Marmaduke Thomas St John "Pat' Pattle

3 July 1914 - 20 April 1941 DFC & Bar

Pat Pattle may well have been the RAF's greatest ace of the second world war. Semi-official and unconfirmed reports have his final score at 50 plus kills, but most went unrecorded during the allied withdrawal from Greece in 1941. If the reports are to be believed, Pattle was the highest scoing ace in both Gladiators (15 kills) and Hurricanes (35 kills), with 26 of these victories being Italian aircraft. In his last 4 days, while sufffering a high fever from malaria, he scored 9 kills.


Apologies for the quality, it was the only pic I could find of his aircraft.

And here's my effort . . .



I tried 2 new techniques on this build, woodgraining for the prop, and rigging.

Thanks for a cool Campaign Nige, I'll certainly be back for Aces High III.

Damian.
Great job there fella!
Really nice to see and unusual subject represented and kudos to you for trying out new techniques as well.
A nice background story as well which is a perfect example of the idea behind the original Aces campaign, that being to encourage the modeller to undertake a small amount of research into the chosen subject and learn a little about the pilots who flew these aircraft.

Aces 3?,,, if theres interest. I certainly think thats the case as we have 48 enlisted for Aces 2!


We currently have 5 confirmed Aces propping up that well worn bar in the Officers Club.
CMOT70
Atoplu
Tigerbait
Keeperofsouls2099
Blueheeler.

AussieReg's combat claim is at S-2 awaiting confirmation,,err I mean,,he's having trouble uploading his pics into the gallery but he'll be getting a round in soon enough no doubt.


Nige

Thanks Nige. I finally got my pics into the gallery after some serious negotiation with my keyboard. There seems to be a link between my personal gallery and the Campaign Gallery because I had to delete some old pics, then the upload went through straight away. Wierd.

Anyhoooo, the gallery is looking great already, and I'm sure that Aces High III will be on soon enough.

Cheers, D

Good work D. and you can definitly count me in for ACES III...I learned alot about Richard Bong and will probably down the road build another of his P-38's.And WOW 9 kills with malaria thats impressive.



Build On,
Justin

Nice job on the Gladiator, Damian. A well deserved place at the bar.

My Fw 190A-8 is coming along, so I expect to join you at the Aces II in not so long time.

More to follow

Hey Nigel,
I figure it's time to chime in. I'm doing either Takeo Tanimizu or Saburo Sakai and using the A6M5 Tamiya kit. Decent pictures of both of them but I can build stock with Sakais'. Tanimizus' was a "C" so I'll have to do some "slight" modification. Anyway, I started by finding the kit today. Only took about a half hour but I broke a sweat so it was a rough day.

Hi Charlie.
Good to hear that you've found the kit and photo. Plenty of time left to get the build done

And, talking of getting the build done. heres my entry for Aces 2!

Kidd Hofer, "The Last Of the Screwball Aces" and his famous "Salem Representative"






The brightest star burns for the shortest time

Nige

Congrats good work thats a mighty fine looking mustang.


Build On,
Justin

Beautiful work Nige, but you do realise that it's not a P-47 ??

Cheers, D

Thanks guys





Its the under armed long ranged glamourpuss version
The story of Kidd Hofer is a fascinating one and the German Shepherd happens to be one of my favourite breeds of dog so an ideal choice for a build

This will be my entry:-



Airfix 1/48 Hurricane Mk1 with Airwaves photoetch and Lifelike decals.

Aircraft will modelled as the mount of Plt. Off. Arthur 'Darkie' Clowes around September 1940. Clowes kill markings were slightly different to most, in so much as for every kill he had, he asked his ground-crew to add a yellow stripe to the wasp motif on his aircraft.



Here is the image from the 'Aircraft of the Aces' book I will use as colour reference.



I have made a start on the cockpit, I made it up as per the kit instructions, but added some of the characteristic tubular framing of the cockpit, mainly so I could set the photoetch instrument panel in place. A bit more detailing will be added once it has set, as I was starting to push my luck with it as it stood. Smaller details such as throttle levers etc will be added once painted.





More soon, critique good or bad most welcome.

Hi all!!


Now I’ll start the build of my Tamiya Spitfire in 1/32!
One of the most beautiful aeroplanes ever produced, If not THE MOST beautiful, if you ask me!

