1/72 HPM English Electric Canberra TT.418

Gallery Article by Ratish Nair on Aug 15 2015

India Independence Day

 

      

English Electric Canberra TT.418 - Indian Air Force No.6 Sqn, Poona 1989

When I set out to build an Indian Air Force Canberra, I just had to do something that had never been done. The perfectly nice Airfix B(I).8 kit in the stash just wouldn't cut - it had to be one with the fishbowl canopy. 

An extensive research phase that started then ended with me deciding to build the exotic TT.418 target tug and shelling out a lot of money getting an elusive HPM B.2 kit and the Model Alliance decal sheet. I had read the HPM kit was the best Canberra kit in 72nd but had no idea what was in store. 

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I got the B.2 kit because I assumed IAF's TT.418s would be analogs of RAF's TT.18. The almost identical color scheme and Model Alliance's wrong profile pic in addition to extremely scant reference on the real thing didn't help. Luckily for me, I realized before it was too late that the 418s were based on the T.4 / T.54 and had a solid nose. By now, the kit had arrived from Australia (HPM kits are low-run kits that were made Down-Under). The kit was unlike anything I had seen before. Being a limited run mould, the kit was unbelievably crude and had a ton of resin parts. All this clearly was above my comfort level then and I put the kit on the back-burner as I focused on building the B(I).58 (which I had started in parallel). 

Around this time, I found out about the IPMS UK Canberra SIG and traced it to Facebook and subsequently connected with John Sheehan. He and I would chat every now and then and before I knew it, I was in love with the Canberra. John being as generous as he is, offered to send me the rare CS Scale Rushton winch set for the target tug along with other important bits. After that, there was no looking back. The kit would get little attention every now and then between other builds and slowly took shape. Anyone familiar with it would know it makes you work hard as a modeler and getting the surface straight is perhaps many months' worth of effort. 

Cut to the present, the kit as been completed with a fair amount of mods to make it correct for the variant being modeled. The hardest part was drilling out the little windows on the fuselage and the sides (yes, both sides on this one). The nose came from a B-57 kit and needed little help to look right. Almost the whole aircraft had to be re-scribed, but the real challenge was re-scribing the 'dry' wing of the T.4 from the B.6 wing in the kit. Thanks to John and the SIG for all the help to get that right.

In the end, I am pretty happy I built this - not just because it happens to be an oddball Canberra variant in IAF's large fleet but because I met an awesome fellow modeler and friend in John, learnt a whole lot of info on IAF's Canberras and had to work really really hard on my skills to get this one to look right. 

Hope you guys like it. Thanks.

Ratish Nair

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Photos and text © by Ratish Nair