AVIATION - Royal Air Force SUBJECTS - 1/48

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The Tamiya Mosquito which I completed as the Photo-Reconnaissance Mk.IV version.  Tamiya have now released a 1/32 kit of the Mosquito which I have bought, but not yet built. 

The Tamiya kit of the torpedo-carrying variant of the Bristol Beaufighter in Fleet Air Arm service. 

The Tamiya kit of the Welland engined Meteor that (just) saw service for the RAF in WW2.  I enjoyed using alclad sprays on the engines which can be viewed under partially transparent engine panels.  

The 1/48 Trumpeter kit of the extremely ugly Westland Wyvern S4 - depicted as deployed on HMS Eagle to the Suez Conflict in 1956.  The contra-rotating propellors turn which is a neat gimmick and I displayed the kit with lowered flaps, rocket boosters and the guided torpedo 

A great friend of mine's father used to own a Tiger Moth.  He had flown in the RAF in WW2 and had bought his aeroplane shortly afterwards.  My friend has kept a couple of photographs of the plane participating in handicap events in the late 1950s and early 1960s.  I used these to create a decent replica of her father's plane from the recent Airfix 1/48 release - with which I could surprise my friend on her birthday in 2021.

The Airfix kit of the prematurely-cancelled RAF super-bomber from 1965.  

Over the years it has suffered somewhat.  The wheel units which are meant to lean outwards a little have started to lean rather more dramatically!  

The Airfix kit of the 1960's lead-in trainer for the RAF depicted as it flew from RAF Valley in 1968 - when I would have seen it flying overhead on my holidays in Wales at that time.

I was a part-time RAF cadet at my school near Oxford in 1977-8 and we would occasionally fly with the Air Cadet Air Experience flight machine at Benson.  I decided to make the 2021 Airfix release and produce my own lettering and codes to imitate the precise machine I flew.  

This is a Gulf War colour scheme re-boxing of the Airfix kit from the 1970s. The fuselage split horizontally and fit issues abounded.  In 2022, Airfix issued a completely new version of the Buccaneer in 1/48 scale and I will build this in due course and replace this rather drab item in my collection when I do so.  

The Airfix kit of the Canberra in an "End of an Era" colour scheme from RAF Marham in 2006.  Sadly one of the last operational PR9s had crashed only a year or so earlier at Marham killing all aboard and so this is my personal tribute to those men.