'My pilots crowded round to get my first reactions. What did you think of her? "I think she's great", I said. "The Speed is really exciting. And what a steady gun platform she must make.'
Newly promoted Sqn Ldr Hugh 'Cocky' Dundas

[u]No. 175 Squadron RAF [/u]

The 175 Squadron RAF was a part of Second Tactical Air Force No. 83 Group RAF in support of the WWII Normandy landings, and supported the allied advance through France Holland and Belgium on into Germany. The squadron was active from under canvas on Temporary Landing Grounds in a matter of days after the D-Day landings. The squadron initially flew Hawker Hurricane fighters and was later outfitted with Hawker Typhoons prior to the invasion. The squadron was based in various locations during World War II such as RAF Redhill and RAF Dunsfold.

Motto: Stop at nothing



At the time that the first Hawker Hurricane rolled out of the factory in 1937, Hawker started thinking of a successor. They wanted to create a more advanced fighter to replace the Hurricane when the time wasd there. The design team, headed by Sydney Camm, thought up a fighter that was very close to the F.18/37 requirement of the British Air Ministry. This requirement was looking for an advanced fighter, powered by the Rolls Royce Vulture X-type or the Napier Sabre H-type engine, and heavier armament in the way of 4 × 20 mm cannons. Hawker decided that 12 × 0.303 inch (7.7 mm) guns would also increase the firepower by 50%, so they included that option as well.Two airframe variants were developed, the R-type (for the Rolls Royce Vulture engine), and the N-type (for the Napeir Sabre engine). These were to be named the 'Tornado' and Typhoon' respectively.The design emphasized on strength and maintainability, instead of elegance, and was also one of the first design to have a 'bubble'-like cockpit like also seen on the North American P-51D or the Focke-Wulf Fw 190.

Specifications:
Hawker Typhoon MK1b
Dimensions:
Wing span: 41 ft. 7 in. (12.67 m)
Length: 31 ft. 11 in. (9.73 m)
Height: 15 ft. 4 in. (4.67 m)
Weights:
Empty: 8,840 lb (4010 kg)
Operational: 13,980 lbs max
Performance:
Maximum Speed: 412 m.p.h. (663 km/h) @ 19,000 ft. (5,791 m) clean
Service Ceiling: 35,200 ft. (10,729 m); clean
Range: 570 miles (917 km)
980 miles with two 216 gallon (818 liter) auxiliary tanks.
Powerplant:
1x Napier Sabre IIA rated at 2180 Hp
Armament:
4 x 20 mm Hispano MkII fixed forward fireing cannons, 140 rounds each, 8 x 60 rockets instead of bombs or 2 x 1000 or 500 lb bombs


The Model







This being my first RAF bird I had to pick up some new paints. This is the aircraft exterior colors.



The Reference Material:

On your left (attached to the spree) is the Academy Mk.1 compared to the Airfix Mk.1 on the right. To make up for the lack of detail Airfix decided to give us our moneys worth by adding more plastic to the model. If it seems like I'm picking on the Airfix model its because I am. :lol: All joking aside I think the Airfix will dress up well.



Airfix, Look at that cockpit detail...



Academy




Well Its time to start working on the Typhoon. I was thinking about the difference between the two kits again and I decided that the Academy interior was pretty lame so I broke out the tools and set to work.

I started by removing the interior detail.





Styrene rod to the rescue



.020 Aircraft Safety wire was used to complete the frame work.





Repainted the interior













Ok i made a trek out to the LHS and picked up the correct paint for the Typhoon.









Next I moved onto the wings. As I've come to expect with Academy models the detail is pretty decent but not quite enough. Here is the wing from the factory



Here you can see where I opened the ejector ports for the guns



Here is the center section of the wing. Again some really nice detail.



Compaired again to the Airfix Typhoon it looks like they didn't even try. :oops:







Time to apply some color

After the primer was applied we laid down the white for the invasion stripes. If you ask me nothing beats an aircraft with invasion stripes.





