Gladiator Volunteers

Gloster J.8A Gladiator, Flygflottilj 19, March 1940

Airfix 1/72 Gloster Gladiator Mk II/J-8A kit #A02063

The Subject

Flight Regiment 19 was a Swedish Voluntary Air Force unit within the Finish Air Force, manned by Swedish volunteers, operating from Kemi in northern Finland during the Winter War between Finland and the Soviet Union.  F 19 operated from January to March 1940.

F 19 deployed with a mix of 12 Gladiators, 5 Hawker Hart bombers, an RK-26, Waco ZQC-6, and a Junkers F13.  The unit enjoyed a 4:1 kill ratio, losing 2 aircraft to combat (only 1 Gladiator) and destroying 8 aircraft in the air during their roughly 9 weeks of combat.

The Model

This is the newest tooling of the kit, released in 2013.  Construction is very straightforward with, at the time, was a unique method for ensuring interplane struts are aligned when installing the upper wing.  Another impressive feature of the kit is having all the rigging points molded into the kit with tiny indents — Either the modeler simply glues to those, or drills them out/deeper for their favorite method of rigging.  

Engineering is such that the modeler has to follow the instructions, and study them to ensure the details are painted and added in the right order.  I stalled a bit with the engine and cowl assembly, but that was the only challenge.  Fit is quite tight, so don’t leave any paint where parts have to fit together.

Paints were a mix of Floquil, Model Master, and Tamiya.  The silver color (Floquil Old Silver lacquer) was Aluminum paint applied over the base camouflage of Dark Olive (Tamiya XF-62) and Light Blue (Model Master Acryl RLM65).  I applied the Aluminum first, then placed blu-tak where I wanted the silver to remain, and sprayed the Light Blue.  Then I masked that and sprayed the Dark Olive.

Decals are from the excellent Xtradecal sheet 72182 which has 11 Gladiators in various paint schemes from six countries.  

Rigging is my now preferred method, using ceramic “wonder wire” .006 diameter, cut to slightly longer and then popped into the indents and glued using acrylic glue or PVA.  The are naturally straight and just look the part.

Summary

Completed in May of 2021, this was an easy kit and very enjoyable.  Airfix knows how to engineer a biplane for both ease of construction and rigging.  I have quite a few of these kits in my stash and it needs to be a future batch build.

Thanks for looking…