Recce

[COLIN SHIPTON-KNIGHT]

Dear All,

Rolf's right, the Royal Air Force was formed 1st April 1918, that makes next year the 90th anniversary.........................

I am going to continue with my collection of RAF aircraft in 1/48th, hopefully by next year will complete various Jaguars, Harriers, Tornado's and Canberra PR9's when they come out, thats my plan.

Bound to get distracted at some point......Swiss Venom for one.

Colin

[COLIN SHIPTON-KNIGHT]

Dear All.

OH I am a happy bunny!

Just found and ordered a Mirage F1CR/CT from the Netherlands........Was giving up hope of finding one.......Last one they had, could not find one at SMW 2007.

Still got to find 1/48 Thunderflash.

I know I passed out a few CD's of videos at SMW 2007, any one seen the video of Mirage F1 at extreme low level? What do you think?

Colin

[popeye]

Colin,

see what Robi Schneider has available for Venoms under
www.mc-one.ch/Documents/right%20stuff/dokuments/venom/venom-1.htm

Scroll down to the PDF's - much pleasure !
Might keep you busy....

Rolf

[COLIN SHIPTON-KNIGHT]

Rolf,

Thanks for that, most informative! Some of those colour schemes are quite 'interesting' I think I will stick to a recce one.

Colin

[sloegin57]

colin said:

Rolf,

Thanks for that, most informative! Some of those colour schemes are quite 'interesting' I think I will stick to a recce one.

Colin

Rolf, quite agree with what Colin says. The heavy weathering on some of the aircraft I have not seen in many a year. That will be a challenge!!.

Tried to contact the guy selling after market bits (tanks etc) but mail was returned - is he still trading? and does anyone do the recce pod tanks or will they have to be scratch built?

Dennis

[COLIN SHIPTON-KNIGHT]

Dennis,

Are you interested in the Venom tanks/decals?

I got some at SMW, probably have some decals spare..loads on sheet, and I only want to do one mark 1R.

The tanks, are plain tanks, so have to be modified for recce ones, all very reasonably priced, and all of a high quality, as you would expect from Switzerland......

Colin

[popeye]

Dennis & Colin,

test - detailed answer just lost while posting, willco

Rolf

[popeye]

Hi Dennis & Colin,

quarter scale or real scale, that's the question...

Vinten underwing recce pods in 1/72nd available at very reasonable price and direct from ipms.uk member
Bob Rowles > [e-mail]

Recce pods in quarter scale imminent, but not yet available
will be sold via
www.modellshop.ch - Peter Mueller, Basel

See www.modellshop.ch > swiss connection for more details.

Also available from Peter: Swiss roundels, generic, quarter scale
as tranfers,
or as masks
---

Available in 1/72

Swiss Vampire / Venom conversion with elongated nose, wheels and plain underwing tanks manufactured by Michel Berard -
[e-mail] or try: [e-mail]

For details see www.mc-one.ch

Will gladly try to help with any question of procurement problem.

Re Venom camo: did my stint in the Swiss military on Venoms - sometimes they were looking like dressed in 4 different shades of camo on the same a/c !

Rolf

[sloegin57]

Colin,

having read Rolf's answer, hang on for a while whilst I get the translation from the Swiss in web sites quoted. If 48th recce pods comng out then I will buy from them - its recce pods I am after ( I am sure that they are Tri-metrogan which makes them absolutely fascinating from a technical point of view)

Rolf,

Heavily weathered Swiss Venoms with recce pod is what I would like to model for SotsNats 008. I'll mail you with long reasons why later. Do you have access to official drawings of modifications to tanks to take cameras.

I read some years ago in RAF Flying Review that Swiss Venoms/Hunters had air sampling pods fitted to underwing tanks. Any details appreciated especially as my resarch seems to show that they were RAF "on loan".

Thanks to you both

Dennis

[sloegin57]

Whoops, almost forgot

meant to ask - Swiss Armed Forces. Do they have their own paint specifications for military vehicles/aircraft or do they use imported specs ie FS595, Brit Standard, French Standard and if so, do the Swiss import paint or manufacture their own.?

Or is that as SECRET as a Swiss Bank Account - Hee Hee (Sorry)

Dennis

[Rob Monfea]

Think I'm up for building a Tornado GR.4A for next year, complete with RAPTOR pod.

Cheers,

Rob M.

