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AIRFIX 1:72 DE HAVILLAND VAMPIRE FB.5/J 28B |
Reviewer:
Kevin Ronayne (kevin.ronayne@nuigalway.ie)
Kit Review submitted:
7 December 2003
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.
This kit has an interesting history. I remember building the original Heller kit in the mid 1980's, but I would guess that the kit is at least 10 years older than that. This Airfix reboxing is not from the 1986-1994 period when Airfix and Heller were very closely intertwined. It dates from 1998, when Airfix contracted with Mexican kit importer Lodela to supply the basic kit, which Lodela duly purchased from Heller. As Airfix kits are still (apparently) produced in France, this seems a very roundabout way of doings things. It probably explains why the kit is Series 3 - about STG £ 6/10 Euro - and not a Series 2 kit costing 2/3 that amount. It in turn probably explains the neat packaging, as the main sprues are all bagged, and the transparency sprue is also in it's own sealed bag. On the down side, this also means that the basic kit has not been modified in any way, so there are still no under wing stores included.
The kit comes on several main sprues molded in light grey, and a small transparent sprue with gun sight, windscreen and canopy. There are 41 parts in all. For the most part, the mold still appears to be in good nick, with very little flash and mold seam to be found. The kit is typical Heller fare, with lightly raised panel lines and detail that is quite good given when it originated, although obviously some way short of contemporary standards. Most of the sprues indicate that the tooling was shared with the Heller Mistral kit, which I have never seen. In fact, I'd never heard of it until I was researching this kit by trawling the RMS newsgroup. Apparently, when Airfix first released this kit, some modelling magazine writer suggested that the Mistral kit was a converted tooling from the original Vampire kit, and that Airfix must have bought a batch of Mistrals by mistake since the original Vampire mold no longer existed. Thankfully, a number of RMS contributors waded in and kicked this idea firmly into touch. This is a genuine Vampire kit, which begs the obvious question: when will Heller, or anybody, get around to releasing the Mistral kit again?
Instructions are on an 8-page A4 booklet, and feature a construction guide substantially more detailed than the original Heller 'throw it together in two steps' guide. There are three subjects, each with a full-page 4-way painting and decal guide. These are:
Only Humbrol paint codes are supplied, as if you needed to be told.
Having already reviewed a number of Heller kits (including some in Smer and Airfix boxes), I can straightaway say that there is nothing surprising in this kit in terms of detail and construction. The cockpit is made up of a floor with integrated foot pedals, a control stick, seat, rear bulkhead and headrest. There is a small bulge in the centre of the floor, as the floor also acts as the roof of the nose wheel bay. An instrument panel (with decal) and gun sight make up a separate subassembly. There is no sidewall detail on the fuselage at all, but this doesn't really matter unless you leave the canopy in the open position. The two cockpit subassemblies were easy to put together, but attaching them to the fuselage showed up some fit problems. The cockpit floor was too narrow, leaving a small gap on one side between in and the fuselage that had to be covered up. The main cockpit and instrument also seemed to get in each other's way, so caution and some dry-fitting is certainly advisable here. Apart from the cushion on the seat, the cockpit was painted completely black, which as far as I know is correct for any RAF/RN fighter from this period.
The only other part to be added before putting the fuselage halves together is the tailpipe. I packed every conceivable nook and cranny forward of the main wheel position with filler so that the final kit would stand on its nose, but this was to no avail as I would find out later. I even put filler into the lower front nose part, which includes the cannon port, and a gap in the centre for the nose wheel bay - remember that the roof is incorporated into the cockpit floor. The main canopy was slightly deformed along most of the front edge, so that there was a slight gap between it and the windscreen. I had a look at the first Vampire kit that I built way back when, and there was no such problem. Whether this problem affects all of the production run (or runs) that Airfix have bought, I really cannot say. I did not feel that using Humbrol Clearfix was going to fix this problem, so I cut a very narrow strip of masking tape and worked it over the boundary between windscreen and imperfect canopy. The end result was a section of framing that looked only slightly wider than it would have appeared on the real thing.
Heller Humbrol box art from the 1980's. You can see the small flaps in a lowered position.
The rest of the main airframe is conventional: two-piece wing and two-piece boom on each side, and a central elevator/tail plane. There are also two small flap parts, just inboard of the ailerons. The fit of the upper and lower wings and left and right boom halves was fine, but the wing to fuselage fit was not quite perfect. The same applied to the boom to wing and boom to tail plane fits. The moral here is to take great care in getting the angles correct and consistent. I also used small amounts of filler to fill in any small gaps at any of the joins. The same treatment was required for the wing root intakes, which were not quite seamless fits. There is nothing inherently wrong with the kit here - I hate to see unsightly gaps, so almost any kit I build is going to get the filler treatment to some extent.
