Mossies X 4

MOSSIES X 4

The de Havilland Mosquito was perhaps the first truly multi-role aircraft to attain operations, and was certainly the most successful of that breed to see service during the Second World War. As with all the great designs - the Bf-109, the Spitfire, the Zero, the P-51 - the Mosquito went against the "common knowledge" of the day, and in that lay the germ of its success. In the case of the Mosquito, it was Geoffrey de Havilland's desire to build a bomber that could defend itself by simply outrunning its opponents; in the end, a bomber that could outperform a fighter made a potent fighter in itself, as well as a photo-reconaissance spy.

With the release of the Tamiya Mosquito, modelers finally have an airframe that, with very little effort, can provide the basis for representative aircraft of all these types: bomber, long-range fighter, night fighter, fighter-bomber, and recon. In this article, I intend to take you through four projects - doing the F.B.VI out-of-the-box version and using available resource material to do it correctly; doing a slight modification to create a Mk.II night intruder; using an aftermarket resin part to create a later version night fighter, in this case the N.F. XVII; and an all-out kitbash to make a conversion to the B.Mk.IV, srs ii bomber.

STRIKE MOSSIE

Out of the Box: Banff Wing Strike Mossie, 143 Squadron, Coastal Command, 1945:

Coastal Command loved the Mosquito. The airplane could defend itself against the long-range German Ju-88C fighters over the Bay of Biscay, and in its F.B.VI version, it could pack a wallop comparable to the broadside of a light cruiser when armed with eight rockets. In the fall of 1944, the open sea battle moved out of the Bay of Biscay as the Allied Armies landed in France, and Mossie crews soon found themselves in an even more inhospitable environment than before: the North Sea and the Norwegian fjords, a battlefield the Germans would dispute right up to the end of the war. Flying out of Banff in northern Scotland, Mossies would head across the North Sea at an altitude so low their propeller tips threw sea spray over the aircraft, flying for hours in this condition, when a moment's lack of attention could put one into a freezing ocean at 300 knots. Once over Norway, there was atrocious weather to contend with, and more than a few aircraft flew into the granite sides of fjords as they stalked their prey through low-hanging clouds and fog. A crew who was hit knew that if they went in on the way home, their chances of survival were virtually nil.

Modeling RS625/NE-D:

One of two F.B.VI options provided in the kit, RS625/NE-D, is one of those airplanes that is famous for being famous: a number of good air-to-air photos were taken of the airplane, and managed to survive for publication.

In building the fighter Mossie straight out of the box, my only caveat is that the modeler needs to test-fit the gun bay cover in the nose before glueing it into position. One my models was early production and had a bit of a fit problem; be sure the cover is flush fore and aft with the rest of the airframe, and any puttying necessary will be along the side, where it is far easier than the alternatives. Other than that, anyone with good hand-eye coordination can create the F.B.VI as per the instruction.

As done absolutely straight out of the box, the kit makes up into RS625 with eight individual RPs on their rails under the outer wings. I decided to be a bit different with mine. At the very end of the war, the Coastal Command Squadrons were issued RPs that could be hung two to a rail, thus freeing up enough of the wing to re-install the slipper tanks. Before that, rocket Mossies were stretching every bit they could to get up to Norway, and generally had to forego any bombs, as they needed to put fuel tanks in the bomb bay. With the 50 and 100 gallon slipper tanks useable again, the Mossie could carry the full load of eight rockets, and still carry two 250-lb bombs, for use in keeping the flak gunners' heads down while making their escape from the scene of the crime.

This is a very easy conversion. Be sure you cut the rockets off the two inboard rails for each wing, since the attachment for the wing is different for each one. Simply cut off the mountings for each of these rockets, then assemble them with their tails. After everything has been painted, glue the lower rocket to the lower mountings on the rockets which were not cut off their rails, so that the tail of the lower rocket is just ahead of the upper rocket's tail. Done!

