[U]History[/U]

The Bristol Blenheim, the most plentiful aircraft in the RAFs inventory when WWII began, was designed by Frank Barnwell, and when first flown in 1936 was unique with its all metal monoplane design incorporating a retractable undercarriage, wing flaps, metal props, and supercharged engines. A typical bomb load for a Blenheim was 1,000 pounds. In the early stages of the war Blenheims were used on many daylight bombing missions. While great heroism was displayed by the air crews, tremendous losses were sustained during these missions. The Blenhiem was easy pickings at altitude for German Bf-109 fighters who quickly learned to attack from below. To protect the vulnerable bellies of the Blenheims many missions were shifted to low altitude, but this increased the aircrafts exposure to anti-aircraft fire.

[U]Specifications[/U]

Type: Fighter/ Fighter Bomber
Power Plant: 2x Bristol Mercury VIII 840hp radial
Max Speed (Sea Level): 237 mph (381 Kph)
Max Speed (10,000 ft): 263 Mph (423 Kph)
Crusing Speed: 215 Mph (346 Kph)
Max Range: 1,050 miles (1,690 Km)
Armament (Port Wing): 1x .303 Browning Machine Gun
Armament (C Fairing): 4x Browning Machine Guns
Armament (Turret) 1x Vickers K303 machine Gun
Wingspan: 56ft 4in
Length: 39ft 9in
height: 9ft 10in

[U]600 Squadron RAF[/U]

No. 600 (City of London) Squadron RAuxAF is a squadron of the Royal Auxiliary Air Force. Formed in 1925 as a reserve squadron recruiting from the vicinity of London to supplement the Royal Air Force's strength in time of war, 600 Squadron operated as a night fighter squadron during the Second World War. After the end of the war, it reverted to a reserve squadron, flying day fighters until the Royal Auxiliary Air Forces flying squadrons were disbanded in 1957.

No 600 is the only squadron in the RAF to have two official badges
In front of an increscent, a sword on bend
The crescent moon represents thesquadron's night-fighter activities whilst the sword commemorates the connection with the city of London
The City of London arms, overflown by an eagle
Also known as 'the dust-cart crest'



[U]Motto[/U]

Praeter sescentos (Translation: "More than six hundred")

[U]The Kit[/U]







Kit decals (No to be used)



Resin kit parts and Photo etch



The cockpit Mask



Owl Decals

Ok, I've gotten my bench and some of my projects to a place where I feel I'm ready to start work on the Mk1.






As usual I started with the cockpit. Here I'm bending the Photoetch rudder pedals into shape and attaching to the resin deck.



The Rudder pedals are now in place



This is the back side of the instrument plaque. I painted it white to help high light the gauges in the front.



Here are the three cockpit panels (Cockpit floor, Back wall, top shelf) painted and weathered



Here the cockpit is assembeled along with the PE harnesses for both the pilot seat and the jump seat.





Cockpit attached to the fuselage





Till next time thanks for looking

Hi Dirk,

Great to see you tackling this kit. Have you read through Eetu's build thread for all the tricky stages of construction? From what I can remember the canopy rear section doesn't fit and the wings need an vertical spreader to fill the socket in the fuselage without gaps.

Are you going to scratch build the belly gun pack?

Good luck!

Nice start on the kit.

In case you hadn't dug up the build thread already, here: --click--
I hope that's of some help in tackling the kit. But please ignore the bulkhead/wall I added behind the cockpit rear "shelf". Only after I had done that, I read my references more carefully and found out that the passage is supposed to be there.

Oh yes, from what I can remember (and looking at the thread now), adding a spreader bar inside the wing halves helps to close the wing-to-fuselage gaps somewhat, but I still needed putty to get decent joints. Also, watch out for any excess styrene (caused by worn moulds I presume?) in the fuselage recessses where the wings fit.

Indeed, the cockpit glazing took some work to make it fit, but it wasn't that tricky, just be careful not to scratch the clear parts when sanding them.
The rear part of the glazing was too long and didn't conform to the contours of the fuselage, so sand down the lower edges (both of them, as there's the moulded-in entry hatch sticking out) and test fit frequently to get it fitting correctly. Probably needless to say, this is best done after the fuselage halves are assembled.
The two-part main glazing also needed some sanding to reduce the width of the final assembly. Sand down the vertical gluing surfaces and again test the fit frequently. Your mileage may of course vary if you're building it out of the box (as I used that Galdecal bomb bay part).

IMO, one of the most important spots to watch out for is mounting the landing gear wells inside the wing so the gear lines up properly, perpendicular to the ground. The tricky part is that the location of the well parts aren't keyd in any way, they have to be eyeballed and preferably test fitted with the gear legs and the fuselage to ensure the roofs of the gear wells end up level with the ground. Mine ended up a bit awry so I had to glue the main gear legs in place with 2-part epoxy and use supports to line up the model correctly while the glue hardened.

Also, styrene prop blades and resin hubs is a combination that equals tricky. Pinning the joints and using a slow-setting adhesive helps. An alignment jig wouldn't probably hurt at all either.

Thanks for the link and the advice. I've already got the fuselage assembled but I'll see what else you have before moving forward.