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The Tamiya Beaufighter is
easy to assemble and has good fit, but to permit the release of several versions
of the Beaufighter from this one set of molds, Tamiya has permitted some
compromise.
The version I chose is famous with some images of
the aircraft in a lonely flight, or flying in formation over the skies of
Malta.
You can see these photos in Koku-Fan Magazine
12/92 or from different angles at the URL www.myring.demon.co.uk/beau/
. It's clear that the Tamiya engineers didn't see these images, as you
can recognize reading the suggestions during assembly and painting given in the instruction
sheets.
They probably studied the profile on the 'In
Action' by Squadron about the Beau, and copied the inaccuracies.
So we can start to see where I made my corrections
to this kit.
The model is quite probably a Mk I brought
to the standard VI without the bend in the ailerons, but in the kit they are
erroneously positioned, so it was necessary to perform a little plastic surgery to
get them to fit straight.
The trim actuators were cut away due to the
wrong positioning and unrealistic shapeand I scratchbuilt and repositioned
them in the lower part and not the higher part.
The engines were detailed building the cylinders
manifolds and other details that are clearly visible. On the NACA were mounted the
short air intakes and not the long ones as suggested. The bronze part of the
NACA it seems is really burnt and my interpretation was made mixing Humbrol black
and bronze.
On the left wing I made a correction of the gun
bay panel. That wing had only two machine guns and the panel was exactly
the half of the right wing that mounted four machine guns.
The painting was the standard of Mediterranean
Theatre: Dark Earth, Mid Stone and Azure Blue ( in some case with retouching
in Mediterranean Blue).
On the wing walk areas you can see bare metal.
On the root of the left wing, on the Karman, there is an orange or light red
stripe that could be ( probably), a walkway .
This stripe is present on all three aircraft flying over Malta, also the famous "F", a true Mk VI,
leading the formation.
The gun holes both in the fuselage and wings are
closed with reddish or orange doped paper to avoid dust came into the
machine gun barrels and jamming them
Francesco
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