Airfix Henschel Hs 123 'vintage classic' 72nd scale

My first completed build of 2024 - in mid-August! Airfix 72nd Hs 123, nowadays a 'vintage classic'. That means 'not very good' and/or 'lacking in detail'.  Quite a few builds of this kit can be found on youtube, but all of them are pretty poor! None of the modellers attempt to add some extra detail, which given the 'age' of the model, it desperately needs.

A few easy 'adds' including cutting out and posing the tail surfaces, sanding away all the horrible raised detail, adding a 'cockpit' (reshaping the seat, adding belts, a 'stick' and the characteristic 'double' instrument panel) along with the usual wine bottle foil seat belts. Rather like the Gladiator there was no cockpit floor as such. Cut away the pilot's entry doors and replace with plastic card - on the model the coaming is about a scale foot thick! As is the appallingly thick windscreen which is easily replaced with a cut-out from clear plastic - I used an empty water bottle.

 I had a number of disasters during construction, including snapping off a cabane strut and losing one of the footsteps - a replacement was made from wire. 

I've dug out some replacement decals - for some reason the 'Schlacht' triangle is presented in 'red' on the kit decal sheet - and I've chosen an overall green 71 scheme from the MMP booklet on the HS 123. There is some debate on the colour scheme found on these machines - some suggest that they would have been finished in the 'classic' 70/71 splinter scheme, others argue that the type was too early for this.

More pics and some 'reference' material on my Luftwaffe blog.

Welling Model show and 'open day', Saturday April 15 2023

 

Welling in south-east London, England, in the borough of Bexley, 'used' to be in the historical county of Kent but is now just part of the huge suburban city sprawl....but it does have a model club and an annual show and 'open day' which a few members of our club attended on Saturday. We headed there on Saturday morning, just 60 miles up the motorway from Canterbury. By 10:00 we had our tables set up and we managed quite a respectable display. I was even tempted to put a few entries into the competition which was a bit of a 'first' for me. There wasn't really much point going up against a scratch-built BE 2a in 32nd scale or Rod Janes' Bristol F2b 'Crocodile' (eventual 'Gold' winner) or even his Junkers D.1 ('Bronze' winner), but still, the point was to support the club. Shame the competition categories were not 'broken down' into scales - Rod might not have won the 72nd scale class after all. In total there were only 67 competition entries, well down on the last 'pre-Covid' show's 200+.  And Medway/East Kent club member Callum's was the only entry in the 'Junior' category. A special shout-out to the bust and figure models from the Faversham club. A few pictures from the event follow.

Your blog host behind our East Kent Modellers table display.

 A selection of club colleague Bob's builds including a couple of superlative Airfix 48th Vampires and an Airfix Blenheim I in Finnish markings. Below these, his T-62 from Tamiya..

 Brush-painted Meng Fokker Dr.1 in 24th scale by David from the Gravesham club. A previous 'Gold' winner at the show..

Rod Janes' WnW  Junkers D.1 (above) and David's brush-painted Eduard D.V in 72nd

A couple of Andy's  Luftwaffe 32nd scale masterpieces

Cast of 'Dad's Army' in bust form by the Faversham club.

'Aircraft' class in the competition. 'Gold' winner was the WnW Bristol F2b and probably the reason why there were so few entries! The checkered masked and painted 'Brisfit' was Rod's 'covid lock-down' project! CSM Caudron was another of Rod's superlative builds...

Building the Airfix 72nd Swordfish with NO filler ! - finished

 

"some modelling skills required.."    This kit is not an especially difficult build but it does require care and patience - in fact it is a kit that once finished you can take a certain amount of pride in. I think it looks every inch a Swordfish and its pretty nicely detailed too. But I also know better modellers than me that have not managed to complete it - a bit tricky, too fiddly, impossibly large sprue gates making removal of the smallest parts rather awkward and short-shot struts for the wing centre section around which the entire wing assembly hinges. Plus not reading stage 44 of the instructions correctly - gear leg assembly!  Probably not a good idea either to do what I did and start rigging before having completed the assembly - tends to pull the wings out of alignment. And careful not to apply too much pressure on the wings during assembly otherwise you'll snap the struts!

..and for anyone trying to research colours for a 'Channel Dash' Swordfish, well, no one knows for sure, as there are no known photos. The Airfix box artwork features a machine finished in black distemper. All the photos I've ever seen show the distemper applied only to the undersurfaces of the Swordfish and Sky-Grey areas of the fuselage (or in this case Sky as they were Blackburn built). Note that nearly all profiles and kit artwork get the depiction of the codes wrong on both 825 Bismarck and 825 Channel Dash Swordfish. Codes were carried on the fin 1941-1942, not on the fuselage. The colour of the single letter codes was either black or dark red (it's not possible to be certain on the basis of available photos). The colour scheme as featured on the Xtradecal sheet is there or thereabouts, more or less...

Building ( & rigging) the Airfix Swordfish in 72nd scale (3)

 

..several disasters along the way - including snapping the outboard struts when cementing the wings as I squeezed them together. At that point the model nearly ended up in the bin. Too distraught to take a pic. But with a touch of super glue, repairs were quickly made. And so the Swordfish is nearly finished. 

