Airfix 1/72 BAC TSR.2

AIRFIX 1:72 B.A.C. TSR.2
'INBOX Review'

Reviewer: Kevan Vogler (rec.models.scale)

The BAC TSR.2 was one of aviation’s great could have (and should have) beens. An aircraft so far ahead of its time nobody could really believe it had been accomplished. Sadly, misguided politics of the time put an end to the project in the prototype stage.

For many years, the modeling community has been waiting for a model of the legendary BAC TSR.2 in injection molded form. It has been out there in various resin incarnations and vac forms for a number of years, but the accuracy of those kits has always been extremely debatable and the buildability of them ranging from the very difficult to the very near impossible.

At last, the much anticipated Airfix injection molded kit of this beast is a reality. It took a year or so from the actual announcement that there would be one to the actual release of it in February 2006.

Its been a long time coming, and I can say from first impressions upon opening the box, the wait has largely been worth it.

First impressions:

Airfix have put a great deal more care into the packaging of this particular kit than I’ve seen them do in kits previously; everything here has its own plastic bag (including the instructions) and the clear parts come in a separate bag from the main white styrene parts.

Unlike usual Airfix fare, there are no loose parts floating around scratching up on others, everything is nice and secure (occasionally overly so) on the sprues.

Very nice recessed panel lines abound.

Kit engineering:

One look at the number of parts and the way it all comes together according to the instructions shows that this kit is a serious notch up from what we have come to expect from Airfix. The instructions themselves are a 10 page long, 27 step (28 if you count decal guide) affair.

I’ve done some dry fit runs on my kit to see any potential fit problems, and safe to say there are some:

The main fuselage is comprised of about 8 separate parts, not including cockpit, tail pipes or intake areas.

The two halves of the fuselage (parts 6 & 7) fit together reasonably, but I had to remove the alignment pins on mine as they were oversized and (ironically) somewhat out of alignment.

The rear section of the upper fuselage is completed by affixing three parts (11, 14 and 42) to the top of the connected fuselage halves. The fit of these parts is very tight and you will need to do some sanding on the edges of each part to get the fit right.

The underside of the fuselage is a somewhat simpler issue, a single part (34) seems to fit on quite nicely to close everything up on the belly.

The biggest potential problem I see on the underside is part 70, its a square panel that fits on just ahead of the nose landing gear well. At first it didn’t seem to make a lot of sense to me why this part should be separate, but a look at the surface details on it made it very obvious that a lot of that detail would be lost were it simply molded onto the fuselage halves. Its a good way to preserve the detail, the unfortunate downside is that the part seems to be just a touch undersize, width-wise, for the opening it goes into. That will definitely take some playing around with to get looking right.

I’d been told by some other modelers that the intakes do not fit well together at all and need quite a bit of clean up to avoid some particularly nasty gaps in the finished intake trunks. I dry fit the intake components and most certainly I can confirm there will be significant fit problems without parts clean up in those areas. Pay close attention to the intake assembly sequence as the instructions are a touch on the vague side about how it should fit together.

The cockpit:

For the length of time we have known this kit was coming and the delays that did occur before its release, I am somewhat dismayed by the cockpits. I concur with any modeler who says that the cockpit decals in this kit are outstanding, certainly they are; but for the amount of waiting, I would like to have seen some textured consoles.

Some modelers have bemoaned the seats in the cockpit, but from what I’ve seen of pictures of the Martin Baker MK.8 seat, these aren’t that bad. Basic yes, but certainly could be made convincing with a couple of swipes here and there with a file for recontouring and some photo-etched seat belts. You’ll never see the backs of them if you model the cockpit closed.

I have built the cockpit for my kit and dry fitted it into the fuselage. The bulkheads for my cockpit seem to have been made a bit lopsided because, while the tub fits well, the front bulkhead leaves a noticeable gap on one side between it and the fuselage wall, the rear bulkhead needed sanding all around to allow the fuselage to close around it.

Weapons bay options:

Only two options here:

One is part 65 which represents instrumentation packages used in flight testing. You don’t really see instruments, just a representation of the thermal blankets that protected them. I’ve seen pictures of these installed in the real TSR.2s and with the right painting they should certainly look the part in the finished kit.

The other option is a large, but utterly generic looking bomb. I’m assuming this was some prototype British nuclear weapon. I’ve never seen a picture of an actual weapon that the TSR.2 was intended to carry so I can’t comment on the accuracy of this bomb.

Open and closed:

The kit gives you the options to have the cockpit canopies, air brakes and weapons bay opened or closed. The weapons bay doors are molded with the open option in mind and will probably take some fiddling with to get a nice appearance when closed.

The problem comes with the landing gear doors: step 27 in the instructions tells you to attach all the gear doors in open positions. This is not an issue if you want to pose the aircraft on the ground and going through some sort of maintenance.

In practice, however, most of the TSR.2’s gear doors were closed except during the landing gear retraction and extension cycles on take offs and landings. To properly represent this; parts 72 and 74 (rear nose gear doors) and parts 76, 77, 80 and 81 (forward main gear doors) should be attached in the closed position, flush to the surrounding fuselage.

Recommendations and closing comments:

I wouldn’t give this kit to a complete beginner, too many parts and too much parts clean up.

However, a novice with a few more complex kits behind them should have no trouble with this one straight from the box.

After comparing my dry fit one with pictures of the real thing on the net, there certainly can be no complaints about the external appearance of this model, all the lines and contours are where they belong and it looks spot on. I’ve also been in touch with modelers who are much more knowledgeable than I am on the actual aircraft and they all say that it does measure very precisely to the dimensions of the real thing.

The aftermarket were on this kit before it was even released: X-tra Decals released two beautiful sheets of hypothetical markings that the type might well have worn had it gone into service.

I understand that Aeroclub will be making a seat of white metal ejection seats for it.

Safe to say that this kit will likely be well catered for by the aftermarket and much of that will likely be aimed at the “What if” builders as it will represent many of the operational features the type would have had if it had gone into service.

For further information on the TSR.2 and some of the best reference pictures I know of regarding the type available on the internet (not to mention several other notable post war British aircraft) go to Thunder and Lightnings:

http://www.thunder-and-lightnings.co.uk/

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