Airspeed Oxford Mk.I ‘Gunner Trainer’ 1/48-Special Hobby

[kiwiruna]

The Airspeed Oxford was a British aeroplane developed early in the war and mainly used in training of multi-engine aircraft crews – pilots, navigators, gunners. The Oxfords saw service with the RAF, as well as with air forces of other Commonwealth countries (RNZAF, RCAF, RAAF and SAAF). In the post-war years, many Oxfords were also delivered to even more other countries. The Mk.I version of the Oxford was produced with the dorsal gun turret and was mainly used for gunnery training, and this is the version that our model represents.

The styrene parts come with resin items and etches, and the decals offer markings for war time machines operated by the RAF, RNZAF and RCAF and a post war, yellow and blue machine of the RNAF – Royal Norwegian Air Force.

- Photo-etch and resin cast parts are supplied in the box

[davidd]

Sorry to have to point this out, but the Oxford was designed several years before WW2, based largely on the lesser-known Airspeed Envoy, which first flew in 1934. As you state, the Oxford was designed to train all types of aircrew, but NOT all at the same time! And in fact in British Commonwealth air forces it was almost exclusively employed in training multi-engined pilots. It was NEVER used for training aircraft-crews as such, as it was far too small really, rather more cramped than the Avro Anson for instance, or the Dominie. The early production Oxfords were used pretty well exclusively for multi-engine pilot training, despite fact that they were fitted with turrets. They COULD have been used to train air-gunners, but they were only equipped with the rather simple manual turret (courtesy of Armstrong Whitworth). As most RAF bombers of WW2 had hydraulic turrets, it was probably figured later that before being posted to squadrons, all gunners should be converted to hydraulic turrets and it would have been just as easy to train all gunners on these, if available. Interesting to note that the full training syllabus for Advanced Training Squadrons of Commonwealth air force SFTS's called for free-gunnery training for ALL PILOT TRAINEES, and this was complied with in the RNZAF (and probably RAAF) till about late 1942 or early 1943; after that, this requirement lapsed.

The RNZAF rarely trained any other category of aircrew in Oxfords, apart from some small numbers of trainee Wireless Operators under training at the E&W School at Wigram, and small numbers of air gunners returned from the UK sometimes were given a short refresher course in them at Ohakea. After about the middle of 1943, the "FAFAI scheme" (Forces Available for Anti-Invasion) was completely cancelled, and the proportion of Oxfords previously equipped with turrets had them removed for the duration.

Incidentally, early production Oxfords were all called Mk. Is (but with a qualifier), with about 50% equipped with turrets - those with turrets were called Mk. I (Advanced), those without were Mk. I (Intermediate). The words in brackets referred to the "Training Squadron" that these aircraft were allocated to at the Service Flying Training Schools. Shortly afterwards, the RAF decided to redesignate all extant Oxfords as simply Mk. Is (with turrets) or Mk. II (no turrets). However in about 1942/43, with the deletion of the now superfluous turrets, the qualifiers "Intermediate" and "Advanced" were deleted, and all future Oxfords manufactured were simply designated as Mk. Is, with no provision for turrets. In the RNZAF, the distinctions Mk. I and Mk. II were retained till the end of the war, and after, although no Mk. II's were built after about 1942. So the presence or absence of a turret on any particular Oxford was still insufficient to identify the correct Mark number. However, as many other modifications, improvements, deletions of superfluous equipment, and changes of layouts of instruments and controls, etc., were introduced over time, quoting the alleged mark numbers became increasingly irrelevant.

[ZacYates]

Here is Special Hobby's online shop listing for the kit (link).