Monogram probably decide that a fighter with scale guns were a little to aggresive so they opted to remove them . I shouldn't be to hard to fix, nice progress.

Jakob

It's even simpler that that. The Revellogram Mossie is a B.IV, not an F.VI. Therefore, no guns.

Ohh that explains it. So did the mosquito fly without any armament whatsoever? Can't be nice to be attacked by a fighter and have nothing to shoot back with

Yes, that was its original concept, and usually it worked. The Mossie was just too fast for the enemy fighters to catch up with.

"It makes me furious when I see the Mosquito. I turn green and yellow with envy. The British, who can afford aluminium 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."

--Attributed to H. Goering, circa 1943.

I don't guarantee the veracity of that quote. Bit it sums up the "insect problem" over Germany in those days. And why have guns when you're so fast as to make the Luftwaffe Blimp himself jealous!

Hi, okay let's do a little history on the Mosquito. DeHavilland did the DH98 as an in-house project. They saw the need for a high speed, high altitude light bomber. They built a prototype and showed it to the air ministry, who yawned said "that's nice" and walked away. Lord Beaverbrook, tho was impressed with the little twin and told the Air Ministry to get stuffed and DeHavilland to get going on their wooden wonder weapon. This is the same Lord Beaverbrook, who 5 years earlier, had told the Air Ministry to get stuffed and told Supermarine to get their little fighter into production. What was that weird name again? Oh yeah, Spitfire.

As the first Mosquito bombers where coming off the line, the Air Ministry decided to add to the Mosquito's mission statement and added a recon requirement. Then someone got the bright idea to shorten the bomb bay from 4 250 kilo bombs to 2 and add 4 20 MM Hispano cannons and 4 .303 machine guns, and added a hard point under each wing to bring the bomb load back up to 1000 kilos. That became the Fighter/Bomber version.

As the need for nightfighters and intruders grew, the Mosquito was, of course, a lead contender. When the A.I. sets where added, the 4 Browning .303's where removed, leaving just the 4 20MM cannon under the nose. One of these was the MkXII which Cunningham/Rawnsley got most of their kills.

The later Mosquito's, with the dual stage supercharged Merlins where sold off after the war, Sweden purchasing a few and renaming them J30's.

Now, Monogram....the kit is engineered so that a bomber, recon or fighter/bomber can be built from the kit. My problem was that I cut the bomber nose back and attached the resin AI VIII nose directly to it. What I should have done was cut the entire fuselage back and attach the F/B nose THEN cut that back to remove the .303's and attach the resin piece to the new nose.

*sigh*

Later

Hi Jessie, I am sorry, I didn't see your posts on page 7 until just now. What I am going to do is get another Revell kit and do it again. As I said, the Monogram/Revell kit has the ability to do 3 different versions. One being the f/b with the 8 gun nose and the flat panel windscreen. When I do the cut according to the kit instructions (hang head for stupid macho mistake)most of the errors here will disappear. The only thing to fear here will be the contour between plastic and resin...boy I hope this works

Later people

Oh Bruce, the trials and tribulations of conversions
The main thing is that you are taking it in your stride and turning it into a positive, I'm looking forward to the next chapter.

As for me, I can only say that I am very happy with the way my P-70 is coming together. Wings are on, very little work required here to get a nice fit on the top . . . . .



And there was only a very small gap on the underside wing root. The white strip you see is my favourite gap-be-gone, 0.25x0.5mm Evergreen strip. It beds down beautifully with Tamiya Extra Thin cement and takes very little sanding to blend with the kit parts. . . .


The horizontal and vertical stabilizers also fit very neatly, I haven't used any gap-be-gone at this end yet, I will give the joins a light sand to blend them and see how they look . . .


Cheers, D

Hi,

Small Up-date, only one pic...



It's a new cockpit for my Fiat... Totally in Scratch...

I hope it works..!

Diego

A quick question to Michael: Since I am almost done with a Beaufighter, i am think of building a one nightfighter from "the other" side. Can i build Focke-Wulf Ta-154 Moskito? It was build basically as a prototype, not really use in regular units. But it was designed as a night fighter from the scratch. So?

Serial production had started for the Ta-154 and some 30 to 50 were built/partly build. 6 were delivered to and flown by frontline untis, despite the deficiencies and problems. So it should qualify, IHMO.
Cheers,
Guido

When Monogram put out the Ta 154 kit one wing was horridly warped. I bought two just to build one. If you are good enough you maybe able to straighten out the wing. My best to you. I converted mine to a Mistel.

Yes, I'd say it would, for the reasons Guido stated. Hopefully they're not all warped, I have one in the stash!

Michael

Hi Guys the wing was warped on mine however I got around this gluing the two sections together and then taping the whole unit down to my work bench to take the warp out and let it dry overnight and in the morning Viola! perfectly straight wing!

Wow Chris, what a great looking TA-154!! A neat design of an aircraft I think. Now to find one in 72 scale! LOL Russell

Beautiful!

Hi Russell, thanks Russ, yeah I just love the Revell/Promodeller kit. And as to 1/72nd I know Hasegawa have done a release of this aircraft. Pioneer have also released this in 1/72nd and Airfix has a mistel combination with their kit of a Fw190 and Pioneers Ta154. I'd leave the Pioneer kit as the fit is poor at best and detail is a mere after thought. Hasegawa is expensive though in my case it's actually cheaper to buy it in 1/48 than 1/72!

Cheers Guido there aren't many ways to paint this aircraft as there were only a small few on trials and they were used in only a few roles. After the Allies bombed the Tego factory that made the glue they were using to assemble the aircraft the alternative glue was to acidic and actually ate at the wood causing catastrophic structural failure. Just well really as this aircraft was as fast and agile as the Allied Mosquito.

Lets see I've only got another three to build and I have a conversion kit to make a 1/48 scale Mistel but I actually think I'll get Dragons kit and build it that way. yeah I know I'm wimping out but I like Dragon kits!

Hey D that P70 is looking really good! AMT made some really great kits that still build damn well even today! I love it so far can't wait to see how you go with painting it!

I'm sure that is music to our ears.

That is a really impressive Moskito. The 1/72 PM model of the TA 154 can be found on the internet in some places for less than $5 (I've seen it as low as $2). All the reviews I have read have said that it is one for the trash bin, nothing fits, poorly molded, no detail.

I am planning on jumping on in this with the Monogram F-82G Nightfighter variant. Should be an easy paintjob, overall matte black.

@Chris, Great Moskito!
@Van, I look forward to seeing your Twin Mustang. I attempted a 1/48 scale version a number of years ago, and it wound up as a yard dart (into the trash bin), but I still would like to have one for my Mustang collection.

As far as my NF MkXII goes, I rescued it from the hanger queen stash and looked it over. Pulled the fuselage apart and removed the cockpit assembly so I could cut the last of the bomber nose off.
Got that done, so this is where we are now, modified fuselage, gun nose and resin radome. I just hope everything fits together after I cut the machine guns off



oh boy...
Later

There you go. Just stack it all up like a layer cake and Robert's your father's brother.

Robert's... your... father's... brother...

Ohhhhhhh, I get it! It's funny!

Thanks for the lift today Jessi, I needed it!

Michael

Of course in my case, Robert's my father and saying John's your father's brother just doesn't work at all. It's my cousins who get the great deal, not me

Well I have a brother named Robert, but my kids are too cool to use the phrase. Oh well. Still funny!

Michael