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The first prototype of the heavy bomber Handley Page \u201cHalifax\u201d<\/strong> took off two years earlier than the legendary \u201cLancaster\u201d, and its combat use began in March 1941. According to official data, until the end of the war, Halifax completed 82,773 sorties and dropped 224,000 tons of bombs. The total losses of Halifax bombers were 1,833 out of 6,178 built. Work on the \u201cHALIFAX MK.II. SERIES.I\u201d<\/strong> (F.435<\/strong>) model kit began at the end of 1974, when \u201cRovex Models and Hobbies\u201d<\/strong> company was not in the best economic situation (which could not be said about the FROG trademark, which was not unprofitable until liquidation in 1977). British specialists managed to prepare a complete set of working drawings, but the decision to release this model kit under the FROG trademark was never followed.<\/p>\n <\/li> The history of one of the most famous aircraft of the Handley Page company began in 1936, when the P.13\/36 specification was issued for the development of a twin-engine medium bomber, which was to replace the AW.41 “Whitley” and Vickers “Wellington” aircraft, recently adopted RAF. Four projects were submitted for the competition: Avro \u201cManchester\u201d, Handley Page H.P.56, Hawker P.13\/36 and Vickers \u201cWarwick\u201d. Regardless of the type, all aircraft were to be powered by Rolls-Royce \u201cVulture\u201d inline engines. Work on H.P.56<\/strong> began in 1936, and a discussion in the ministry took place in February 1937. The aircraft was an all-metal monoplane with a two-fin tail. The landing gear was tricycle, completely retracted in flight: the main struts, together with the wheels, were retracted into the fairings of the engine nacelles, and the tail wheel was folded into the fuselage niche. The aircraft was supposed to be equipped with machine gun turrets. Soon, improvements were made to the project – the bomber became four-engine, and the main landing gear was retracted into the fairings of the engines closest to the fuselage. This entailed an increase in the wingspan from 27 to 30 meters and an increase in mass by 5900 kg. In September 1937, the updated project received the designation H.P.57<\/strong>, but due to the higher priority of work on the Avro \u201cManchester\u201d, the Handley Page aircraft was still considered a secondary one. The initial contract provided for the construction of only one prototype of the H.P.56, but due to the changed situation, it was decided to build two H.P.57. The approval of the scale maquette took place in March 1938, after which Handley Page started making working drawings. The first flight of the prototype took place on October 25, 1939, when World War II had already begun. Soon the second prototype was submitted for testing, but the \u201cVultutre\u201d engines had defects and it was decided to replace them with the \u201cMerlin\u201d X.<\/p>\n The RAF headquarters, even before the start of the tests, ordered 100 serial bombers of the modification \u201cHalifax\u201d B.Mk.I. Differences from the prototype consisted in the increased length of the bomb bay to 6.7 meters and the presence of six compartments in the wing consoles for small-caliber bombs – this provided a maximum bomb load of up to 5900 kg. Defensive armament consisted of 6-8 Vickers K (7.71 mm) machine guns: two in the Type C nose turret, four in the Type E tail turret and one machine gun each in the sides (not on all aircraft).<\/p>\n Aircraft \u201cHalifax\u201d had many modifications and they mainly entered the Royal Air Force. At the same time, a number of modifications were developed for the Coastal Command, as well as for transport and special tasks. Since the Mk.II modification, the aircraft’s internal designation has changed several times. After the end of World War II, \u201cHalifax\u201d bombers began to be massively withdrawn from parts of the first line. By the end of 1947, almost all of them had left the RAF and were dismantled. However, with the Coastal Command, RAF Transport Command, Royal Egyptian Air Force and Arm\u00e9e de l’Air, they continued to be used until 1952. The longest \u201cHalifax\u201d operated in the Pakistani Air Force, where the last aircraft of this type was decommissioned in 1961.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/li> The Handley Page \u201cHalifax\u201d heavy bomber model kit may well have appeared under the FROG trademark twice, but by coincidence it happened only once – immediately after the end of World War II, \u201cInternational Model Aircraft\u201d<\/strong> company released first \u201cHandley Page Halifax\u201d model kit. By and large, it was a set of wood and paper blanks, which was part of the Penguin 9 series and had an internal index of 931.P9<\/strong>. Officially, the availability of this model was announced in January 1946, but it appeared on the shelves of British stores a little later.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n The first and last attempt to create a model of a plastic bomber dates back to 1974, when the FROG<\/strong> trademark was owned by the \u201cRovex Models and Hobbies\u201d company. This model kit was supposed to complement the series of heavy bombers, which later included the B-17E (F.213), B-24J (F.437), \u201cWellington\u201d (F.214), \u201cLancaster\u201d (F.215) and \u201cHalifax\u201d (F.435).<\/p>\n The chief engineer for the project with the index F.435 was N. Sutton. Most of the drawings were completed between October and the second half of December 1975. It was assumed that the design of the model kit will include two variants – a bomber and a Special (SOE) variant.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Despite the very high level of detail \u201cRovex Models and Hobbies\u201d was unable to start production of \u201cHalifax\u201d model kit. The project remained at the \u201cpaper\u201d stage – in 1976, the drawings were submitted to the archive.<\/p>\n Their further path is unknown, but in 2018, an almost complete package of documentation was bought by one of the British second-hand booksellers and resold it to administrators of Retromodels.ru<\/strong> website, which made it possible to put these historical values on the site in a scanned form.<\/p>\n <\/li> Which British manufacturer was FROG’s worst competitor? Of course, \u201cAirfix\u201d<\/strong>! Therefore, we will start the review of analog models with it.<\/p>\n The release of this model in 1\/72 scale, which had the box name \u201cHandley Page Halifax B.Mk.III\u201d and the index in the catalog is 584, took place in 1961 (according to other sources – in 1962), when FROG was focusing on airliners and unpopular models like the Airspeed \u201cOxford\u201d. By modern standards, this model looks old-fashioned, but at the time there was no alternative to it.<\/p>\n Of the most significant shortcomings (again, based on modern value judgments), one can note the not very accurate geometry of the main parts, oversized imitation of rivets, empty landing gear niches, the absence of an interior for the cockpits and the disproportionately thick plastic of some glazing elements. In addition, the bonnets are molded together with the engine. However, this did not prevent experienced modelers from assembling a beautiful bomber model.<\/p>\n In total, the \u201cHalifax\u201d model had about ten releases (including two from American \u201cAirfix\u201d issues and one issues from \u201cMPC\u201d), and the last release in updated packaging took place in 2014.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n In addition to this, various \u201cdetail sets\u201d are periodically issued for the sets from \u201cAirfix\u201d, which allow not only to enrich the model with detailing, but also to correct the mistakes of the developers. In addition, there are a small number of conversion kits, where some of the most interesting are \u201cHandley Page Halifax C8 \/ Halton\u201d (7072) from the Spanish company \u201cMagna Models\u201d and \u201cHandley Page Halifax VIII & Halton\u201d (72:7) from the British company \u201cMaintrack Models\u201d.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n
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