DeHavilland
Mosquito NF 36
25 Sqn RAF,
West Malling, 1950
The Mosquito
is one of my favourite aircraft, and RAF West Malling was about 6 miles from
where I live. Sadly, the airfield has been re-developed into a housing and
industrial estate!
One of the
last versions of the Mossie to see service with the RAF, the NF 36 featured 2
stage Merlin engines and, of course, the universal, or, bull-nose carrying the
radar scanner.
This model
was built from the Tamiya 1/72 scale Mosquito FBVI.
The engines
were replaced by resin items from Paragon. They are intended for the old Airfix
kit but can be easily adapted to the newer Tamiya kit. They are excellent
castings. Some modifications were made to the cockpit, to incorporate the
various pieces of radar equipment.
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Towards the
end of the Mosquito’s career, as depicted here, the radar nose was left in its
clear form. Some were “scuffed” on the inside to reduce the clarity, but I
could not resist building the model with a clear nose and showing the radar
scanner. The nose was replaced by the front end of an old Mosquito kit from
Matchbox. Yes, I know that Tamiya have now released a night fighter with the
radar nose, but this was not available when I built the model. The part which
was clear was cut off, and a moulding was made of this section from clear
acetate. I scratchbuilt the scanner from plastic card stock etc, using an
article in a very old issue of Scale Models as reference. This showed a good
cutaway of the Mosquito radar.
The finish
is the night fighter scheme of dark green disruptive camouflage over medium sea
grey. I used Humbrol enamels throughout. Decals came from various Modeldecal
sheets and the kit items for stencils etc.
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I weathered the
aircraft using Carrs Weathering Powders (used mainly for model railroads, I am
not sure if they are still available) applied with a cotton bud. Whilst this
model depicts the aircraft towards the end of its career, I am not too sure
about my weathering. Looks a bit too much to me!
Len
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