Camouflage and Markings:

There is a lot of controversy about exactly how Coast Command Mossies were painted. Coast Command itself modified its Dark Sea Grey/Slate Grey upper with Sky lower surfaces camouflage it had used on the Beaufighter to Extra Dark Sea Grey upper with Sky lower surfaces for both Beaufighters and Mosquitos in the Fall of 1944. There are many aircraft that do not appear to have carried this camouflage, and there are those who have said RS625 is one of them. The airplane is shown on the cover of Squadron's "Mosquito In Action"as having an upper camopuflage of Ocean Grey/Extra Dark Sea Grey with Sea Grey Medium lowers. I do not think such a pattern was ever used. The instructions in the kit call for the aircraft to be painted EDSG uppers with Sea Grey Medium lower surfaces. I think there is a stronger argument for this, but that it is still wrong. There are two photos of RS625 - one in Osprey's "Mosquito Bomber/Fighter-Bomber Units" and one in "Mosquito At War" - which are particularly important, and I am going to refer to them in this.

In both, if you look closely at the camouflage, there are "dark" areas on the rudder and fin where the camouflage appears that it could be two-tone grey. I think that what you have here is a repaint of EDSG over badly-weathered EDSG for maintenance of aircraft structural integrity. Remember what I said earlier about these airplanes spending hours pounding along at nought feet over the North See throwing "rooster tails" of spray behind the props? Well, that is corrosive, particularly to wood, and if it started to get into the wood, expecially along the leading edges where you see the darker color paint, it could de-bond the wing; an event like that at any time could ruin a crew's entire day in the subsequent crash. So much for the two-tone grey uppers.

There has been some thought that Mosquitos were painted in Coastal Command camouflage at the factory. This is highly unlikely, since all the Mossies were standard F.B.VI fighter-bombers when they left the factory, and it was only later at the Maintenance Units that this one or that one ended up in a 2 Group fighter-bomber squadron or a Coastal Command strike wing. Every authority says they came out painted Sea Grey Medium overall, with a disruptive pattern of Dark Green on the upper surfaces. Photos of 248 Squadron Mosquitos at both Portreath in the summer of 1944 and Banff in the fall show that this is true, since they are all in this scheme.

What happened is, the airplanes were painted in the field. It could be that some Mossies were only overpainted EDSG and left Sea Grey Medium, but again I don't think so. The Banff Wing was an elite unit, and believe it or not the British like their elite units to look good. Not only that, but the weather there was terrible, which means they were not flying every day. The military of any country are all believers in the old saying "Idle hands are the devil's workshop" and one does not have to have been in the U.S. Navy to have experienced the "If it moves, salute it, if it doesn't paint it" school of personnel management. They had the time, they had the manpower, and they had the motivation on a number of levels to have all the airplanes painted similarly.

In the two photos of RS625 referered to above, the fortunate thing is that we can see both sides of the airplane. Look at the area around the serial numbers: on the left side, it is darker than the imeediate srrounding area, and on the right, lighter. If you study the camouflage pattern for the Mosquito,you will see that on the standard factory paint scheme, the area behind the serial on the left side is Dark Green, while on the right it is Sea Grey Medium. We now have some tonal shades we actually know - the rest of this comes from eyeballing photographs for longer than I care to admit to, but trust me, I can do it.

There is no argument that the spinners on RS625 are yellow. We now have another tone we know here. There is a question whether the stripes on the spinner were Sky or Sea Grey Medium. I think, if you look at the right-side photo, that the tonal quality of the stripes on the spinner is very close to the area behind the serial number. That would mean Sea Grey Medium. This is not the same tonal quality as the lower surface camouflage, though it's close; to me, this says it is Sky. So the airplane comes out EDSG upper surfaces, Sky lowers, oversprayed around the serial number, and yellow spinners with Sea Grey Medium stripes.

Painting:

I shot a small area of Dark Green on the left side of the fuselage and Sea Grey Medium on the right side, taking the opportunity to also airbrush the spinners Sea Grey medium. I masked the immediate area behind the serial numbers, then shot the sky lower surfaces using Gunze Sanyo's Sky, which is a color I prefer to Tamiya's version, which I think is too green (though it makes a great British Interior Green for the cockpit). I then masked off the demarcations, using the drafting tape and thread trick to allow a "hard" line with overspray, and shot the upper surfaces. I cut drafting tape 1/16" wide and used that to mask off the stripes on the spinners, then shot them with Tamiya flat yellow. When everything was dry, I gave the entire model several light coats of Future and set it to dry overnight.

Decals:

The one real failure of contemporary Tamiya kits is that the decals are terrible. They are really too thick to use. Fortunately, I had the SuperScale Mosquito sheet (which I think is now out of production) 48-542, which has RS625 on it. The went on like SuperSCale decals do, with no trouble.

