A Separate Little War - Strike Wing Mosquito FB.VI

[turbo]

Lovely work on the pit John! I'm a fan of the No. 2 pencil for chipping too, especially over lighter colours. I think it gives a more realistic scale representation of dirty/oxidised metal in lower wear areas than silver or aluminium. I still use the latter for areas that remain "polished" by high wear though.

[John1]

Thanks Turbo!   I've made a small bit of progress.   I've completed the "GEE" indicator.   GEE was a British navigational device, similar to LORAN, by using radio waves from UK-based transmission stations, the Nav could, with pretty decent accuracy, determine his position.  I believe the GEE system had a range of around 500 miles and this system was very widely used in RAF bombers (and also USAAF ones as well).  

 

Anyway, despite hoping that Barracudacast was going to release a resin GEE set, I've moved on with the Tamiya parts.  They give you a decent representation of the real thing.

 

GEE system, minus a few wires.  Note that the vast majority of operational GEE units were overall black.  The GEE indicator is the unit at the bottom, with the oscilloscope display. Above and to the left is the GEE receiver and mounted on the canopy frame is the IFF control unit.

 

Taking the Tamiya part, I carved off the molded on handle and replaced with a bit a copper wire.  I also added the two 90 degree electrical connectors on the upper right and then added three signal / power cables.   They'll eventually tie into the receiver unit.   I painted the display a custom mixed dark blackish/yellow, topped with Tamiya clear yellow for a nice sheen.

 

 

 

 

And here the unit is press-fitted into place.   The poor Nav must have been claustrophic but on the plus side, being surround by all those electronics probably kept him warm!

 

 

Nothing very impressive but it kept me occupied for a rainy Saturday afternoon.   Thanks for looking! 

[John1]

Work continues at my usual blistering pace.

 

Next up are some small details for the cockpit.

 

I've added the control column.  The Tamiya part is pretty detailed, it includes a PE "trigger" that operates the pneumatic brakes (considered to be vastly inferior to the hydraulic brakes on American aircraft).  To this assembly, I added a bit of wire and a couple of straps to secure it to the column, made from small strips of Tamiya tape.   After that, I added a folded map to the navigator's storage box.   The map was from the kit decals.  They provided a larger map to go with the navigator's figure.   Since I'm not adding any crew to the cockpit, this decal was unneeded.  I simply cut it in half and glued it into the storage box.   I'll probably fold up the remaining half and place it in the Nav's area.  

 

Lastly, I hit the floor with some ground up pastels to replicate some dirt / grunge. Most pics of Banff during the winter of 45 show the field to be very muddy. I'm sure some of this got tracked into the cockpit.   More weathering to come in this area.  

 

A few pics:

 

 

 

Also did a bit of weathering of the seat cushions and straps.  

 

That's it for now, thanks for the great feedback and for looking!

 

 

[Anthony in NZ]

Just lovely John! 
 

Really enjoying this for sure, thanks for another update and inspiration for my own one 

 

cheers Anthony 

[turbo]

Great looking pit John! The GEE unit looks fantastic.

 

Cheers, Kirby

[John1]

Thanks very much for the compliments guys!   Next up is the instrument panel.  Here a great picture of a restored Mossie cockpit.  As far as I can see, this is pretty much 100% vintage, with no modern avionics (more on this later), radios, etc. 

 

A few comments.   Note the various colors used for the engine gauges.  These colors varied quite a bit from aircraft to aircraft, I went for some different colors on mine.   Also note that the instrument panel is made from multiple separate sections. Tamiya replicated this quite nicely.  Also note on the lower right side, the weapons jettison switches are covered by a hinged, clear plastic safety cover. Tamiya caught this as well.