I have read the instruction book from cover to cover, several times, and planned my build-sequence thoroughly!
Now, I finally feel that I’m ready and set to go with this kit!


This is the very individual aircraft I’ll build;




Ay, it’s “Wee Johnnie Johnson” himself, standing besides his mount.
He’s one of my great Heroes and he’s an ace to boot, one of Great Britain’s finest!

As usual, we’ll start the build in the cockpit!

I drilled out all the lightening-holes in the bulkhead frames, looks better with real holes then just dots of paint.

Only takes a few minutes with a fresh drill-bit, but it makes wonders, IMO!



Done…



As this is a quite late model Spitfire, I have to use the headrest armour, a very finely etched part.



The driver’s seat is built from about 10 parts (back armour of etched steel), and as expected from BIG ”T”, the fit is perfect!



Rudder linkage;



Joystick;



One final pic of the internal details so far;



More to come soon!

Stefan E

Excellent guys!,, a Tamiya Spit,,( gotta get one!) and in this 70th Anniversary year of the Battle of Britain a Hurricane Ace being represented.
Good choice Steve!
I'm looking forward to seeing these, and all the other builds,,come together
Nige

Everyone:
Nice job with your completed work and WIP.
I haven't seen a night fighter in progress yet, so I'm in with an effort to make Prinz zu Sayn-Wittgenstein's Ju88C-6 C9+AE of Stab.IV./NJG5, as depicted by Owl decal sheet "Die Nachtjaeger 002."

I do have a photo with Wittgenstein in front of the tail of this aircraft (at least the kill marks match).
My main worry is being able to finish this beastly kit by the deadline, so it will be a no-frills approach. Here's the main parts taped up - plenty of trouble spots.

I did finish the cockpit this weekend, adding some Eduard belts. Worst part was filling all the ejector pin marks.

I may try my first blog on this thing, if it looks like my experience might help someone else.

Good luck, everyone!

Hi all,

Late jumping in but don't deal me out yet. Since I'm on a Bf 109 kick I packed up the P-51B and saved it for the Mustang campaign.

Werner Moelders Bf109D is going to be my build for this campaign. Trying to keep it simple but still had to correct a few weaknesses of the Academy kit. (It has its virtues but detail isn't one of them).

Had to hollow out the tail wheel well (the kit didn't have one) At the same time I had to create space in the cowling to add two brass rods to represent the MG 17s (model had no gun, molded or otherwise.)

Did what I could to spruce up the tub (as usual I forgot to photo it until I had already installed it.). No matter. The canopy cannot be positioned open on this kit. Since I didn't feel like fussing with the mitre box or vacuum formed canopy on this one no one will see much of the office suite anyway.







Cheers,
Fred

Great choice, Tom. I am sure it will look stunning when finished judging by your cockpit work.

Fred, neat kit although it seems like you are giving it a little extra life with the added details.
A warning on the decals, you really need some strong setting solutions for the decals. Otherwise they will not conform. Microsol and microset is not enough!

I have made a little more progress on my Fw 190A-8. The decals are now on with the exception of the swastikas. I have to get them from another Eduard kit as this one had them removed because it came from Germany.

More to follow...

Hi everyone
First of all I have to say there are some fantastic builds in this campaign so far.

I am going to attempt to do Lt Alexander Vracia Hellcat for this campaign. I will be using Eduard's 1/48 Hellcat F6F-3 straight out of the box. looking forward to it. will keep you all posted.
tim

Excellent choices and great work everyone!
Have fun!
Nige

Hi Gang

I just started on my FM-2 Wildcat. I'll be doing this aircraft of Harold Nathan Funk



This is linked from the i-net a better picture is in Osprey AoA 3 page 65. Hope this is sufficient for the rules?

Here is my FM-2 Wildcat build log

all the best

Steffen

Yes thats fine Steffan.
Loking forward to following your build.
Nige

Thanks for the comfirmation, Nige!

Hope to make it in time...

cheers

Steffen

Hi all!!

This ain´t no speed-build, I’ll tell you that!

Now, I have assembled every sub-assembly, before it has to be painted.

This is my own order in building, and to some it can look rather irrational!
But, there’s a system in the madness of it all!

The workplace is filling up with parts;

This is what I have done so far;

The oil cooler and the long tropical filter (that I won’t use);



The wings are almost completely assembled and the interior painted;





I have painted the interior, Interior Green in the cockpit and Alclad Aluminium over other surfaces.