Final Finish:

Once the decals were all set and the model had been washed, I shot several coats of thinned Dullcoat to bring it down to the kind of flat finish an airplane would have flying in these conditions. I then mixed up a medium wash of Tamiya white in rubbing alcohol and oversprayed the upper surfaces to simulate the dried salt that would cling to airplanes flying this low over the ocean. I think that the tonal change qualities as a result of this might have to do with people having come up with the two-tone grey upper camouflage idea, combined with the repainting discussed above. And there you have her, RS625 as she probably really looked there at Banff in April 1945.

INTRUDER MOSSIE

Mosquito N.F.II (Intruder), 23 Squadron, Malta, 1942

Once Geoffrey de Havilland had demonstrated that his "wooden wonder" really was a "Wooden Wonder," their Lordships of the Air Ministry, who had fallen all over themselves pooh-poohing the idea of a wooden fighter as being even more extraordinary than a wooden bomber in the modern year of 1940, they again tripped all over themselves modifying the initial order to turn it into a fighter. Britain had only just managed to develop the Beaifighter, a twin-engine fighter that could carry radar and had sufficient performance to keep up with what the Luftwaffe was sending over Britain in the winter of 1940-41, but the big Bristol twin was only just accomplishing that. The Mosquito as a fighter was amazing in its performance, and so 30 of the first 50 were diverted to the N.F.II, which became the first major production version.

Since the fall of 1940, the RAF had been sending Douglas Boston twin engine bombers over Occupied Europe at night, to shoot up and bomb airfields, trains, and any other target of opportunity the crews discovered during their patrol. The Boston was good, but it didn't carry any gun larger than a .303 light machine gun, and its performance wasn't so sparkling that it could show a clean pair of heels to any interceptor that happened to find it. Once the N.F.II was operational with the first squadrons in the Spring of 1942, thought was given to taking out the radar, putting in long range tanks in the rear bomb bay, and sending the best intruder yet across the Channel to keep the Wehrmacht awake nights. 23 Squadron had been the first intruder squadron, and was to date the most successful. That July, they were taken off ops long enough to convert to the Mk.II Mosquito, and even managed to shoot down their first victim when the first of the Mossies was taken on a "test hop" across the Channel two days after its arrival on the squadron. By November 1942, the Mossie as intruder was a definite success.

The following month, 23 Squadron was stood down and told they would be leaving the country. The squadron flew out to Gibraltar on December 8, and on to Malta on the 12th, led by Wing Commander Peter Wyckeham-Barnes, who would become a "Mossie legend" as a result of his Malta tour. Within a week they had made their presence felt. The performance of the Mossie was such that it had an immediate effect on the North African battlefield, as well as ranging over Sicily and Italy as far north as Rome, where it played havoc with Mussolini's major achievement of making Italian trains run on time. As well Rommel's supply trains in Tunisia learned the bite of the Mosquito. And all this was accomplished with a Mosquito that was not really designed for the role, and was underarmed for what it needed, since it could not carry bombs! By the fall of 1943 the N.F.IIs were being replaced by early designed-for-the-job F.B.VI's. 23 Squadron returned to the UK in May 1944, where it became part of 100 Group and went on to cut a swathe through the Nachtjagdflieger and make a major contribution to Moskitopanik during that fall and winter of 1944 that saw the effective end of the German night fighter force.

The Model:

Follow the instructions for building the N.F.II, minus the addition of the arrowhead radar antenna on the nose and the redeiving antennae on the wingtips. Be sure to use the early narrow-chord propellers. Past that this "conversion" is merely painting and marking.

Painting:

The N.F.II (Intruder) used the Sea Grey Medium with disruptive DArk Green pattern that had been found by the summer of 1942 to be far more effective night camouflage than the previous overall RDM2 Special Night (extremely flat black) finish. Intruder Mossies were distinguished from their night fighter cousins by the fact the lower surfaces were painted Smooth Night, a semi-gloss black, like Bomber Command aircraft, since these airplanes could be hunted by searchlights like the bombers were.

Decals:

I used the serial numbers for the 23 Squadron Intruder on the old MicroScale Mosquito sheet, 48-13, which I am sure is no longer available. The squadron codes were too small, so I used some Modeldecal British Bomber Codes found in the decal dungeon, and made YP-R, which is the subject of a good color in-flight photo taken when the Squadron was based in Malta. National Insignia came from the Aeromaster Late War British Insignia sheet, using the upper roundel for the Spitfire.

