Back from my holidays I want to show you my latest finished kit, the Spitfire Mk. XII in 1/48 from Airfix


The Mk. XII was the first Spitfire with the stronger Griffon engine. With only 100 aircraft produced it was only used by two squadrons, No. 41 and No.91, between Oct. 1942 and Sept. 1944.


Airfix offers 2 decal version with this kit. First is EB-B from No. 41 Sqn and the second is DL-K from No. 91 Sqn, which I have built. The original aircraft was flown on several occasions by SqnLdr Ray Harries, who scored 2 kills in this fighter. With 10,5 victories (out of 15 in total) he became the most successful Griffon-Spitfire pilot and survived the war. The aircraft was destroyed on 11. Dec 1943 in a forced landing when the starbord wing was torn off. My picture source is Osprey Publishing.


The kit is one of the new ones from Airfix and it's really great! All parts fit together very well. There is no filler needed, just a bit of cleaning some ejector marks here and there. It was really fun to build this beautiful aircraft. Well done, Airfix!


The paints I used are mainly from Agama, Medium Sea Grey for the underside, Ocean Grey and Dark Green for the upperside camouflage, which is airbrushed freehand. Yellow for the leading edges is Revell 15 and Sky for the fuselage band and spinner is Revell 59. The kit is built oob, I only opened the exhaust pipes, which was not that easy btw ....


In the last picture you can see my Spitfire family so far From left to right, Mk Vb (Tamiya), Mk XVI (Revell), Mk XII (Airfix), Mk IX (Revell) and Mk VIII (Hasegawa), all in 1/48. And just in case you don't know how a Griffon engine sounds, well - then listen to this! And listen loud!!!! It's just awesome!

Happy modelling!
Torsten

Another great build from Torsten, what can I say? Your family photo of Spitfires is great too. I need to build my Spitfire. I don't have one in my collection which numbers about 33 kits. I have the Tamiya kit, the Spitfire Vb in North African markings, ironically the airplane has markings for the same machine on a poster I have over my model table! Again good job Torsten. Russell

Thanks for your comment, Russell. Indeed, that's a very famous photo of RCAF Spits and the 1/48 Tamiya kit offers exactly that option of the AN-V, which I have built a couple of years ago. Actually it was my last kit that I've painted with a brush and Humbrol enamel paints. Afterwards I bought an airbrush and use acrylic paints of different brands since. This Spitfire Mk Vb has retired from expos in the meantime. But there is another Vb North African Spitfire in my stash - beside about a dozen others ....

Happy modelling!
Torsten

I do love a well done spit!

Thanks for your comment, Jim. But what would a Spitfire be without her everlasting rival from those days, the 109? Today I want to show you my latest finished model, the Messerschmitt Bf 109 E-7/Trop from Tamiya, as always in 1/48 ....


Everyone here on Aeroscale knows enough about the Bf 109, so I guess I don't have to introduce it to you. The "Emil" was the biggest in numbers in the early years of WW 2 from 1939 to 1941 and the E-7 was basicly an E-4 and differed only with a 300 liters external fuel tank. It was powered by a Daimler Benz DB 601 with 1050 hp which gave the aircraft a speed of about 570 km/h in 5000 meters. The armament consisted of 2 x MG 17 (caliber 7,92 mm) in the fuselage and 2 x MG FF (caliber 20 mm) in the wings ....


.... the aircraft I have built belonged to the I./Jagdgeschwader 27 and was flown by Oberleutnant (1Lt) Ludwig Franzisket from Ain El Gazala in Lybia in September 1941. During the Battle of France he scored 9 kills before going to North Africa. On the 23. July 1941 he was awarded the Ritterkreuz (Knights Cross) after 22 kills. On the 29. October 1942 he was shot down by Spitfires and while bailing out of his fighter he broke a leg. On the 12. May 1944 he was again shot down by US bombers over Germany and again heavily wounded. After spending a long time in hospital he returned as a Major to the staff of his unit and became the last CO of JG 27. On the 8. May 1945 he surrendered in Austria with the rest of his men to US forces. He flew more than 500 missions and scored 43 kills in total. He lost his younger brother Hauptmann (Captain) Max Franzisket at the Eastern Front in July 1943. After war and captivity Ludwig Franzisket studied, became Prof. Dr., wrote several books about animals and was the Managing Director of the "Westfälisches Museum für Naturkunde" (Museum of Natural Science) in Münster for several years where he died on the 23. November 1988, aged 71 years. This man has really an interesting story. I found this nice photo of him somewhere in the www ....


.... this Tamiya kit is fantastic to build. Everything fits perfect and gives you no hassle. The sand filter should be in closed position as the aircraft stands on the ground (my new little desert base), but the kit doesn't offer this option. It's completly built out of box and as usual not weathered. Some of the decals, like the Balkenkreuze and stecils, are taken from the kit's sheet while others are from Eagle Strike's "Augsburg Flyers Part III" ....


