Short Stirling & RAF Bomber Command Forum

The top of the piano would not do for my final pictures of this build, so I grabbed a couple of simple background props in the form of a grass sheet and sky background left over from a model railway project. As you view these you may notice that in the later ones I have added a little weathering, in...

The last parts were added, including the antennae, rear turret and scratch built aerial and pitot tubes.

So we have finally arrived at the downward slope of this build. I have also decided that as I have the Italeri MkIV Stirling sat on the shelf waiting for to be built, that this one should represent my Father's MkIV as used to drop troops on TONGA and take a Horsa to Normandy during OVERLORD. So 299 ...

The top sides are now masked and the whole bottom area and fin is sprayed with matt black

Final masking. I decided on paper masks set a couple of mm away from the surface in order to soften the edges. I have not used my airbrush for 10 years so this is an anxious moment for me. In a few minutes, I could spoil everything that I had worked on for so long! I printed out a scaled up camoufla...

Finally I can start to put the sub assembles together and start masking. It has been a long time coming but the end is coming into sight!

Having airbrushed without one in the past I decided to learn from past mistakes and build a spray booth. I firstly tried a low voltage solution using a PC cooling fan that I already had and 3D printing a back cowl on which to fit a hose. Needless to say there was not enough suck! So I then fitted a ...

A bit of fettling for fit to do before I touch everything up and complete the nose. I decided on green for the canvas seats in the end, it seemed more in keeping. Magnifying it like this really shows the rough edges! lol

I have just revisited the nose internals due to the new information received. I have now moved the seat forward. The seat also all appears to be a pale canvas type, so I will re-paint it to suit. Clearly visible is the redundant front turret mounting ring. Also well shown are the eight plexiglass se...

i have finally worked out what was in the nose of a MkIV! There was a seat for the Observer, set back into the fuselage with a slatted footrest on a new floor above the bomb aimer's position. there was also a small "desk" in front with signalling lights in front of that. The seat was proba...