Bombs Away!

 

There is an ongoing Airfix Group Build portraying Singapore's Kallang airport as it appeared in 1941 as an RAF airfield during the early days of WW2 in the east. Of course I rarely if ever, build model airplanes, but this was a very interesting project and I wanted to take part by at least building some ground support vehicles.

Here's my first piece, a David Brown Bomb Tractor as used by the RAF.

The model is from the classic 1/72 scale Airfix Short Stirling model kit kindly provided by Peter of Hobby Bounties. It comes with 4 bomb trolleys (some variant of RAF Type C) and 16 bombs (1900 lbs. GP type is my guess). I added just a few bits of plastic to improve the detail on the trolleys and bombs as can be seen in the photo below. They are still missing the pulling handles which I forgot to take from the kit.

 

The bomb tractor however provided more opportunities to add  extra deatil. I didn't go overboard as I needed to quickly do this so I can spend time on the Pibber diorama as well. I discarded the engine side panels provided by the kit and replaced this with some plastic bits to replicate the engine and the distinctive side panels. The other added details can be seen in the photo below.

 In a brief fit of madness, I decided to make the front wheels pose-able. This meant scratch building the steering mechanism, built up from plastic rod, strip and brass wire. One thing I wasn't able to do is to fix the rear tyre threads. The real ones are diagonal while the kit pattern is straight, and no, don't temp me.

These guys are now ready for painting, but I'll probably take some more photos before that. Stay tuned...