1:72 Avro Lancasters B Mk.III - Panavia Tornado

From a night bomber to an anniversary finish

British squadrons cultivate their history and like to recall it with a special finish on one of their current aircraft. This sheet contains such a commemoration in full, in two machines six decades apart. The older of them is the four-engine Lancaster in the B Mk.III form with the fuselage number ME758, the code letters PH and the letter N. Its nickname came from the spelling alphabet and it flew from the Wickenby base in Lincolnshire, one of those sprawling wartime airfields from which dozens of heavy machines departed every night over occupied Europe and from which a few of them never came back each time.

The younger subject is a Panavia Tornado with the fuselage number ZA543 from Lossiemouth in Scotland. It carries a ceremonial painting recalling two dates separated by a year marking, the year the unit came about and the year of its ninetieth anniversary, supplemented by the motto with which the squadron has always claimed the hunting spirit. The Tornado in the variant for ground attack was at that time the heaviest weapon the Royal Air Force had, and together with the Lancaster the pair thus neatly closes the circle from piston engines to jets.

Anyone who builds both models will get an unusual pair into the display case. The motifs are transferred with water; the anniversary painting on the fin of the Tornado is fairly large, and it therefore suits it to be applied onto a perfectly smooth paint base and held for a while, until the thin film seats across the whole area without a fold. The remaining adhesive around the edges is then wiped off with a damp cotton bud.