[Paul Senter]

Have decided to make a start on the Bf 109 E-5 which is an E-4 with the wing guns removed and the Rb 30/50 (?) camera located behind the cockpit. Have request a bucket load of books from the local library in an attempt to id the camera window placements. Haven't found any aftermarket kits for the windows so will be dabbling with the dark art of scratch building for the first time.

Quite like the desert scheme so will do the E-5 (trop) - there were only a few so sourcing the markings will be interesting - like all good plans, will invariably not survive first contact. So back up plan will be heavily weathered winter cam on eastern front - again, new territory.

The that will be followed by the Eduard Bf 110E - again id'ing the camera placements will be fun.

Paul

[COLIN SHIPTON-KNIGHT]

Wow, 24 hours and all these posts......

Dennis, got some photos of pods will email to you.

Rolf, thanks again for all that info. Swiss efficiency!

Rob, if you want a Raptor pod, I have only seen 1/72 from Model Alliance I think, if you do find one in 1/48th, let me know will you.

Dear All,

Beginning to have thoughts of RAF Recce theme, within theme, for next year, if you know what I mean. I already have quite a line up of 2 Sqn recce aircraft from Spitfire to Phantom, and am planning to finish it up to date by next year. Any one got thoughts of doing
WW I to WW II aircraft of 2 Sqn.........Dennis perchance...? just a thought, might be an interesting line of models, obviously with RAF theme, and the longest serving 'flying' squadron in the RAF.......Wonder if 2 Sqn would be interested?...Might try and contact them.

Colin

[sloegin57]

Colin,

OK, you've twisted my arm - what did Number 2 Squadron have between 1918 and 1939 - I'm a glutton for punishment.

All,

Rolf has referred to an excellent web site in a previous post and having examined the pix especially the well bleached aircraft, I submit the following to you all:-


I hadn't planned on doing a Swiss Venom until I looked at the site Rolf referred us to. It was the heavy bleaching on some of the aircraft that caught my eye. As I said in a previous post , I had not seen the like for many a year, in fact not since the mid sixties and then it was on the Hunters of the Khormaksar Strike Wing and also on Lebanese and Jordanian aircraft.

Around the same time (the mid sixties) a report was published by the Air Ministry regarding "Ultra Violet Degradation of Surface Finishes to DTD 772 and DTD 772A". Paints to DTD 772 were, by the way, the last of the Cellulose based paints (Type C) to be used by the RAF. It described trials that had been undertaken at Khormaksar and in the Far East on both Hunters and Javelins and eventually recommended the introduction of surface finish materials to a new Specification DTD 5555. This was the first of the so called "Epoxy" paints designed specifically to be UV tolerant and specifically for use in extreme overseas environments. One interesting thing is that the manufacturers had had great trouble producing an Aluminium surface coating and so a new light grey had been approved for the undersurfaces. This was eventually to be dubbed "Light Aircraft Grey". DTD 5555 then led on to DTD 5580 and DTD 5580A, the so called Polyurethane finishes.

Rolf, were the Swiss Air Force still using the Cellulose paints to DTD 772/A right up until the end on the Venom ?. The report mentioned above had forecast degrees of degradation under strong Middle and Far East sunlight and more importantly, the reflected sunlight from the sandy surface in Desert conditions. It also forecast that similar degradation would occurr in snowy conditions and areas of high altitude. I can only assume that the heavy degradation of the Venoms surface finish was due to the snowy conditions under which they operated, high levels of UV reflectance from mountain peaks and the ground plus the altitude at which the airfields were located. One thought crossed my mind last night - I wonder if Swiss AF groundcrew suffered from sun burn??.

Dennis

[Rob Monfea]

colin said:

Wow, 24 hours and all these posts......

Rob, if you want a Raptor pod, I have only seen 1/72 from Model Alliance I think, if you do find one in 1/48th, let me know will you.
Colin

Hi Colin, there's one in the Airfix 1/72 Tonka! Mine is already half built in the Garage at the moment. Was going to be a What if USAF Wild Weasel (yes they considered buying Tornados at one point), but with RAF 90 coming up next year, it seems like too good an opportunity to turn down!

I'll get my bid in early on the group build and even nominate the airframe I'm going to do:

ZG741 (Q) "Truffle Snufflers - It's a Recce Thang" 2 Sqn RAF Ali Al Salem 2003

Cheers,

Rob M.