History

James Martin founded Martin Aircraft at Denham, west of London, in 1929. At that time the firm was doing small jobs on sub-contract from the larger established "Name" airplane manufacturers. In 1934 Captain Valentine Baker, ex RAF, joined Jim Martin and they designed a neat little tandem two-place civil monoplane, the M.B.1, which first flew in March of 1935 at Northolt. Nothing came of this exercise and the M.B.1 was lost in a hangar fire in 1938. Jim Martin and Val Baker wanted to build fighters and designed their M.B.2 to comply with Air Ministry Specification F.5/34. This resulted in a very racy looking low wing, long fuselage, monoplane fitted with fixed, trousered, undercarriage and having no visible fin - rather like the original Gee-Bee R1. Ultimately, in progressive steps, the M.B.2 grew a fairly conventional fin and rudder. The M.B.2 was powered by a Napier Dagger H-24 of a little over 800 actual hp driving a large fixed pitch two blade wooden propeller and mounted eight of the new license built 7.7mm (.303") Browning machine guns in the wings.

The Air Ministry ultimately purchased the M.B.2 for 13,500 pounds Sterling against its actual cost to M-B of over 45,000 pounds. This nearly bankrupted the little company. Nothing came of the M.B.2. The only thing that kept M-B going was the increasing number of sub contract jobs as Britain began to build for the obviously coming war. In mid 1939 M-B signed a contract to build three prototype fighters to Air Ministry specification F.18/35. Overcoming many obstacles, mostly bureaucratic, the M.B.3 first flew August 31, 1942. Tragically the airplane and Val Baker were lost on September 12, 1942 when the Napier Sabre H-24 engine quit on take-off. Throughout the design and gestation of the M.B.3 Jim Martin kept pressing the Air Ministry to provide a Rolls Royce Griffon to properly power the M.B.3. This, lamentably, never came to pass. After the M.B.3 was lost it was redesigned to accommodate a Bristol Centaurus radial engine. The redesign, designated M.B.4, died on the drawing board.

When the Air Ministry finally agreed to provide a Griffon to M-B, the M.B.3 was redesigned and redesignated as the M.B.5. In this design all of Jim Martin's good ideas finally jelled into what may have been the best reciprocating engined fighter of WWII. But it was too late. The M.B.5 did not make its first flight until May 23, 1944 when Rotol's Chief Test Pilot, Bryan Greensted took it up from Harwell for an eventful jaunt. The fin and rudder and stabilizer and elevator areas were all increased shortly after testing began. By this time, however, the end of the war was in sight as were jets. The M.B.5 was, apparently, flown for demonstration at the Farnborough Air Show in 1946 by Jan Zurakowski on its last flight. Sometime later it was scrapped.

From its founding in 1929 through 1944, M-B built a total of four airplanes before becoming famous for its continuing line of ejection seats. I recently read, and don't recall where, that someone is building a full-size, Griffon powered, flyable reproduction of the M.B.5. Any information on this project from readers is urgently solicited.

The Kit

Well, it's typical of Pegasus, Blue-Max and Silver Cloud, which are different product-line brands of major-domo Chris Gannon. The kit, contained in a very flimsy, pre-crushed box, comprises 31 low pressure injection molded parts in a light grey styrene, 30 centrifugally cast white metal parts, one canopy hood/windscreen molded in clear styrene a length of styrene tubing for the undercarriage sway struts, a decal sheet and a not very helpful two-sided A-4 sheet of instructions. Very little is provided in the way of cockpit detail. If you choose to open the hood, you'll have to consult the photos and drawings in the issues of Wings Of Fame and Wingspan International , noted below in the References for details. The wheel wells are not fully enclosed and will require some attention. The kit, commendably, does provide separate flaps with interior detail, separate ailerons and a separate rudder. With all this, however, Silver Cloud chose to mold the stabilizers and elevators as left and right one-piece units.

The decal sheet is very well printed in perfect register but the "blue" of the roundels is black rendering them useless. Individual instrument decals of very poor quality art work are included along with DH propeller logos. The instruments can be replaced with the much better Re-Heat brand instument decals and you'll have to add the data stenciling inboard and outboard of the DH propeller logos.

The airplane was a one-off prototype and only had one basic color scheme and set of markings as provided for by the decal sheet and the instructions. A minor variation can be had by choosing the Natural metal spinner, which the airplane carried for awhile; the white metal will polish up nicely for this and the sheen can be preserved with a light coat of clear gloss lacquer.

Conclusion

IPMS-Seattle member Bill Johnson bought this kit at Hannant's Colindale shop in May for 27.99 pounds Sterling - about US$45.00. Squadron Mail Order is advertising it for $53.97, discounted from $59.98. That's a lot of money for a kit that is only fair by today's standards. If, however, you want an M.B.5 in your 1/48th scale collection, it's the only game in town and with a lot of detail work you can have a stunning model of this beautiful airplane. The dimensions and accuracy of outline are quite good.

Now, can we hope that one of the Czech manufacturers will give us a better - in all respects - 1/72nd scale M.B.5?

References

NB The best references you can find currently are any of the many recently published photos of Alan Clark's superb 1:24 scale scratchbuilt model that scored so well at the IPMS-UK Nationals at Telford last year.