RoR Step-by-Step Review * Mosquito Mk IV 1:48 Scale Revell Kit # Review

Transcription

1 RoR Step-by-Step Review * Mosquito Mk IV 1:48 Scale Revell Kit # Review The de Havilland DH.98 Mosquito was a British multi-role combat aircraft, with a two-man crew, that served during the Second World War and the postwar era. The Mosquito was one of the few operational, front-line aircraft of the World War II era to be constructed almost entirely of wood and, as such, was nicknamed "The Wooden Wonder". The Mosquito was also known affectionately as the "Mossie" to its crews Originally conceived as an unarmed fast bomber, the Mosquito was adapted to many other roles during the air war, including: low- to medium-altitude daytime tactical bomber, high-altitude night bomber, pathfinder, day or night fighter, fighter-bomber, intruder, maritime strike aircraft, and fast photo-reconnaissance aircraft. It was also used by the British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) as a transport.

2 For the Modeler: This is a Revell skill level 2, 1:48 scale de Havilland DH.98 Mosquito Mk IV model kit. This version of Revell s Mosquito Mk IV is the 1966 mold and as such does show its age in a few areas. The kit contains about 103 pieces molded in grey plastic, 12 in clear plastic, and a decal sheet covering three Royal Canadian Air Force aircraft. Kit features a choice of three versions (bomber, night fighter or fighter/bomber), optional bomb bay doors, pilot and navigator figures. Finished dimensions are; Length: 10-1/8" Wingspan: 13-1/2" Height: 3" The model kit s box art and contents. There is some flash, but surprisingly little given the age of these molds.

3 I noted a more serious issue upon first inspection; a number of sink holes in various pieces, bomb tail fins missile launch rails. Even sinks in the pilot and copilot. Overall most of the parts did not look bad at all, needing just a bit of clean-up. I chose to build the fighter-bomber version so the sink holes on the missile launch rails would not be a problem (those went into the spares box), and fortunately, the sink holes on the bombs were on the top half and would not been seen when installed in the bomb bay. The model comes as glass nose bomber/reconnaissance version, although Revell does include a new nose section if you choose to build the gun nose version including four.303 machine guns and four 20mm cannon). Since this was the version I wanted to build, my first chore was to remove the original nose section (and part of the cockpit floor) and replace it with the gun nose. This is not a difficult task as Revell molded a very clear line inside both fuselage halves telling you where to make the cuts.

4 There is also a clear line underneath the cockpit floor showing you where to make the corresponding cut. NOTE: In order to remove the nose section, bomb bay doors and landing gear doors, I used the back of a number #11 X-Acto blade and scribed repeatedly along the lines molded to the inside of the fuselage and wing halves. Once this is completed I started building the cockpit by painting all interior surfaces a medium grey. Details were picked out using red and black paint for dials and the control stick, beige/canvas color for seatbelts, a silver Prismacolor pencil for highlights and kit supplied decals for the instruments. Once this finished it was set aside in preparation for fixing the fuselage. At the same time I also painted the two pilot figures after filling those sink holes in their middles! I used flesh for the faces, a dark khaki for the uniforms, military brown for gloves and boots, white for the sheepskin collar, light brown for the straps, and silver for buckles and goggles. In painting the pilots I once again realized that my figure painting skills need some work, but they did look pretty good under the canopy when finished. These paints were a mix of Tamiya acrylics, Vallejo acrylics, and Model Master enamels. I did find that the pilots could be placed in the cockpit after the fuselage halves were together so I set them aside.

