Welcome to the Fleet Air Arm Campaign!

The campaign will run from May 1, 2014 through October 31, 2014.

If you haven't signed up yet, or want to see the rules, go here.

Please post your initial and in-progress photos as well as campaign discussion in this thread. Please post your finished build photos in the campaign gallery.

Looking forward to some great Fleet Air Arm builds!

Michael

I've had this kit for a lot of years, and I've collected quite the assortment of AM for it. Ultracast and Eduard are all in the box with the kit:




I had thought about doing a coastal command Beaufighter. That would have been 404Sqn RCAF, though, and not FAA or navy. Best to keep to the flavor of the campaign.
Ben

Here is my entry



and a quick tape up for fit



Hopefully this will not end up in the Hanger Queen xx Campaign

Cheers

I will be doing this lovely looking kit. Does anyone know what colour the pale sky blue inside the wheel bays and payload area is?

looking at a couple of photos on the reference section of Cybermodeller it would appear to be Aluminium or Light Sea Grey

Hi this is my entry for the campaign:-

Herewith, the Sopwith Schneider

And inside the box, we find

Hi Jessica
Why 3 props? two pitched one way and one the other way.

The US Navy variant uses a 4 blade prop which the model produces by interlocking the two at the bottom left of the sprue. The pitch seems opposite because it's moulded "upside down" in comparison to its mate.

Thank you for the info!

Thought I would hop on this campaign with a 1/48th scale Hobby Boss Hellcat. I will use the Xtradecal sheet "Yanks with Roundels Pt.3" to depict an FAA Hellcat from the Pacific Theater.

Best wishes,

Ian

Ready to go with the Pup





Whats in the box.



Decal sheet.



This is the colour scheme,



and of course time & date.



Hope to get cracking over the weekend.

Si

I built this kit last Christmas and it really is a cracking kit and a very impressive model!

I painted the wheel wells Tamiya XF-56 Metallic Grey. I decided to close the bomb bay as the kit doesn't come with any weapons.

Enjoy the build.

Hi Richard,

I would reckon your "pale sky blue" would be Sky type S, which was used on the underside of frontline RN aircraft of the period. Seem to remember the wheel wells of Yeovilton's being that colour. will look back through my pics to see if I confirm that.

Si

Off to a great start everyone! Hope to have pics of at least the start of my Sea Fury up today (if chores don't take over completely. Si: That's a great kit, I built one as Fall's Pup


and have another to do as Dunning's (some day). Have fun!

Michael

Finished the "Rising Sun Campaign" right in time to start this campaign This Fulmar kit found its way into my stash about 2 years ago and I thought this campaign is a good reason to build it. So I think I'll start tomorrow ....

.... so far I'm not sure for which version I should go. Maybe D but "Yankees in the Royal Navy" (don't let the queen hear that ) is also a good choice. What do you think?


Have a great campaign and success for all your builds!
Torsten

I thought that option C was the Operation Torch "US Style" markings.

Hi everybody,
after missing the De Havilland Campaign, I'm now willing to finish this one with my Sea Vixen which I got from my lovely wife at Christmas 2012.
Not yet on my working bench, but here are my starting pictures.


I intend to do it OOB, only got me a more pointed nose cone by Quickboost.
I wish you all a nice weekend and fun at modeling.
Cheers Pete

A portion of the progress. I am adding AM Exhausts. Broke out my Unimat clone drill press (some assembly required ) and drilled out the bumps that were to be the exhausts. To me a big improvement. I know it is an old Frog kit but heck to this old school modeler this was the high end kit of the day.








Cheers

Made a start on the Pup,

Inside of the fuselage sprayed with liquitex unbleached titanium (strange name for a colour , but it works)



Side frames assembled.



cross bracing fitted from copper wire.



sprayed Tamiya light sand. wires picked out in Citadel Boltgun metal.



I will drybush some yellow ochre oil over the "woodwork" to bring the grain and the colour out

More soon.

Si

Si,

Watch out with those cross wires! If they're attached to the outside of the cockpit frames they could interfere with the fit to the fuselage, the engineering is that tight on these kits. I seem to recall having to carve out a little on the inside of the bottom wing to clear that problem too on mine. And I use EZ Line, which is thinner than your wire!

Michael

I am intending to 'Go To Town' on this build. I have read the book 'Phoenix Squadron' which tells the story of 809sqn FAA embarked on board the Ark Royal and their participation in the Belize Crisis of 1975. This is a little known incident but the simple act of overflying Belize City with a pair of Buccaneers made Guatamala think twice about invading and gave Britain enough time to send re-inforcements to bolster local defences. The RAF had 1417 flight with Harriers stationed there until the early 80's.

As 'I am just a poor boy' and cannot afford the beautiful CMR Bucc kit I set my sights on the revised Airfix Buccaneer S2 in the S2d version for the FAA. Fortunately they include 809sqn markings in the kit so that is the first hurdle over. The general shape of this kit is reasonable but there are distinct issues with the nose, intakes and wing tanks so I invested in resin replacements along with a new upper tail which are from a manufacturer I found on e-bay whose name I have long forgotten. The new tail has a feature they claim is not seen in any other replacement part,, the rear of the teardrop is larger at the bottom than the top and forms a ledge between. I have yet to find this in real life but I am still looking. There are also Airwaves PE sets for cockpit, external, airbrake and wingfold detail.

Anyway her it is in all its glory.







You will notice the White and Deep Blue undercarriage parts, these are from the Matchbox kit and maybe better than the Airfix ones so I may use them.

In Eduard's new Bf 109 thread Rowan recently showed some of the small PE parts of the kit. It's something that makes me smile when I think of these control knobs of my Fulmar. Okay, while the knobs are 1/48, the coin is 1/1 ....

.... and some first little progress in the cockpit area. First I had to sand away some really big ejector pin marks. Well, it is still the old MPM Short Run Kit But I won't use all 100 PE parts ....


Torsten

Noted Michael,

I did fix the Cross bracing right into the corners (learned from later fit issues on the stalled Gaspatch Salmson A2 over on the Great War Campaign) so should be ok.

The only problem with using an oil drybrush is that it takes a few days to dry, so no progress today,

Si