RAF 46

Tempest II in 1/48 - A lockdown conversion using Airwaves’ venerable resin set.

- Tim Skeet

In the modelling popularity stakes, there will be somewhere a virtual league table. High on this might be ‘Luftwaffe 46’, which has become a popular and well catered for modelling genre. For my part, although fascinated by the technical imagination and creativity of the German engineers, there is its counter-point in the more factual ‘RAF 46’, a still somewhat neglected, although emerging theme. True, the reality of the cash-starved immediate post-war is less colourful than the imaginative fiction of never-built drawing-board exotica. RAF 46 nevertheless is represented by a plethora of late mark Spitfires, Tempests, Hornets and early Vampires and Meteors. The Tempest II, the older brother of the wartime Tempest V, is a great example of this time.

The Ultimate Tempest

This immediate post-war late-40s/early-50s era is a fascinating time of transition and change, and one I enjoy exploring. The last, but most potent, of the piston-engined fighters passed the baton to the jet age in some style. The Tempest II is, compared to the wartime Mk V with its huge chin radiator, a more elegant and refined machine. Not as refined perhaps as its later perfected cousin, the Fury/ Sea Fury, but the Tempest II was a sleek, powerful machine. It missed out on wartime service due to problems with its engine. In modelling terms, the wartime Sabre-engined Mk V hogs the limelight and is now well served in kit form. The Centaurus Mk II was, apart from Matchbox’s mid- 1970s kit option, largely forgotten and has been generally ignored until only very recently.