.... the paints I used come all from Revell. Light Blue is Revell 49, Sand Brown is Revell 17, Yellow is Revell 310, the mottling in Dark Green is Revell 39 and White is Revell 301. That all makes it really a colourful bird and an enjoyable kit ....


.... the last photo is again a family picture of the 109 I have built so far. They are from left to right F-2 (Hasegawa), D (Academy), E-7/Trop (Tamiya), E-3 (Tamiya) and G-6 (Academy). But there are another 21 "One-O-Nine" in my stash and wait to be build ....
I say "Vielen Dank" for walking around with me and hope you've enjoyed it.

Happy modelling!
Torsten

Hi,

I really admire your "production line" capabilities...!

Congrats & BTW...

Bye

Nice work!

Those are some very clean builds. I really liked the Sturmovik.

Diego, thanks for your kind words about my models. Great to know you like looking at them. That's what they are here for. Hope you also like my next model.

Kevin, also thanks to you. As I wrote earlier, I'm not a big fan of weathering, as one can easily do too much of it. That's why my models all look so clean. And yes, the Sturmovik was a hard piece of work because of the bad fitting. But now it's done!

Well, just a few days prior to the Messerschmitt, the Curtiss Tomahawk Mk. IIA left my assembly line. It's that Trumpeter kit and also in 1/48 ....


The P-40 is one of the most famous american fighter aircrafts of WW 2. The Royal Air Force took over an order made by France and named them Tomahawk. At least they got 110 aircrafts (Mk. IIA = P-40 B), which were powered by a 12 cylinder Allison V 1710-33 engine with 1040 hp which gave the Tomahawk a maximum speed of about 540 km/h in medium heights. The armament consisted of six .303 in fuselage and wings ....


.... I have built the aircraft "White K" from No. 112 Sqn, based at LG 102 in Egypt in October 1941, which was often flown by PltOff (later SqnLdr) John P. "Jack" Bartle, DFC, who was credited with 6,5 kills. The man from Coolgardie, WA enlisted in the RAF in 1940 and did 2 operatinal tours with the Desert Air Force from 1941 to 1943. In 1942 he led Kittyhawk equipped No. 450 Sqn and was shot down in a Kittyhawk Mk. I on 13. March 1942. Luckily he survived the crash. In January 1944 he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross in London. He later commanded an RAAF Air Ambulance unit operating from Alexandria and Cairo. In July 1945 he resigned from service in the RAAF. The aircraft "White K/AN 413" was lost in action on the 12. December 1941 with an other pilot at the controls, who sadly was killed in the crash .....


.... after the MiG 3 this is my second Trumpeter kit and it went together not too bad. Only the top of the front fuselage with the guns didn't want the way I wanted. But I persuaded it at last - I always win The fitting is a bit tricky on the underside where the wings meet the fuselage. There is also no rear view mirror and no antenna in the kit, which I have built scratch from sprues and Evergreen profiles. But most surprisingly for me Trumpeter forgot the gun sight! Fortunatly in my spare box I found one, though I think it's a little too big ....


.... on this kit I used a variety of paints. For RAF Azure Blue I used Xtracrylix XA1026, the upper camo was made for the first time with Vallejo Model Air colours. Middle Stone is No. 71031 and Dark Earth is No. 71029. The camo was again sprayed freehand and I'm really satisfied with my work. Interior Green is made with Revell No. 45 and Red is Revell No. 36. Though the decals are thin they need some softener, especially the famous shark mouth. But is there any aircraft that suits it better than the P-40? No, there isn't! Oh, and the canopy was masked with Eduard EX 016 .....


.... as you can see from the last photo, my Warhawk/Kittyhawk/Tomahawk family is the biggest. I can't get all 7 on my kitchen table for the photo, so here they are all together in my living room. Close to the camera are the Tomahawk from Trumpter and the Kittyhawk Mk. III from Italeri (ex AMT Ertl), all others are P-40 E and N from Hasegawa, the best P-40 kits you can get in quarterscale.
Thanks for walking around with me. As always comments are welcome!

Happy modelling!
Torsten

Wow Torsten! What a collection you have. Russell

Russell, you can bet, that the P-40 is one of my top 5 favourite aircraft. It doesn't look classy like a Spitfire or a Mustang but it was a real fighter. I think, the P-40 was always a bit misconceived as it was the first in the air when America went to war and it still flew when the war was already over. I think over 15000 produced aircraft speak for itself. Name the war theater and I will show you the P-40 there .... In the meantime I have seen a Warhawk twice flying on an airshow here in Germany. The sound is just awesome
And there are still a few more Warhawks and Kittyhawks in my stash .....

Torsten show us a shot of your whole airforce!

