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Hawker Typhoon Ib
"Bubbletop"

by Ian Robertson

Hasegawa's 1/48 scale "Bubbletop" Typhoon is available online from Squadron.com

For something a little different I decided to build a Hasegawa 1/48 Typhoon Mk 1B in flight with its landing gear partially retracted. 

Well, that is part of the story. The sad truth is that I lost one of the landing struts and feared that it would be all too obvious if I fashioned my own and displayed it in traditional gear-down form. 

As luck would have it I ended up recovering the strut early during construction but I decided to continue with my plan for a plane in flight regardless.

Hasegawa's kit is a beauty and posed no construction problems at all. 

I replaced the kit's spinner and 3-blade prop with a spinner and 4-blade prop from the Monogram Typhoon kit (which became a casualty on my shelf once the Hasegawa kit was announced). I also used the tires from the Monogram kit because they were not weighted whereas the Hasegawa tires were. Note that the tail wheel is also partially retracted.

The model was painted in the standard RAF scheme of Dark Green and Ocean Grey over Medium Sea Grey. The invasion stripes and fuselage band were also painted. All painting was done using Pollyscale acrylics.

I've never tried to simulate an aircraft in flight before, and I'm not completely satisfied with the propeller action in my photos. Ideally the propeller should spin so that no computer enhancement is necessary, but because I used the Monogram prop and spinner, and I wasn't thinking about sending photographs to Hyperscale at the time, the propeller on this model was fixed in place. 

To simulate movement I "blurred" the edges using my scanner's software. I tried various techniques and this worked the best. Any additional suggestions or advice would be appreciated.

Unseen is a wire that supports the model from beneath the fuselage. I used the scanner's software to replace the wire with the blue sky and clouds of southwestern Idaho*.

* Oops - I mean Great Britain or France.

Model, Text and Images Copyright © 2000 by Ian Robertson
Page Created 22 March, 2001
Last Updated 04 June, 2007

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