Final Finish:

I put a thin coat of Dullcoat over the lower black finish, to bring it into a semi-glass after it had been Futured, then sprayed four thin coats of Dullcoat over the upper suface. Exhaust stain was done with my "exhaust," which is a mixture of Gunze-Sanyo gloss H-84 Mahogany, with some Tamiya semi-gloss black, and a bit of Tamiya Dark Sea Grey, all thinned with rubbing alcohol and shot through the airbrush.

Conclusion:

More a "variation on a theme" than a real "conversion, something this is a nice place to start widening your Mossie collection.

NIGHT FIGHTER MOSSIE

Mosquito N.F.XVII, 409 "Nighthawk" Squadron, RCAF, 1944:

The RAF moved far ahead of the Luftwaffe technologically when they developed A.I. Mk.VIII, the first centimetric radar. The shorter wavelength was far more capable than the earlier A.I. Mk.IV, and did not have the problem with ground clutter that the earlier one had. These radars first entered service in the summer of 1943. The first Mosquito to carry centimetric A.I. Mk.VIII was the N.F. Mk.XII, which was a reworked N.F. Mk.II equipped with the new radar. At roughly the same time, The US centimetric radar, SCR-729, became available. This was initially used in the Mosquito N.F.XIII, which was a development of the F.B.VI airframe with the "universal" wing which was capable of carrying either drop tanks or a bombload up to 500 lbs on the outer wing station. While A.I. Mk.VIII could be housed in a neat "thimble" radome, the U.S. equipment differed enough that a new radome had to be designed. Rather than make different radomes for different radars, the "universal" radome was designed, and at this moment the Mosquito - for the first time in its life - became "ugly." The universal radome is better known to Mosquito enthusiasts as the "bullnose." Indeed, it does give the airplane the look of a bull sniffing the air to determine his enemy's location.

The universal nose was adapted to both the N.F. XII, with the aircraft distinguished as the N.F.XVII, and the N.F.XIII, where it became the N.F.XIX with the uprated Merlin 25s. The only way of distinguishing the two types, outside of serial numbers, is that the N.F.XIX with the uprated engines has the paddle-blade propellers.

Though the RAF had been sending centimetric radar over enemy territory in the form of the H2S sets carried by Lancasters and Halifaxes, and the Germans had in fact discovered the new technology as early as November 1943 in a crashed Halifax, the late-model night fighters were not allowed to operate over enemy territory until June 1944, when they were needed to protect the Invasion. It was believed that if a radar was recovered from a crash now that the Germans would not have enough time left in the war to make use of the technological breakthrough. In fact, the Germans were already making use of their knowlege with the radar detector for U-boats, and would fly centimentric radars in late model Ju-88G nightfighters and at least one experimental Me-262 nightfighter before the war was over. By the time they had the sets, though, they really had no effective night fighter force left.

The Model:

Back in the mid-1980s, a little aftermarket company called "Missing Link Covnersions" created a cast resin bullnose to be used with the Airfix Mosquito kit, and I made one. I had hoped to obtain the Paragon Conversions sets to do an N.F.30 with the high-altitude Merlins and the bullnose, but the deadline for this issue was approaching and no packages were arriving from England. I decided the old Airfix model had seen better days; two minutes with a razor saw did the job, and I had myself a cast resin nose to use with the Tamiya kit. It wouldn't be an N.F.30, but I had books with several photographs of 409 Squadron N.F.XVIIs; given that 409 was the most successful night fighter squadron in Second Tactical Air Force following the Invasion, it was a good choice. The Conversion: While the Tamiya and Airfix Mosquitos are very close in outline, they are not mirror images of each other. I assembled the fuselage as standard, then cut the nose along the proper panel lines to fit with the resin nose. There was the usual cutting and filing to get a good fit that one experiences with most resin conversion parts. Once on, I realized that the entire nose was actually too long! Staring at drawings and photos, I saw that this extra length was in the radome, so I cut it off on the relevant panel lines, and shortened it 3/16". With a bit more cutting and filing, the radome fit back on but now there was a lower line fit problem. I puttied the area, let it dry and sanded to shape. When I was through, I realized looking at it why I had always been a little leery of the completed look of the original conversion: the nose had never been upthrust enough before, but now it looked just right held next to photographs.

