TWIN-BOOM JET TRAINER - 1:72 SCALE AIRFIX VAMPIRE

SMN Report:
The 1:72 scale de Havilland DH100 Vampire T11 from Airfix is now widely available. A look inside the box reveals that the new-tool kit is a good one.

What’s on offer with this kit? How about neatly engraved panel lines, some decent cockpit detail including an instrument panel with accurately printed instruments. On the build front, it’s important to note that the Vampire T11 is a confirmed tail-sitter, so to display the aircraft balanced comfortably on its landing gear, you need to weight up the nosecone, though this is detailed in the instructions. When assembled, the 55-part Airfix Vampire T11 has a length of 146mm (5.7in) and wingspan of 161mm (6.3in).

Wide-view canopy
Being a side-by-side two-seater, the cockpit canopy is relatively large, and it’s good to see that Airfix designers are putting in the extra mile where 1:72 scale components are concerned. An example is in the neatly moulded and very clear three-section canopy, which includes the front windshield, opening mid-section, and rear glass.

Decals and markings
Airfix has supplied two optional marking schemes. First up is for the Vampire preservation team machine, based at North Weald, 2012. Also supplied are markings for No 5 Flying Training school, based at Oakington, Cambridgeshire, more than half a century ago, in 1962.

Day-glo days
The fluorescent red panels remind me of times I spent as an RAF Air Cadet, when, on one occasion I was able to score several sheets of self-adhesive day-glo sheet, to be applied later on many things, including a motorcycle top box!

About the Vampire
The single-engine de Havilland DH 100 Vampire was a British jet fighter, first flown in 1943, at the height of World War II. Following on from the successful Gloster Meteor twinjet, the Vampire became the second RAF jet fighter to enter service.

Big success
The Vampire was developed too late to go into combat during World War II, but remained in front-line RAF service until 1953, and continued as a trainer until 1966 - 731 of these were built. The Vampire was a big export success, and served with many air forces worldwide. Nearly 3300 Vampires of all types were built, the design also forming the basis for the Venom fighter-bomber and the naval Sea Vampire.

The pictures
The flight lineup (above) shows a single-seat Vampire FB5 in the foreground, with a comparatively portly T11 behind it. Picture courtesy Arnaud Gaillard.

De Havilland Vampire T11 (below) at Point Cook, Australia, was pictured just before taking off for a flying display at the 2010 Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) Museum Air Pageant. The aircraft had previously flown on operational duties in the Rhodesia/Zimbabwe Air Force, being shipped to Australia in December, 1988. Picture courtesy Phil Vabre.

The Airfix DH Vampire T11 is available here.

THINK PAINTING A MODEL AIRLINER IS HARD WORK? HAVE A LOOK AT THE REAL THING IN THIS FOUR-MINUTE VIDEO

Mr J REPORT:
I can remember my very first airliner kit, a 1:96 scale Frog de Havilland Comet IV. The kit came with minimal detail, but did have looong decal strips for the fuselage sides, and a daunting amount of white paint was needed to cover the upper surface. After much careful application of tape, on went the paint and, well, to my chagrin much of it seeped underneath, and the kit was never the same again. I soon learned to mask with the best of them, but somehow never really returned to airliners with any degree of enthusiasm!

How I wish I'd had the facilities shown here for a Thomson Airways revamp from old insignia to swoopy new markings. I wish!

DRAGON 1:72 SCALE SEA VIXEN

SMN report:

Here’s an unusual early jet-age choice from Hong Kong’s Dragon, a 1:72 scale de Havilland Sea Vixen FAW1. Coming so soon after the 1:48 scale kit from Airfix, does this one measure up to that bigger kit?

What’s in the box?

The box includes one transparent set of components and four runners for the remainder, all of which are  moulded in plain grey. Two decal sheets give a choice of markings for six Royal Navy aircraft. There’s a clear set of instructions, with paint and marking guides. It’s all neatly packed, and the parts look crisp and sharply moulded.

Transparencies

Of particular note are the canopy and hatch to the observer’s ‘coal hole’. Both items are thin and clear, though you will have some careful masking to do when it’s painting time.

Other features

If you wish to have the ventral airbrake open, you will have to cut a hole and add a blank inside the fuselage as Dragon have not included the brake’s internal bay. That's odd, because the same features for the undercarriage are done nicely, so maybe a bunch of Dragon craftsmen were out at lunch when it came to that particular detail. However, they were back in the office when it came to the pop-up APU Auxiliary Power Unit (pix above) which will make an unusual talking point if you choose to show it in the deployed position.

