De Havilland DH.82a

 De Havilland DH.82a 

I got this Airfix model (A68223) as a Christmas present off Debbie in 2024, it was one of the cheap gift sets (including paints and a awful brush) sold by Lidl in the UK near Christmas.

Now I knew the DH.82 had been used by both sides during the SCW and also during the dark days following Dunkirk, with invasion a possibility, Britain had experimented with arming them with bomb racks, etc. 

With this in mind I asked Debbie to pick one up and added it to my admitted rather small stash of unmade kits. Anyway as I said in my last post I had decided to start 2026 by building the small batch of aircarft for the SCW which I had collected over the last year or so.

DH.82a in Spanish service  

Used by both sides during the civil war, mainly as a trainer but also as a liaison and as a light observation aircraft. Some came from various military stocks other taken from civilian aero clubs; colour schemes varied depending on previous use and employment. I`ve found no evidence of any conversion attempts to arm the DH.82a in a fashion like the British tried in 1940.

This DH.82 is on display at the Museo del Aire at cuatro Vientos

It is painted up and marked on the post side as Republican EP.003 and on the starboard side as a nationalist aircraft 30/103

These photos have been borrowed off the internet I do not own them, if the owner wants me to take them down, please ask.

Now I don`t mind building non-combat elements for my tabletops, but a trainer - I don`t think so.

So I did a bit of out-of-the-box thinking and created an observation plane. 

I swapped out the second pilot and replaced him with a cameraman from Irregular Miniatures, considering that an observation plane may exposed to danger I added a ring mounted rear Vickers gun and then mounted another Vickers facing forward on the top wing!

I painted her in a plane grey scheme with white wing tips and tail following the colours used on a display aircraft which takes part in reinactment events in Spain. I then scraped together some decals (including the Falange badge) and added/altered other markings by hand

Just a bit of fun really, but something for the FARE (Fuerzas Aéreas de la República Española) to hunt down 😁