Once the "nose job" was completed, the rest of the assembly went according to plan. While the N.F.XVII is a modernized N.F.II, it has the single-light wingtip of the F.B.VI rather than the early wingtip; since it is powered with Merlin 22s, it has the narrow-chord propeller blades.

Painting:

By the time these Mosquitos were cleared for European service, there was no longer need for the overall D-Day stripes; the upper surface stripes were removed to make the aircraft less visible when parked on Continental airfields. Many modelers may not be aware of the fact that there is a size difference in D-Day stripes for multi-engine aircraft as compared to their single-engine brethren. D-Day stripes for the Mosquito are 24", quite conveniently 1/2" in 1/48 scale. I always start paint jobs with things like D-Day stripes. In this case I shot the lower surfaces with Tamiya flat white, then masked off the white stripes, shot the black stripes and then masked over the entire area. As usual, I used drafting tape, not masking tape, since it will not pull up the paint below it later.

The aircraft was otherwise in the standard RAF night fighter/intruder scheme of overall Sea Grey Medium with Dark Green disruptive pattern on the upper surfaces. I used Tamiya XF-20 "Medium Grey," which is exactly World War II Sea Grey Medium, then created the "masking matts" for the upper scheme using drafting tape with thread running 1/16" in from the demarcation edge, drawn per the camouflage scheme in the old Profile "Camouflage and Markings" for the Mosquito in Northern Europe (If you can lay hands on these "Camouflage and Markings" booklets at swap meets, the entire series is invaluable, accurate information.). Since the RAF used these masking matts, which gives a "hard" edge in 1/48, doing it this way will allow the hard edge with some overspray that will be more to scale than can be done freehanding the pattern. I use Gunze Sanyo Dark Green H-73 for my RAF camo finishes.

Decals:

The particular Mossie I was making had no personal insignia, so it was merely a case of using Aeromaster RAF national insignia for the national markings, and dark red letters from another old Modeldecal sheet. I pieced together the serial number, MM517, from the serial numbers on the kit decal sheet.

Final Finish:

Once everything had set and the model was washed to get rid of setting solution on the surface, I gave everything a final uniform shot of Future, then gave several light coats of thinned Dullcoat to get the "almost-but-not-quite" flat finish I wanted. I then airbrushed exhaust stains and gunfire stains on the airplene, drybrushed some "mud" onto the wheels, and there she was: nemesis of the Nachtschlactflieger in the skies over northwest Europe in the Fall of 1944.

BOMBER MOSSIE:

Mosquito B.Mk.IV, srs ii; 109 Squadron, 8 (Pathfinder) Group, Bomber Command 1944:

The Bomber Barons of the RAF were so convinced that a mere wooden airplane with only two crew was not what they wanted to batter Germany into submission with that, when Mosquito production first began they thought nothing of the fact that the majority of the first production run were converted to fighters and that of the bomber version, the majority of those were modified for photo-reconaissance at first. When the first B.Mk.IVs showed up in November 1941 they were sent to the "wretched" 2 Group, the light bomber force that was sent over northwestern Europe in daylight primarily as a way of enticing the Luftwaffe to come up and play with Fighter Command's Spitfires. The first squadrons to equip with the bomber Mossie were 105 and 139 "Jamaica" Squadrons, veterans of the daylight airwar as fought in the poor old Blenheim IV; their first mission was flown May 31, 1942; at first there were so few of them, the two squadrons combined their aircraft to get four and six-plane strikes.

Led by Wing Commander Hughie Edwards, VC, who assumed command of 105 Squadron on 3 August 1942, the two squadrons became immortal with their unescorted daylight raids across the whole of occupied Europe from the Fall of 1942 through the early Summer of 1943. The Edwards era was a combination of the right man leading men flying the right airplane. Mosquito operations were far more ambitious than Blenheim operations had ever been, though casualties were lighter. Whereas before Edwards' arrival the Mossies had operated at high altitude, under his leadership they went in at rooftop level, and more than a few of the airplanes returned from such missions with dents in the wing leading edge where they had literally knocked down the chimney pots of the buildings they were flying over. The Germans created a special fighter group with high-powered Fw-190s and Bf-019s; they could not catch a Mossie at low level with both Merlins fully functional. A Mk.IV was slower than an Fw-190 at 20,000 ft., but at zero feet the margin was only some 5mph - the vital margin. Almost all losses during this period were to light flak, which was the one thing a Mosquito couldn't outrun.

