1/48 Tamiya Lancaster FM-213

Gallery Article by Shawn “phantom” Weiler on Apr 18 2017

 

      

A few shots of a couple Lancasters. Very different paint schemes of the same airframe. FM-213. She was built in Malton Ontario (North West Toronto) back at the end of World War Two by Avro Canada. Never saw war time service but was used after the war. On its delivery flight to 405 squadron it was heavily damaged in a landing incident. Quite a lot went into a rebuild including using the centre section from a retired airframe. She was later modified for search and rescue work and issued to 107 rescue squadron. It flew with them from the late 50s till retirement in 1964. It was stuck on top of a pole in Goderich Ontario until the massive rebuild to wartime colours by the Canadian Warplane heritage Museum in Hamilton Ontario.  She is now one of only two air worthy Lancasters on earth.

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The kits are the 1975 Tamiya Lancasters. The modern (war time colour) model is built out of the box. The silver is actually a Grand Slam bomber with a great amount of sheet plastic wrapped around the bottom to give the bomb doors the illusion of existance. It also has the thimble radome from a past Lancaster project. It was built wheels up as I had to use its landing gear to repair the first kits. That 1975 plastic is getting very brittle. In fact the original rear turret fell apart and I had to use parts from the second (which did not need guns) to fix it.

The decals on these two are from Canmilair. They have a couple dozen options for Lancasters in ALPS decals. Very nice stuff. The third Lans in the big photo was done a few years ago. It is also FM-213 in its retirement colours using Leading Edge decals.

“phantom” 

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Photos and text © by Shawn “phantom” Weiler