Apart from the two very delicate elevator balances, the rest of the kit is taken up by the undercarriage. The main wheel bays are fully enclosed into the lower wings, with some rib detail on the roof of each bay. Each main wheel assembly has four parts: wheel, main leg, scissors link and inner cover. Both the inner cover and main outer cover have some amount of detail on the inside surface. Assembling and attaching all these parts requires some care - again, it's mainly to get the alignment correct, and also because the parts are a bit delicate. The attachment sockets for the main struts are semi-circular to ensure perfect alignment, but I found that I had to 'loosen' things up, or else everything would have ended up looking a bit gammy, as we say in this part of the world.
The nose wheel assembly is also a delicate affair, with the main problem being (as I see it), the exact position and orientation of the forward bay cover section. A diagram showing the correct layout would have been helpful. The main rear cover section has some nice detail on it, but there is a small notch in one corner that would show up if the kit was built 'wheels up'. There is no provision in the kit instructions for this. I would suggest filling both main and nose bays with filler to act as a base to position the covers over. The outer main doors would also need to have a couple of hinges removed.
The upper camouflage for the RAF aircraft is Humbrol 163 Dark Green and Hu 164 Extra Dark Sea Grey, which represents the standard upper camouflage on most RAF fighters and attack aircraft from the late 1940's until relatively recently. Both paints have the correct satin/semi-gloss finish used until the early 1970's - if I can ever make sense of all my references. The underside colour is given as Hu 157, which is Azure Blue on the Humbrol charts, and has a matt finish. I initially didn't know what to make of this, but help was at hand. As I was about to start building the kit, I bought the July 2003 issue of Scale Aircraft Modelling, which included a letter from a former RAF armourer. The letter mainly concerned Hunter colours that had been the subject of an article in an earlier issue. The respondent confirmed that whilst in Germany, he had seen 2nd TAF Hunters from 112 Squadron with PR blue undersides. As an aside, he also commented that he had seen some 2nd TAF Meteor F.8's and Vampire FB.5's with this underside colour.
Well now ... PRU blue isn't quite Azure Blue, as far as I know. The latter would have been a 'standard' lower colour on WW II Mediterranean schemes. Although the Humbrol Colour Binder now specifies a mix of colours for Azure Blue, Humbrol still carry the original Hu 157 shade. If the colour really was PRU blue as the respondent suggested, then the best match might have been Hu 144, aka Intermediate Blue (FS35164). Confused? Join the club! There was also the question of the finish - semi-gloss, or the matt finish of either Humbrol colour? I used Hu 157 with a semi-gloss coating, but I imagine that much more could be said on this if one was a stickler for accuracy.
Both Swedish subjects have a matt paint scheme of Hu 86 Light Olive over Hu 87 Steel Grey. This is the same paint scheme used for the Swedish aircraft subject in the Airfix Hampden kit, so Airfix are at least being consistent. Studying the IPMS Sweden colour charts for Swedish aircraft, it seems that the upper green colour might be close enough to the mark. I have little idea how accurate the underside colour is. I suppose that if I'd intended modelling one of the Swedish aircraft, then I would have gone out and done some more research!
The decals were a bit disappointing. On previous occasions where I had used Airfix decals over a gloss paint finish such as this one, I had found the decals to be excellent. Here, things were not quite so good. The carrier film was a bit thicker and more visible than I would have expected. There was also white edging on both the roundels and fin flashes, due no doubt to a lack of proper register. I touched this up as best I could afterwards. Applying the multipart decals on and around the main undercarriage leg doors was very trying - these were the large '5' numbers broken down on the decal sheet. However, one can't blame Airfix for the RAF's lack of consideration in putting the unit numbers where they did! At least I didn't have to cut up the numbers in the first place, which is what is required with the Airfix Hunter kit. For the record, the yellow/blue separation on the Swedish roundels is also out of kilter.
Lacking any major references on the type, I can't really comment on this, apart from the fact that the kit appears to be basically accurate in terms of major dimensions. I can't recall ever reading any major negative comments about the kit on the Internet, so I must assume that the kit is indeed basically accurate. Of course, the fact that it has no real competition to speak of tends to make people more forgiving on this matter!
As I said earlier, there is nothing surprising in this kit for anyone with experience of Heller kits. It is a very honest kit, especially given it's age. Given the large numbers in which the Vampire was built, the absence of any competing long-run kits is disappointing. However, one could make the same comment about the Meteor or Hunter. British combat jet aircraft have never been 'hot' items as far the main kit manufacturers have been concerned, particularly in this scale.
There is a reasonable amount of information on the Vampire available on the Internet. A few useful WWW pages (with pictures) are:
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