1/48 B-34 Ventura NZ4602 OP-O, No.11 SU 1944

[dewobz]

Here is my Revell B-34 Ventura created from the Ventura Mk II RAF kitset with Martin Turret from PV-1 Ventura, depicted as NZ4602 OP-O. I have attempted to correct the starboard rear fuselage window position and surrounding panel lines and scratch-built some cockpit detail including blinds and underwing Yagi aerials, which my research from "Pacific Twins" leads me to believe this aircraft may have worn. Corrected Blister Canopy by Alley Cat & Diamond Tread covered wheels by UltraCast. The aircraft wears a faded NZ Blue Sea Grey over NZ Sky Grey scheme, self-mixed Aeromaster acrylics, brush painted. Ventura & Colorado decals.
From ADF.serials -
NZ4602 4709 B-34 41-38053 FD601 Previously FD601 RAF lend-lease, but had been used only by USAAF units.
Assembled at No.1 Aircraft Depot Hobsonville and BOC with Unit 36, Hobsonville on 06 August 1943.
Coded "OP-O".
Sold from Rukuhia on 02 March 1948 to J. Larsen and broken up.

42-DSCN0941 by Wally Hicks, on Flickr

37-DSCN0936 by Wally Hicks, on Flickr

41-DSCN0940 by Wally Hicks, on Flickr

26-DSCN0925 by Wally Hicks, on Flickr

27-DSCN0926 by Wally Hicks, on Flickr

35-DSCN0934 by Wally Hicks, on Flickr

43-DSCN0942 by Wally Hicks, on Flickr

39-DSCN0938 by Wally Hicks, on Flickr

34-DSCN0933 by Wally Hicks, on Flickr

22-DSCN0921 by Wally Hicks, on Flickr

17-DSCN0916 by Wally Hicks, on Flickr

47-DSCN0949 by Wally Hicks, on Flickr

29-DSCN0928 by Wally Hicks, on Flickr

30-DSCN0929 by Wally Hicks, on Flickr

As always I took (& posted?) way too many photos. There's even more on Flickr and the full build on www.kiwimodeller.com
One for the home team during WW2!
Cheers
Wally.

[Andy Wright]

That's your best yet, Wally.

[dewobz]

Thank you very much Andy.
Incidentally folks, the decals are Ventura Decal's new PV-1 Venturas V4882 decals with the darker blue roundel colour. It is very close to the colour in AeroMaster's old SP48-10 "RNZAF in WW2" set.
However, like Ventura's RNZAF mid-Blue, the new darker blue appears lighter in my photos than it does to the naked eye. I suspect there's a setting on my camera I don't know about.
This excellent decal set includes borderless white bars - as on this aircraft - plus other roundels suitable for almost any PV-1 or B-34 model and for several other types, notably Avenger, Kittyhawk and Hudson.
All this and they remain among the best quality decals I have ever used.
They come with my highest possible recommendation.

[Dave Homewood]

Great work Wally

[baz62]

Great job Wally! You must have quite a collection now!

[camtech]

Wow - what a great job. Well done Wally

[dewobz]

Thank you kindly sirs.
Baz my collection is presently somewhat restricted by lack of proper shelving or display cabinet space (and consequent dust protection).
It has not grown hugely in the last year or two since maybe 1/2 to 2/3's of the models I build are commissions and I tend not to keep them for very long.
This B-34 is for my collection, it not being a commission, however most of my models are "for sale" if anyone wants to buy them.
That's just how it is with me. I love building them, photographing them and having them around for a while, after which I am happy to let them go to a good home if the price is right.
I especially like it when the buyer is an interested collector or has a personal connection with the aircraft.
Cheers
Wally.

[ZacYates]

Those markings look painted-on, nice work! I love me some twin Lockheeds, especially the Kiwi Ventura. Congrats.

I'm not a fan of the patchy faded finish myself, but I haven't seen enough wartime photos to judge that!

[Dave Homewood]

Zac, the B-34's and PV-1's did indeed get to be pretty patchy and worn in their paintwork like this. Often the US star would be quite visible in the roundel as the top layer wore down. I have tried to convince Malcolm Laird to do a set of such faded roundels for Venturas and Corsairs but he hasn't taken the bait yet.

[noooby]

Nice to see another dented drop tank

[Calum]

Nice one Wally

[mumbles]

I'm in constant admiration of your brushing skills Wally, inspirational stuff

[davidd]

Wally,
I could not help but notice the "splay-out" angles of your underwing Yagi arrays, and to me they look just a little on the excessive side. To quote the RNZAF Signals Officer (Squadron Leader R J Gibbs) sent to the USA in about April/May 1943 to check out the B-34s intended for the RNZAF at the Dallas Modification Centre, he had this to say about the ASV system on these particular aircraft:-

"ASV; Canadian-built Mk. II ASV sets are being installed. These are known by the US Army as Signals Corps Radio No. 521A (SCR-521A). The complete "breakdown" list for the installation in shown in Appendix 'A' (not included here). Only one indicator is fitted." (Note, Indicator was the contemporary term for what we might call a monitor, or viewing screen, or Cathode Ray Tube (CRT)).

"A major point of interest is the antenna switching unit known as the 'Polyplexor'. This unit is in reality as 'common TR aerial box'.

"Search and Homing aerials are being installed, the search type being a single stack of four half-wave aerials fed in phase from the centre. Directivity is said to be good. The 'Homing' aerials are Yagis using three directors spaced a quarter wave and a reflector spaced one eighth wave. They are fitted at an angle of 19 degrees to the line of flight. Polar diagrams for either type are unavailable."