Protecting the stripes while Medium Sea Gray is applied



Time for the Dark Sea Gray for the top



Masking for the Dark Green camo



Green applied



That's all for now. Thanks for taking the time to look at my project

Here is the unveiling of the Typhoon.



Rockets


Time to finish off the invasion stripes. Nothing looks better on an aircraft then Rockets and invasion stripes. :mrgreen:



The black stripes were applied with a brush to to give it the appearance of being haphazardly applied.





Next it was time to do the yellow stripes for the leading edges. To do this I first applied a base of white.



So far so good. I've never done this before so I have to admit I'm quite pleased. Next the Yellow



Attached the Rockets



Landing gear





Finishing off the interior gear doors with some paint and then a oil based wash.





Attaching the Propeller



Up next will be the gloss cote, decals and some weathering.

Thanks for looking

Great looking Typhoon Dirk! Can't wait to see the finished product. Russell

Dirk,

You didn't get this done all in 1 day, did you? All of the posts are 5/14.

Looks good. Tell us more about your scratch building techniques.

Can't wait for the final pics.

Dirk, nice to see another Tiffie coming off the production line! A highly under-rated subject. Your drilled-out shell chutes make a big improvement to the underside. And well done for tackling the side-wall detailing- I chickened-out of doing anything on mine.

Can I ask why you've gone for a red spinner? It's not that I think I have a monopoly on red spinners! Also, I think HH-A should have a 3-blade prop when it carries invasion stripes (at least according to Academy), which would match the small tailplanes included in the kit (the four bladed props and the Tempest tailplane upgrades usually went together, and were first rolled out to bomb squadrons to improve handling with the 1000 lb bombs, I think).

The four-bladed prop was introduced in mid to late 1944, along with the larger Tempest tailplane like you said, starting with the MN serial range. BUT !! There were also retro-fits to older aircraft, and every combination you can think off - 4 blade and normal tail, 3 blade and Tempest tail, both, etc!!! That said I don't think its a modification worth doing in such a small scale such as 1/48 let alone 1/72. I can't find it now but I believe it was in the Ospry Typhoon book that I found a photo of an HH aircraft (It might actually have been HH*A) that had the 4 blade prop installed along with the D-Day stripes.

Aircraft in 2 TAF were supposed to have black spinners, but many, especially replacement aircraft, still had Sky spinners. Some squadrons, or individuals, had the spinners painted, for example, white with a blue tip, others red overall, others blue overall, some with spirals etc. The only way to ascertain the colour is from photo or reliable profile evidence of a particular machine. As for this machine I swear I saw it somewhere with the red spinner but now I can't find it. I might have to conceed and re-do the spinner to black.

Thanks for taking the time ti look at and respond to my project.

Mark

No this wasn not done all in one day. It was done over the course of about 3 months. I just posted in in one day (Damn I'm good)

What exactly do you want to know about the scratch building? I think I explained most of it durring the build but I'f I missed something or you want more detail I'll be more then happy to share.

Thanks for taking the time to look at and comment on my project. It means a lot to me.

Tonight I got a little work done on the Typhoon.

First I replaced the red spinner with a black one which was more appropriate for this bird at this period of the war June 1944. Note: the tiny white dot on the spinner doesn’t exist. It must have been part of the flash off the wet paint.



Next I preped the tail for the Sky stripe. To date this kit has had the worst decals I've ever come across. The roundels were like cardboard and the sky stripe fell apart when I tried to put it in place. I admit I was being lazy trying to use the decal stripe but in the end painting the stripe will be far better.

Here is tonight's update

As you may remember the sky stripe decal disintegrated when I tried to apply it which led me to having to paint it on.



Not to bad I'm happy with it.



Then ole Murphy reared his ugly head. You all know Murphy he wrote these laws...

OH SCRAP! I hate it when that happens.

I did some cleanup

Here are the completed photos

Looks good.

Hi there Dirk,
Your Typhoon is great,its inspired me to build one also.
Hope to see more as time goes along.

Cheers

Chris

Thanks for the kind words. Please post your build so we can see it.