Search the Community

The journey of thousands and thousands of miles………………………. It truly has been. I've wanted to build a large scale Walrus for years, and when HpH announced theirs I was in heaven! I never had the upfront cash to buy one outright from the likes of Hannants, (where it was over-priced) so I started looking at the LSP trader forums at the start of the year. Thanks to ErigG, a good mate of his and his want for a rare DH Comet of mine, I finally got an HpH Supermarine Walrus of my own! The VERY long journey of this kit started as the kit was built in the Czech Republic, and then shipped to Hannants in the UK for distribution: Czech Rebublic to UK = 548 Nautical Miles / 1017 Kilometers Next, it was purchased by ErigGs mate in Australia: UK to Australia = 9,459 Nautical Miles / 15223 Kilometers The kit was then purchased by me, from Erics mate Che: Australia to US = 9,445 Nautical Miles / 15201 Kilometers So all in all, this Walrus is quite and world traveler, having traversed more than 19,400 nautical miles to get to my doorstep from whence it was created. Neat! Having just finished up a “quickie†feel good type WIP build, I thought long about what to start next. I got out a my vac T-cat………………….then did the same thing I always do with it, and that's get it out, look at it, then promptly decide it would be WAY too much work to get right, and put it back. Got out my Tam P-51, but just wasn't feeling it, and would have needed to order wet transfers for the foil part…………..so I put it back too. Then I walked by the small pile of kits in my PC room, not yet put away in my basement stash area. Buried 2nd from the top was the inconspicuous box for the Walrus. I had SO much fun putting my last WIP/bipe together, that this one really spoke to me, and I do think its time for a major one, which this WIP will definitely be. Although the kit decals have been reported to be very good, I (of course) just cant leave things alone, and have to make this one a bit different from the OOB scheme. Ian @ Ad Astra made me a set of custom masks for the Walrus from a Walrus based off of the HMS Cumberland, painted for “Operation Torch†in 1942. For those that don't know, Op –Torch (initially called operation Gymnast) was the British-American invasion of French North Africa during the North African Campaign of WWII which started on 8 November 1942. This will be the fairly standard seen Walrus 4 camo pattern on top, with shadow shading on the lower upper surfaces, and sky on the undersides. The Operation Torch markings were painted on the British aircraft, using older US roundels: This was due to the Allies believing that the Vichy French forces would not fight, partly because they harbored suspicions that the Vichy French navy would bear a grudge over the British action at Mers-el-Kebir in 1940, so they over-painted any visible British markings with older style US markings. Any of you familiar with HpH will know of their high standard of quality and especially detail, but for those that are not as familiar, I will give a quick run down of what we get in the box. Let's get started and see what we have then!

This is another in my series of builds "Aircraft my Father Fixed". Up to now I've built mostly the aircraft my Father worked on while in Burma in the latter half of WWII while attached to 5 Squadron. Before that he was with 81 Squadron from their entry into Operation Torch at Gibraltar Oct '42 up until Sicily had been pacified in Oct-Nov1943 whereupon he was transferred to Cairo en-route to India and 5 Squadron. Funnily enough, 81 Squadron followed his his wake a couple of weeks later and ended up based 5 miles down the road in India, re-equipping with Spitfire VIII, hence why we have a Christmas dinner menu from 81 Sqn in 1943 in my father's effects. Anyway, back to Tunisia in the spring/summer of 1943. Up to that point, the squadron had been equipped with Spitfire Vb Trop and Vc Trop (hence my earlier abortive attempt to convert the Hobbyboss Vb Trop to a Vc Trop), however these were beginnign to be outmatched by the German aircraft. The Tropical filters used on the V series had an unfortunate side-effect of reducing overall performance of the engine. So in May '43 81 Sqn started receiving Spitfire IXs. At this point they were based in Tunisia at Souk-el-Khemis airfield and subsequently moved to other airfields in the general vicinity. From reading Alan Peart's book "From North Africa to the Arakan" you get to see that conditions on these airfields were basic to say the least. So I want to try to capture a snapshot of the activity of the groundcrew in these conditions in my diorama. Build thread viewable here So here are the photos of the finished build: Made it in time for the Farnborough club meet tomorrow! Phew!

