1/72 Academy Hawker Tempest

Gallery Article by Greg Kerry on Mar 1 2016

 

      

This is my second attempt to use up the three old V1s I recently found in an almost forgotten spares box. The first two went into a ground diorama so for the third I wanted something different and this is the idea I came up with: a Tempest caught at just the moment it manages to flip the V1's wingtip (if you are at all interested in WW2 aviation this should need no explanation) in order to confuse its gyroscopic control and send it plummeting down to explode harmlessly in some country area of old England.

The trick here was to have both planes in the air so that I could take convincing photos. After a quick think I realized that the dastardly Nazi revenge weapon could simply be fixed (actually superglued) to the Tempest's wingtip with only the latter supported on some sort of base.

Click on images below to see larger images

It all proved quite easy as the V1 model weighs almost nothing so no other kind of support was necessary: superglue was enough. I don't know where this V1 model came from: it's not a Frog product but could possibly be very ancient Revell . . . 

Like many Academy kits of WW2 subjects, the plastic parts of the Tempest kit were fine, the decals less so: poor color density, out of register roundals, and the fuselage roundals/codes broke up as soon as they left the backing sheet. Oh yes, and the smaller decals silvered as well. Miserable wretched things. Consequently, my model wears an odd selection of spare markings - which is OK for me as I don't care much about authentic markings (they just have to look generally right) but for other modellers this would be a serious negative I think.

Both models were brush-painted with Tamiya acrylics, washed and dry-brushed with tubed acrylics. 

The cloud in some photos is nothing more than cotton wool held close to the camera lens. The sky background is just a simple painted paper.

Greg Kerry

Photos and text © by Greg Kerry