The Initial Image
Slipping the Bonds
by George Paterson
P-51B-Deblinski
It seems like ages ago that I presented my second rendition of the hypothetical Fw 190D in service with JG5 in Norway. In fact it was a little over a year ago, in June 2008.
In that image I used a
model of a Mustang
The Initial Image
I can’t trace the original review of this model, so I am unable to tell you the provenance of the kit. It must have been a review, because the file is tagged with Randy’s name – if it came from a Show report I wouldn’t have known that
We have here an excellent
model photo – a big, clear image of a well-posed model. It will be a pleasure to
work on. Apart from the flap setting there are no reconstruction problems; even
the canopy is closed, what joy!
Treatment of the Image
Because the basic selection of the main structural elements was done 18 months ago, I can’t recall much about it, but it was obviously easy. I think that there is a slight droop in the starboard wing-tip, but it is very localised and can be cured without needing to jockey the tip upwards.
Moving on to the internal
detailing, I found that Randy’s panel lines were exceptionally clear – comparing
them with my reference drawings (Jacek
Żurek - Monografie
Lotnicze No. 55, AJ Press, Warszawa), I also found that they were very accurate.
The scale effect causes the panel lines to be heavier than I ideally like, so I
re-did them using a standard 1 pixel width for most lines, with a few at 2
pixels.
As is my normal current practice I selected the ailerons and elevators by
cutting them out of the wing/tailplane selection. Then I could work on them in
isolation, and I stored them along with the spinner selection (which also
contains the rudder). I did the same procedure with the flaps, but as they are
immediately adjacent to the ailerons I couldn’t store them with the spinner as
well, so I added them to the prop selection.
This issue of storing your selections arises because there is an upper limit to
the number of selections available with the program – at a certain point, around
20 selections, any new selection cannot be saved. Therefore you must add new
selections to pre-existing ones (which you can do ad infinitum); that way, I can
store as many things as I like, probably upwards of 100 items if you include all
the finer details.
I had created a small archive of photos of 315 squadron’s
Mustangs, and this helped me with the décor aspects. I could not distinguish
between the colours of the spinner, the nose band behind it, the fuselage band
on the rear fuselage, and the aircraft code letters. They all came out a
slightly sickly pale yellow, which I took to be
a white colour that was rather weathered. I decided
to leave the two front-end areas alone, but I selected the code letters and the
rear band, and shifted their colour towards blue, and a little also towards
green, trying to get that slightly duck-egg colour that I’ve seen on WW II RAF
airplanes for these details.
Now I had a conundrum – in all the wartime photos I found, all the Mustangs
carried both the Squadron emblem and the Polish red/white checker, the former
just below the windscreen, and the latter below the exhaust ports. This was not
only port-side, but both sides of the fuselage. Some aircraft also carried the
word „Polska“ in white just below the checker. It is not always the case, but
with this model I had a sneaking feeling that Randy had done a reasonably
thorough job in researching his décor, so I was reluctant to act against his
version. What to do?
My solution was to close the file without these two extra items, and then re-tag
it to get a fresh version. That new version has the additions, but I can fall
back on the earlier version if I need to – Insurance!
A
feature of these Mustangs was that the serial was positioned below the
tailplane, rather than just ahead of it, as was the normal position on British
wartime aircraft. This tells you something about the basic layout of the Mustang
– when you compare it to an Fw Dora, say, or to a Spitfire, you have the feeling
that the wing is set quite far back, so the space between the trailing edge and
the tailplane is relatively short. Rather than squeeze the serial into the width
of the rear fuselage band, it was located below the fin, and could be made
fairly big – only in this location it is often difficult to see in the shadow
cast by the tailplane.
I
pasted the finished image onto a backing that is unusually appropriate for this
squadron’s aircraft. My google search for info on 315 sq. turned up a detailed
listing of its operations in 1944/45, and I noted that there were a lot of ops
in the vicinity Argentan/Alencon/Le Mans, an area of France generally known as
the Perche. Well, this photo was taken a few miles South of Le Mans, so my
finished image could well represent one of those sorties.
Conclusions
One of the authors of the squadron history that I read from Google ended his
piece on a poignant note. In 1946, when the oportunity arose to go back home to
Poland, most of the Polish lads decided to stay in UK. Meantime, you see, their
homeland had been taken over by the communists – they couldn’t face the prospect
of leaving a Western democracy like Britain, however imperfect, in favour of a
regime as repressive and tyrranous as were those Eastern European communist
regimes. However, his final point is to say that these Polish lads didn’t feel
welcome in UK either, so they ended up with no home at all.
Well, I think I must challenge that last point. I’ve known many British Poles,
and I think I know how British people generally reacted to their presence in our
midst. They were foreigners, of course, and as such they would always be at a
certain disadvantage in a caste-based society like Britain. But that very
caste-based society actually made outsiders of us all to varying degrees, except
for the true „Upper Crust“, maybe only 5% of the population, who think they own
everything, and mostly do. God help us, that clan (Cameron, Osborne et al) will
probably be in power again next year.
Among ordinary British folks, though, the Poles were accepted as well as
anybody. Engineering, my own profession, was full of them, and their reputation
was high. So I think the comment about the „homelessness“ of those former RAF
men is a bit exaggerated. I think they yearned to get back to a free Poland, but
when it eventually arrived, it was a totally different country from the one they
had left fifty years earlier in 1939.
Out of respect for their contribution to The Allies‘ war effort, and in recognition of their identity as a Polish squadron within the umbrella of the RAF, I thought I would display the 315 squadron emblem on the top corner of my image, along with the Unit’s formal name in Polish. The little hook below the „e“ signifies a pronunciation like „em“, while the accent on the „n“ means that there is a hint of a „j“ sound following it – so the word should be pronounced „Demblin(j)ski“