Hi all, back again after a bit of a hiatus on this board as I've not been building LSP but Routemaster buses and Gerry Anderson models the last few months However, just before Xmas I began the next stage in my series of builds of "Aircraft my Father Fixed". Up to now I've built mostly the aircraft my Father worked on while in Burma in the latter half of WWII while attached to 5 Squadron. So far thats been a Hurricane IIc in 1:32 along with 2 P47 D Thunderbolts in bubbletop and razorback configurations in 1:48 (hence why they havn't appeared here!) I did begin a conversion of the Hobbyboss Spitfire Vb Trop to a Vc Trop using Grey Matter Figures resin wings, but managed to ruin them beyond recovery so gave that up earlier in the year. Before 5 Sqn in Burma, my Dad was with 81 Squadron from their entry into Operation Torch at Gibraltar Oct '42 up until Sicily had been pacified in Oct-Nov1943 whereupon he was transferred to Cairo en-route to India and 5 Squadron. Funnily enough, 81 Squadron followed his his wake a couple of weeks later and ended up based 5 miles down the road in India, re-equipping with Spitfire VIII, hence why I have a Christmas dinner menu from 81 Sqn in 1943: Anyway, back to Tunisia in the spring/summer of 1943. Up to that point, the squadron had been equipped with Spitfire Vb Trop and Vc Trop (hence my earlier abortive attempt to convert the Hobbyboss Vb Trop to a Vc Trop), however these were beginnign to be outmatched by the German aircraft. The Tropical filters used on the V series had an unfortunate side-effect of reducing overall performance of the engine. So in May '43 81 Sqn started receiving Spitfire IXs. At this point they were based in Tunisia at Souk-el-Khemis airfield and subsequently moved to other airfields in the general vicinity. From reading Alan Peart's book "From North Africa to the Arakan" you get to see that conditions on these airfields were basic to say the least. So I want to try to capture a snapshot of the activity of the groundcrew in these conditions in my diorama. So to begin with, the model - you've all seen plenty of sprue shots so I won't bother here, but at least here is the box: For the base I'm using a 300x300 wooden base supplied by one of my IPMS Farnborough colleagues from his website: http://www.ema-heritage.com/displaybases.html That should give enough space for the aircraft and some activity around it. Speaking of which, the donor kits for figures, materials etc include this lot: Yes I know there is 1:35 scale figures in there but my Dad was only 5' 5" tall, so they'll be okay On th eleft you can see some of the ValueGear stuff that I used in my Hurricane diorama earlier in the year. This stuff is superb, huge variety and excellent casting and detail. I picked up a set of crates as well which you can see in the glass ashtray in the top left. Above that is the IconAir accumulator trolley I built originally for the Hobbyboss build. I've added a small engine on the top of it to represent the generator that was fitted to many of them. This was sourced from the US Maintenance Yard kit from the compressor you can see at the bottom right of the box top picture. For the Spitfire I've got a collection of Decals for the inside and outside that will allow me to represent EN204 FL-L: (from the Osprey book "Spitfire Aces of North Africa and Italy) Note how the original "E" lettering has been badly overpainted to turn it into a "L" Here are the decals I'll use: There is a huge amount of aftermarket stuff for this kit and here is a selection of what I may or may not be using: There are wheels, seat, large cannon wing covers, cockpit door with seperate crowbar (not to be painted red!!), Cockpit upgrade set, cockpit stbd sidewall, "cloth" seatbelts PE Toolbox by Aber (just like the one I have in the Hurricane dio) and finally the PE set for the Hobbyboss Vb, but which contains some very useful bits for this build, eg the PE radio hatch door which will be used elsewhere on this build!