Depicted as an aircraft flown by No. 502 (County of Ulster) Sqn , Royal Air Force operating from RAF Limavady, County Londonderry in November 1941.
The Kit
- 1/72 Airfix Armstrong Whitworth Whitley GR.Mk.VII (Kit No A09009)
Aftermarket
- Master Models .303 Barrels (rear turret)
The Build
Airfix's Whitley was first released in 2015 so its fit is not up to their latest standards. Fit is not terrible but it does require more effort than I wanted to expend to clean up all the parts prior to fitment.
Detail in the cockpit is more than adequte for the scale. I wasn't sure if seatbelts were used, I epxect they were but I decided to just leave them out.
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| Cockpit Bits |
Some clamping was needed to align the wings and even more for the engine nacelles
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| Wing Parts |
Ultimately if you take your time, dry fit a lot you will get it together without any major steps or misalignment.
Painting
I reckon the Coastal Command scheme of Dark Slate grey and Extra Dark Sea grey is one of the most attractive schemes going around.
For the Dark Slate grey I used Tamiya XF22 RLM grey which has the green tone the I think Dark Slate grey seems to have.
After base coating with XF22 I used some splatter masks and various
greens and dark greys to had break up the XF22, A light coat of XF22 is
then applied to merge it all in
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| Base Coat - Tamiya XF22 |
The painting guide from the instructions was scaled up (thanks JM) and
taped over the model. When painting with masks like these I use a brush
to push down where the mask is sitting a little high.
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| Paper Masks for the Grey |
The underside is SMS Insignia White. This is my favourite white paint. The flaps and undercarriage bays were masked out and painted interior green (SMS) and Silver (SMS again)
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| SMS Insignia White |
Decaling
Airfix's modern decals are good. There wasn't many to apply and not a lot of detail for then snuggle into so this didn't take much time.
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| Decals On |
Weathering
Oil paints mixed with odourless thinners were used for the wash. Darker colours like Sepia was used where the control surfaces joined the wings and tailplanes. Lighter greys were used on the underside than on the top.
Weathering was done with oil paints stippled into the surface with a selection of brushes. I even tried adding some rain or moisture streaks on the vertical surfaces.
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| Rain marks |
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| Top Side Weathering |
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| UnderSide Weathering |
Finishing Touches
Most of the fiddly bits fitted well enough. The exceptions being the turrets. I thing the metal barrels for the rear guns upset the fit of the clear parts so a lot of adjusting was needed before I got something I could live with. The clear part that covers the front turret doesn't fit well. Airfix do point out how to resolve this in the instructions but even after following that fit still wasn't great. Eventually I decided enough was enough and decided it was good enough.
Conclusion
This build was intended to be relatively quick. Hence I decided to build the kit pretty much straight from the box.
But, after building new Tamiya and Arma Hobby kits, this model brought me back to earth. A lot of time was spent dry fitting and adjusting things to improve the fit. This was time well spent however as it was possible to get the parts to fit well enough.
In the end I am happy enough with the result and happy to have a Whitley in the cabinet.
The Photos
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