 

One drawback Tamiya had on previous kits was that they used a plastic IP, with a clear part behind this, a decal went on the back of the clear part.  Due to the thickness of the plastic IP, the instrument decals were pretty deep and quite hard to see unless  you were looking at the IP straight on.   With the Mossie, they correct this issue.  The parts of the panel with instrument gauges are very nice PE sections, with shallow clear parts to replicate the glass gauge faces.   Behind this goes the instrument decals.   The overall effect is outstanding.  The rest of the panel is from standard plastic, with very nice details.  For the few instruments on those parts, Tamiya provides individual decals of each gauge and all you have to do is add a drop of Future to replicate the glass.  Also, in the picture above, note the radio homing instrument (on the right of the panel with the L R on the gauge).   The Mosquito that Tamiya used as their reference for the model was a restored warbird.  This aircraft had a modern VOR/DME gauge in place of the one shown above.  In their obsession with getting every last detail right, Tamiya replicated the VOR / DME gauge including the red warning flags that were showing!   Gotta give them points for meticulousness.  I am using the Barracuda cockpit decal set and they thoughtfully provide the correct gauge as a decal.  

 

So here is my IP.  Overall, I'm pretty content with this.   I added some wires behind it, including enough wires on the back of the panel to be visible through the open door.   No need to replicate every single wire on the back of the panel since you will only be able to see it from a restricted viewing angle.  I had a great deal of fun putting this together, everything fit perfectly in typical Tamiya fashion and the Barracuda decals really add a nice touch.  I painted everything per the example above and added some scratches to replicate a heavily used cockpit.

 

 

 

 

And the back of the IP.  Sorry it's a bit out of focus but you get the general idea!  It's not my finest work but from the restricted viewing angle, it's going to look acceptable. 

 

So that's it for now.  Normally I'd be a bit hesitant to invest all this work in an aircraft with a fixed canopy but note that the Tamiya canopy is the thinnest, clearest example I've ever seen.  It really does allow the cockpit to be fully viewed.  Also, my plan, if it works as I hope is to remove the upper escape hatch from the kit's canopy, which will allow more of the cockpit to be viewed.   Wish me luck on that process, it's going to be interesting.    

 

Thanks for looking!

[Anthony in NZ]

John you nailed it mate!  

I think you made the right choice with how you went about doing this.  Well done,  I mean that sincerely.

 

John's Mosquito that you are referencing off is a good choice.  When John collected NZ2336 the cockpit had been very much stripped out, he had spent many a year re-installing the correct instrumentation and so it has not been restored 'as such'.  

 

Well done, I am looking forward to the next update.

 

Careful with that canopy!

 

Cheers Anthony

[MikeMaben]

[Phartycr0c]

Lovely work on a great subject, I have in the pipeline a coastal command Catalina and B17 planned at some stage. This is an inspiration for sure.. 

[John1]

Just to see how it would look, I dry fitted the IP and the forward armored bulkhead.  I'm pretty happy with things so far, looks like a tight, cluttered cockpit, just like the real thing.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for looking!

[MikeMaben]

Lookin' good John. Like the floorboard.

 

I climbed up into a MkVI when I was a kid (my Dad woulda killed me if he knew, told me

not to touch it). Even a s a kid it seemed small to me.

[John1]

Thanks Mike!   I'm now moving on the right side of the cockpit.  The main feature of this area is the Nav's auxiliary control panel (no idea if that's the correct terminology) and behind it, a large electrical junction box.  

 

Here are a couple of pictures of the real thing, note the detail differences between these.

 

From right to left on the top are three fuel gauges for drop tanks, outboard tanks and inner tanks.  Followed by an electrical voltmeter and controls for the multicolored ID lights. Below from right to left is a fuel flow gauge, air pressure gauge and various lighting controls.  

 

And here is a shot of the junction box behind the Navigator's seat.  This is a flyable warbird and I'm not sure if all those colors are accurate or not.  More research to do in this area.  The other color issue I'm not sure about are the three thick electrical cables that run from the junction box to the control panel.  Tamiya shows them as yellow, the pics of restored aircraft have them black.  I went with semi-gloss black but honestly, now I'm thinking that I might repaint them yellow.  Any info on these would be much appreciated.   