Richard, I'm sorry but it's impossible to get them all in one photo. I just have too many .... So I will show them one by one, okay?
Today I show you a beautiful aircraft , which just left my workbench last weekend. It's that awesome Lockheed PV-1 Ventura from Revell Germany in 1/48 ....


.... the Ventura was the successor of the Hudson built by Lockheed due to a request by the RAF, who first used it operationally in November 1942. The US Navy also became interested in it and named it PV-1 Ventura. The aircraft was mostly used as maritime recon aircraft and light bomber. The Ventura was powered by 2 P&W R-2800 engines with 2000 hp each which gave the aircarft a maximum speed of over 500 km/h at 4700 meters. The service ceiling was 7300 meters and the maximum range over 1500 kilometers. Most of the 1600 Venturas built were used by the US Navy but during WW2 it also served in the airforces of Australia, Brazil, Canada, Great Britain, New Zealand and South Africa. All Venturas were built by Vega ....


.... this kit came out early this year and it was long time on my wish list. Some kits stay years in my stash but sometimes it just takes only a short time between buying and building This kit is fantastic to build and gives no problems. Just the bomb bay doors are a bit tricky. You definatly need ethylacetate here for glueing and patience. Wings and fuselage can be assembled seperatly and join together later. Sturdy braces on the fuselage hold everything. That makes the painting easier. Though this kit has many "highs" there is at least one "low". The black circle on the left fuselage underneath the NZ insignia should be a clear part and not a decal as it was a round window for an extra machine gun on many (not all!) Venturas. That's the only mistake I found so far but I was too anxious to cut a hole in the fuselage .... I also lost a fuselage window when the fuselage halfs were already glued together and sanded. It fell inside and I couldn't fix it So I had to make one scratch from Evergreen which took me quite a while ....


.... the paints I used come from Revell and Agama again. Interior Green is Revell 364, White is Revell 301, Intermediate Blue is Agama A5 and NS Sea Blue is Agama A4. For the canopy I used the Eduard mask EX 352. As you can see, the decals are not from the kit. I wanted to build a "Flying Kiwi" and fell in love with the sheet "Ocean Raiders" from Zotz Decals with 3 NZ and 4 USN aircraft, which I got earlier this year. Unfortunatly the decals are a bit thick, which is not a problem for me, but they also were constantly resistant to softeners and I didn't want to use my radical softener (Agama Hypersol) as it easily can destroy decals. Well, I can live with that. The Donald Duck cartoon reads "We fire from both ends!" It's an aircraft from No. 2 Sqn RNZAF, based on Guadalcanal, March 1944. Note the different positions of the national insignia due to the entrance door on the left and a window on the right fuselage side ....


.... I hope, you've enjoyed walking around this beautiful aircraft. If you build in 1/48 I can highly recommend this kit. In the meantime I have another Ventura in my stash which will become an American submarine hunter in atlantic camouflage one day. And if Revell do me a favour and bring out a British Ventura, I will gladly buy another one ....

Happy modelling!
Torsten

Beautiful work on the Ventura Torsten, it is always entertaining and educational to read through your "Assembly Line" thread.

Keep up the great work mate.

Cheers, D

That's pretty!

Very good Ventura Torsten! Great job. Russell

Hello,

WOW...!!! Another... Do you have some Robotictools on your ensamble line...??!!

It's a nice Ventura...!!! To much clean for my likes... But that is matter of taste, I likes it in you way too...

Congrats...!

Diego

Thanks for all your comments, folks! Good to know, you also like my new big bird! It's 33 cm long and 42 cm wide.

Damian, I always try to write something interesting about the aircraft and the kit, what is good, what isn't, what technics I use and paints. And if a mishap occurs I'm not too proud to talk about it. For me that makes a roll out enjoyable to read. And if I find out something about the pilot, like on my last 3 aircrafts, I'm only too happy. I sure will keep this thread busy!

Yes Diego, I have some dwarfs here on my workbench who love to work nightshift .... No, of course I havn't! I just had a week off work in November and with this ugly weather outside (we have rainy autumn here) it was enough time to glue and paint. More than the usual hour per evening For the Ventura I needed about 5 weeks. And the next kit has already landed on the bench. Roll out here will probably be in January. Something really dangerous ....

Happy modelling!
Torsten

I have just spent an hour reading the whole thread, and I love the builds, the precision is staggering. The stories about your uncle in the early part of the thread were interesting, The Hs129 was not much slow as extremely cramped in the cockpit (so cramped the engine instruments were on the cowlings rather than in the cockpit) and handled so poorly it was almost dangerous. Your uncle must have good, and lucky. I nearly bought the Itelieri Sturmovik last week, but chickened out and bought a Blue Max Roland C11 instead. I really like that Sturmovik.

Happy New Year everyone! Hope you all had a good start into 2013! And the year begins good with a new roll out from my assembly line ....

