Morning Harry,
I have several new grabs for you to have a look at.
With all this oddball code replacement,I want to get things right.
Two pics of JF K and JF L.
I got some pretty good close ups especially with L and you can see that the D Day banding was applied by hand. Several uneven areas which I will work on with some lower scratches on the water soluble paints.
I'll get them for you now,






As you can see,only K has the specialized border.

Well I'm not Harry, but these are superb looking Tempests, I'm tempted to say they're the best I have yet seen. Unusual Yellow color on the underside wing of JF-K. Great skins.

The Grand Charles. This was a long haul.
One more and then a Pack up and upload.



I

Jeez Chris, this one is by far the very best rendition of Cloclo's "Grand Charles" (stands for general Charles de Gaulle who escaped to England to organize resistance and became French Prez in 1958)

Clostermann wrote "Le Grand Cirque" (The Big Show) shortly after the war, and I must have read it at least 5 times ...

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_4_12?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=the%20big%20show%20clostermann&sprefix=the+big+show%2Caps%2C543

http://www.pierre-clostermann.com/avions.html

He is the French top ace of WW2 with 33 kills



It is not sure that NV724 ever flew in the war though ...

Read here :

http://www.hawkertempest.se/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=617&sid=a018cedf93079f1503f284f983abb5f2

http://www.hawkertempest.se/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=13&highlight=

Just noticed one thing. With late war Tempest's the wing upper roundel should be a type C 1 or type C style roundel instead of the type B roundel seen on Clo-Clo's Grand Charles in the image.

Almost finished
I put it up after almost falling into bed.
An 11 hour run.
Those Luftwaffe kills were set in one at a time. I could not figure out originally how the damn things
would work rather than break up when trying to reduce them. It was a lot of time until I was able.to
pull it off so,so.
It wasn't just all free transforming....Emel?
I'm up very early to see if I can find out if this gentleman hade a wingman. I have one more to go.
Thanks to both of you and Harry. You guys know.

A few more adjustments.Thanks for the photo Mick. It's now in file.I saw a few little scrapies up front.
The Serials are there.As dark as I could get them but with all the panel hi lighting I might have a little overboard but I don't think so.
Emel? The Ci's 6x6 are now there as you can see.Ihave kept the other skin as the C's I believe were not introduced until early Sprin
1945. That would put this aircraft in perhaps Vokel Holland at the time. Late March or early April.
If you have any idea who his wingman was. The big hitters most always had their favorite Wingie,Please let me know.

Absolute Finish
Another 50% reduction on kill marks

I'll tell you how I did it later

Meanwhile check out the Greif .I'll give you more info. I want to upgrade and have Donbas

Edit: Nice! Have you ever considered when painting small crosses to use pixel by pixel -drawing via the Pencil tool?

Emel? The Ci's 6x6 are now there as you can see.Ihave kept the other skin as the C's I believe were not introduced until early Sprin 1945. That would put this aircraft in perhaps Vokel Holland at the time. Late March or early April.
If you have any idea who his wingman was. The big hitters most always had their favorite Wingie,Please let me know.

RDDR

Spot on! These roundels were indeed introduced very late in the war; can't say for sure when exactly though, March-April sounds right. NV 724 imo never flew operationally in the war sporting the flamboyant markings including the red spinner hub and the unit crest on the vertical tail. These were added post war a publicity stunt.

And further, by April 1945 the base must have been Rheine-Hopsten (B.112) in Germany rather than Volkel.

In his memoirs in chapter "A Lesson from an Expert" (the action took place 20th or 21st of April 1945) Clostermann mentions a pilot named "MacKenzie" flying to his right losing half a wing and entering a spin after being hit by the "Expert". Most likely Hans Dortenmann StaKa 3./JG 26, and who is known to be a very successful "Tempest-killer". Clostermann describes the FW190D-9 wearing black and white stripe and a Yellow-painted tailplane. The "expert" had only moments before shot down the Tempest flying on the left side of Clostermann. As a matter of fact in the end the German Expert got Clostermann too, thus wiping out single handed Clo's entire flight of three Tempest's (!).

Dortenmann's Dora-9 seen at Asisbiz.com

MacKenzie is just a suggestion. I don't know anything else than the name. In fact, I don't think the book itself is a very reliable source to search confirmed wingmen for Clostermann. Several names are mentioned but I don't think any of them were permanently assigned wingmen to Clostermann. He doesn't really mention anyone in that fashion. He speaks many times only of his "No. 2". Furthermore Tempest pilots were scarce. This supports my theory wingmen were not assigned to a specific pilot on permanent basis, they were on rotation rather. I could be wrong on this. If someone has any further information I'd gladly hear it.

I just discovered it's very possible Clostermann was flying another Tempest MkV coded NV 994, JF-E during the clash with Dortenmann.

Osprey Publishing describes this aircraft: "It was delivered to No 3 Sqn on 15th April 1945 and was frequently flown by Clostermann." Listen to this: On 20th of April 1945 Clostermann destroyed two FW 190's in one sortie with this Tempest. Fits the date Clostermann confronted Dortenmann, and as fate would have it, was forced to make a successful belly landing behind Allied lines after being shot down by Dortenmann (!). Osprey describes further: Tempest MkV JF-E, NV 994 was declared "Cat B" on July 1st 1945, the cause is not known. (Cat B = Category B? Repaired to noncombat status?)

I ask why Category B? Because it was recovered from its landing site where Clostermann had bellied in. The incident apparently was not yet known in July 1 1945 and this is why the "Cat B" remained a cause unknown.

NV 994 wears a standard RAF camouflage with the late war style roundels, a black color spinner hub, no special markings or emblems and no sky-bands.