Saturday, January 29, 2011

EBay bidding for Spitfire kit hits new high

A vintage, Airfix 1/72nd scale kit of the Spitfire Mk IX sold recently on Ebay for a staggering $133.51 AUD. What were you thinking! This reminds me of the ridiculous prices for vintage Airfix kits suggested in Arthur Ward's book Airfix, celebrating 50 years of the greatest plastic kits in the world . This is a great book for anybody with an interest in the history of Airfix, but don't take any notice of his price guide.  Even now, over 11 years after the book was published they are still grossly inflated. There are of course the odd, rare occasions when somebody gets over excited and in the heat of the moment goes crazy in an auction. Oh well, I sure hope he enjoys it, I'm sure the seller is pleased.

Sunday, January 9, 2011

more on Galland's Bf 109E

I've been looking around at what kits are available of the 'E' model and come across this Hasegawa kit with markings for Galland. I was interested to see what c&m choice Hasegawa made but alas they weren't prepared to take a punt! They suggest it was either RLM 71/02/65 or 74/75/76.


If we look at RLM painting instructions LDv 521/1 dated 8 November 1941 we find the first official reference to the colours 74/75 and 76. Even if we assume the documentation lags behind their existence and use, it seems highly unlikely they would have been available in 1940.

Could W Nr 5819 have been repainted in 1941 with 74/75/76? If we look at the four core reference photos, taken during the first quarter of 1941, we see it has all of its stencils. This strongly suggests that the paint scheme is its original one and there has been no significant repainting. We know the time frame for these core reference photos by looking at the 60 kill bars on the aircraft and the existence of Galland's 'F' model 109. A further photo not provided here was taken at the same time as the four core reference photos that shows Galland's 'F' with '5819' in the background.

All this is pointing to RLM 71/02/65 as the aircraft's basic colour scheme.

more to come later.......

Sunday, January 2, 2011

More photos of W Nr 5819

Galland in 5819, of note is the mottling to the fuselage and the demarcation at the wing tip.

fuselage appears to have a faded camouflage however this is most likely a flaw in the printing and/or photo itself. What are the two 'dots' forward of the schlageter?

Nice closeup of the fuselage emblems together with mottling to the fuselage. The mickey mouse emblem appears to be different compared to the core reference photo. In this photo the football body is lighter than the surrounding fuselage suggesting it has been painted white or an off-white.
 taxing to take-off, again we see a mottled fuselage and a RLM 04 nose. This colour is more of an orange/yellow.
 close-up of cockpit and fuselage markings.
 Galland and friends enjoying some french wine!



 Rudder displaying 57 kill markings on a RLM 65 background with the remainder painted RLM 04. The circles above the bars record the date of the aerial victory as day, month  with two digit year underneath.
Here we see Galland and friends gathered around the rudder of 5819 showing 'only' 45 kills.

more to come....