Just before christmas I finished my first camapaign on Amorama, the "1/48 Campaign" and here is what I made. It's the Messerschmitt Me 262 A1a/U4 from Hobbyboss ....


In January 1945 it was ordered that there must be a stronger weapon to defeat allied bombers outside of the range of their machine guns. Mauser developed the 50 mm MK 214 A canon from the KwK 39, which was already used earlier in the Panzer III. It was build in a Me 262 A1a which made several reconstructions of the front fuselage necessary. So all four 30 mm MK 108 canons were removed and the mechanism of the front wheel was also modified to turn by 90° (just like on the Hellcat) when inside the fuselage to lay under the canon. 2 prototypes were build (Wk-Nr. 111899 and 170083) and several tests were made with shooting about 130 rounds on the ground and in the air without bigger problems. Surprisingly the canon didn't effect the performance of the Me 262 much. In early April 1945 Wk-Nr. 111899 was given to famous Jagdverband 44 where Major Wilhelm Herget flew the "canon bird" in 2 combat missions but without success. During the first the canon jammed and the second mission seemed to have been uneventful. Shortly before the end of the war Wk-Nr. 111899 was destroyed by German troops before falling into enemy hands. But Wk-Nr. 170083 never flew a combat mission and was captured by American troops in May 1945 at Lechfeld near Augsburg where the aircraft got her nose art "Wilma Jeanne" and "Happy Hunter". Shortly after the war it was planned to bring the aircraft to the USA by ship. But during the flight to Cherbourg the aircraft crashed due to engine failure. The pilot, a former Messerschmitt test pilot, could bail out but broke a leg ....


.... if you know now that there were only 2 prototypes of this aircraft you may wonder what you see here .... Well, I have built a fictitious combat aircraft, the "Yellow 11" from II./JG 1, somewhere in Germany in April 1945 .... It's not a "What If" as the aircraft was existent in the German Luftwaffe, also the camouflage and the unit. The only difference to the real aircraft is, that the Me 262 never flew with JG 1. But as Hobbyboss only offers decals for the V 083, I thought, why should I build something everbody else might build ....


.... the kit is surely the best Me 262 kit you can get on the market at the moment. While building it I sometimes thought I have an "easy snap together kit" in my hands. Even the famous fuselage/wings area did't give any problems. But when it came to glueing the turbos under the wings I noticed big gaps on both sides! Okay, some clear tape, filler and patience while sanding fixed the problem ....


.... the kit is again build out of box with one exception. I changed the kit canon for a fine piece made of brass which I bought for 6 Euros at Modellbau Schatton in Germany. That was really worth the change. You can see the difference in the parts below. The paints I used are RLM 76 Light Grey from Gunze H417 for the underside and RLM 81 Brown Violet from Agama N16 and RLM 82 Dark Green from Agama N17 for the upperside. Cockpit interior RLM 66 was painted with Revell 69 and the wheel wells RLM 02 with Revell 45. As always no weathing on my models. That makes the dust .... Most of the decals are taken from the kit, only the unit emblem and both "Yellow 11" are from the spare box. I think it's from Eduards Fw 190 A-8 kit. I even found some not needed kill marks. The silvering of the walk ways is only visible on the photos but not on the model ....


.... and here is the other kit I've built for the "1/48 Camapign", just to show the guys at Amorama that I don't just build aircrafts. It's a M20 Amored Utility Car from Tamiya ....


I hope you enjoyed walking around my fictitious "Happy Hunter". As always comments are welcome.

Happy modelling also in 2013!
Torsten

Torsten, splendid work as always. Thanks for sharing your 262 with us. Russell

Great job on the 262 Jesper. I have that one in the stash and was also planning a "what-if", a heavily weathered combat veteran version.

As always great to see another fine addition to your thread.

Cheers, and Happy New Year, D

Thanks for your comments, guys!
Damian, first a big welcome to your new little sunshine Well done! I read it just the other day at the Duel Campaign thread.
This is sure the best Me 262 kit in 1/48 you can get at the moment. I've got the Me 262 A1a/U5 from them also here - that's the one with six MK 108 30 mm canons in the nose, only one prototype was made. When you build the A1a/U4 you should get this brass canon. It's really worth it. Maybe you can get it from some other manufacturer also in Australia, otherwise I can give you the address frome here, if you're interested.

Happy modelling!
Torsten

Another great build, Torsten!

Great stuff! I like what you do with the control surfaces—it adds a whole lot to the model.

Also thanks for your comments, Fred and Sam!

Sam, I guess you mean the bases my models stand on. They are all made by my friend Marc Toillie from France. Unfortunatly he doesn't produce them anymore But I have around 20 of them of all kinds as you can see. Especially I like the PSP bases. They look very realistic and much better than the Eduard stuff.

Happy modelling!
Torsten

PS. Next roll out follows soon .....