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Reviewer: Mark B (SMAKR Webmaster)  (smakr1@optusnet.com.au)
Kit Built + Review Submitted:  December 2008

Aircraft History:

I've taken this from Kevin Ronayne's excellent review, given I don't want to reinvent the wheel - 

In 1941, the RAF issued a requirement for a single-seat day jet fighter. The D.H. 100 was developed to meet this specification, and was unusual for a jet aircraft in that it was constructed using a mix of metal balsa and plywood. This made it similar to the legendary D.H. 98 Mosquito, but there the basic similarities ended. The twin boom layout was chosen in order to best utilise the powerplant of a single D.H. Goblin engine, and led to the early nickname of 'Spider Crab'. Although the prototype first flew in 1943, the Vampire F.I did not enter squadron service until 1946, thus missing out on WW II. The following year, the F.3 version entered service.

The next major variant was the FB.3, which entered service in 1948. This version featured major structural strengthening to allow for the carriage of external fuel tanks and weapons. It was very widely used by both the RAF and the Royal Auxiliary Air Force. From 1952 onwards, FB.5's serving in tropical climates were replaced by the tropicalised FB.9. However, the pace of jet fighter development at the time was such that from 1953 many FB.5's were transferred to training duties.

The Vampire was a very successful export, seeing service with many foreign air forces. Sweden was the major customer, receiving over 300 aircraft. It was also built under license in several European countries as well as in Australia. In addition, the French developed a modified version called the Mistral, and 250 of these were built by Sud-Est.

All fighter and fighter-bomber versions of the Vampire had the 'standard' fixed armament for the time of 4 x 20 cannons, with the fighter-bomber versions being able to carry up to 2,000 lb of bombs, or 60-pound rockets with or without a smaller bomb load. With a top speed of about 535 mph, the Vampire FB.5 was about as fast as the Messerschmitt Me 262 Schwalbe.

The Kit:

The origins of this kit are apparently from Heller then Lodella and then reboxed by Airfix and you often know it's not an Airfix kit by virtue of its packaging arrangement.   Firstly this kit comes on completed sprues and secondly there are bags housing the parts, so it is obviously a case of reboxing and issuing decals.  There are three sprues containing about 40 white injection molded parts.  The panel lines are all raised and the level of detail is typical of the 70's era, ie: not a great deal of it is present.  Very minor flash encumbers a couple of parts and that's being pretty picky, and overall the quality oozes a typical solid Heller kit of the 70's.  A small separate bag houses the distorted clear parts.  As an afterthought, the kit looks like a Frog kit in the box, typically white mold and the rounded sprues often traited with Frog kits, so hopefully the one I have is the Heller kit and not the original Frog!  Kevin mentions in his review about Mistral, and my sprues also have this written on there, so I am happy to presume it is a Heller example.  Externally, the box provides information on the versions the kit provides for along with model measurements and of course Humbrol numbers.

Instructions:

An 8 paged A4 sized booklet outlines the assembly sequence in a dozen stock standard reasonably easy to follow typical Airfix diagrams.  The locating pins and tabs on the parts themselves should assist in clarifying any vague positioning directions.  As usual the instructions kick off in a multi-lingual spiel firstly about the aircraft and then about modelling information.  Humbrol numbers only are quoted throughout assembly and for the final schemes.  The last three pages concludes with the three versions the kit provides for with decal placement directions and four-view diagrams. 

Construction:

The cockpit is fairly basic, made up of a floor with rudder pedals, separate seat, stick, head rest and rear bulkhead.  An instrument panel with a decal for the consoles, plus a clear part for the HUD finishes off the interior.  In spite of the instructions calling for flat black, I gave it a dark grey wash.  The cockpit fits in the fuselage halves okay which also traps in the rear tailpipe.  I found that because the small locating holes for the rear bulkhead allows it to dry vertically or on a slope, the best thing to do was just to place the cockpit assembly into the fuselage half so I know the right slope of the bulkhead, and of course ensured it would dry so it would fit properly later.

The fuselage halves are then affixed together, they were a bit of squeeze because there was a gap on the underside of the cockpit but rubber bands helped dry properly overnight.  Of course once this part of the construction is done, and as I often pre-paint a lot of parts, assembly then moves quite rapidly.

The gear doors for the main wings fit poorly but with a bit of trimming can fit reasonably well with a little bit of filler to seal up the gaps.  The wings are broken down into upper and lower halves, with separate rear flap, and affix together nicely.  Just need to do your test fits first, and be prepared to slice off a couple of ejector pin flash or the like.  There is a small bit of trunking for the wing intakes which were painted gun metal (wanted something a little darker than aluminium to give it a little bit of depth perception.  The wings were then affixed to the fuselage again without any major dramas.  There are separate grills for the wing root intakes and a tiny bit of flash needed to be removed, so were the locating pins (as these just get in the way) and the mating surface of the intakes were sanded smooth before they fit quite nicely into the wing/fuselage join.