 

And here is my preliminary work:

Still more work to do this this area and some cleanup to be done.  Have more cables and fittings to add, etc but this is my starting point.  As with the IP, I added Barracuda's decals and a drop of clear gloss for each gauge.  I then added a bit of chipping around the edge with a sharpened silver artist's pencil.

 

Thats it for now, thanks for looking! 

 

[Biggles87]

This is just getting better and better.

I was lucky enough to be allowed to climb into the cockpit of the prototype some years ago and the thing that immediately impressed me was the size of the rudder pedal structures. I had always thought that they were over-scale on most kits, but not so, I think they were built by shipbuilders!

 

John

[AndyH]

Hi John1

 

You are creating some nice work here.  If the model you are building is intended to represent an FB.VI then the two cockpit pictures you have posted above are not a good/accurate reference for you but are a good illustration of some differences between Canadian and British built machines. Great if you are building an FB.26. The main switch panel in he middle picture looks like your typical FB.VI switch box.  The pictures are taken in the cockpit of KA114.  KA114 is a Canadian manufactured FB.26 and was restored faithfully and very accurately as such. The equipment lay out, radio fit, colours etc are all very accurate. The FB.26 is the Canadian built equivalent of the British built FB.VI and are near identical in basic system operation and lay out. The two junction boxes you refer to serve the same purpose but are noticeably quite different in shape to look at between the Canadian and British built Mosquitoes. The Canadians used a lot of American style instrumentation, electrical switches, wiring loom plugs, control cable pulleys etc to name but a few items. The Canadians tended to use Black PVC for their wiring loom conduits where as the Brits liked to use a lot of Yellow PVC for their wiring loom conduits, but not uncommon to find Yellow conduit over painted Black. If you are interested the main switch panel on the right hand cockpit wall was simply referred to as Box "B" and the other behind the Navigators right shoulder which is the electrical system main fuse box was simply referred to as Box "C"   Looking forward to more of your updates.

 

Andy  

[John1]

3 hours ago, AndyH said:

Hi John1

 

You are creating some nice work here.  If the model you are building is intended to represent an FB.VI then the two cockpit pictures you have posted above are not a good/accurate reference for you but are a good illustration of some differences between Canadian and British built machines. Great if you are building an FB.26. The main switch panel in he middle picture looks like your typical FB.VI switch box.  The pictures are taken in the cockpit of KA114.  KA114 is a Canadian manufactured FB.26 and was restored faithfully and very accurately as such. The equipment lay out, radio fit, colours etc are all very accurate. The FB.26 is the Canadian built equivalent of the British built FB.VI and are near identical in basic system operation and lay out. The two junction boxes you refer to serve the same purpose but are noticeably quite different in shape to look at between the Canadian and British built Mosquitoes. The Canadians used a lot of American style instrumentation, electrical switches, wiring loom plugs, control cable pulleys etc to name but a few items. The Canadians tended to use Black PVC for their wiring loom conduits where as the Brits liked to use a lot of Yellow PVC for their wiring loom conduits, but not uncommon to find Yellow conduit over painted Black. If you are interested the main switch panel on the right hand cockpit wall was simply referred to as Box "B" and the other behind the Navigators right shoulder which is the electrical system main fuse box was simply referred to as Box "C"   Looking forward to more of your updates.

 

Andy  

Hi Andy,

 

Thanks very much for the info.  Yes, I was aware of the differences between the various machines, just not a lot of good quality color pictures out there.  Thank you very much for the info on the wiring conduits being over-painted.   I think based on this, I'll leave them semi-gloss black.  Would you have any idea if Junction Box C, shown in the picture above is accurate for a WW2 vintage one?  Seems a bit colorful but you never know when it comes to those Brits.  They do like to add a splash of color to their IP's and electronic gear.

 

Thanks again for your very helpful information,

 

John