Fairy Gannet Trumpetor AS.1 1/72

[Georgeconna]

Hi all,

My Dad picked this one up at the IPMS show in Dublin this year but was unable to make it so was handed over to muggins to make.

As Humbrol has disappeared from Marks and Revell Stock Well depleted I resorted to AK 3rd Gen Acrylics.

A big step after 40 years of Enamels. Testing using the bottom feed airbrush was a disaster with clogging and splutter. Remembering I purchased a Top Feed Badger Infinity just before I moved from Marks Models so dragged that out and hey presto result. The AK stuff was sprayed using no primer and masked over with no issues however the paint is easily scratched off the plastic so the next Gannet will have primer on it so hopefully will be a bit more tougher!

Once done an oil pin wash was done and wiped away highlighting the lines.

Overall happy with the result. 

Edited December 14, 2022 by Georgeconna

[Darius43]

Very nice work.  Always had a soft spot for the Fairey Gannet - so ugly it’s beautiful.

Cheers

Darius 

[leslie10646]

Thanks for showing us this, George.

I had to look it up on Wikipedia as while I knew the name ......  Also I was intrigued by the weird cockpit arrangement.

Surely one of few British planes to have been flown by the GERMAN Navy?

 

[Broithe]

31 minutes ago, leslie10646 said:

I was intrigued by the weird cockpit arrangement.

It was a similar arrangement to the Fairey Firefly that preceded it.

Gannets were very big things, hence the bi-folding wings.

Someone bust the outer panels off one, pulling out from a simulated attack, but still managed to land it 'safely'. Not everybody else was so lucky with wing failures. He may have landed it ashore, though - somewhere, there is the obligatory picture of the driver pointing at the damage, as if you might not have noticed.

The Double Mamba engine was another weirdness - essentially two separate engines.

It was common practice to just run one for doodling around, swapping to the other occasionally, to keep the running hours similar.

[hurricanemk1c]

2 hours ago, leslie10646 said:

Surely one of few British planes to have been flown by the GERMAN Navy?

 

Post war the initial Marineflieger used British aircraft as they used the Royal Navy to rehabilitate it. They still use Lynx and Sea King helicopters, and historically used Hawker Sea Hawks and Percival Pembroke (which was their first aircraft since the 1930s when all aviation moved to the Luftwaffe). They also used Tornados which were part British

[Galteemore]

a400M is also a collaborative project 

[Georgeconna]

18 minutes ago, hurricanemk1c said:

Post war the initial Marineflieger used British aircraft as they used the Royal Navy to rehabilitate it. They still use Lynx and Sea King helicopters, and historically used Hawker Sea Hawks and Percival Pembroke (which was their first aircraft since the 1930s when all aviation moved to the Luftwaffe). They also used Tornados which were part British

'Winkle' Brown no doubt had a input into the Aeroplanes flown post war by the Germans   The Incredible ‘Winkle’ Brown (historynet.com)

In 1958 Brown was detached to Germany to help set up the German naval air arm at Kiel and Schleswig, starting with Sea Hawks and Fairey Gannets. Promoted to captain in December 1960, he was appointed air deputy director of the Gunnery Division at the Admiralty, becoming heavily involved in the battle to acquire the Phantom II for the Royal Navy. Then it was back to Germany as naval attaché in Bonn.

I have an AEW version on the go too.

 

Edited December 14, 2022 by Georgeconna

[hurricanemk1c]

On 14/12/2022 at 2:00 PM, Galteemore said:

a400M is also a collaborative project 

 

True, but never operated by the Marineflieger, only the Luftwaffe

 

On 14/12/2022 at 2:07 PM, Georgeconna said:

'Winkle' Brown no doubt had a input into the Aeroplanes flown post war by the Germans   The Incredible ‘Winkle’ Brown (historynet.com)

In 1958 Brown was detached to Germany to help set up the German naval air arm at Kiel and Schleswig, starting with Sea Hawks and Fairey Gannets. Promoted to captain in December 1960, he was appointed air deputy director of the Gunnery Division at the Admiralty, becoming heavily involved in the battle to acquire the Phantom II for the Royal Navy. Then it was back to Germany as naval attaché in Bonn.

 

He goes into it in some detail in his book "Wings On My Sleeve" and the rebirth of the naval air arm

[Galteemore]

13 minutes ago, hurricanemk1c said:

True, but never operated by the Marineflieger, only the Luftwaffe.

Yes, I was comparing it to the Tornado project.

[Darius43]

2 hours ago, hurricanemk1c said:

He goes into it in some detail in his book "Wings On My Sleeve" and the rebirth of the naval air arm

Great book - the appended list of aircraft that he flew in his career (487) is amazing.  
He holds (posthumously) the record (2,407) for the most number of carrier landings for a pilot.  The US tried to beat the record but their pilot had a nervous breakdown attempting it.

Cheers

Darius

[Galteemore]

One of the big issues in WW2 aviation was difficulty in navigation (the number of raids that went off course being an example). The golden rule of taking a fix was that a star shot never ever told you where you actually were, but where you had just been.  If finding a city was hard enough, just imagine trying to find a tiny bobbing carrier in the dark ….as I have learned more and more about the conditions of early aviation, my admiration for the skill involved has grown. One very distinguished Irishman knew all about it….https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Godley,_3rd_Baron_Kilbracken

Edited December 15, 2022 by Galteemore

[Broithe]

1 hour ago, Galteemore said:

One of the big issues in WW2 aviation was difficulty in navigation (the number of raids that went off course being an example). 

The Germans actually recorded different targets from the RAF's intentions on several occasions.

Flying round in the dark without GPS, or even any inertial systems, hardly bears thinking about. Half the time you probably wouldn't even have the stars...

Airspeed, which way you're pointing, what time it is and a good guess at what the wind might be doing where you were, was the basis of where you might be at the time.

Now and then you might see a bit of a river, or something else that might be recognisable.

Once you started evasive tactics, you could easily drift off to one side, unless you kept a careful count of what was going on.

Things got better with the various 'beam' systems, but you could still get confused...

 

I once got lost, on foot, in daylight, in the fog, in a field that I (thought I) had a reasonable knowledge of...