"The ASV equipment is set up in the W/T Operators' cabin in the position occupied by the communications apparatus in the Hudson. The indicator has been placed on the table and at an angle to allow the operator a reasonable degree of comfort while the transmitter is under the W/T operators' table. See photographs attached."

It is of interest that this configuration was apparently NOT used by the USAAF aircraft, and may have been exclusive to the RNZAF and possibly also the RAAF and RCAF as they apparently used similar B-34s delivered at about the same time as the RNZAF ones. Normal new-production B-34s were fitted out as straight medium-level bombers.

Squadron Leader Gibbs was taken up on a test flight over the Gulf of Mexico in one of the New Zealand aircraft on 16th April 1943 and was not particularly impressed with the performance of the ASV set-up, nor with the general knowledge of the American radar engineers at Dallas. For these reasons he recommended that "full operational tests of this equipment" be carried out when the B-34s finally arrived in New Zealand. "I was not impressed with their knowledge of this subject or their methods of testing." He also noted that no test equipment or spares for the non-communications equipment (that is the radar, etc) was being provided, and recommended that steps be taken to acquire such equipment.

I do not know exactly what the "splay-out" angle of the underwing Yagis fitted to Catalinas was, but it was probably not too different to those used on the B-34.

One other tiny point - I see that you have radio altimeter aerials fitted underwing on your B-34 - I was not aware that these were fitted on our aircraft, although it is possible that they were retrofitted to a few of our operational B-34s at about the same time as our early PV-1s received this useful flying aid in about mid-1944. Radio altimeters were fitted to all production PV-1s from a given point onwards in early 1944, although all earlier aircraft were factory-wired to receive it when it finally became available.
David D

[flyjoe180]

Beautifully done Wally, superb work.

[dewobz]

Thanks flyjoe and thanks davidd for your comments. The information about radar is fascinating.
The Yagi aerial arrays on my B-34 were a bit of an afterthought. Not carefully done and I agree the splay angle is too great. I even thought so at the time when the superglue was setting! I also didn't know exactly where to attach them under the wing as I only have photo views from above the wing to work from. I suspect they are also mounted too far forward.
Interesting about the litte (inverted) "T" radio altimeter aerials too. I have to admit I did not even know what they were, only that they appear on most photos of PV-1s where the underwing is visible.
I sure do hope, as always, that you are maybe putting all your knowledge into a book with hundreds of illustrations for us modellers to use as reference material ...
Cheers

[davidd]

Wally,
Hoped you might enjoy the additional detail, even though I knew it might involve you in some subtle re-aligning at some stage. And we all have to get this 'hard data' out there for general consumption - if you've got it, flaunt it! Of course I did not know whether you knew the splay-out angle of those aerials until I saw the photos. Incidentally some US Navy aircraft were fitted with underwing Yagi aerials that moved through about 90 derees, and anywhere between. These were fitted to single-engined shipboard aircraft such as TBF/TBM (Avenger), SBD (Daubtless), and SB2C (Helldiver) as well as the one known as the Sea Wolf (SB2U?) which were all fitted with ASB radar (not metric type). This was so that the available equipment could be used for both 'search' (sideways looking) and 'homing' (forward looking), but not at the same time (which you would not want to do anyway). You can often spot these aerials at various angles in different photographs. Obviously the riveted on (and very large) arrays on Catalinas and B-34s could not be moved, which is why they had two sets of aerials to carry out the separate functions. The moveable, smaller aerials on TBFs, SBDs, etc, were actually rotated by hydraulic pressure, in fact by hydraulic "Exactor" controls licensed to be built in the USA by Sperry in New York from the British patent holders. Probably not too much British hardware manufactured under license in the USA during WW2 (although the RR Merlin, and development of certain advanced radar, prototypes of early jet engines were very important, plus airborne lifeboat), but quite a lot of USA bulit in Britain (numerous aircraft instruments, propellers [Hamilton Standard and Curtiss Electric), anti-cing equipment, and machine guns (Brownings, suitably modified to fire British ammunition with its rather dirty, cordite propellant).
David D

[Dave Homewood]

These photos might be useful for gauging the angle. These come from Bill Edhouse's collection. He was an Air Gunner on Venturas. These are B-34's at Whenuapai.

A front view of NZ4605:


A closer look at the starboard aerial from the shot above:


And I think this might be NZ4606:


A closer look at the starboard aerial from the shot above:

[dewobz]

Thanks davidd and Dave Homewood both.
I am reminded of the old adage, "It pays to ask first"!
I sometimes think "I wish there was a place where every RNZAF photo ever taken was lodged for me to access" ... and I guess that place is right here? (More-or-less anyhow)
As I strongly suspected from the very limited reference material I had on hand, the aerial array is much narrower gauge tube than I used and connects to the wing, as I also suspected, mostly within the circle of the underwing roundel. Mine connects forward of the roundel-bar.
If I do reposition I will build new aerials as well ... but I think that project is 'finished' now.
So, I wonder if NZ4600 carried the Yagis? That will be the subject of my next B-34 build.
Also, just out of interest, is there evidence of any other home-based B-34s or PV-1s having yellow outlined roundels in all 6 positions? I get the feeling NZ4600 was unusual in this?
Thanks again
Wally.

[Dave Homewood]

NZ4600 was only an instructional airframe once it arrived in NZ so the yellow outlines, if we have proof of them being there in WWII, were probably just training exercises for riggers or sign-writers to paint.

[Dave Homewood]

Here is NZ4600 at RNZAF Station Nelson, in an old photo from Contact magazine. Note no aerials.