Seat and bulkhead is painted;



Here will the Instrument panel and compass reside;



The Engine firewall are a mass of (MANY) small parts, extremely well detailed!



The firewall painted;



Engine bearers mounted on the bulkhead;





The ”floor frame” and rear bulkhead assembled and painted;



Some small parts;



This is the jewel in the crown, the engine!

This is the finest replica of a Merlin engine I have ever seen, Period!

It takes more then 70 parts to make up the engine alone!
The detail is incredible and I won’t go on about the wonderful fit of all parts!
You can almost say it’s like LEGO building bricks, everything literally falls together!
If the parts won’t fit, then YOU are to blame!

I almost had it completely done before I remembered the camera!

Some pics were taken after all;









A small, but very strong magnet are concealed in the compressor filter, this will hold the top cover in place!
Genial, but typically Tamiya!




The compressor unit, only this consists of more then 30 parts!
The magnet is located in the square box on top.









The compressor unit mounted on the engine;









Usually You get a ”pin” to mount the prop onto, not Tamiya, They have gone all the way and detailed everything!
Even the axle is detailed!






Even more parts;



That’s all for now!

More to come soon!

Cheers!

Stefan E

Hi all



Made a start on Eduard's 1/48 Grumman Hellcat F6F-3 this morning. I want to represent Lt Alexander Vracia Hellcat for this campaign. Looks a fairly straightforward build. Some cleaning up of ejector marks first.







The depth of the wing is pretty thick. I noticed there is a lot of spring between the upper and lower wing surface. I re-inforced the central part of the wing with a small length of sprue from the kit. Works a treat.



Tim

A small update..

Cockpit nearly done, Eduard etched seatbelts added. Instrument panel removed(fell off!) and has been added to the fuselage seperately.



Plenty of gaps, going to need plenty of putty.





Ans after the putty... Tamiya light putty smoothed with nail polish remover..





As soon as the putty has gone off, it will be out with the sanding sticks and hopefully a coat of primer this evening.

More soon, comments and critique welcome.

Even though I'm not participating (I'd like to, but there's only a month left till the deadline and I got my workbench quite full at the moment as I doubt I'd be able to make), I felt I could hand out a few pointers on the kit, having recently finished that kit, in Vraciu's markings as well.

This review (pdf file) on IPMS Memphis' website proved useful. With my model I settled on replacing the wheels, adding a trim tab on the right side aileron, and filling the underwing landing as well the circular impressions on the stabilisers.

In addition to those fixes suggested in the review, I filled the L-shaded panel line on the fin, which I could find in photos or scale drawings. (compare kit parts to this photo)

The kit indeed is straightforward and goes together about as smootly. The only places that needed putty in my sample were around the joint between the leading edges of the wings and the fuselage, plus some here and there between the fuselage halves.
If you haven't glued the wing halves together yet, check if the landing flaps fit in place OK, and if needed, glue a few pieces of styrene sheet along the back edge of either half to keep the halves the right distance apart from each other so that there's no step when attaching the landing flaps. I didn't figure this out until having the wing halves together. Though it wasn't hard to a get in a few pieces of styrene inside to act as spreaders along the back, it would have been easier before assembling the wing halves.

Another thing that could have been done a bit better in the kit regarding the wings, are the wing machine guns. Plugs that are glued in place between the wing halves not only makes a tricky piece of seam to clean up between the barrels but also exposes them to the risk of being knocked off while the model is handled when being built. Cutting them off and gluing only the plugs in place when assembling the wings solves both of those issues and also allows the outermost barrel on each wing to be trimmed down so it only exteds up to, but doesn't protrude past the wing's leading edge (like the kit inaccurately depicts them).

Not really issues or things to fix, but little things to make the kit even more smooth and pleasant to build, I recommend trimming off the rectangular plug at the end of the tail wheel mount (used to trap the mount between the fuselage halves) so it can be painted separately and glued in later (much easier handle one small part than the whole model when painting the tail wheel!), and perhaps replacing the PE parts glued diagonally across the fuselage rear windows with strip styrene for example; to avoid the risk of glue stains on the clear window parts, I glued the PE parts only on the portion extending onto the fuselage halves, and the PE parts could have been longer to make gluing easier.