On 30 January 1943, the Mossies attacked Berlin in daylight for the first time with a morning and afternoon raid; that in the morning was timed to disrupt a speech by Hermann Goering while the afternoon mission put a crimp in Dr. Joseph Goebbel's style. Edwards left the Mossies in February 1943 and was replaced by a leader nearly as legendary, Wing Commander John deLacy Woolridge, DFC, DFM.

Woolridge led the two squadrons on their last daylight mission: the bombing of the Zeiss optical works in Jena on 27 May 1943. The mission called for a low level daylight flight across the Netherlands and southern Germany to Jena, which was near Leipzig. Two Mossies were lost near the Ruhr in a midair collision when one pilot's concentration was thrown off by flak, then bad weather separated the strikers. Eventually the factory was hit, but they had taken their heaviest losses to date: 5 of 14, all to flak. While the raid was considered a tactical success, it had not been as successful as expected, which gave Sir Arthur Harris the opening he had been looking for to transfer 105 and 139 Squadrons to the Pathfinder Force of Bomber Command. The epic pinpoint raids of the latter part of the war, under the command of Air Vice Marshal Basil Embry, would feature the F.B.VI in the starring role.

Following the February raid on Berlin, the "Bomber Barons" had finally seen the light with regard to the Mosquito, and Harris formed several Mossie squadrons in 8 Group. Eventually these units would become the Light Night Striking Force of Bomber Command, known to the Luftwaffe as "The Berlin Express" both for the usual target and the regularity with which they arrived. These missions proved that the concept of the high-speed bomber had been correct, as the LNSF suffered the lowest casualties of any unit in Bomber Command, coupled with a higher degree of accuracy than any of the Main Force units in their lumbering Lancasters and Halifaxes. The only real threat ever posed to these missions was that of Oberleutnant Kurt Welter and his Wilde Sau Me-262s in the late winter and spring of 1945, but the effort was too late even though it did result in the highest Mosquito losses of the war to enemy fighters. By this time, however, the 297 B.Mk.IVs built had been replaced by Canadian-built B. Mk.XXs and B. Mk.IXs and 25s with high altitude rated engines capable of carrying the 4,000 lb. "cookie" in their swollen bomb bays.

The Model:

To me, the bomber Mosquito is the most beautiful of all the versions of this beautiful airplane. It's the "pure" Mosquito, and personally I wish Tamiya had made the B.Mk.IV first. From the breakdown of the fuselage assembly, it seems apparent that a bomber Mossie will show up down the road; since the bomber would not "compete" with the fighter for sales the way the F4U-1D would have with the F4U-1 had it been released earlier than two years after the intial version, we might perhaps see that bomber Mossie as early as the end of this year (though I am not holding my breath). However, I am known for being impatient, and I didn't want to wait that long. Besides, I had this old Monogram beast lying in the kit pile, and as they say, "waste not, want not." Be forwarned, this is a major kitbash project, and those of you willing to wait a year should consider that before proceeding. As an old-time kitbasher, to me this is not all that hard, and I don't think it will be hard for you if you follow along. But the point comes early on here that you are committed to a bomber Mossie or nothing.

The Conversion:

Because of the good fortune that Tamiya expects to follow in our footsteps here, the main fuselage is already cut; all one has to do is cut the Monogram nose off at the appropriate place, which is not where it would be cut if one were converting that kit to the fighter nose version. I taped a Tamiya fuselage to a Monogram fuselage, and found the cut line that way, and I suggest you do the same.

There is one big problem in using the Monogram nose, and that is that the Monogram fuselage is considerably narrower than the fuselage of the Tamiya kit (which is the correct size). What I did was design my adaptation so that it joined on the upper fuselage as it should, and at the very forward tip of the lower fuselage line so that the nose cap would fit, which leaves a triangular shaped gap to be filled in on the underside. I also decided I wanted to open the crew access hatch, which on the bomber version is below the cockpit instead of to the side, which creates a certain amount of additional difficulty. Any modeler who chooses to have the hatch closed, and the inner floor hatch in position - which obviates all need to construct the hatch and passageway, is probably making a smart decision.

