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awrc
Alan Crawford (awrc)
US

Bell Airacobra Mk.1

Subject:
Bell Airacobra Mk.1
GB Royal Air Force (1918-now)
Royal Aircraft Establishment AH574 (Lt. E. "Winkle” Brown)
April 1945 1st deck landing by an aircraft with tricycle undercarriage. - HMS Pretoria Castle
BS381C:241 BS381C:637 Mixed grey
Scale:
1:48
Status:
On hold

This should be a fairly straightforward project - the most difficult aspect will be getting the right "badly beaten Frankenstein" look. The plane was delivered to the UK in the DuPont versions of the 1940-41 RAF brown/green/sky (i.e. the sky was actually a gray). It was then repainted when, depending on where you read, the dark green was maybe overpainted, or maybe not, the underside was either redone in Medium Sea Grey or possibly left as is, and the brown was covered with Mixed Grey (seven parts MSG to one part Night). About the only bits that are certain are that the spinner and tail band are Sky Type S and that the grey at least started as Mixed Grey. After that, who knows - panels were replaced from other aircraft, or repainted, or both. Long after the rest of the RAF's P-39s had been shipped to Russia, this one hung around at the RAE, where it became Eric Brown's personal hack.

Supposedly, when the RAE was visited by a Bell rep in early 1946, he was given the opportunity to fly it. Afterwards, shaken, he said he'd never been in a less airworthy plane that could actually fly. So the machine went to the scrapyard in late March, and Brown got a Storch instead.

However, it goes down in history because Brown was still using it in April 1945, and wanted to be the first to land an aircraft with a tricycle gear on a carrier. He achieved a lot of firsts - first landing in a two-engined aircraft, first landing in a jet (which the P-39 landing was a proof of concept for) and of course was single-handedly responsible for carrier-qualifying a huge number of types.

Anyway, this rather worn aircraft needed a few changes before it could do a carrier landing. It needed an arrester hook, which is a somewhat odd example that is hinged at the back, to give a hook that could engage a wire even on an aircraft coming down in a very level attitude. The main gear doors were removed to avoid any chance of the wire getting tangled, and photo calibration markings were added, before he finally did the landing on 4th April 1945.

Project inventory

Full kits
8062
P-39 Airacobra (L, N, Mk.I, P-400) ProfiPack
Eduard 1:48
8062 2000 New parts
Detail and Conversion sets
648202
Bell
P-39 Wheels (Early) for Eduard
Eduard 1:48
648202 2016 New tool
48031
P-39 Airacobra - Propeller Set (Curtiss) for Eduard, Hasegawa
SBS Model 1:48
48031
48111
P-39 / P-400 British Fishtail Exhausts for Eduard
Ultracast 1:48
48111
CEC48269
P-39/P-400 Super Detailed Cockpit for Eduard
Cutting Edge Modelworks 1:48
CEC48269
48141
P-39/P-400 Landing Gear for Eduard
Scale Aircraft Conversions 1:48
48141 2011 New tool
CEC48229
P-39/P-400 Flying Surfaces
Cutting Edge Modelworks 1:48
CEC48229
48350
P-39 Airacobra for Eduard
Eduard 1:48
48350 2001 New tool
FE195
P-39 / P400 Placards for Eduard, Accurate Miniatures, Academy
Eduard 1:48
FE195 2003 New tool
Decals
48038
Airacobra Mk.I in RAF service
DK Decals 1:48
48038 2021 New tool
/search.php?q=*&fkMATEID[]=104777&showast=no&fkWORKBENCH[]=WB104777&page=projects&project=109197
 
 

Project references

Books
P-39 Airacobra (Squadron/Signal Publications 63)
P-39 Airacobra
Detail & Scale No. 63
Bert Kinzey
1999
P-39 Airacobra (Squadron/Signal Publications 1043)
P-39 Airacobra
In Action No. 1043
Ernie McDowell
1980
Bell P-39/P-63 Airacobra & Kingcobra (Specialty Press 17)
Bell P-39/P-63 Airacobra & Kingcobra
WarbirdTECH No. 17
Frederick A. Johnsen
1998
Bell P-39 Airacobra (MMP Books 6106)
Bell P-39 Airacobra
Yellow Series No. 6106
Artur Juszczak, Robert Pęczkowski
2003

Comments

5 October 2021, 14:06

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