Supermarine Walrus

Having a rest from my Airfix Austin K2/Y ambulance and the Flying Nightingales to build the Supermarine Walrus I picked up from last week’s North Somerset Show. 

I’ve been on the lookout for one of these for some time. My inspiration for this build, for as you know there always has to be one, is an event in November 1939 when a plane struck a power cable at the RAF base in Malta sadly killing Flt Lt Patrick Booth R.N. and Leading Aircraftman Norman Burns. Norman Burns was my grandmother’s fiancée. 

While there had been vague family stories of this, full details were only discovered when clearing through old paperwork which included not only paper cuttings but letters, photographs and the saddest thing of all, the telegram!

So this has to be among one of closest builds to home that I’ve done. 

This old Walrus kit naturally has a good deal of flash to it, needed a touch of seam filling and I’m going to have to do something with the front of that engine!

The moulding for this same engine was lacking a hole for the propeller and instructions omitted this important feature too. I think the designer for this part definitely had his/her mind elsewhere when they threw this together. 

As this is going to be a pre-war 1937 Walrus, the next step is to give it all a coat of black primer ahead of a silver body and a return to that engine for some colour and detailing. 

Having masked that rather horrible canopy and given it a coat of silver / aluminium, I also decided on adding a missing hole where the air intake should have been and then reached for some pre- war roundels and random numbers from the stash. I do love the foot 👣 “walk here” markings which I used as Airfix intended directly from the kit.  

Once dry, I’ll add the wheels as although it would have been attached to HMS London’s catapult while at sea, while docked in Malta it was based on land at the RAF local airfield. 

Completed! 

Airfix’s 1957 tooled 1:72 scale Supermarine Walrus A02002 re-released with Adam Tooby box art and new decals in 2011. 

I chose to finish the kit inspired by the Walrus’s of 711 Sqn FAA RAF Catapult Flight flown from RAF Kalafrana Malta and attached to HMS London in 1937. Against my better judgment I even chose to add rigging to the wings and realise now why I build so few biplanes! 

Decals are a mix of Xtradecal 1920-1939 Pre-War Roundels and a random set of Model Alliance Wings of Silver aircraft numbers which look the part rather than me having any intention for them to exactly match the fated K8345, my inspiration for this build.