Rigging!

I'm gradually getting the hang of this in 72nd scale - my third rigged biplane on this blog (in 11 years of posting) so I'm now feeling confident enough to provide a quick guide;

- drill locating holes with pin drill or similar in the wings/cowl/tailplane pre-assembly

- using a pin (drill) or similar apply viscous super glue to the hole and using pointed tweezers hold a length of nylon thread until the glue 'grabs' it.  Apply 'accelerator' with a thin brush to the area to speed up this part of the process. Ideally the model should be held in a clamp or similar, but I've always managed without one of these.

- if there's one tip to pass on here, it is always glue 'down'  - inverting the model for the top wings, or better, 'rigging' the lower half of the top wing during construction. The thread then hangs down towards the lower wing, so you are not competing with 'gravity' when glueing. Similarly, don't cut the thread too short - too much 'tension' and the thread won't grip as easily of course....

How to build the Airfix Swordfish in 72nd scale with NO filler ! - build review (1)

..Was going to write 'new-tool' ..but this kit was released in 2012! Now, one of the (largely unstated) aims of this blog is to build as many of the 'new' Airfix tools as possible and I really should have attempted this one before now. As it happens our club is embarking on a 'Channel Dash' diorama for next year's 80th anniversary so now is as good a time as any. 

First query - interior colours.

 The instructions say the cockpit should be H61 'flesh' - I guess that means varnished wood. Not quite. Interior visible fabric should be dark reddish-brown, " the colour of tautening dope.." according to friend Bob who had a long career as ground crew in the RAF. The flash has somewhat 'lightened' the reddish colour in the shot below. Not much is visible anyway.

 

Having read a number of other build reviews out there it seems that joining the fuselage halves might be a little tricky. I noticed a similar issue and a possible solution on the recent Spitfire Vc - glue the fuselage halves together first and insert the cockpit from underneath when you get to this stage. For the best join of the fuselage halves I glued the forward fuselage first, inserting the cockpit from below when dry, prior to sealing up the rear of the fuselage. This worked well..no filler required on the fuselage anywhere, unlike just about every other build out there on the net..

Given that  I always make a mess of the paint finish when rigging, I decided to rig as much as possible prior to painting. This is relatively straight forward for the tail feathers. Note that the rear fuselage machine gun trough section required no filler - unlike most other builds I've seen. The trough part fits into a u shaped slot in the rear bulkhead of the interior framework, but thanks to my method of joining the fuselage halves, there were no gaps! Note clear parts masked off on the lower forward fuselage  -before fitting wing struts as you won't easily be able to access them.

Some other points I've noted.. the fit for the wing 'stubs' is tricky. You need to push hard, but they do go into the small slot. In stage 14 you have to cut out a locating slot in parts 9C and 10C for wings deployed mode - for locating the struts in stage 44 ! ...which I failed to do. My fuselage centre section struts, parts 1B and 2B were 'short shots' making stage 19 particularly difficult! The insert section didn't fit into the upper wing centre section anyway! Part 7A locates into the front of the windscreen for stages 47 and 48. Looks obvious... after its been pointed out! Finally - for now - the support struts for the horizontal stabiliser attach via a unit which inserts beneath the tail. The fit here is poor and will need filling as do the gaps at the front of the fin on the top of the stabiliser, visible in the image below.

Aero Legends Battle of Britain air display, Headcorn aerodrome, Kent, 25-27 June

 

Went to an air display this weekend - something we might have taken for granted up until 15 months ago, now seems rather exotic. The crowds were out in force at Headcorn - in fact you have to wonder how Aero Legends manage to do this - putting on a 3-day event -when everybody else cancels. Shame about the weather on the Friday; especially as it forced the Red Arrows to 'curtail' their display - it was very grey and drizzled intermittently throughout the day. Saturday was much better, with warm and sunny conditions. There were still plenty of highlights - five Spits and a Buchon in formation, nine Spitfires and a Hurricane on the flight line, two C-47s airborne alongside a B-17, the aerobatics of a Bucker Jungmann and the magnificent finale as 10 Spitfires (yes, 10!!) were scrambled one after the other to chase a marauding Bf 109 attacking the aerodrome. (Buchon). On the Saturday Sqn Leader Mike 'disco' Discombe at the controls of the BBMF Spitfire XVI (TE 311) absolutely stole the show with a magnificent exhibition of display flying. Photos courtesy of myself and friends - Sonja Bailey, Ashley Paine, Martin Davenport..(Below; Alison Jane Miles photo..)

Jay Geer images of the Buchon caught by the Spit and Mike Discombe in the BBMF Mk XV (taken on the Saturday of the show..)

Two more from Jay Geer!

Ashley Paine G-IRTY and Harvard

here's 39 minutes of video footage by 'Bannistator' - a little shaky but didn't detract from my enjoyment! Otherwise click forward to minute 35 and the massed Spitfire finale!