I first glued the Monogram nose parts to their respective fuselage halves, with the fuselage lying on a flat surface so I could align the upper edge of the nose part. Since I was not going to have the bomb bay open, i used that area under/behind the cockpit and crew entry hatch to create a stronger join with sheet styrene over the two adjoining parts. I then puttied the fuselage joint inside and out. Once it was dry, I sanded it smooth, putting more than one coat of putty on as necessary to get a smooth surface inside and out, then painted the interior and the cockpit parts.

I assembled the Tamiya fuselage, with the cockpit flooring inside but not the rest of the cockpit gear. I cut away the opening to the nose that is closed off in the instrument panel for the standard model, and also assembled the instrument panel to the floor at this time, after having painted it and applied the decal I was using. I did this because I would need this internal structure to be sure the nose was fitting correctly as I proceeded. I also cut off the floor for the bomber nose from the Monogram kit, and fitted it to the rest of the internal structure. All this was glued in place and to the nose structure, then the fuselage halves were glued together. I used plastic sheet to make the pieces to fill the lower gap, then puttied in the area under the cockpit floor around the entry hatch. I puttied the nose upper and lower joins and set things aside to dry.

Once the putty was set up, it was file and sand, add more putty, file some more, sand some more, to create the crew entry hatch and smooth out the lower nose area. Eventually everything appeared to be right and I gave the nose a coat of light grey to see how things were. There weas need for a bit of filler along the side to smooth that area, and with that, the hard part of the conversion was over.

I had in the meantime also filled and sanded the bomb bay doors, to get rid of the shell ejector chutes, and had drilled out the two round windows seen in the B.Mk.IV's bomb bay doors. The bomb bay door part was then glued in place and once set up, sanded and filed to a smooth fit.

At this point, the hard part was over!!

The wings were assembled per kit instructions, using the two-light wingtips that the B.Mk.IV shared in common with the N.F.II, and assembled to the fuselage with the horizontal stabilizers following suit. It looked like a bomber Mossie to me! I then inserted all the cockpit equipment I had left out, and the model was ready for finishing.

Canopy and Nose Cap:

Surprisingly, the Monogram bomber canopy and nose cap are very clear. Even with the problem of the canopy having been molded in halves, a modeler can use this glass to complete their Mossie if they dip it in Future. However, the canopy glass is thick enough that even with Future it distorts what can be seen in the cockpit, and when you get the two halves to join there is the problem of polishing that joint once it has been smoothed. My solution was to vacuform the canopy and nose cap, since I am fortunate enough to have an old Mattel vacuform that works perfectly. By allowing the clear plastic sheet to soften to the maximum, I was able to pull a canopy the first try that got the window bulges so completely I almost thought I would rip the canopy pulling it off the mold.

Painting:

With the B.Mk.IV, everyone thinks of the two daylight squadrons, 105 and 139. Aeromaster has a 105 Squadron machine, DK338/GB-P on their "Mossie Collection Part 2" 48-299. I decided that since this particular B.Mk.IV was the result of a lot of effort that I wanted it to stand out from the crowd. I found an Oboe-marker from 109 Squadron in the Osprey book "Mosquito Bomber/Fighter-Bomber Units 1942-45," and decided to do it. The airplane was painted Ocean Grey/Dark Green on the upper wings and horizontal stabiliser, and the upper part of the fuselage, with Smooth Night lowers.

I painted the upper camouflage first, following the standard Mosquito camouflage pattern, then masked over all that and shot the lower surfaces with Tamiya semi-gloss Black, X-18.

Decals:

I used a set of national insgnia from "Mossie Collection Part 2," while the squadron codes came from the same Modeldecal sheet I used for the Night Fighter. Alternatively, "Mossie Part 2" has markings for a B. Mk.IV of 692 Squadron, which is quite acceptable.

Final Finish:

After the model was washed clean of decal solvent, I gave it a final coat of Future. I then brought the gloss black down to a smooth semi-gloss finish with two coats of thinned Dullcote, then added three more coats of thinned Dullcoat to the upper camouflage.

The canopy, nose windows, nose cap and bomb bay windows were attached in position using white glue. I added antenna wires and then dirtied the airplane up a bit with exhaust stains on the cowls and lower wing area.

Looking at it, I am convinced the Mossie really does look best as a bomber.

OVERALL:

Any one of these Mossie projects will let you hone your skills, at whatever level you are at, from beginner through veteran. I personally like having models on my shelves that won't be found on anyone else's shelf - at least not exactly like mine. To me, individualizing a model is when modeling becomes fun again.