1/72 Airmodel AM-218

Westland P.12 Wing Lysander

by Matthias Simon

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Short History:

No..... this is not Steve´s "silly week".....

During 1940 in Britain there were preparations for the defence of the country in the event a German invasion was to take place. Among projected schemes put forward for the strafing of German forces as they hit the beaches and for striking at supporting surface vessels was that of the Westland P-12. The project incorporated a straight modification of the Westland Lysander aircraft. The initial plan was to install two 20mm cannons attached to the fixed undercarriage spats. However a further rethinking led to the redesign of the rear fuselage, this being cut short and a tail turret added, and the adaptation of a new mounted ‘tandem wing’ arrangement complete with endplate fins and rudders for longitudinal stability. When the P-12 first flew on 27th July 1941 it was immediately shown to be highly maneuverable.

The P-12 serial number K6172 was extensively modified to another standard form of strafing power against ships or ground troops. The fuselage was shortened by 4’9” to 25’9” and a tail mock-up intended to carry a 4gun, Wash and Thompson type, made of plywood and Perspex which was a generic heavy bomber tail unit, and a fuselage having a very light framework. The De Lenne type second wing, which had full span elevators and was fitted beneath the fuselage just in front of the turret. This increased the wing area from 260 Sq Ft to 392 Sq ft.  The P-12 was powered by a Perseus XII engine and flown by the company’s test pilot Harold Penrose who found that it handled well.

Following the successful maiden flight it was hoped that the design would develop into an effective night fighter or at least gunnery trainer. Despite successful flight trials this remained a one off experiment. The perceived German threat diminished and none were ever ordered. K6127 was later used for communication tests and in the Welkin programme before being broken up in 1944.

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The Kit:

You should know it is a vaccum converision kit. Recommended basic kit is the Frog Lysander. I owned a Matchbox Lysander kit which was more detailed on a local modeling exhibition. I had no problems with assembling, so everybody can use this kit too.
In fact assembling was easy.... a perfect beginner kit, if you want to start with building vacuumformed kits. How to handle them had been already discribed in a former article here at ARC of my Airmodel AM-235 Junkers Ju 288 V-3 kit. I made some small modifications with the interior. The only part which I used from my spare-parts box was a seat for the rear turret.
 

Painting:

After priming the model, I used JPS Colors (Jens Popp Colour Germany who is also called "Don Color") for the color-pattern. He offers a hugh range of very nice and accurate acrylic colors. My underside color is british duckegg blue. Later I discovered that the underside was originaly painted yellow.... grrrrr :-)

Decals:

I am usualy building german Luftwaffe Models, so my decal-archiv therfore wasn´t useable. The Decals provided with the original Matchbox kit could not been used. I made some masks to spray the yellow outlined british cockades and the yellow "P" by myself. I needed several tries to paint everything  concentrically.

Summery:

If you already red some of my articles you know my predilection for vaccumformed kits. I bet most of you never saw pictures of the original aircraft or a model from the P.12 Lysander. You hopefully agree building such a rare bird is an alterative to the numberous 109´s and Spitfires one can see everywhere. Not to speak about the fun I have with building vac kits :-) If you like my report too, I also would be very proud about it. :-)

Matthias

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Photos and text © by Matthias Simon Airmodel Products