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Originally Posted by planecrazy

Well, Here we go!

Back in the 1950's through to the 70's the Royal Canadian Navy actually had an aircraft carrier!!! I'm told it wasn't a very big one (it'd fit in the Nimitz's cargo hold, OK I'm embellishing a bit) but we DID have a carrier! It was named HMCS Bonaventure and in the 50's we operated Fairey Firefly's MK 1's and AS-5's. NOT MK-5's AS-5's they carried no cannons (which I didn't find out until AFTER I had ordered and paid for the cannons from Vance ) but had sub hunting equipment in place.

Well, enough of the winded BS. My subject is actually one of the few airworthy Firefly's in the world. It is VG-BDG based at the Canadian Heritage Warplane Museum in Hamilton, Ontario. I've been really excited to "do" this one since I acquired the kit 2 years ago, while I was building the Arado. This kit will be the first subject I have done where I have ALL the pieces, parts, engine, retracts etc, etc. before i have even laid one piece of wood onto the building table.

Hello, Chris and a belated Merry Christmas!

Historical fact: the Firefly aircraft were on the Magnificent, not the Bonaveture (Maggie, not Bonnie!)

By the time that the Bonnie came on-stream, the Fireflies were in Ethiopia.

I'm doing the modification of the samller kit from the Mk5 back to the Mk1 version, mainly because I like the look of the ugly sister, and Dad had a shot of one on the Maggie in his collection (acquired by me after his passing a few years ago.).

Dad served on the last three carriers -- Warrior (made the trip to Ireland to pick up the Maggie), and then the Maggie through most of her RCN career, and on the Bonnie until 1962.