1:72 Blackburn Firebrand TF.V/Mk.5 "FAA Early Schemes" (10x camouflage schemes)

The aircraft that came on the scene a little late

The Blackburn Firebrand was designed as a carrier-based interceptor, but its development dragged on so long that in the end it became a heavy torpedo strike machine with a Bristol Centaurus radial engine. It reached front-line service with the Fleet Air Arm only after the war had ended and spent most of its career on trials, training and short tours on the decks of aircraft carriers. The TF Mk.5 version was the last and the most thoroughly developed, with modified control surfaces that were to tame the machine's notorious behavior at low speeds.

What the sheet offers

Ten camouflage schemes cover the years 1946 to 1951. Among them is fuselage number EK692 brought up to Mk.V standard during catapult trials aboard HMS Illustrious in the autumn of 1946, machine EK747 in two forms, with a test unit at Lee-on-Solent in 1947 and with front-line No. 813 Squadron in 1949, two variants of the same aircraft EK748 from Thorney Island in 1948, EK765 with No. 813 Squadron aboard HMS Implacable in February 1949 and EK766 during deck trials in the Firth of Forth. The set closes with EK773 of No. 738 Squadron of the naval fighter school, caught during a stay at Gibraltar in July 1950, and EK780 with No. 827 Squadron from RNAS Ford in 1951.

Who it is for

The sheet is an accessory to a kit and does not contain the model itself. It will be appreciated by modelers who want to show postwar British naval aviation in the period of the move from propeller machines to jets, because every scheme is documented with a particular fuselage number, unit and date.