5 Since the gun nose section (part #61) comes as one piece and not two halves, the cockpit tub must be inserted and the fuselage glued together before the new nose section can be grafted on. Also it is important to remember that part #60 (representing the four.303 machine guns) be installed in part #61 before attaching part #61 to the fuselage. Once the fuselage halves were joined up, (after lots of dry fitting and tweaking to get the resulting seam as small as possible), the nose section was added. This required starting on one side and slowly making my way around using thin super glue and accelerator. Once I was happy with the basic fit of the nose it was time to fill the gap and sand it smooth. This went a bit faster than I had anticipated - thanks to careful dry-fitting previously. NOTE; One thing I did notice in my research on the Mosquito is that the versions carrying the four 20mm cannons in the belly had a smaller bomb bay. In reality, the original bomb bay doors were cut in half resulting in 4 doors rather than two. The forward doors were kept closed (in some cases faired over) and only two bombs were carried in the aft end of the bomb bay. A friend had some plans for a Mosquito and we found that the separation between the two bomb bays corresponded to the front edge of a hatch on top of the fuselage. So while I was working on the seam of the gun nose I also cut out the bomb bay doors and closed off the forward section using.010 plastic card stock. Revell makes cutting open the bomb bay very easy by once again, molding an engraved line inside the fuselage halves.

6 While working to clear up the nose and new bomb bay fairing I built the wings (which required cutting open the landing gear doors and cleaning up the resultant rough edges). Once these were cleaned up the wing halves were glued together with no significant problems. The instructions do suggest adding the landing gear and wheel assemblies before closing up the wings, but I decided to leave them off (after verifying that I could fit them in at a later stage). I knew that if I put them in at this stage of assembly I would invariably break one or both of them!

7 While taking breaks from the filling and sanding of the fuselage, I built the tail surfaces, landing gear, propellers and spinners, and cleaned up the landing gear doors. I also masked the canopy after dipping it in clear Future. I used 3M painters tape for delicate surfaces to outline the canopy frames and then masked the clear glass areas with Liquid Mask (I prefer the blue bottle from Micro-Mark). Once I was happy with the fuselage, I added the wings and horizontal tail feathers. Once these were attached I sprayed the underside of the airplane with Floquil Weathered Black. I think this is a much better color than the flat black called for in the instructions. It is a much more realistic looking black, even though the underside of an airplane may not weather that much. Once the underside was finished, I added the canopy. I then masked the color separation line along the fuselage sides with the same 3M painters tape, covered the underside to prevent overspray and sprayed Model Master Dark Earth as the base color for the upper surface camouflage. Once this had dried for 24 hours I used thin sausages of Blue-Tac to outline the camouflage green pattern. I then covered the area to remain brown with thin pieces of plastic (T-shirt type shopping bag).

8 These pieces attached easily to the Blue-Tac and did not lift off when I airbrushed the green. As soon as I was happy with the green, I removed all of the mask and Blue-Tac. The Blue-Tac very seldom leaves any residue and if it does I just ball up a little piece and roll it over the residue and it s gone. After the green had cured for a couple of days I sprayed 2 coats of Future as a clear gloss base for the decals. I then let the Future cure (harden) for 2 days, before beginning to add the decals. While the fuselage was drying I painted the prop tips and bomb fronts yellow. I masked the prop tips and sprayed the props and spinners Floquil Weathered Black to match the lower surfaces of the fuselage and wings. I applied 2 very thin strips of masking tape to the bombs parallel to each other and sprayed the bombs Dark Green (mostly just to contrast with the yellow).

9 Here was one area where I ran into a bit of trouble. The kit decals are extremely thick. I have never used decals this thick before and while they went down fine on flat surfaces, one of the fuselage roundels lay over the top of a thin spine running the length of the starboard fuselage side between the wing and tail plane. Copious amounts of Micro-Set and Micro-Sol were used to get all of the decals to lie down flat. In a few cases I was worried they might silver, but as they dried they became nice and clear. I could not get the one fuselage roundel to lie flat over that spine no matter how much setting solution I applied. Finally I tried using Walthers Solvaset (which I believe to be the strongest solution available), and this failed to help. As a last attempt I put a brand new #11 blade in my X-acto knife and carefully sliced though the decal then applied more setting solution. It s not perfect, but it s better than it was. Once the decaling was finished I painted the small light bulbs on the wing tips (Green/starboard and Red/Port) before using clear glue to add the lenses.

