More musings on V’s serial number

Hi

As I have started to build the Tamiya 1:48 Beau, I just thought I’d add my tuppence worth to the ongoing debate of V’s serial number. I have a copy of an excellent book from Poland (Monografie Lotnicze 75 – Bristol Beaufighter) which lists the number as T5048 (See attached photo of page). However, the British Aircraft Military Serials book (ISBN 0850593603) states that 5048 was exported to Australia and became A19-42, also verified by this site of Aussie Beaus (http://www.adf-serials.com.au/2a19.shtml), so that nixes that idea.

The IWM archive lists V as T5043 on one of it’s photos (http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205126804) which does fit with the serial numbers book as does T5038 in the previous post.

I thought that T5038 was the winner until I saw the IWM post, but I think I’ll go with T5038 as this was referenced from the ORB.

The build itself is going well, but I expect nothing else from Tamiya. The only real pain has been to convert the tail planes from the dihedral to the flat Mk1C ones. This required some careful sawing, but thankfully the ones in the kit have a handy panel line showing you where to cut. The rest of the conversion to a Mk1 is nice and simple, as the parts (shorter intakes over the cowling, different rear wheel & choice of observers bubble) are already in the box! I’ll post photos of the completed diorama if anyone’s interested.