Transall Shorts Dover/Calais

[The Rat]

Transall Shorts Dover/Calais

December 30, 1968. The smiles were somewhat forced, and tears were not far from welling up, as the members of 209 Squadron RAF assembled on this warm Malaysian night for what was to be their final dinner together. The disbandment ceremony would be held tomorrow, and it would bring the end of service by a group which had a link to the downing of the Red Baron fifty years ago during the Great War. The Commanding Officer took a final glance through his prepared address, a single sheet which seemed to weigh more than any book he had ever read. He was about to stand when a piece of paper appeared over his right shoulder. "New orders Sir!" came an excited whisper, and by its very tone he knew that this dinner was about to take on a different place in squadron history. They were to re-equip with the new Transall flying boat, which the Aeronavale called the Calais and the RAF had christened the Dover. With the possible continuance of communist insurgency in South-east Asia there might be a pressing need for patrol aircraft, and this one was ably suited to the task of protecting British interests in the region.





In the 1960s it was becoming plain to the RAF and Aeronavale that they sorely missed the Short Sunderland flying boat that had been retired a few years previous. Not just a patrol aircraft, the Sunderland, by nature of its ability to land on water, was well suited to air-sea rescue tasks, evacuation, and resupply missions. Its performance in the Berlin Airlift had not been forgotten, nor had its safe rescue of the entire 34 man crew of the torpedoed merchant vessel Kensington Court in 1939.

The MoD issued a request for proposals for a new flying boat with a preference for a European design as befitted the emerging spirit of co-operation on the continent. Lockheed had recently shelved their amphibious C-130 derivative, and Soviet designs were out of the question. The Shin Meiwa PS-1 was also considered, as was a proposal to convert Armstrong Whitworth Argosys to a flying boat configuration.





In the end the winning bid came from Transall with a hulled variant of the C-160. Built under license by Shorts, it featured engines on top of the wings in order to better clear the spray, and floats positioned near the wing tips. These were rather large as they also were used to carry electronic equipment and flares.

Initial trials showed no undesirable tendencies, and outfitting with operational gear proceeded immediately. The first operators were 209 Squadron, and older members with long memories saw this powerful new mount as a measure of compensation for being briefly saddled with the Saro Lerwick during the Second World War.





209 had a traditional relationship with the far east, and their first tour of duty relived that history, with two aircraft being despatched to Hong Kong to monitor shipping in that densely travelled area, with stops at many old bases. After picking up the aircraft in Plymouth, Kasfareet on the Nile River was the first layover, then on to Bahrain on the Persian Gulf. Iraq was next, with a stop at Lake Al Habbaniyah, then on to Karachi where the Pakistani authorities welcomed them back, with many former base workers gleefully turning out. The next leg took them to Koggala in Sri Lanka, then to Korangi Creek in Burma. From there they took a wider circuit than their predecessors in order to avoid the ongoing unpleasantness in Viet Nam, and finished their trip in Hong Kong harbour.





As their service wore on and the global situation changed, France's Aeronavale took to showing the flag with goodwill flights to many nations, and Canada was a favourite stopover for both crews and airshow spectators. Appearances at the CNE Airshow were a perennial event, never failing to impress those watching the huge aircraft operate from the Lake Ontario waterfront. Current plans for a refit of the Calais are still being discussed, and we may see even better versions in the future.

[The Rat]

The Model

When I saw this model at a local shop I just had to have it. The teensy scale appealed to me as did the subject, yet another plane which has been among those neglected by manufacturers of nauseatingly unending BF-109 and FW-190 variants. I realised that such a small model was; 1. Not easy to detail (translation; I needn't feel guilty about not detailing it), and 2. Quite easy to have some fun with. Can you say 'What if"? Sure, I knew you could!

Lodela is a Mexican company with a small range of products, and this one is a repop of a Heller kit. All detail is raised lines, there are no transparencies, and identification markings are represented on the surface. There were no decals with my example, but whether there were any originally I can't tell. I doubt there were because the colours are written on the instruction sheet with a little arrow pointing toward the roundel. So perhaps Mexican children are taught hand-detailing early? Good, start 'em young I always say!

Modifying the fuselage for a planing hull was made easier by the fact that the main undercarriage blisters are separate components, so they didn't need to be carved off.

