Grandma's Finest Hour, the Blackburn Buccaneer in the 1991 Gulf War

1/48 Airfix kit#8100 HS Buccaneer S.2B. Well known to all Buc aficionados when the 1991 Gulf War commenced operations, the Lossiemouth Wing at Lossiemouth, Scotland deployed an initial batch of six Buccaneers to the Gulf for the purpose of providing laser-designation capability to the Tornado GR.1 force (that had no such capability). The S.2Bs received radio and IFF upgrades and were repainted in ARTF (Alkali Removable Temporary Finish) “desert pink”. An additional six were deployed within weeks and all twelve aircraft received names and artwork. Six received pinup style artwork on the starboard side and eleven received the famous “Jolly Roger” patchwork on the port side. All airframes also received the names of local malt whiskies made in Lossiemouth. XX885 “Hello sailor”, “Caroline”, and “Famous Grouse” is the subject of this build. This is the old tool 1/48 Airfix kit; it is notoriously problematic for many modelers often possessing severely warped fuselage halves and approximate fit in the engine intakes and exhaust areas requiring careful assembly, seam remediation, and contour correction. A new tool S.2B, is due from Airfix soon and will likely resolve the issues as did the recently released S.2C/D kit. Unfortunately, until the new tool S.2B is released the old kit is the only one providing the bulged bomb bay of the Buccaneer S.2B. The old uncolored Eduard photo etch cockpit set #48132 was installed and required careful hand painting. Once assembly was complete the model was primed with Tamiya acrylic X-1 Gloss black thinned 1:1 with traditional lacquer thinner. The ARTF desert pink applied to all the gulf Buccaneers was mixed from Tamiya acrylics followed by Future/Pledge clearcoat. Decals used are some of the kit decals and Kits World set KW148140 that provides decals for all six Bucs sporting the pin up nose art. These aircraft weathered heavily during the short deployment so weathering was done using Tamiya black, gray and brown panel liner, artist's oils, and pastels. The final clear coat is a mixture of Testors Dullcote and Glosscote lacquer thinned with Mr. Color Leveling Thinner.

Not an easy build due to the part warpage, unhelpful kit engineering, and the resultant need for seam and contour correction work but in the end an appealing model of the fastest subsonic low level attack bomber the Royal Navy ever flew.

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20 additional images. Click to enlarge.