History Brief

The Westland Whirlwind was a British heavy fighter. Designed by Teddy Petter from the RAF's specification drawn up in 1937, the Westland Aircraft Company produced a single-seat, twin-engined monoplane, prototype which flew on 11 October, 1938 with Whirlwind production starting early the next year.

It was the RAF’s first single-seat, twin-engined, cannon-armed fighter and a contemporary of the Supermarine Spitfire and Hawker Hurricane. The aircraft’s small tube fuselage with its 'T'-tail was an advanced design for its time and the entire plane was built of stressed-skin duraluminium2. The pilot was seated in one of the first 'bubble' type canopies, giving the pilot an almost 360 degree view, and the low forward position of the wing gave the pilot excellent visibility.

The kit is a 1/35 model of a USA Kellogg Air Compressor used during and after WWII. The kit makes a nicely detailed little accessory for dioramas or vehicles. This kit is from Mirror Models, Ltd. Of Ireland, who produce plastic model kits and accessories.

The compressor kit contains two full models in the package, and comes on two sprues of taupe or a gray/tan plastic. The plastic seems a little soft. Many of the parts are quite small and have very fine detail, such as the pulleys and drive belt, part K15. Some of the parts have fairly large sprue connections that require care removing them from the sprue and need some extra cleanup. The sprue connectors seem large but the actual connection points are fairly thin.

This boarding ladder is one of those spiffy little accessories which can add a lot to the presentation of a model. In this case, it’s being added to an old Attack kit of a Pakistani Shenyang JJ-5 trainer (based on the MiG-17).

I cut the ladder itself loose from the PE sprue, and I also cut out the ladder pads. These are very tiny in 1/144, so be really careful.

I bent the sides of the ladder using a “high-tech” tool, namely a pair of “duckbill” pliers. The pliers have a decent grip and good straight sides. I took a photo of the ladder with one side bent, then the other. I spent a few minutes getting the sides trued up and made sure the ladder steps were square with the side rails.

Once the ladder was trued up, I applied a spot of thick CA to one of the ladder pads and touched the ladder top to the CA. I then trued up the pad with the ladder top. Same with the other ladder pad.