where they can be found. It then had to wait for a space on the workbench - one of those occasions when I was pleased I was working to my deadlines and not someone else's - during which time I gave some thought to how I would approach putting the crossed axes, that together with the motto "Trusty" are the salent part of 148's badge, above the fin flash; it would presumably have to involve hand-painting, which I don't get in to these days if I can possibly find a decal, but as the marking never actually happened there was no hope of it appearing on one of the recent Valiant/V-Bomber decal sets. My other concern was that having to hold and manoeuver the model in one hand while painting with the other it would be only too easy to dislodge one or two of the minor parts, and my usual practice is to complete the model before applying the decals, usually with the unit markings gping on last to bring the model finally to life for me. However....

I worked out fairly early on that the tailplane could be set aside to be inserted after the fin markings were done; and while painting the vertical tail (colour reasons later) I thought that I could use a decal 'X' as the basis for the shafts of the axes. To make sure I got the size right I applied the fin flashes from the kit decal sheet, and applying a little Micro Sol pressed them in to position over the vortex generators, though this wasn't wholly successful and I had to touch up these with a little roundel red. The first 'X' I tried fitted vertically, but when I started to paint the axe blades (Mr.Color Stainless) copying the (black and white) badge in the ever-invaluable Philip Moyes' "Bomber Squadrons of the RAF" it became evident that the angle of the X's cross was too narrow to acommodate them; all the letters in the various decals that came to hand were the same, so I played with some pieces of black striping until I was satisfied with the space available. The hafts were then overpainted with Revell Aqua wood brown, and while there is more variation than I would like between the axes I decided that any more time spent on it would be mushroom-stuffing.

You will have noticed that while my Anigrand model is white, the Big One is silver; I remember Valiants in both schemes during my year on the squadron, and careful reading of the Morgan book revealed that the white finish was brought in on the Vickers production line post-XD814, as a result of the preparations for Operation Grapple. While aircrew memories are notoriously unreliable when it comes to the Airfix Valiant XD814 148 Sq. finishes of "their" aircraft, the "silver" Valiants stick in my mind as being rather dull, with perhaps a tinge of grey; Xtracolor "High Speed Silver" seems to be just right, and even for AOC's Inspection there would have been no shiny bits on squadron aircraft. Oh, and by the way I used the Xtracolor "canvas tan" for the tail radome.

I am known for rushing headlong in to building a kit as soon as I can lay my hands on it, influenced no doubt by my reviewing years when one of my principal aims was to get my thoughts, and wherever possible recommendations, in front of potential buyers as soon as possible. I this instance I benefited considerably from early procrastination by being able to read Tony O'Toole's review in the Airfix Magazine. At a time when so many reviews are "build articles" this is for me an absolute model of what a review should be, in a magazine which to my mind consistently offers what I believe the majority of modellers want and need (those are the hooves of hobby horses that you hear). I have taken the precaution of laying down two more kits; I understand there will be a mod kit available from Airfix soon which will enable the production of a PR or a tanker version, and somewhere I'm sure there is a set of decals with both 214 and 543 markings. What I'd really like though is a Mark 2; this would require a fuselage plug (or perhaps plugs) and a complete new centre section and main undercarriage; optimised and strengthened for the low-level role, I didn't realise until I read Eric Morgan's book again that 17 of this mark, the prototype of which had received much publicity as the Black Bomber, had been ordered before the contracted aircraft were changed for B.1s, a sad irony in view of the early demise of this mark with main spar problems. I understand that Cammett, who produced the excellent Nimrod AEW.3 conversion and would I'm sure have done an equally good job with the B.2, are no longer producing such sets and I'm not sure who could, or would, take on something of such size. Till I'm sure, though, I'll hold back on a camo Valiant with black undersides (though I might try re-painting my Anigrand XD814; I can't leave it now I know it's wrong!); well, it looked good on the B(I).8, and now I know how to cross axes.

To learn to fly faster.....

I have a few memories that I can pin-point from when I was ten, the most vivid probably being that of my uncle coming in and announcing that he'd just come down from Hullavington - he was on the staff of the Empire Central Flying School - in a Buckmaster (this photo, which I've recently inherited, dates from that period). I can remember even now how exciting that was; I don't think the type's existence had been known for long, and it had an air of muscular, almost brutal, power even if it was a trainer. I even recall. though perhaps not entirely accurately, lines from Chris Wren's Oddentification "To learn to fly faster they train wirh Buckmaster.." (at the moment the bound 1946 Aeroplanes are out of immediate reach, but I hope to open a dig by the end of December). The Buckingham also had the same aggressive look, enhanced perhaps by the under-fuselage gondola (to give the Nav somewhere to lie down), and while I remember making the Magna resin in 45 Squadron marks a few years back I'm not sure I made the trainer; still, when the Valom Brigand/Buckingham/Buckmaster series was announced a couple of years back it was the Buckmaster to which I was particularly looking forward, and when a full-page colour photo appeared in the Aeroplane at around the same time I was delighted, putting it carefully on one side in anticipation. You know what happened then, of course - it burrowed under a camouflage net. But still, I had to hand the Warpaint on this trio of big Bristols to which to refer, and author Tony Buttler is someone in whom I have absolute faith.