Under the wings

You can hang a pair of Matra rocket pods and two fuel tanks under the wings. Red Top missiles are included, though there are no instructions for fitting them. My encyclopedia says that the FAW1 carried the earlier Firestreak missile, but the supplied Red Tops would look excellent if you wish to cheat! It's worth mentioning that detail in the wing-folds is carefully done, and will look terrific when it comes to adding some weathering after the paintwork is done.

The case of the shrunken seats

Looking closely, the ejection seats seem somewhat on the small side - the pilot in particular would barely poke his nose above the canopy side frame if he had Dragon’s seat in the cockpit. On the upside, it’s unlikely either seat will look too wrong when canopy and hatch are in place, especially as crew figures are not supplied. 

Summation

Compared with the bigger Airfix release, this kit stands up well in most areas, and for the 1:72 scale modelmaker the Dragon is now top choice.

Visit Dragon here.

The Dragon Sea Vixen is arriving soon; meantime, the 1:48 Airfix Sea Vixen is available here.

Here are some pix of the later FAW2 version, which maybe Dragon will see fit to release sometime soon. Certainly those Red Top missiles will be correct! This one is in flying condition and was photographed at Jersey Airport on September 8, 2011. Note the fantail that comes down with the arrester hook.

Sea Vixen FAW2 pix taken by David Jefferis. It flew in to give a display at the annual Jersey Air Show, but sadly, rain and low cloud forced the event to be cancelled. 

A CLOSE LOOK AT THE REISSUED 1:72 SCALE AIRFIX DH.88 COMET RACER

Mat Irvine builds a 1934 racing aircraft

When this kit was first issued it was regarded as a pretty nice little model of the aircraft that won the 1934 England to Australia MacRobertson Air Race. The slight trouble today is that the Airfix DH.88 was released more than half a century ago, in 1957, and things in the kit world have moved on considerably since then!

Inside the box

In 1957 you tended to get one-piece wings, no cockpit detail, and a very simplified approach to kit building - and with this latest DH.88 nothing has really changed. In fact, the only detectable tooling changes with this new kit are that part numbers have been added to the runners!

But having said that, with a few modifications the 24-part kit can be made to look reasonable, and this is greatly helped as - and this is for the first time - instead of the best known version, the bright-red Grosvenor House, the decals are for another of the original three Air Race planes, Black Magic, which was stunningly finished in gloss black with gold markings.

Building the Airfix DH.88

For the build I’m showing you here, the cockpit, with ‘built-in pilot busts’ - yes this is what you used to get - was cut out, and although seats and details could have been added, they weren’t on this model, which was intended as a ‘quick conversion’. Anyway, the area under the cockpit canopy is so small that it’s not really noticeable. Two pitot tubes were added, using thin wire, to wing and rudder and the extreme tip of the nose was removed. A clear part (from the ‘car lamps’ spares box) was fitted as the landing light. The bulk of the aircraft was finished in gloss black, with propellers and undercarriage legs in silver. The canopy framing was trimmed with thin black tape, actually intended as pin-striping on model racing cars. Finally, the Airfix-supplied gold decals were applied.

Displaying the finished aircraft

For display purposes, I added a base borrowed from a display for the Frog Bleriot cross-Channel monoplane - and the Louis Bleriot figure was left over. As used here to indicate scale, he’s a useful addition, even if his 1909 flying gear does not come up to the sartorial standards of the daredevil long-distance pilots of the 1934 MacRobertson Air Race! 

So, a simple build of a very simple kit, but one that shows you can produce a perfectly reasonable result from what is, after all, a very basic box of bits.

The real aircraft at Farnborough

Here are a couple of pix I took at the Farnborough Air Show some time ago. This is the race winner Grosvenor House, and you can clearly see those slimline de Havilland Gypsy Six engines, exposed for routine servicing. What a delightful machine!

The Airfix DH.88 Comet Racer is available here.

Thanks to Airfix for the review kit 

The pictures show, top to bottom:

1-2  The box, and what you get inside, moulded in Airfix’s usual light grey plastic.

3  Removing the odd (for today, but common in the 1950s!) built-in pilot figures.

4  Shaping the new cockpit, now open to receive the canopy.

5  The main bodywork now assembled. The propellers have new pieces of rod fitted, ignoring the pins that allow them ‘to rotate’.

6  The finished DH.88 Comet Racer in Black Magic markings. Note Louis Bleriot, standing in his cross-Channel flying gear.