1/48 Tamiya DeHavilland Mosquito Mk.XIII

Night Fighter - No.409 Squadron

by Adam Bates

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Hello to everyone!

I have built a fantastic 'DeHavilland Mosquito Night Fighter Mk.XIII' which was a Christmas present from my girl friend (Thanks Emma) and finally I have taken a large step with the purchase of an Air Brush which is a Badger 200, which I have found very easy to use and to get fantastic results nearly first time, so my modeling has taken a large step and learning curve this time.

The Tamiya Mosquito kit has been very good to work with only minimal filling and sanding to get parts to fit! Also with this aircraft I have tried some new things, like custom made weighted tires where I use a small amount of heat from a cigarette lighter to warm the plastic then push down to make the weighted area, this seems to work without any problems. 

Click on images below to see larger images

  

  

  

As I said early on, I have finally gone for an airbrush which I found to make such a huge difference, with brush painting the fuselage it seems to have filled all the small details, where as the airbrush allows all the detail to stand out, which in turn makes a better job for weathering.  I found that masking the aircraft was easy and when I finally applied the Gloss and Matt coats the airbrush allows a light but effective finish.

This time with the weathering I decided to try the Tamiya weathering kits, these don't seem too bad to work with but they do take a long while to apply as they apply very lightly but finally I got there.  I also used the good old dry brushing effect too.

I decided to use the standard decals that came with the kit to put the aircraft in the markings of No.409 'Nighthawk' Squadron RCAF which was a night-fighter squadron Motto: MEDIA NOX MERIDIES NOSTER - "Midnight is our noon".  The squadron was based at: RAF Digby : 17 Jun 1941 - 26 Jul 1941, RAF Colby Grange : 26 Jul 1941 - 23 Feb 1943, RAF Acklington : 23 Feb 1943 - 19 Dec 1943, RAF Colby Grange : 19 Dec 1943 - 5 Feb 1944.  By the end of World War II it was credited with downing 10 V-1s.  The Aircraft operated during World War II was; Defiant MkI : Jul 1941 - Sep 1941, Beaufighter MkIIf : Aug 1941 - Jun 1942,Beaufighter MkVIf : Jun 1942 - Aug 1944 and Mosquito MkXIII :: Apr 1944 - Jun 1945. 409 TFS, RCAF, reformed on 6 Jul 2006 under 4 Wing at Cold Lake, Alberta, Canada.

If you would like anymore information on this Squadron please see http://www.rcaf.com/squadrons/400series/409squadron.php

Adam

Photos and text © by Adam Bates