The twin tail booms were assembled separately.  As a sign of the times and complete and utter complacency I managed to glue the wrong tail booms together!  The result was the outward facing halves were glued together and so were the inward facing halves (with the slot to put the tailplane)!!  I thought about sanding the inside on one tail boom and removing the locating tab on the tailplane on one side and butt joining that side.  But then the outer sides were different, one had a slot to fill in and you can get the picture.  Since I discovered my error about an hour or two after gluing the booms, it hadn't quite cured properly, so I got out the trusty #11 and slipped it into the join and basically carved very carefully along the line until I was able to prize the halves apart.  Sanded the mating surfaces to get rid of the glue, and back together the halves went, the right halves this time!  Moral of the story, no matter how many kits you build, instructions and part numbers are there for a reason!! 

With that side project out the way, the twin booms were affixed to the back of the main wings and joined together by the one-piece tailplane.  Doing this all in the one hit ensured I could coax the tail section so it was straight.  Although everything fitted quite well,  with a quick run over with the #11 along the join lines first, there was still a small gap where the booms met the wings, needing a small dab of filler.

The panel housing the guns below the nose is a separate piece and this was a very poor fit.  I filed down the inside of the area, which was the bottom of the cockpit floor (doubling up as the sparse nose wheel bay) but could not get it to a point the panel would fit.  A nasty gap under the nose had to be filled and the area sanded back over a couple of sessions until it looked smooth and blended in.

But the problems didn't stop there, the canopy was an especially poor fit.  The back of the main canopy curves into a point but the mating part on the top of fuselage is squared off.  Then the windscreen doesn't fit in its spot, leaving a gap in front of it that needed filler to correct and it sunk lower on the fuselage than the main canopy resulting in a small step between the two parts.  I masked off the clear parts and went to work sanding it all back.  Unfortunately the result was a less than perfect depiction of the Vampire canopy.  I considered giving it a test flight, unpainted.

Colour Schemes:

You have the choice of three aircraft, two being Swedish FB.5s/J.28s and the other a RAF FB.5.  The Swedish examples are both finished in upper Light Olive (H86) over Steel Grey (H87), I believe from my reference sources that a smidgeon of white should be added to the H87 underside to get a more accurate colour (IPMS Stockholm is a great reference).  One Swedish example is a Scandanavian Historic Flight, Satenas, Sweden, 1998 with markings of F9 Wing while the other is a J28B, F18 fighter wing, Tullinge, 1950 with white boom and wingtip bands.  The RAF example is finished in the standard H163 Dark Green and H164 Dark Grey disruptive camouflage over H157 Azure Blue.  I noted Kevin's comments about the underside colour but I opted to finish it in H157 anyway.  In hindsight I feel this is way too dark, and H144 might well be better?

Decals:

The large decal sheet is again pretty stock standard for Airfix with generally good colour register at first glance and the likes of the RAF roundels in separate parts.  Even the large "5" for the RAF version is in nearly as many parts as itself, as it is applied over the gear doors - quite thoughtful actually if you have undercarriage deployed.  Mind you, a pain for us wheels up modellers given the doors are closed!

But alas Airfix decals are an enigma and a love-hate relationship often develops.  They go on quite well, bedded down beautifully with Gunze Sangyo setting solution and are very thin.  But they have excess carrier film, which thankfully generally disappears under a coat of gloss afterwards.  But the main issues are the typical white edging you get on Airfix decals, around the edges of the blue roundels in particular, which makes their decals so frustrating.  Not surprisingly I ditched the kit decals and replaced with spares.  I don't know how the swedish decals will look once taken off the paper but probably also some bleeding through will be apparent.  Once the gloss coat was applied the decals looked painted on.

Overall Recommendation:

Construction isn't as straight forward as I have had in many other Airfix and/or Heller kits, with a few fit problems and the need to use filler in parts necessitating the need to only recommend this kit at intermediate modellers and above.  The major issue is the gun port and canopy which needed a bit of "elbow grease" to overcome.  The end result is pretty good though and I am pleased with it.  I am not sure if I would be recommending this kit if more up to date versions were out there at this is not a definitive Vampire in terms of accuracy by any means, but it is pretty well the only way nowadays to get a mainstream vampire, and it is better than the Frog offering.

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