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Terry Schuler
37 articles

Tamiya 1/48 scale Bristol Beaufighter MK VI

November 8, 2017 · in Aviation · · 23 · 3.9K

Aircraft: No. 604 Squadron, Scotland 1943-45

Years ago (probably decades ago) I managed to grab a copy of the two volume set of Edward Jablonski's book, Airwar. I remember this was the first time I had ever seen or heard of the . The aircraft was well illustrated in the Airwar book with some great combat pictures.
Years later would release this model in a beautiful scale kit, and I had mine as soon as they hit the shelf at my favorite hobby store.
This kit is really nice, no fit issues at all, a little lite on interior detail, but with a little help by the modeler this can be brought up to a very satisfying level.
The model was painted with Model Master enamels and the decals are from Aeromaster. The model was petty much build out of the box except for some scratch built cockpit details including custom seatbelts.
I have a self made rule of never talking about my model show successes on these posting, however an interesting / funny story occurred with this model about 10 years ago.
I had just finished my Mosquito MK VI and was worried that there would not be very many models entered in this category at the up coming IPMS Oregon show. I decided to take this Beaufighter to beef of the category. As it turned out this little dude won knocking out my Mosquito, and another Beaufighter (belonging to a good friend of mine) that had all sorts of after market goodies and was absolutely beautiful. We were both extremely surprised. Years later my friend Dave still brings this story up, and I too learned a valuable lesson about not competing against yourself at a show.

Reader reactions:
15  Awesome

7 additional images. Click to enlarge.


23 responses

  1. Excellent finish.

  2. I've built one of these as well and I can agree it is a great kit, it's a Tamiya - what else would you expect.
    Great work on a great kit.
    N.

  3. Very nice indeed.

  4. Good job and well presented.

  5. Beautifully done, Terry.

  6. Love that subtle camo job, Terry...nice work.

  7. Quality never gets old...Great job, Terry.

  8. Lovely build Terry!

  9. It's a beautiful Beau Terry!

  10. Terry this is a great looking Beaufighter. I am currently building a SAAF Beaufighter. You can follow my progress in the Work In Progress Group. You did an amazing job on this one. Well done!

  11. Oh yeah! I really like that, great job Terry! 🙂

  12. Remember, you could always build another one as a silver, yellow, and black target tug...

  13. Real nice Terry!

  14. Very Nice ! Fantastic job on your Beaufighter... I like it ... a lot !

  15. No problem seeing why it won. Nice work.

  16. The Beaufighter has always been one of my favourites ever since building the original Airfix 1/72 kit when I was kid. This is a million miles from my old model, truly a winner.

    • Thanks George, the one that impressed me when I first got this kit was how big this is in 1/48 scale, and it actually has some unexpected weight to it also. I've also built one in 1/72 scale, its a little nicer on shelf space.

  17. I love the Beaufighter and you've done a great job, Terry.

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