'Downtime with the Lads' Flying Officer Adrian (Warby) Warburton DSO DFC

Around this time last summer, I wanted to commemorate one of the greatest pilots to ever grace tiny Malta, with his presence: Flying Officer Adrian Warburton.

Now Warby as he was affectionately known, wasn't exactly your usual fighter or bomber pilot, but he was a Reconnaissance pilot and an Ace !
Brief History: Adrian was baptized on his father's submarine in the Maltese Grand Harbor, later on in his life he earned his flying hours with the RAF and while he was considered as a brilliant pilot in the air, his takeoffs and landings where the stuff of nightmares, so much so that at first he was assigned as Wop/ag, yet following certain mishap the commander of the recon section needed pilots and thus Adrian was given the chance to show his true self.
Like many brilliant pilots who found their way to Malta during World War 2, Warby was also considered as a misfit by the powers that be, in fact we find this a lot during the period, many misfits excelled in Malta, many historians attribute this to the fact that in Malta the situation wasn't to 'live by the book' as it was back in England. In Malta at the time, pilots, ground crews and military personnel were the daily bread on a given airfield (as can be seen in the DIO), they all knew that they were on the same boat and thus they mixed together a lot, unlike in England where rank was rank.
Warburton himself (as can be seen in the final photo) dressed as he liked and did what he liked, one particular anecdote that comes to mind is when he promised his ground crew and mess officers, whisky for Christmas... after returning from a mission, on his way to Malta he diverted his Maryland to Greece and loaded it with black market whisky.
Why an Ace? apart from managing to shoot down aircraft Adrian, used also to load his aircraft with small caliber bombs and hand grenades, there are recorded instances where he asked his crew members to open up the under hatch and unload the bombs on an airfield he just photographed, while he himself from the driving position used to throw out hand grenades.
He was instrumental in photographing Taranto prior and after the successful attack that was carried out by the Navy. He used to go down so low that on one particular sortie he came back with part of a ship aerial attached to the Maryland's underside.

There are many more exploits of Adrian Warburton which are brilliantly detailed in Tony Spooner's book: Warburton's War and the Brian Cull Frederick Cauchi Book: Mayrlands over Malta.

Here are some useful links I found:
https://www.tracesofwar.com/persons/43644/Warburton-Adrian-Warby.htm

and also a BBC documentary can be found on YouTube (divided in 4 parts) :
https://www.tracesofwar.com/persons/43644/Warburton-Adrian-Warby.htm

The Build:
The build here wasn't as straight forward as originally planned, for starters I used an old 1/72 Frog kit : Marin Maryland 167 Recon Bomber, which needed a lot of work like sanding down the raised panel lines and rescribing them, following which I noticed that the top wing panel lines were not in line with the underwing, thus I filled the brittle grainy plastic and redid the whole process.
The Farmhouse I did according to the picture which I found in Marylands over Malta, this was done by airdrying clay and the process can be seen as pictured above, cut the sides in balsa wood, apply the airdrying clay, after drying, scribe the clay with the scribe tool, seal everything and start the painting process.

The Figures are from Airfix RAF Groundcrew, and 8th. Army, which where heavily modified for my purposes

Everything was airbrushed and hand painted in Humbrol enamels for the Aircraft and the figures respectively, which the farmhouse and the stone wall where done in AK paints.

Enjoy !

23 additional images. Click to enlarge.