Mosquito part III

Slow progress is being made on the Airfix 1/24 mosquito. Prominent sink marks are present on the wing trailing edge and the radio ledge at the rear of the cockpit. The moulded on wiring was removed and the sink marks highlighted in green were filled. Lead wire will be used to replace the kit wiring.

RB Productions has released photo etch replacements for the kit radiators and are shown below.

There is noting wrong with the Airfix parts which are moulded with good relief but I wanted to give the photo etch a try. The kit parts and photo etch are shown for comparison.

These are the complete radiators. Vallejo Steel was a good match for the photo etch and was used to paint the supports on the kit parts. Allan Gates

1/35 UMP .45

The 1/35 Trumpeter H&K UMP .45, is a sleek little package. I only say this because I have no need of the small PDW in 1/35 and yet when I saw the racks of weapons in my local hobby shop I couldn’t resist picking one up! The price point is very reasonable coming in at fewer than eight Canadian dollars. For your money you get four individual weapons with roughly six pieces each including photo etch slings, ANPEQ-2 laser sights, sites for close and medium range engagements, grenade launchers and a very cool fore grip with integral tactical lamp. Pictured here are two variants I have assembled for this review; the first is a rather exotic and brutish variant with a short barreled M203 40mm grenade launcher attached at the six O’clock rail position, an ACOG on the twelve, extended stock and a spare magazine.

I considered the odd format for such an op close and personal firearm and then decided that the shooter (in my case an ODA, CIA Green Badger or DEVGRU operator) would load 40mm buck shot for ‘hard knocking’ on doors, bean bag shots for HVT take downs and possibly Sabot for vehicle disabling or checkpoint duty. The next variant is a more traditional style of PDW; that is it has a folded stock, fore-grip and CQB fast reaction site.

This configuration could be stowed in helicopters or other vehicle crew compartments and could also be carried as a secondary weapon by regular NATO ‘grunts’ in theatre. I have seen various examples of soldiers carrying MP5Ks or short barreled shotguns into combat in urban environments so I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to show contemporary warriors with a similar PDW. In short I highly recommend picking up at least one of the Trumpeter weapon sets to add to your collection of spare bits and while these injection molded pieces don’t hold a candle to LiveResin firearms they do fill in the more rare niche selection of weapons. Hical, James

1/24 Scale Airfix Mosquito Part II

The re-enforcing strips on the upper wing of the Airfix 1/24 Mosquito were shown in the last installment. The strips on the lower wing follow several patterns. Early production machines had no strips while mid production machines carried strips with a central enlarged segment, which corresponds to the rocket rail attachment points. The strips are illustrated in the SAM Publications, Mosquito FB. VI by Dave Brown. The scale drawing included are in 1/48 and when enlarged 2X, form nice templates. The photo shows the completed strip in place.

A second pattern of re-enforcement is seen on some Mosquitos, with the wing associated with the rocket rail attachments covered by a large rectangular panel. The next area to be addressed is the wing slipper tanks. The kit’s tanks are too pointed and the upper surface slopes too steeply, giving them a pointed appearance. The kit’s tank is show with the Paragon replacement, which has a better shape.

The final pictures show the appearance of the tanks attached to the wing.

Allan Gates