WARNING; PURISTS MAY WISH TO SKIP THIS SECTION! I did NOT carve a hull from virgin basswood, check the shape with an electron microscope, micrometer, and contour gauge, make a female mold out of resin, then construct a customized vacuum forming machine capable of replicating a full size Volkswagen body, and produce the hull. No siree. I simply carved the hull out of balsa and attached it with Squadron putty. (JMNs who failed to heed the above warning may now be identified by their patchy, bleeding scalps) Another warning is in order for any who may try this on other projects; Squadron putty seriously softens and pits the plastic, so don't use it on very thin sections or near small parts.



Okay, I lied, it was not that simple. My sculpting skills are on a par with a drunken Chimpanzee, and balsa that has not been treated with dope is an acute rectal discomfort. I avoided dope because if it touched the plastic it would eat it like breakfast, so until I could treat it somehow I was stuck with a surface which insisted on staying rough in a few spots, with those annoying hairy areas that often arise on balsa. I tried a 50/50 solution of white glue and water which I brushed on. This seems to be a good, plastic-safe substitute for dope, and I was finally able to both work on the hull and maintain a friendly relationship with my family. Float tops were made from a couple of teardrop shaped lumps from who-knows-where with balsa attached and shaped for the bottoms. The refuelling probe came from an ESCI A-4. I toyed with the idea of opening up the windows, but laziness took hold.

The engines were moved to the top of the wings directly over the mounting marks on the bottom, and the intakes and exhaust drilled out. A wingtip tank from an ancient Aurora RB-66 was called to duty, and placed on top of the fin as an Electronic Surveillance Measures antennae. The searchlight was next. Poking through some really old boxes looking for bits I happened upon a chunk of clear sprue that seemed just the right size and was already nice and rounded, so I actually have a clear nose on it, polished with Future. A section of sprue was used for the nose radome. The MAD boom was donated by a Heller 1/200th scale Breguet Atlantic. The kit's leftover landing gear and some scrap bits were cobbled together to make the beaching gear, and to appease any JMNs the tires were flattened a bit.



The major paints were Model Master Flat White, MM Flat Black, and Humbrol matt #27 grey, all hand brushed. I didn't want to over-accentuate details on such a small subject, so panel line pre-shading was done with Tamiya clear varnish. Marker pens help enormously on these tiny projects. I used a Sharpie to blacken the flight deck windows, and then scraped the raised frames with a #10 blade to expose the silver plastic underneath. The Sharpie was also used to add the de-icing boots at the base of each prop blade, and to make portholes. A Staedtler marker was used to draw the red propeller warning line on the fuselage.



The 4 Aeronavale roundels were provided courtesy of Todd 'Captain Canada' Pomerleau, supplemented with numbers and MARINE markings from the Heller Atlantic (I had hoped to use the roundels from that but the yellow ring was seriously off-register). Due to the fuselage curvature I decided not to place the MARINE decals under the roundels, but in a more prominent place along the side.

The scenic shot of Toronto was courtesy of Olivier 'Ollie' Lacombe, with the model picture inserted using MS Paint and MS Photo Editor. (And man, was that ever a laborious process!)

The initial RAF trip in the story is basically a replay of the flight my Father did as First Officer on Sunderland WQ-N of 209 Squadron in 1945.

Now, that Argosy I mentioned, anybody ever kit one of those? I've got some balsa left over.  

[K5054NZ]

Loved it before, still lovin it!

[Captain Canada]

I think that Vacuform outfit in the UK " transport wings' do one...it's 1/72nd scale, tho....you may need more Balsa !

Nice page about your dad. Good looking man ! Glad he missed the propeller...

[Ollie]

I remember that flight to Windsor!

 

[The Rat]

Nice page about your dad. Good looking man ! Glad he missed the propeller...

You and me both.  ^_^   That incident and the mountain in Viet Nam weren't the only close experiences he had. Once they got to Hong Kong they had some time to explore, so they decided to climb up one of the mountains in Kowloon. As he was going up he scrambled over a rock, only to come face-to-face with a Banded Krait, one of the world's more venomous snakes. I would be reaching for my camera, but Dad's never exactly been a snake person. After staring for a few moments the snake slithered away.

I think Dad started breathing again about ten minutes later.    

[Gary]

Hey... I'm offended.













Bwaaahaa haa haa haaa. You Da Man!

[The Rat]

Hey... I'm offended.

   

 

[Davey B]

And I still love it!