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EASTERN EXPRESS 1:72 SUPERMARINE ATTACKER
Reviewer: Myself
(smakr@bigpond.com)
Kit Built and Review
submitted:
April
2001
Aircraft:
The Supermarine Attacker was the first jet-powered fighter standardised
for carrier-borne operations by the Fleet Air Arm, in spite of it originally
being designed as a land based fighter. The design was not fully original,
as it combined the wings and landing gear of the Supermarine Spiteful with a new
fuselage and tail unit. It was powered by a Rolls-Royce Nene turbojet,
that was large in diameter and essentially dictated the shape of the airframe it
was to be housed in. About 145 were built for the Royal Navy and another
36 were sent to Pakistan. It was in frontline service for only a few years
before being replaced by the Sea Hawk in the mid 50's.
The Kit:
I am not sure of the origins of this kit (see Other Comments below), but was immediately surprised
by such a small amount of parts you are given. Just 15 light grey
injection molded parts with reasonable detail, raised lines and rivets, are
provided in a plastic bag. One sprue holds the small parts while the rest
(wings, fuselage etc) are all loose in the bag. A bit of cleaning is required to
remove a little excess plastic (ie: very small flash).
Instructions:
An A4 sheet in russian and English text, folded in half (even the
manufacturer couldn't get the fold even in mine!) to make A5 booklet, comprising
of just two assembly steps - not that any more are needed mind you. Some history
and symbol information on the front page and on the back page is a diagram of
the decal sheet and one sideview profile of the aircraft for decal placement,
Pakistani version. That's right, only one sketch, there is no top
view, otherside view or marking drawing for any other version the kit might
produce. There is only one reference to painting and colours used and this is by
way of a small table on the back page listing the colours used in the kit, but
no guide as to where those colours are used, no paint ranges are quoted for a
match etc. Overall the instructions are nothing more than basic.
Construction:
To say this kit was nothing more than a five minute job would be an
understatement! It took literally five minutes to put together.
There is no cockpit, the area is blanked off and half a pilot's head and his seat stick up from the molded-in cockpit well. The fuselage halves go together easily, no weight is needed because the aircraft had a rear tailwheel (one of the very few to do so in RAF service as a production jet plane). There is no interior walls, so you can see right through the aircraft when you look through the intakes and out the exhaust. Get some plasticard, putty or whatever you like to use and blank it off.
Construction consisted of glueing the fuselage halves together, then attaching the wings, tailplanes and canopy. Decide whether you want wheels up or down (the gear doors fit well) - there is no wheel bay detail at all - and that is all there is to it. Construction completed! Fit of all the parts was very good after dry testing and a slight bit of trimming, with hardly any filler needed. The fin, pitot tube, exhaust nozzle and cannons are already molded onto the aircraft.
The wing halves needed clamping and you need to pay some attention to affixing the tailplanes, I almost glued them on with a downward slope when they are actually upwardly slanted, they also needed a bit of trimming to fit. There are some ejector pin marks to remove and the join lines could do with some sanding afterward.
That was it, probably the quickest kit I have ever slapped together.
Versions & Decals:
The kit provides for two versions to be built, a Royal Navy (which I
translated from the russian text) of 800Sqn 1953, from HMS Eagle (as depicted on
the boxart) and a 1954 Pakistani Air Force example. You will need to
consult reference material here for decal placement as the kit offers very
little assistance to the modeller. Only the Pakistani version is even
depicted in the instruction sheet (and on the side of the actual box) and
provides just enough info for decal placement.
I decided to depict the RN version, and I needed to go by the boxart as this was one of the better reference shots even I had in my vast reference library! I found it difficult to ascertain the decal placement for all decals, I followed the boxart as much as possible and made surmisations based on other aircraft of that era for the remainder, for example, the large WA508 stencils were placed underneath each wing. I painted the aircraft with Humbrol paints, Dark Sea Grey and Beige Green (H90) for the extra dark sea grey and Sky type S colours assumed quoted respectively. This made a realistic looking finish.
Accuracy:
In a word - shithouse! It is the most basic replication you
can possibly get of this aircraft and is really a primary candidate for a
kitbash, one for the novices to throw together, one to add to the collection for
the sake of it or simply to give to your son to test fly around the
backyard. The canopy is far too large, the nose profile is not correctly
shaped, the wings are also off canter, the cannons appear too large in scale and
the tailfin does not look right. On top of this the kit omits all the
extra detailing bits you might expect to find in a Hasegawa kit like aerials,
tubes, air ducts and the like.
Overall:
If you want an accurate, believable and decent replica of the
Attacker with reasonable detail and a cockpit, then give this kit a miss.
I will at some point get another Attacker (I am pretty sure Testors or someone
else did one?) to put in my collection to replace this one.
On the otherhand, [and I am not trying to be patronising here!] if you are after a five minute job you can slap together, that is easy, requires little attention, and best of all you can give to your kid to make use of as a toy, then this kit is excellent. It will cure AMS and give you a chance to slap one together that will look quite reasonable and not have to put much thought into it. For the novice this is a great kit to increase your collection with if accuracy and the like are not your prime concerns at the moment.
As a sidenote, as far as I am aware I have a feeling that Testors might have this kit in their range (they have a similarly kitted Swift, with no cockpit etc) so beware!
Other Comments:
(supplied by Sten Ekedahl)
It was with great anticipation I read the Attacker review on SMAKR
today. But when I had read it, it sounds like the kit in question in fact is the
VERY OLD Frog kit from around 1956. There are however ways of solving (most of)
the problems with this kit. In Scale Aircraft Modelling, Vol. 3, No. 6 (March
1981) there was a well written article, including good 1/72nd scale drawings and
some detail sketches, by Geoff Prentice on how to improve/correct this kit. He
lists the following main points:
Today some of this is made easier since Airwaves recently produced a photo-etched detailing set (AC 27-207) containing cockpit details, wheel well details, wing fold details, gear doors and a few other small items. They also produce a ventral tank, tail wheels and arrestor hook in resin (AS 72-108). Aeroclub also makes a vac formed canopy for the Attacker. All in, a major but not too difficult modelling project. If you then are lucky to have or succeed to find Modeldecal sheet no. 56, you will also have some very nice decals for either an aircraft from 718 Sqn. FAA, or one from 1831 Sqn. RNVR.
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