It must be more than a year ago that the Buckmaster kit took up a position somewhere near my workbench, and I think I must have waited till after SMW 2010 to get started on the preliminaries, including looking at the instructions and hunting the relevant Aeroplane. Although the box top aircraft was relatively plain, the decals included markings for an ECFS aircraft, with the characteristic big yellow patch on the side of the fuselage containing the "D type" roundel and the four letter Training Command code. However, I had an echoing doubt about the colour scheme dispayed in the instructions, in particular the underside, which I was sure should have been "trainer yellow" rather that the "azure blue" quoted. Checking with the colour profiles by Richard J Caruana in the Warpaint these agreed with the kit; I suspect that this was the reference on which Valom had relied. While the kit was coming together nicely, I was reluctant to finish it until I had satisfied myself about the colours, and the necessary Aeroplane stayed resolutely hidden. Never one to neglect the obvious - eventually - I telephoned the "back issues" number of the publishers, with the certain knowledge that by my asking for the issue with the full page colour photo of the Buckmaster that had come out about eighteen months or so before my consulting a human, or perhaps digital, index meant it would be mine by return of post. Well, no. The two ladies on the other end were very kind, but the magazine had recently changed hands and the new publishers had, apparently, neither facility. I made a couple of what I thought were intelligent guesses, aided by a slightly veiled reference in a Britmodeller posting (I really must find out how to use this facility to best effect), but my logic proved false; eventually though, through a conversation with a fellow member of SIG144 at Telford I was put in touch with he who had made the post. He gave me the issue in question as February 2009, and having by this time assembled a chronological pile of all my copies of the magazine for the last four years - except, of course, that with the full page colour spread - I hastily seized on the quoted issue, only to find a very small partial photo (of the nose) in the letters page. Fortunately this referred to the original entry, and a phone call to my new best friends Jacqui and Esme at the publishers - with whom I had had in the interim several more conversations than recorded here - the September 2008 issue was once more mine, and my persistent memory of a dark green/dark earth/trainer yellow aircraft confirmed. I tried not to feel too smug, but probably failed. My uncle's photos of the period, including the one of him in flying kit standing in front of the shrouded starboard Centaurus, being in black and white weren't that much help, except to confirm his connection with the Mighty Buckmaster; and it is BIG - I wonder what the swing with an engine failing on take-off would have been like.

The kit itself didn't present any problems that you wouldn't expect, given the statutary lack of locating pins/sockets and the breakdown in to small pieces-to-be-joined rather that larger one piece mouldings; you''ll see in at least one photo that the propeller blades aren't properly trued up, probably because I drilled their locating holes in the spinners slightly off, and smaller bits of the undercarriage legs had a kamikaze tendency to hul themselves down to the never-satisfied carpet monster. Incidentally, the photo also revealed that the main undercarriage legs at least were also painted gloss yellow, something I would never have suspected. While applying the dark green/dark earth I remembered that the short-lived Profile 21 seies of monographs had included a feature on the Buckingham family (parts 10 and 13 if you're looking for them), and to my great surprise I was able to find them as soon as I'd had the rather belated thought. While there were no colour profiles they included many black and white shots, among them an excellent air-to-air of RP246/FC-VE of which the markings are in the kit. It shows it with the "D-type" roundels and looking very used, particularly with major staining from the exhausts along the cowlings and over the wings. I resisted the quite strong temptation, largely on the "mushroom-stuffing" argument; the sound of time's winged chariot grows ever louder.

At the end I was hurrying a bit to get the model done, and this projected in to the ether; I had intended to take the time to enlarge the intakes in the outer leading edges, and perhaps even try to make it look as they were protruding a bit, but the combined pressures of Telford just gone and Christmas almost on us meant that I arrived at a natural, if not totally artistic, conclusion. I'm just so glad that the vivid memory from sixty-five years ago remained to spark a small tribute to an uncle who was himself an inspiration for me.

A month or two after writing all the above I finally came in to posession - an inheritance from my uncle - of the bound volume of The Aeroplane - (July -December 1945) that carried the Oddentification of the Buckmaster which I mentioned - and apparently misquoted - in the issue for November 1945, but given that I was then nine perhaps a little slippage in accuracy is allowable! You will see that it carries an "Aeroplane Copyright" tag, but I hope that the current ownwers of the title will forgive me, and the two ladies who look after their back issues were very helpful last year in finally nailing the colour scheme. Chris Wren's Oddentifications are a whole subject in themselves - I must find some light excuse to return to them, and the joy and enlightenment that they brought to spotters, of all ages, of that period.