I must admit I knew very little about the Beaufighter
and would always just glance past them when I saw the model kits in the
shops. But my friend and
colleague, Matthew Kirkman, mentioned that his father had worked on and
helped develop airborne intercept radar for the night fighters in World
War II. His talking about it
got me interested in airborne radar and I looked a little closer at this
historically significant aircraft.
The Bristol Beaufighter was developed from the
Beaufort torpedo bomber to provide a heavily armed night fighter to
counter Luftwaffe bombing of Britain during World War II.
It had four 20 mm Hispano Mk III cannons in the nose supplemented
by six 7.7 mm Browning machine guns in the wings.
The new British Airborne Interception (AI) Nightfighter radar sets
were fitted and the heavy Beaufighter was still fast enough to catch the
German bombers.
Several squadrons were equipped with the Beaufighter.
One of these, 68 Squadron, had been formed at Catterick with
Bristol Blenheims in January 1941 and switched to the new Beaufighter
Mk. If nightfighter after moving to High Ercall in May.
The 68 Squadron had a strong element of Czech pilots and the
squadron crest displayed an owl’s head and the Czech motto Vždy
připraven – "Always prepared".
Matthew’s father, Roger Kirkman, joined 68 Squadron
and was at the genesis of the use of the top secret airborne intercept
radar during their first experiences in making this new technology work.
The first practical and successful AI units, the Mk. IV, were
carried by the Beaufighter Mk. If with the radar transmitting on
wavelengths of one and a half meter.
Flight Sergeant Roger Kirkman subsequently became an RAF officer
and helped introduce the improved centimeter band airborne intercept radar
later in the war.
One of the 68 Squadron Czech teams in 1941 consisted
of the pilot, Pilot Officer Miloslav Mansfield, and his radar intercept
operator, Sergeant Slovomil Janáček. The aircraft I chose to model was flown by them on 12 October 1941
when they shot down two Heinkel He 111’s over the Irish Sea.
P/O Mansfeld and Sgt Janáček took-off after dark with Beaufighter Mk. If, R2248,
WM-S, which was equipped with AI Mk. IV radar.
The two Luftwaffe bombers they shot down that night are considered
the first "radar victories" of the Czechoslovak Air Force.
Click on
images below to see larger images
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And now for the kit
Your first reaction is
probably, “Have you lost your mind?
Why on Earth would you try to build a 44 year old FROG kit when
there are really great Hasegawa and Tamiya kits readily available?”
While visiting a rather
impressively stocked warehouse at Pelican Hobbies in Houston a few months
ago I looked around to see what was there.
I thought I might look a little closer at a Beaufighter kit to see
what they looked like. The
1/48 Tamiya kit is huge (the Beaufighter was not a small airplane)
so I searched in the 1/72 kits and found only a heavily damaged box with
the FROG label. The
British FROG company was very prolific in the 1960’s and 1970’s in
providing 1/72 scale models of sometimes rather obscure aircraft.
But the state-of-the-art of plastic model kits has been progressing
steadily since that time, and this old kit is very primitive by today’s
standards. David Heno sold it
to me for only a few dollars and I took it home for a closer look.
Although I was an active
modeler as a boy, living in a small town in New Mexico I saw very few FROG
kits and had never built one. This
particular kit looked quite pathetic, with it’s damaged box, hopelessly
water stained decals, sparse detail, and raised panel lines.
But this kit was a part of modeling history that I had missed, and
the more I looked at the FROG kit, the more I wanted to pursue the build.
So I just pretended it was 1969 (but with 2013 skills and tools)
and decided to have a go. I
planned to build it as a gift for Matthew, both for the significance of
the aircraft for his family, and also for the historically significant
British modeling company whose early contributions are
often overlooked in these days of high quality Japanese, Czech, and
Chinese kits.
I found
some some aftermarket items, Aires 7038 cockpit and Quickboost
72101 porcupine exhausts intended for the Hasegawa kit, and
MPD 72506 decal markings for the Mansfield/Janáček
aircraft. I immediately
ordered them from Hannants to be waiting for me in Abu Dhabi when I
returned to my home there.
I
had added a squadron patch to a model I had built for a friend many years
ago, and I wondered if there might be something like this available for
British squadrons. A quick
search led me to a web site for Robin Finnegan Jewellers, www.militarybadges.co.uk.
A phone call to them connected me with Caroline, who was quite
helpful in arranging the purchase and mailing of a 68 Squadron blazer
badge. Her question of if I
desired “KC or QC” immediately stumped me, but she patiently and
helpfully explained to this citizen of The Colonies the importance of
having the proper “King’s Crown” or “Queen’s Crown” on the
badge. The target time frame
was during the reign of King George VI, so “KC” it is … and the
order was good to go. A week
later I was simply blown away by the high quality of the badge.
This is definitely not the typical American patch.
The Brits do this sort of thing very impressively, and adding this
to a U.K. aircraft model display is definitely a good idea!
The
FROG kit fit together nicely, and the aftermarket items needed only a
little bit of coaxing to fit as well.
Part of the model’s charm is that it is a FROG kit, so I
wanted to keep the raised panel lines and thick canopy, even though it
severely obscured the nice detail of the Aires set.
I decided to try some new things for me.
I cut off the areas of the wing tips where the prominent navigation
lights go and patiently carved and sanded some clear plastic to fill the
holes, adding the search lights as well.
I replaced the heavy kit antennas with some I created from
stretched sprue. I never use
black paint on a kit, especially as small as 1/72, and this time I painted
the aircraft Vallejo German Grey acrylic.
I covered this with a few coats of Future. The
Czech MPD decals were superb, probably the best I have ever used, and look
painted on the model. After a
day to dry, I washed the model and then covered it with Microscale flat
varnish before unmasking the canopies.
It looks appropriately like a black airplane from viewing distance.
I finished with adding the radio wire using 8X tippet, thinly
painted with a thin coat of aluminum enamel.
I decided to show the
Beaufighter in flight and found some thin clear sheet plastic to create
discs for the propeller arcs. I
airbrushed the yellow propeller tips and then lightly airbrushed the three
propeller blades as if they were being reflected while spinning.
I think it worked pretty well for a first attempt.
I built a base to display
the badge and label at a slight slant.
After a pasteboard trial, I cut and assembled 0.080 inch styrene
sheet, cut a hole for the clear acrylic rod, and airbrushed it with flat
white enamel. I made the
label on the computer and printed it on satin photo paper and used a
general purpose glue to attach it and the badge to the base.
All this went into a display case I had arranged to be made here
locally.
Matthew was quite pleased with it,
but I assured him that I had an immensely enjoyable time building it while
learning quite a few new skills. It
was a challenge in many places, and it is certainly not a show winner, but I
built and improved a FROG kit of the Bristol Beaufighter just as the good Brit
modelers did over 40 years ago. Now
that's British history!
Corbett Legg
Click on
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