10 Finally I added the landing gear/wheel assemblies, and antennae before calling it finished! Parts 20 and 21 make up the wheels, while parts 22 and 23 make up the left side landing gear and parts 24, and 25 make up the right side landing gear. There are two parts #45 that represent the mud guard that is added to each landing gear also. I am happy with the result as this is the first British aircraft in my collection. I would recommend this kit to anyone who has one or two models under their belt and doesn t mind a bit of clean-up. This is not a kit where you can add glue, shake the box, and out comes a nice completed model, it does require a little bit of work. The only extra work I did was covering the front of the bomb bay and drilling out the 20mm gun barrels.

11 More experienced modelers might opt for the Tamiya offering, but that kit is a good bit more expensive. I saw the Revell kit available in many places for around $20 - $25. One further area of recommendation for this kit if you ve ever considered a conversion and are a bit worried about cutting plastic on that expensive 1/32 Tamiya or Hasegawa kit, this kit gives you some great experience in cutting plastic (adding the new nose, cutting open the bomb bay and wheel well). More about the De Havilland Mosquito The Mosquito was developed by the de Havilland Corporation of England. Its origins can be seen clearly in the de Havilland Comet. The Mosquito was originally conceived as a fast un-armed bomber but was developed into one of the ultimate multi role combat aircraft with a two man crew that served throughout World War Two and into the post war era. The Mosquito is also one of a very few front line combat aircraft to be constructed almost entirely of wood. As a result is was affectionately called The Wooden Wonder and Mossie by its crews. Its multiple roles included: low- to medium-altitude daytime tactical bomber, high-altitude night bomber, pathfinder, day or night fighter, fighter-bomber, intruder, maritime strike aircraft, and fast photoreconnaissance aircraft. Construction of the first prototype was started in March 1940, but work was cancelled after the Battle of Dunkirk. Work on the Mosquito was restarted as a priority project in July 1940 only after de Havilland's General Manager L.C.L Murray, promised Lord Beaverbrook 50 Mosquitoes by December This, in turn, only after Beaverbrook was satisfied that Mosquito production would not hinder de Havilland's primary work of producing Tiger Moth and Oxford trainers and repairing Hurricanes as well the manufacturing of Merlin engines being license built by de Havilland under contract with Rolls- Royce.

12 The first prototype coded E0234 underwent successful engine tests on Nov. 19, 1940, followed by taxing trials on the 24th. On Nov 25th 1940 Geoffery de Havilland Jr, de Havilland s chief test pilot, took E0234 into the air for the first time. This flight was made just 11 months after the start of detail design work on the airplane. This was a remarkable achievement when one considers the conditions in England in The most produced variant, designated the FB Mk VI (Fighter-bomber Mark 6), was powered by two Merlin Mk 23 or Mk 25 engines driving three-bladed de Havilland hydromatic propellers. The typical fixed armament for an FB Mk VI was four Browning.303 machine guns and four 20 mm Hispano cannon while the offensive load consisted of up to 2,000 pounds (910 kg) of bombs, or eight RP-3 unguided rockets. Top speed of the Mosquito Fb Mk IV was 415 Mph (668 Km/h) at 28,000 feet (8,500 m). Mosquitos are famously known for a number of daring raids into Germany early in the war and prior to the advent of the massive British and American bombing raid. In one such raid Mosquitos knocked out the Berlin broadcasting station ending a speech by Luftwaffe Commander in Chief Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring. After the raid Göring is claimed to have said: In 1940, I could at least fly as far as Glasgow in most of my aircraft, but not now! It makes me furious when I see the Mosquito. I turn green and yellow with envy. The British, who can afford aluminum better than we can, knock together a beautiful wooden aircraft that every piano factory over there is building, and they give it a speed which they have now increased yet again. What do you make of that? There is nothing the British do not have. They have the geniuses and we have the nincompoops. After the war is over I'm going to buy a British radio set - then at least I'll own something that has always worked. - Herman Göring