1/72 Fairey Swordfish-MkI Part 3 of the Illustrious Trilogy

Aircraft World War II
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Hi Folks!

I don’t normally post blogs of my aircraft builds, as they’re usually quite brief, but I thought this one might be worthy as it’s got a bit involved in it.

This will be part three of my Illustrious Trilogy, featuring aircraft from none other than HMS Illustrious from WW2. The first being a Fairey Fulmar and the second being a Vought Corsair

I started this kit as I needed a break from HMS Punjabi which has become a tedious, expensive and slow build which I’m no longer enjoying, and have become bogged down with.

I needed something to get my mojo back… Let’s hope this is it…

I’ll be using Airfix’s by now, familiar 1/72 kit

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And here’s where it gets unusual. I have a PE set from WEM back before they were acquired by Tom’s Modelworks. It’s WEM’s first and I believe only foray into aircraft PE and I don’t even think it’s still available.

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The set even includes decals for the instrument panel

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Eduard masking set

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The chosen colour scheme: obviously the Taranto raid which, IIRC, this aircraft and 824 squadron were transferred to Illustrious for their famous raid on the Italian fleet…

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I’ve started in the cockpit prepping the parts, but first colour to go down is the internal walls of the fuselage, with a “dope” colour…

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Updates will be a bit more frequent than those on Punjabi…

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Torpedo Away!
1/72 IBG Spitfire Mk I "early"
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Nice start Russell.

Don’t know if you’re aware but we have a Torpedos away campaign running that the old string bag fits in perfectly.

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Good choice Russell.

I built this model some years ago but I used PE parts from Eduard.

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Great project!

Looking forward to seeing this come together.

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Hm… campaigns and I don’t normally get along too well! :thinking: (Lack of time and all that)

What’s the finish date for the campaign?

If it’s a year I may be in with a chance :wink:

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Hey Russell good news, it end 31st Dec so plenty of time even for you (and me)

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hehe, maybe just enough time for me to scrape by :slight_smile:

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first question to the brains trust: Airfix call out indicates that the top face of the cockpit enclosure should be “85” which is “black”… But I would have thought cockpit green is more accurate?

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When in doubt of proper colors, I refer to pics of restored aircraft, vehicles, etc., or follow the consensus of other modelers…somebody must have it right! I just completed that Swordfish myself, but without any PE…I just added an AM Vickers gun, and an aircrew, and a scratched dynamic propeller to simulate flight. I had a few problems with construction, mostly because I didn’t follow the sequence. When I built the crew’s cage (as you illustrate above), I built it exactly per instructions and it fit together perfectly. Even fit perfectly in one side of the fuselage. But, the next day, when I glued the other fuselage side, it was about 1 1/2 mm too wide and created a gap the full length of the fuselage. Took a lot of unnecessary work to fill the gap!
:grinning_face: :canada:

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Uh oh , I’ll definitely keep an eye out for that, Leo, thanks for the heads up :cowboy_hat_face:

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Could have been my fault…getting old, you know! :roll_eyes:
:grinning_face: :canada:

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a little update on the swordfish…

All the cockpit parts ready to be painted green

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And the WEM photo added where required

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I think I will prep the parts that will be black and paint them at the same time as those above…

Thanks for looking… :slight_smile:

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Bits on sticks, always a good moment when that time comes.

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Can’t help with the colours, I realise that I don’t have a single book on the Swordfish.I even searched desperately in my collection of Osprey’s “Aircraft of the Aces” but the was no “Swordfish Aces”-book. How strange :grin:

I have the same kit but in an alternate boxing from the channel dash. Artwork is fairly similar, it was obviously always rather dark and grim when they went flying in these!

:man_raising_hand:

Magnus

1 Like
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Hi Magnus :smiling_face: thankyou for dropping by my Swordfish project.

That’s ok… I think the consensus is that the cockpit top plate should be green: This restored example shows it to be green… so green it will be :smiling_face_with_sunglasses: